Pontiac Grand National and heat produced by a turbo

[tbirdtbird]

Back aways, we had a poster with poor AC performance on a Pontiac Grand National, which is a OEM turbo car.
Various posting exchanges were made to no avail. Finally we were able to get a picture of his underhood setup. I immediately recognized that his turbo downpipe was directly under his accumulator, thus adding a boatload of heat to his AC system, way in excess of the heat shedding work the system was designed to handle.
I showed my nephew (a racer) the pic and he instantly replied that the poster had modified the OEM turbo setup, because that downpipe was not supposed to be where it was. Today he and I were both at a Pontiac meet and I got to see a Grand National with its OEM setup,and my what a difference.
He had suggested the poster add a turbo insulation blanket, something I was not familiar with, insulate the downpipe, and insulate the accumulator. A turbo ads an enormous amount of heat under the hood.
Once that advice was posted, it seemed to be met with resistance, but in any event, we never heard anything back from the poster.

The takehome: If you have a turbo, and want AC, there are specific measures to be taken to allow your AC to do its job.