I pulled my AC out and am considering pulling the AC/Heater core out completely, but need a front windshield defroster solution. Fog-X never seems to cut it.

For those of you who have removed your heater core, how do you defrost the front windshield when it starts to fog up? Are there any aftermarket heater options that can easily be plugged in in the winter and removed in the summer?

 

There are 2 cores in the HVAC unit, one is for coolant, the other for the AC. I only removed the AC core (which can be done without pulling the dash) in the race car.

 

So it can be done w/o removing the dash....any tricks to getting just that out?

 

Big ing hammer???? I removed all from my car and tried it with a hammer and chisel.... eventually i gave up and took the dash out.

I have not had any fogging issues but I have not really run in the rain either....or the cold...

 

The A/C one comes out without dash removal, just carefully follow the shop manual. Once it's completely free, it will squeeze by the dash with just a little flexing of the lower dash (where the "glovebox" trim piece comes off). I pulled the core out, taped over the holes and put it back in. For T2, only A/C removal is legal plus I don't want to be without defog. On the 25 Hr TL, we completely gutted all the internals to the HVAC. All that wa left was the fan motor on one open port to the def. Everything else was removed and blocked off. We even got rid of the regular HVAC controls and just wired a switch to manual control hi fan only.

 

heatercore requires dash to be out. i did mine last month.

 

I've seen these used in some race cars. Seems to work fairly well.

http://www.jcwhitney.com/autoparts/Product.../p-1013/c-10101

 

Just what I've been looking for Voodoo. I'll check it out.

I decided to pull the core out today (before reading the last post)....and yup, the blower can come out without taking the dash out (the heater requires the dash to be removed, though).

It's a little easier without a passenger side airbag--so if anyone is going to attempt it themselves, I'd say the extra time it takes to remove the airbag will save you time and frustration (of course, if you still have airbags, you probably wouldn't be looking at doing a project like this yet). Aside from one bolt that was carefully hidden by Honda engineers, it's pretty much a straightforward job.

My semi-accurate digital scale read 8.5 lbs for the entire Evap/Blower assembly. The Evaporator unit itself is pretty light, though--empty it's probably 1.5 lbs. Definitely not a good weight loss:time ratio.

 

In my experience, the 12V (J.C. Whitney) heaters are absolutely useless. I bought one, and it generates about as much heat as your breath. I got mine for heat, and plugged it in once before giving up and springing for headers with heat exchangers. I don't think the 12V unit would be at all effective at keeping the windshield defogged.

 

Ah yes, headers with heat exchangers. Gotta love that aircooled goodness