Good news, like some of you i've always struggled with the idea of having A/C or not, for me it has always been an easy answer since mine didnt work... well the texas summers keep kicking my butt and making me want to sell my car and get something more comfortable. So i decided to suck it up and see what i needed to do to get my A/C working. First step, i put an ac belt on, second i got my hands on some R12 from my father in law at no charge. last step i took it to a trust worthy small shop in town so they could charge my system with this R12 and tell me what else i needed to do to get some cold air in my car.
I went up to the shop and found out my car has already been converted to r134a, so i got it charged with r134a and it seems to be holding, but we'll find out for sure in a few days. it's blowing cold, not ice cold, but cold. The guy told me b/c of my fmic it will never get optimal performance, i don't know how true that really may be, but its definetely cold enough for me, compared to what i've had.

So, assuming it holds the freon all is well, right? well, no.... For whatever reason it doesnt seem as tho my car can withstand the added strain of the running a/c, everytime i put the clutch in while rolling the car just dies. I just removed my power-steering belt and with just a trip around the block it seems to have offset the added strain, but again time will tell.

Of course during summertime i'm willing to trade my power-steering for a/c but ideally i'd like to have both. I'm thinking i need to get my alternator rebuilt for higher performance do you guys think this will fix the issue? Has anyone else had a similar issue?

Lastly i noticed as i was parking in front of the house some sort of whining noise after i turned my car off that i've never heard before...

I know this is a lot to take in but to paraphrase i think i got my a/c fixed but my car dies everytime i let the rpm's drop with the a/c on.. thanks for any input

 

Have you checked to be sure you BACV is working correctly?

 

Also check the voltage output of the alternator via a multimeter when the A/C is on versus not on.

 

a friend suggested getting a ground kit and better grounding my car, thoughts?

 

nah its the bacv. mine does this now that i removed it.

 

The number of grounds on the car are ample enough. They could be cleaned up and all, or just replace the pre-existing ones.

http://www.aaroncake.net/RX-7/grounding.htm

 

so when you say to check my bacv, and that its definetely my bacv, do you mean i need a new one? or just to make sure its hooked up? this is a jdm s5 t2 swapped into a usdm s5 n/a

 

just ran outside to take a look, snapped these pics with my iphone 4, looks like its hooked up fine, do i need to test it to see if it needs to be replaced?

 

it needs to be cleaned thats for sure. you see how that hose is buldging? its full of crap. pull the hose off, you'll see. most likely isnt working properly.

 

Those hoses to the BAC is to prevent the bac from sticking in VERY cold temps. The coolant doesn't really affect if the bac will work or not.

 

Pull it, clean it, test for vibration (via the service manual), if it doesn't vibrate then the wires may be broken, or the ECUs transister for it may be fried. If IS fried DO NOT put in a different ECU! you will just kill that one too.

If the wires touch, due to a bad connector or another short it fries the transistor, it isn't to hard to test and replace.