Early Griff AC

[OleVix]

Hi guys, has anyone here done AC in an early Griff and whats the best route?

And I want no "just take the top off" replies. You try driving in Italy in august. Nearly died.

Cheers

[HKGriff]

What do you mean by 'early Griff'?

[OleVix]

HKGriff said:

What do you mean by 'early Griff'?

93 model with the window buttons to control up/down and hot/cold

[Danattheopticians]

OleVix said:

HKGriff said:

What do you mean by 'early Griff'?

93 model with the window buttons to control up/down and hot/cold

Don't you mean Hot/Really f**king hot?

How is the new hard top on your chim Ole? Keep you warm?

[ChimpOnGas]

I've been looking at this for my Chimaera Ole and there seems to be three options:

1. Buy all the kit off one of the TVR breakers - Expensive and I'll end up with an old rather marginal system

2. Install a kit from Vintage Air in the States - Proven, effective and been installed in hundreds of old Corvettes where there are similar (if not quite so challenging) space/packaging challenges

3. Fit a new generation fully electric air con system - No engine driven compressor and compact, but from what I can tell no one has actually come up with a suitable kit yet

As it stands a kit from Vintage Air kit is by far the best option.

http://www.vintageair.com/

Their kits have been around for a long time and have been installed in pretty much everything, saying that most cars it's fitted to are large America saloons from 1950's & 60's so packaging and installation would be way easier than on a Griff or Chim where space is very limited.

However, Vintage Air's business model it to create a retro fit air con solution to be installed in a broad mix of vehicles many of which were never designed for air con in the first place, this means their kits are very adaptable allowing you to mix and match parts to suite the vehicle.

Unfortunately I suspect their Gen IV will prove too large but there re smaller options and it's not like a Griff or Chim has a large cockpit area like a big Yank saloon, so I wouldn't mind betting one of the smaller units would be plenty powerful enough.



My research showed that the Vintage Air kits are typically designed to go under the dash and above the transmission tunnel in the centre of the car, this space is not available in a TVR due to the central spine design of the chassis so the unit you choose must be small enough to go where the current heater unit lives on the passenger side of the central chassis spine.

That really leaves you with a choice on one unit, the Gen 2 Mini, I haven't has a measure up so I'd be interested to know if it will indeed fit, and even using this unit installation would certainly be quite challenging in a TVR so it's not a project to be undertaking lightly.

Here are the Gen 2 Mini dimensions:



Good luck with the project, if you can make it all fit I'd love to follow your lead as while air con is not something the macho TVR community will approve of, its my opinion it would make my TVR infinitely more comfortable and practical when touring Europe in the summer.

If all it does is stop my wife moaning, air con would be well worth the investment

After establishing in theory there enough space for just £40 you can buy a Gen 2 Mini mock up unit which would make trial positioning and bracket making a lot easier.



You can buy the Gen 2 Mini mock up unit in the UK here:

http://arnoldscustomsandclassics.com/ac-maintenanc...

And I've just seen Arnold's Automotive are only 7 miles from my house, so I think I'll pay them a visit.

Dave

Edited by ChimpOnGas on Thursday 6th October 09:23

[OleVix]

That's what I'm talking about! Always a pleasure getting a reply from you Dave

[Bluebottle]

Why not fit it behind the seats in the recess at the base of the rear parcel shelf, you could then duct the air under the seats?

[ChimpOnGas]

OleVix said:

That's what I'm talking about! Always a pleasure getting a reply from you Dave

My pleasure Ole, actually I've just had a long chat with Tim over at Arnold's Automotive and he's confident we can develop a combination of parts that will become an air con retro fit kit for both Chimaera and Griff owners.

Tim is an automotive air con engineer and the the UK distributor for Vintage Air, as such he's attended a number of training courses in the USA at the Vintage Air facility and has a good knowledge of the vast array of mix & match components offered by Vintage Air. According to Tim the technical support he receives from Vintage Air is second to none, their engineers are extremely well practised in developing solutions where space and packaging are a challenge, after all their whole business model is retro fitting air con into vehicles that never has it in the first place.

Tim does not offer a fitting service so if they're interested in the project I will look to include Lloyd Specialist Developments with Tim and and his contacts Vintage Air offering technical support. I'm confident if a cost effective kit can be developed there would be a market for it amongst Chim and Griff owners seeking more comfort in the summer months.

Bluebottle said:

Why not fit it behind the seats in the recess at the base of the rear parcel shelf, you could then duct the air under the seats?

I looked at this when studying the fully electric air con option but there aren't really any decent kits on the market yet so I canned the idea. Even the smallest Gen 2 Mini Vintage Air is quite a bulky Hamish so the only practical solution is to install it where TVR put the heater, however all the Vintage Air units are a heater & air con system combined so removing the TVR heater would not present an issue. This is how the Yanks do it and how the Vintage Air kits are designed, there's a huge market for retro fitting air con in the states amongst hot rodders and classic car enthusiasts because the southern states can be painfully hot.

I wouldn't try to reinvent the wheel here, we need to go to the experts (Vintage Air) and see how they've solved the many little challenges along the way. This combined with some good old freely available Range Rover P38 components that were made for the Rover V8 and with the addition of some bespoke bracketry & plumbing fabrication a Chim/Griff retro fit air con kit could be created.

With Tim's expertise in air con and his connections with Vintage Air in the USA I'm sure working in collaboration with Lloyd Specialist Developments kit could be created. Weather such a kit (including installation) could be offered at a cost effective price is another question altogether

A quick fag packet calculation points to roughly £750 in parts alone with the installation on top of that. I still think it would sell though, fitting a Chim/Griff with modern air con would be fantastic upgrade for people like Ole & I who use their TVR to tour Southern Europe in the summer.

And for those who think we are just being big girls about all this, trust me if you've ever sat in a 36 degree Celsius traffic jam in the South of France as I have many times.... at that moment you would literally sell your grandmother for air con

[Hedgehopper]

Or you could try Car Builder Solutions.... www.carbuildersolutions.com/uk/heating-air-con-and...

[Danattheopticians]

ChimpOnGas said:

OleVix said:

That's what I'm talking about! Always a pleasure getting a reply from you Dave

My pleasure Ole, actually I've just had a long chat with Tim over at Arnold's Automotive and he's confident we can develop a combination of parts that will become an air con retro fit kit for both Chimaera and Griff owners.

Tim is an automotive air con engineer and the the UK distributor for Vintage Air, as such he's attended a number of training courses in the USA at the Vintage Air facility and has a good knowledge of the vast array of mix & match components offered by Vintage Air. According to Tim the technical support he receives from Vintage Air is second to none, their engineers are extremely well practised in developing solutions where space and packaging are a challenge, after all their whole business model is retro fitting air con into vehicles that never has it in the first place.

Tim does not offer a fitting service so if they're interested in the project I will look to include Lloyd Specialist Developments with Tim and and his contacts Vintage Air offering technical support. I'm confident if a cost effective kit can be developed there would be a market for it amongst Chim and Griff owners seeking more comfort in the summer months.

I'd be interested in AC too if your man there wants 3 customers?

[geeman237]

I recently bought a 430 to import to the US next year. I am in South Carolina and the summers are brutally hot and humid here. AC would be great. I'll see how this goes. The thought of pulling the dash out and trying to plumb in a compressor, condenser and everything else sounds rather daunting an expensive though.

[SonicHedgeHog]

This was one of the main reasons I sold my Griff. A massive engine and all that leather meant that whenever I hit traffic the sweat was pouring off me. Does anyone know which car TVR pinched the air con system from?

[ChimpOnGas]

SonicHedgeHog said:

This was one of the main reasons I sold my Griff. A massive engine and all that leather meant that whenever I hit traffic the sweat was pouring off me. Does anyone know which car TVR pinched the air con system from?

Unsurprisingly TVR used the compressor and other front end components from P38 Range Rover, the air con unit itself looks to be TVR's own effort.

The most sensible way to put air con in Chim or Griff would be to do the same, we just need an off the shelf combination unit that fits where the heater currently sits. Of course its not quite as simple as that, I'm in no doubt there would still be a multitude of packaging and fabrication challenges to overcome.

Like all development projects its a case where the fist attempt would probably take four times longer than subsequent installations, once all the patterns for the brackets ect have been drawn up they can be replicated much easier and made up off the car on the bench.

The first to take the plunge will pay the price for those additional hours of development unless the fitter was prepared to absorb some of the development costs themselves on the grounds they could recover their initial investment from subsequent installations.

We could make the idea a much easier proposal to the fitter if we had say had four Griff/Chim owners who were prepared to show commitment by paying a deposit.

[Jp turbo]

I would be ok to pay a deposit for AC .My car runs a turbo with intercooler so not sure if that would be a further complication

[HKGriff]

I had my retro AC system fitted by Alpinair in Wembley (http://www.alpinair.co.uk/contact-us/). It is a good system. This was the first Griff that they have fitted an AC unit to. They claim to have fitted one to a Chim. They did need a bit of guidance on where to install the on/off and speed controls, so you need to keep an eye on them. They also need to be told to keep a big enough gap between the AC condenser and rad, as a bracket they used to fit one to the other caused a hole in my rad and a loss of 6 litres of coolant ...

As CoG said, some of the non-TVR systems out there may not fit in behind the dash. Alpinair said the same thing. The blower unit sits on top if the fuel tank. The two AC vents sit just in-board of the rear speakers. All in, it was GBP2,000. Yes it was pricey, but having the car in HK AC was a MUST.

[HKGriff]

[911gary]

OleVix said:

Hi guys, has anyone here done AC in an early Griff and whats the best route?

And I want no "just take the top off" replies. You try driving in Italy in august. Nearly died.

Cheers

I think the compressor was a ford unit? I had a/c in my 94 griff (factory option) did work well!

[pjac67]

Mines Oct 94 if it helps:

[OleVix]

So im buying the muckup model of the vintage air gen II mini, to see if it fits

I'm also hoping to fit an electric ac pump ... ideas pros / cons? Need a fatter alternator thats for sure

[OleVix]

Link

After some measuring I think this unit from carbuilder solutions is the best bet. Its simpler than the vintage air and slightly more expensive, but its also smaller. The four output holes are easier to route/connect than the vintage system. I'll route one hole to each footwell, one hole to the top/windscreen and one hole to the dash vents(which are closable). 99% of the time I use the top+feet vents in all my cars so thats going to work fine.

It has a control panel like this:


I want to remove the buttons and the panel and integrate the switches in the griff lower panel using theese:


I'll probably make a new lower panel out of aluminium and powdercoat it or something...

One thing Im now wondering is how will I make the system draw fresh air...