car drives better w/ a/c on?

[nissilvat]

hey ya . i noticed that when i turn the a/c on in my car it idles great, like it should. but when i turn the a/c off, the idle starts dippin below the 1000 rpms and sometimes it stalls. now i do have a great big crack in my exhaust manifold. i put in new ngk plugs,wires. helped a bunch, any sugg??????

[VinceSez]

my a/c sucks the power out of my car when I turn it on, but when I turn it off it feels strong. I dont know.. my car is like the complete opposite of yours. When I turn my a/c on my car engine begins to shake and there's this weird sound coming from the engine bay like there's something rattling...

[dfw240_EE]

Mine does that too. With A/C on, it idles smooth, with it off, it idles a little rough. However, when I am in motion, the A/C definitely makes it sluggish, like all A/C's do. I guess there is something amiss with the idle control.

[Fenvy]

I am lead to believe the the ECU has different rpm for idling between AC on/off

[1991S13]

Mine idles at like 650 with it off and around 900 with it on. I think it's smoother when it's off, just sounds better when it's on. It kinda does kill power at cruising speeds though.

Atleast its not as bad as my friends Focus...he turns the AC on and the pedal sinks and feels like the car is gonna die.

[Florida240sx]

my rpms sit at 750-800.Ac on it's 1100.My car has been having fun trying to stall everytime I stop but if I have A/C on it will keep rpms up and won't worry.It takes quite a bit of power away from my car.Was racing one time and had it on, and flipped it off in the middle of 3rd, had a nice little "boost" of power.

[Neejay]

At least you guys have AC....

[nissilvat]

well yeah, like most of you guys my a/c sucks power also, but the exhaust note is very deep and the car doesnt stumble and shake on me with it on, BUT iam going to remove it, cause this is the 1st time in 2 yrs ive used it, and although it is hot in texas, i love to drive with the windows down

[DjPantsSpecR]

this is in regards to what Florida240sx said. I am pretty sure i read in the FSM that when the AC is on and the car sees WOT, it actually temporarily turns off the AC to automatically give you a little boost of power. So, i'm not sure the boost you felt was actually real at all. Sorry, thats not meant to make you look like a liar, but i was just wondering if anyone else had read or noticed this.

[Dattebayo]

You know its really hilarious.

This topic is discussed again and again and again all the time. I dont know how the question ever evades the search button sometimes.

Did you guys know that we have a search button for stuff like this?

I searched and it said this:Your search for 240sx idle problem returned 216 results.

[dfw240_EE]

The A/C trick is kinda handy though, it does smooth out a rough idle. Just turn it off when you start to roll again.