[Daves1SS]

Sorry guys, just now seeing this thread. So when I ran the industrial 12a, which is also just called industrial r134a replacement, well it’s essentially like propane and a real pain to get the charge right on. Last year I ran this refrigerant, and 2 cans seemed to be the magic number to get the pressures right. But even still, I did have some warm air at idle speed. I don’t know why since I’m not an expert on AC systems. I can tell you that each and every time I would charge the system, I would always pull a full vacuum for quite some time, and it would hold -25-28 hg just fine for as long as I wanted to leave it like that. So didn’t seem I had any leaks. But over say 900 rpms, the air was plenty cold. It was just a little warmer at idle speed. Joe at Killer Chiller couldn’t explain why either.

Late last summer I think as pure coincidence, my factory fans crapped out on me and I didn’t know it right off. As a result, the fans didn’t come on to cool the condenser, and as a result the AC pressures shot through the roof and my compressor failed. GM replaced the fans under warranty despite me having the killer chiller and supercharger, and they felt the KC had nothing to do with the failure. So that part was good. I wasn’t about to ask them to replace my AC compressor under warranty though. That would have been an obvious denial since I had monkeyed with the system.

It was cooling off outside so it was good timing with the compressor failing. Just a few weeks back I had my trusted shop blow out all the lines and install a brand new AC compressor (factory stock) and condenser. They pulled vac, added normal pag oil plus an extra 2 oz for the KC capacity, and charged it up with REGULAR r134a. They got the high pressure just right, 2.8 over ambient, and it has performed wonderfully ever since.

Better yet, fully cold at idle speed. The IAT’s aren’t QUITE as low as they were with the industrial, but I’m going to run the regular r134a for quite some time and I may even just leave it in there. I want to see if, when it’s really hot out, it will still be ice cold at idle speed.
For all I know our cars and systems may not like the gas type for some reason. Joe at Killer Chiller says 70%+ of his customers run the industrial 12a (r134a Industrial) and have no issues and see cooler temps than regular r134a. Cooler temps and IAT’s I agree with, but I want to see if I still have ice cold air at idle with the regular stuff with its 95 degrees out. I can say at 83 degrees it’s ice cold at idle.

Dang. That’s was a lot to type on an iPhone!