Ac compressor delete?

[sleepyalero]

I dont mind not having it, never used it.

[The_Maniac]

Originally Posted by sleepyalero

Dyno might not show performance, yet it may give LITTLE performance thats not really noticable. Also if you remove everything like me, lines and all, it adds up to like 40lbs in weight.

I'll nibble that there may be a small performance gain. I'm just saying the gain is not big enough for me to notice it. Plus, as you said, I am hauling an extra 20-40lbs with the A/C crap still there. Weight reduction does mean a little something.

For those who have broken A/C and don't plan to fix it, I feel this is a GREAT mod! The compressor will eventually begin making awful noises as it ages and this avoids you having to put up with that. Looking at it, I think if a belt is made the right length, you could also get rid of the pulley between the alt and the power steering pump.....

[AaronGTR]

Originally Posted by The_Maniac

I'll nibble that there may be a small performance gain. I'm just saying the gain is not big enough for me to notice it. Plus, as you said, I am hauling an extra 20-40lbs with the A/C crap still there. Weight reduction does mean a little something.

For those who have broken A/C and don't plan to fix it, I feel this is a GREAT mod! The compressor will eventually begin making awful noises as it ages and this avoids you having to put up with that. Looking at it, I think if a belt is made the right length, you could also get rid of the pulley between the alt and the power steering pump.....

There won't be any measurable performance gain on the dyno. When at WOT the compressor isn't engaged and it's just free spinning the pulley. Any weight difference between that pulley and an A/C bypass pulley would be small and not enough to register a HP increase. There might be a performance increase on the road from removing the system for weight savings, but again it's going to be very small and not noticeable for most people. Even on the drag strip. You only gain a tenth of a second for every 100 lbs removed. Basically unless you are racing all the time, there isn't any point.

I wouldn't recommend trying to remove the idler pulley between the alternator and the P/S pump either. It's a bad idea. That pulley is there to change the angle of the belt and make it wrap around those pulleys. If you remove it, less of the belt will make contact with the pulley and you could have belt slip issues.

[sleepyalero]

I agree on the secondary idler, dont remove it.


You could delete the powersteering if you want

[TruGreenGAGT]

Originally Posted by sleepyalero

You could delete the powersteering if you want

Sleepys next mod?

who needs powersteering anyways....think of all the weight that will be removed from that one

[sleepyalero]

No way ive driven the car before without ps. It sucks ass.

Back when i first got her i cut the wheel all the way one way and did a reverse donut, blew out the pump and was spraying fluid everywhere.

Thats about the most abuse ive ever done to the car. After that i stopped messing around with the car in that way. And actually started taking care of it. I took care of it when i first got it but not as much as i do now.

[TruGreenGAGT]

it goes straighter though... better for the strip

[geldartb]

Originally Posted by sleepyalero

You could delete the powersteering if you want

I thought about doing that but what woukd you use a rack from.. did 5th gens even come without power steering

[sleepyalero]

Haha no Jim!

And i believe the berettas came with out ps. But doubt that would work with our cars.

[The_Maniac]

Originally Posted by AaronGTR

There won't be any measurable performance gain on the dyno.

I feel like everyone is missing my original statements....

Originally Posted by The_Maniac

The Butt-Dyno does not notice any change in performance (and honestly, I did not expect a performance change).

Originally Posted by The_Maniac

I'll nibble that there may be a small performance gain. I'm just saying the gain is not big enough for me to notice it. Plus, as you said, I am hauling an extra 20-40lbs with the A/C crap still there. Weight reduction does mean a little something.

I did not expect to notice a performance change doing this. This mod did not change pulley sizes or the speed the crank spins, so any gain would be simply from less drag off an additional pulley (which is going to be next to nothing). You would notice more gain, if any, from a weight reduction from gutting the A/C stuff that is not being used anymore. But again, minimal.

Originally Posted by AaronGTR

I wouldn't recommend trying to remove the idler pulley between the alternator and the P/S pump either. It's a bad idea. That pulley is there to change the angle of the belt and make it wrap around those pulleys. If you remove it, less of the belt will make contact with the pulley and you could have belt slip issues.

I don't see how that extra pulley makes that much of a difference in changing the angle. Look at a 3100, which the 3400 is based off and they share a very similiar layout. It does not have two extra pulleys just to hold the belt. All the accessories between a 3100 and 3400 are in the same spots, just a N-body 3400 has the tentioner facing a different direction then the 3100.
I've worked on a bunch of 3100 and 3400 engines and I honestly have no idea why GM added the extra two pulleys to the 3400 and changed the belt routing. It looks like a 3100 routing would have made more sense.

Below are pics showing the two.

Grand Am 3100


Grand Am 3400

[Starglow]

Originally Posted by TruGreenGAGT

Sleepys next mod?

who needs powersteering anyways....think of all the weight that will be removed from that one

The steering rack wouldn't last a month without the power steering pump.

[AaronGTR]

Originally Posted by The_Maniac

I don't see how that extra pulley makes that much of a difference in changing the angle. Look at a 3100, which the 3400 is based off and they share a very similiar layout. It does not have two extra pulleys just to hold the belt. All the accessories between a 3100 and 3400 are in the same spots, just a N-body 3400 has the tentioner facing a different direction then the 3100.
I've worked on a bunch of 3100 and 3400 engines and I honestly have no idea why GM added the extra two pulleys to the 3400 and changed the belt routing. It looks like a 3100 routing would have made more sense.

Below are pics showing the two.

Grand Am 3100


Grand Am 3400

You see no reason why they added extra pulleys... yet GM saw fit to change it. I guess you know more than the engineers who designed it then?

I can see exactly why they did it. More belt contact on the crank pulley by adding the lower idler. That made changing the belt tensioner necessary, which makes adding the upper idler necessary to maintain the same belt contact on the alt pulley. It also doubles the contact on the P/S pump pulley which is important. I've had belt tension issues before, and when you turn and place a load on the pump it can make the belt slip. Terrible squealing noise and heavy steering, and sometimes bogs the engine too.

[The_Maniac]

Originally Posted by AaronGTR

You see no reason why they added extra pulleys... yet GM saw fit to change it. I guess you know more than the engineers who designed it then?

I can see exactly why they did it. More belt contact on the crank pulley by adding the lower idler.

First, I am not saying I know more then GM engineers. Yes, because they did something, they had a reason. Does it always mean their logic was right, not always (hence TSBs and recalls).

Second, I worked on a lot of 3100s in n-bodies. Never had I heard or seen issues requiring additional contact with the crank or p/s pulley. I've never ran into belt slipping or noise as a result.
I just compared the belt diagrams in the shop book for a 3100 in a '97 Skylark to that of a 3400 in my wife's '05 Impala. What I found was that they appear to have the same amount of contact on the crank and P/S pulleys. There routing is near, if not, identical.
When I did the A/C delete mod on my '02 Grand Am, I compared the belt routing on my wife's '05 Impala, I was curious if they were the same or different (since the n-body has a side motor mount and the w-body does not). They are in fact different and the Impala does NOT have the two additional pulleys for belt routing. If contact to the crank and P/S pulley was so critical, I would thing the Impala would share a similar or identical routing as my Grand Am.
That being said, I again don't see why the routing in a n-body 3400 had to change.

Third, perhaps things don't come across properly in text form. I'm trying to contribute in a friendly discussion, but most, if not all responses you give me sounds like your becoming more and more of a "jerk". Comments like "I guess you know more than the engineers who designed it then?", is that really needed? Could you just explain a point without trying to come off as a "jerk"?

[AaronGTR]

sorry if I think people trying to eliminate pulleys and A/C systems is retarded because they work perfectly fine they way they are and there is nothing to gain from doing it.

I'll go back to being sunshine and bunnies.

[The_Maniac]

I never said I was doing this because I expected a performance gain. I cracked the joke that the "butt-dyno" did not notice any improvement, which is what I expected anyways.

My experience is that if you are not using your A/C because it does not work, eventually the clutch assembly on the compressor begins making horrible grinding noises, I've had this happen on about 3 different cars with 3100 and 3400 engine that I've owned and the A/C never got used on (as it did not work when I bought them).
Also, I don't know anyone personally, but I've read about some people that claim the compressor pulley seizing or dragging (hence why companies make a pulley to put in place of the compressor).

As I said, I don't intend to fix the A/C on my Grand Am (it's used primarily as a "winter beater"). Under that mind set, if I have to change the belt anyways (because it's looking a bit old and worn), from my point of view, since my compressor is never going to be used again it made perfect sense to do this mod to remove it from the belt drive, thus reducing a chance of a potential future problem resulting from the compressor. From what I found, this mod has zero negative side effects if you don't need/want the A/C to work.

It's a great mod for that reason. The only other reason is if someone is truly using the car for hard core racing and really needs to push every chance to drop weight (again, very extreme need).