I don't notice the a/c turning on when its cooling the battery, I've seen the temperature drop using Forscan but other than that i can't really tell. I decided to clean the MAF after reading all the posts about how outside air temperature affects the lean/rich balance and my MAF has the AIT built in. I could feel the difference after I did it, it has a lot more power and when the engine revs up it sounds like a normal engine revving up not one that's being pushed too hard. I decided to take it into the mountains to see how it works with a heavy load on the engine, it did pretty good, it never went over 5500 rpms and i was driving up the mountains at 75 mph at about 3000 rpms. Unfortunately, after about 4000 rpms it looks like the a/c starts putting a heavy strain on the engine and it gets worse the higher the rpms go. While going up a steep hill i turned the A/C on and off to see the difference and the engine sounded different and of course the RPMs dropped when i turned it off. I know very little about the A/C, but I've always thought it should be keeping the cabin a lot cooler than it does. Sometimes when I turn the vehicle on with the A/C switch in the on position it makes a loud noise which doesn't seem normal. I took it into an A/C shop a while back and they said it was running good, just low on Freon and they filled it up. The bad thing is that I found out they have never seen a Hybrid that uses the A/C to cool off the battery so there may have been something wrong that they missed.

 

Based on what I've researched on my 2007 FEH, the second "door" in the battery cooling system is just a flap over a grill that vents to the outside. There is some literature out there that mentions a second door called a zone valve or something, but I think that's just false or it's getting the airflow valves and refrigerant valves confused. This is the best source I have found that describes the HV battery cooling system. If you reach under the bumper near the left rear corner of the vehicle, you can feel the grill with the flap over it.

 

2nd valve is refrigerant if that breaks it's supposed to set a code. that is a good pdf to save.

 

I fixed it now (I think). It looks like it was hooked up backwards and both doors were either closed or open at the same time when one is supposed to be open while the other is closed.

 

I printed that PDF, it has a lot of the info I've been looking for.

I Rebalanced the batteries and it seems to be running better than i've ever seen it. My MPG are still low, but that could be running the A/C on MAX all the time, I'm taking it in to be checked out at a Ford Dealership soon, hopefully its a cheap fix.

 

A/C took a big chunk out of my MPG. Especially at low speed driving. On the highway it wasn't so bad.

 

One thing I've never liked about the EPA mileage estimates we see touted for this and other cars is they don't tell you what accessories were running when they did the testing. A/C MAX is going to run the compressor nonstop - unless a temperature or pressure sensor cuts it due to impending evaporator freeze or some other parameter. On some cars that takes as much as 10 horsepower, but I would guess the FEH is probably in the 5-7 HP range. However 5-7 HP is probably enough to move the car down the road at 25MPH all by itself. Most people don't realize how powerful most car A/C systems actually are. Americans demand cold A/C, this car needs cold A/C in two places, and that takes a lot of energy.

On the '10 FEH with *no* rear evaporator but an electric compressor, the wires are high voltage orange, they are "medium beefy" and connect directly to the DC/DC converter - easily enough to run a 5 horsepower motor (think ShopVac), or more.

https://www.rycompressors.com/shop/2...92-601070.html

I am still waiting/trying to find the engineering specs. for the electric compressor, and the whole system (of both varieties.)

 

Yes, they do. You just need to look for it. Those things are meticulously dictated by the EPA's testing procedures. In standard city and highway cycles, AC is off. In addition to those tests, there are now 3 supplemental tests implemented by the EPA.....high speed, AC on and cold outside temperature cycles.

Link

 

Thank you for that link. You're right, I got lazy there.