I re-installed my A/C compressor today that had been removed by the previous owner when he did the 2nd gen JDM swap. I decided to fill the system with ES-12a per V6'er recommendation.
I didn't vacuum the system because the envirosafe ES-12a instructions recommend not to add their refrigerant under vacuum. I didn't even change the receiver dryer since envirosafe said that moisture isn't harmful with their refrigerant. That all sounded pretty strange to me but I thought what the heck I'll give it a try, besides I have a spare compressor just in case it didn't work out.
I started the car with A/C set to max and added a can of stop leak followed by a can of oil charged that was included in the kit. With just those first two cans and no refrigerant the low side gauge was already reading 45 PSI! Obviously this wasn't good because I hadn't added any ES-12a yet, so I decided to slowly bleed off pressure with the valve attached to the gauge until the low side was reading 15 PSI. I then proceeded to add 2 cans of ES-12a until the low side was right at 35PSI and I could feel cold air starting to come out of the vents. With the low side reading a
steady 35PSI I decided to go for a short drive to see how cold I could get my thermometer to read.
Outside temperature was 82 degrees and the coldest temperature registered at the vent during a 5 minute drive was just over 40 degrees! Needless to say I'm extremely happy with the results of ES-12a. Many thanks to V6'er this stuff is awesome! I've drove around the rest of the day with the A/C running and so far so good.
Here's the exact kit that I purchased for reference:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Envir...5597QQtcZphoto