I was pretty depressed about having to buy a ding dong knockoff sanden a/c compressor, but accidentally found this beauty on ebay for cheaper than the china junk. Only $96 to my door! It is 200 cc displacement, which should be pretty close to the old A-6 GM compressor that was used by Volvo, so hopefully it works well with the stock evaporator.
Election Day Update: It arrive several days early! And it really looks like a good quality part.
And even better, the mounting worked out perfect, no clearance issues anywhere.
Despite pushing the engine back as far as possible and moving the radiator forward more than 1 inch, it is starting to get full under the hood...
I had to travel for work two weeks in a row, so I didn't get much done lately.
Replaced the "ebay rebuilt" water pump that had a bent pulley, plugged some holes in the firewall insert and installed heater hoses.
Also got some 14mmx1.5 and 16mm x 1.5 to #6 JIC adapters for the rack. I am not sure how well these are going to work since they are really designed for an o-ring seat but the rack just used copper washers with the banjo fittings. I put a small o-ring inside each copper washer to keep them centered. I won't be surprised if the pressure side leaks…
I also relocated the power steering reservoir because the return fitting was pointed straight at the down pipe. In hindsight I may have been better off just plugging the regular return and putting a bulkhead fitting somewhere else in the reservoir, but I hacked up the bracket so no turning back now.
The return is still going to pass pretty close so I am going to put some fire sleeve on it.
I also found out that the LS3 Corvette steering pump fitting is behind the pulley in a really tight spot. I got this short flow regulator from Detroit Speed, but I am a bit concerned about the size of the flow regulator hole… it is bigger than the OE vette one and may result in steering issues. It is also
very difficult to install…
The clearance with this fitting installed is still ridiculously tight, I believe it will probably "wear" in a bit more clearance on its own…
One good thing about having to replace the ebay water pump was I had a test part for the steam vents. LS steam vents are often a disputed topic for internet experts, as well as some people with amazing real world results. Matt Happle @ Sloppy has used cam & valve spring only 200K mile LQ4's to make 700 rwhp & 140+mph ? mile passes (at over 3000 lbs) with the steam ports just blocked off, so they can't be all that critical, however GM would never have added that much cost, complexity, and potential leak points if it wasn't really necessary.
I have seen many people just add a hole somewhere in the top of the w.p. and connect the steam vents, but that really doesn't make sense, since that area is on the discharge side of the pump and would be at relatively high pressure.
To get the maximum flow from the steam ports, they should be routed to the lowest pressure area in the system, due to the inlet side thermostat setup on an LS motor, the lowest pressure is not in the radiator, it is in the short section between the thermostat and the impeller on the suction side.
I wasn't sure how thick the casting was in that area, so after confirming the area with the most clearance to the belt, I did a test on my junk ebay pump.
Plenty of threads in the casting.
So I did the same on the the good Gates pump I just installed.