AMAZING Killer A/C system for 348

I have to say that I really enjoyed my Ferrari 348 until summer came this year. I dont know how well other 348 a/c systems do up north but here in Florida its not worth two dead flys. Im sorry to say im just spoiled, I want my sports car to have an a/c with ice cubes coming out of it, I want to be able to store snow cones in my car and I want it at high noon mid summer. Since im in the middle of repainting the car, and the front is all torn apart this made for the perfect time to tackle the a/c. Looking at the a/c system I noticed that the condenser is too small. The system can not extract enough heat out due to the condenser being too small. A 348 condenser is about 1foot by 1foot, most cars are about 3ft by 1.5ft. As this is bad enough the opening on the front bumper is even smaller, Im surprised the a/c system on these cars even works at all. So I knew that if I changed to a larger condenser that this would fix the problem. Guessing that the fittings are probably metric, I bought a used 1984 Ferrari 308 condenser off ebay. Its about 2.5 times bigger then the 348 and luckily the fittings are the same as the 348. So what I did was goto the luggage compartment and cut the bottom of the car out, your probably saying wow, I would never do that. Well my car was in a wreck before and the bottom pan was wrinkled a little, not really damaged but looks as if the last driver ran something over, wanting my car perfect I planned on cutting it out anyhow and replacing it. Finding out that Ferrari wants 875$ for the bottom 2ft by 2ft steel, I choose to make my own. So I made a new bottom pan and cut two round holes for electric fans which will face straight down. Then I put the new 308 condenser up against the front wall inbetween the two shocks for the hood. Here is the amaging part, which blows my mind. I thought I would have to get new custom made a/c hoses since its in a different place. NO, the orginal stock 348 a/c lines can just be rerouted and used, and it comes out looking like its factory! The next part was to cut a hole in the front bumper, right where the fake grill go's, I cut it open, and cut open the metal behind it. Then I sealed and formed a metal box around the conderser so the fans pull air through it and direct the air flow under the csr. The only drawback seems to be that you lose about 1/2 of your cargo space. Other then that you now have Killer Ice cold refreshing a/c. I just had two 10inch fans which works more then great but there is enough room to goto two 12" fans, which could get this system to pull over 2000 cfm of air while sitting still. That means your now cold enough for frosty the snow man to finally see his summer home in Florida. I had just done my belt service so had to recharge the a/c system anyhow, and I had the metal and had the fans so the total cost of converting this a/c system only cost me 40$ and 2 days time. Another advantage is that I used 1/16 inch steel for the bottom and forming the box. This adds a great deal of strength and support to the front end. If someone here can post photos drop me an email and ill send them to you.


Ben

 

The carpet work isnt finished yet. Just kind of threw this setup together to make sure it would work before I put the finishing touch on it.
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I did a test on my a/c system last night. With the car idling and top off, doors open(actually off because im painting the car), outside temp of 88 degree's, and not on re-circulate not that it would matter with no top or doors, I pulled from 88 degree's outside fresh air down to 64 degree's at the vents in a single pass. I put the top on and threw a tarp over the car to cover where the doors should be and the inside temp quickly dropped to 58 degree's.