f40 cooling and aircon

got the f40 back from its cam sensor replacement job, and went for a drive to verify the mechanics assurance that it was fixed. it was a hot day, and i noticed the water temp got to about 100. i called him asking when he thought the fans ought to kick in, and he said they had started up around 97 for him. they did kick on and the temps started to remain in the range of 90-97.

the question i have is : is this the normal range you guys have observed? i cant remember the last time i actually looked at this.

my other fcars tend to have the fans kick in at about 90, and then the temp doesnt stray much from that.

other question: the aircon doesnt work at all (not that it ever worked that well mind you), so i need to renew the freon or whatever they call it these days. but does anybody have a fix on how to make the aircon perform better than stock? sitting in that car in traffic yesterday in a summer rainstorm with the windows up, and the fan blowing like a hot convection oven, the interior temp was easily close to 100 f and it was miserable !!

 

That does sound a bit high for the cooling fans to kick on actually. Has it always done this? Every Ferrari I've ever noticed has the cooling fans kick on just before the halfway mark on the coolant gauge.

Regarding the a/c, DO NOT have that system converted to R134 which is the modern coolant. These older systems were never designed to operate at the pressure which R134 requires to operate well. Rather, locate someone who has R12, have the syste, vacuum checked for leaks, refill, done.

I just rebuilt the a/c system on my 76 308GTB, and while the a/c system doesn't blow like my Benz E-class, it certainly isn't terrible as it actually works quite well given the old tech and extremely hot and humid circumstances here in Atlanta!

 

In traffic on a hot day I think the temp on mine goes to just over 90c say a needle width > I didnt notice it dropping that much when the fans kicked in but it drops significantly on the move.

The A/C on a my car blows ice cold and the blower is more than powerful enough. My A/C man does not use R134 or R12 but a newer gas that is better than the R134 more on par with the R12 and its a drop in. No mods. i will try to find the name/ number of it.

 

I also use an R12 substitute which as actually even better than R12. I use ES12 which is a hydrocarbon based coolant, it's flammable, but only north of 1500F as opposed to R134 which is flammable at about 1300F, but only while compressed. Lots on the net about these hydrocarbon based refrigerants. At the end of the day, you're still bolting multiple gallons of highly flammable fuel to your back in the fuel tanks themselves, so I could care less about 10oz of questionably flammable refrigerant.