My buddies first silver car did it & now his black car also does it. They both have since day one. It must be the front mount intercooler stealing airflow from the condensor?? Have any of you guys added fans to the condensor or rewired anything to get some air moving? Down here in Houston it is still like South America even in Sept. I will go ahead and buy an EVO if there is an easy/$ solution to this. Nothing worse than a steady reminder that your car was comprimised. Nothing worse than sweating in a dress shirt on the way to work when it was blowing ice cold 60 seconds before the light turned red! M/T & C/D dont mention this fact about the car when they complain about the cup-holder size & knob placements. Does the STi have cold A/C due to the top mount intercooler?? I bet they do! Radios & speakers are easier to hook up than Aux. fans! Oh yhea 12:1 steering rack conversions are avail for the STi too. Humm....

Kyle,

Future EVO owner - maybe?

 

mine doesnt do that

 

The A/C compressor shuts off from time-to-time to prevent it from freezing over. (All cars do this) This may be what you are experiencing. Keep the A/C setting on "Max A/C" to minimize this effect.

 

Edit; I forgot to mention that Houston gets 80-90% humidity on a weekly basis & our temps dont get into the upper 80's until mid-September. Currently we are at 97% humidity tonight. Maybe thats the problem, our climate? TX & FL are the worst climate states in North America im convinced. 10" of rain in the past 7 days also!

Max setting IS where it is during the day just to keep from dripping sweat! It's OK at night when temps 'dip' into the upper 70's. Again it did it on the silver 'lemon' car w/ tranny problems & on the current black car.

 

Hey, try 15" of rain in 24 hours like in Indy

Oh, and my A/C doesn't seem to do that.

 

I live in Tx as well, used to live in Houston so I know exactly what you mean, now I reside in New Braunfels and experience the same thing in our heat. I am going to wrap my a/c line with that high heat wrap, like what Al has done to a few things under his hood, have heard from some import friends in Houston that it's the only way to go.

 

I have noticed this with a lot of 4 cylinder cars, I do not think the front mount IC is the real problem. The AC just doesnt seem to work as well at idle compared to a large displacement 6/8 cylinder motors. Like you said it's only really noticable on those 100+ humid days when you are forced to idle for long periods, especially if the interior never had a chance to cool initially.
I suspect the compressor speed at idle is slightly below optimum operating RPM. The pulley ratio may be set up to prevent to much torque loss at low RPM and also to prevent compressor damage at high RPM. Large discplacement engines have plenty of low end torque and do not rev as high so....
I have found that stepping on the gas bringing the RPM to 1500-2000 will mommentarily lower the AC temps, obviously you cannot run that way very long if your in traffic.

 

Bingo That and our AC apparently sucks anyway.

 

The Subaru's a/c sucks major ***... Even when you are driving, the a/c still blows warm... My EVO's a/c kicks ***!! Although the blower could be stronger, but the air is cold!!

 

I think we met at TWS. I'm the guy with Silver EVO.

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