Postby Hook » November 4th, 2011, 2:41 am
Are you putting a 16V compressor on a 20V or vice-versa?
Same A-series block, bracket and bolt-up, so it SHOULD line up, BUT you need to be aware of the wiring. There are three different wiring set-ups that I know of for these compressors. If you take a walk around the bamboo lots where they have all these 4A/5A-FE and 4A-GE engines lined up, you'll see all the brackets are identical, but not all the compressors are. Some have a bare basic 3 or 4 wires because the low pressure safety switch is elsewhere on the system, and some carry as much as 6 wires because the switch is built into the compressor along with another funky feature.
The original 20v compressor has a feedback signal wire that connects to the ECU that interrupts the compressor clutch on hard acceleration so u don't waste horses on cold breeze while mashing your pedal through the floor. Only Factory GT models, front half conversions and perfectionist wire jobs have this feature. lol
Even so, the 16V and some ST20V compressors use the older R12 gas, so it's fine for an older car that came with the R12 system from factory anyway, BUT, if you're putting it in a newer vehicle using the newer R134a gas, you're gonna need to get a newer model compressor to suit the fittings and lines for that gas (R12 uses smaller fittings, lines and a different oil used for chlorinated refrigerants...using the wrong oil for the compressor is not a good practice).
I wouldn't go for an older compressor that's seen better days if I were you. I recently swapped my original ST20V compressor and lines for a full system from an AE110 for under $2k installed (Ryan in the bamboo did some kinda simmydimmy with a relay and the a/c interrupt from the ECU to preserve that feature).
Let us know how it goes.