bwomp969

how much power does removing the AC and the power steering free up?
any body got a guesstimate? is it worth it to take them completely out?
i plan on getting about 250hp from a 13bt and swapping it into my SA 1980 rx7

Druken

I don't think removing the AC and power steering is going to give you any HP, if not like 0.1HP? Removing them pretty much reduces the amount of work/drag for the engine, thus I believe gives you a better throttle response.

Removing the AC might be worth your efforts since it is like taking 50-75lbs off the car, but not having AC will suck for long distance drives.
And the Power Steering, you can probably remove that in general unless you intend to replace the entire steering rack off the 80' and replace it with the GSL-SE or something.

bwomp969

okay thankyou

grandgarson

While it's true that you don't actually gain HP by removing them, you do gain usable HP by removing them. Anything that is powered by the engine is using some of the HP that the engine is producing, so when you have them hooked up that HP that is used to power them is not making it to the wheels. It's similar to weight reduction. When you reduce the weight you don't gain any HP, but it takes less HP to move the car, so it feels and acts like it has more HP.

grandgarson

Also, in theory, removing things that are being powered by the engine will also help your gas millage. Though to get a noticeable increase in gas millage you'd probably have to take off just about everything including changing to an electric fan and water pump (then again the increased resistance from your alternator to power those things might make the whole gas millage theory pointless). Just thought I'd throw that out there so that if you do end up running it with things hooked up and then with things taken off you might check your gas millage before and after and see if there is a real noticeable difference.

Also, the point that someone made above is a good one about the weight of the air conditioning. If you completely remove the air conditioning then you get more usable HP from not having the extra drag on the engine and you get a lighter car by not having that part in there anymore, so overall it may be a noticeable performance increase.

Right now my air conditioning is not hooked up, but it's still in the car. It was that way when I got the car, and I've been trying to decide on whether I'm going to just completely remove it or leave it in there and just hook it up during the summer. I'm probably going to just remove it all together when I get around to it, but it would be nice to hear from someone else about they're experiences with just how much of a performance increase it is to not have it (if it's even noticeable).

On a side note, you might take a look at this thread and make sure that your Throttle Sub-Return is hooked up correctly. It seems that a lot of 1st gens don't have this hooked up correctly, and I can definitely speak from experience that it makes a pretty big difference in performance.

DivinDriver

iTrader: (15)

0.5lb (mass) fuel per HP per hour; it's not just a good idea, it's Smokey's Law.