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There's mine in the background. 18.1 cfm. The bigger the better.

In my opinion a proper air compressor setup is a must for a good DIY shop. But the key is you must setup the garage for success. What I mean by that is you have to make it easy to use everything you can't have hoses buried under crap, tools scattered all over that you have to hunt for. As an example here is how I have my 3 bay detached garage setup. Hard airlines run the perimeter of the exterior walls. I have air outlets on both side walls which have quick disconnect " curly " hoses those are just used for tire inflation. At the front of the garage over the workbench is a hose reel with enough hose on it to reach anywhere in the garage. On the outside of the garage is another hose reel with 50 ' of hose to reach most anything parked outside of the garage. All air tools are in one convenient location so very easy to grab and go. I can go out to the garage, flip on the compressor and while she's coming up to pressure I can have any air tool out and ready to go. If it's easy to use you will use it ! If like exercise equipment you just pile crap on it you won't use it. Yes I still hand torque every fastener but I love the ease of an air ratchet when working in tight confines to get nuts/bolts 95 % tight with virtually no effort.
I have an IR 2 cylinder two stage air compressor that I picked up used and it does everything I need it to do. I never have needed any parts but if I do they are readily available. If I had to do it all over again the only thing I would change is I would have built an outdoor closet to house the compressor just to keep the noise down inside the garage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Topless (Post 477503)

First question: What exactly do you want to do with it? Painting, air tools, media blast, just tires? Figure that out first and size accordingly.

After 20 years of always having the drone of a compressor in my garage I replaced my air tools with cordless and never looked back. Air tools work fine but you always have to drag that hose around, they can't go to the track, and are just so "last century". I don't paint or media blast so my only need for air was tires. A very simple $50 compressor can handle that. The silence is golden.

For air tools you need higher PSI, and for paint/media blast you need high CFM. A REAL compressor to handle all of this is about $5k plus another $500 or so to run hardwired elect. from your meter to the location.

Ok, here is my story:

I do all my repairs at home, and many times I spend a lot of time struggling with frozen/large size bolts, I do have an electric (cheap) impact gun from HF that helps somehow.

For the very near future projects, will involve replacing the lower control arms and disassemble the struts on my wife V70, removing the heads from a spare Alfa Romeo V6 engine that I have in the garage to get the exhaust valve guides replaced (@ machine shop), then swap the engine into the Alfa so can be used as a reliable daily driver again.

Afterwards, I will be removing the engine from the Cayman to send the block to LN for their Nickies cylinders.

And the main reason I wanted a compressor was to have pressurized air to clean the engine components before reassembly.

However you have a big point, perhaps buying a good set of a battery impact gun and maybe a small portable compressor to clean the engine.

Unfortunately (..?) the 3hp/60 gallon Ingersoll Rand air compressor that I was looking to buy, got sold yesterday, it was a good deal since it was new (new surplus) because the guy never install it for $450...

Therefore, now I am facing between a new IR 5hp/60 gallon new compressor that will cost about $800 or now that you mention it, perhaps getting a nice battery impact gun and a small compressor for lot less than the $800...

All the suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Regards,
Gilles

Don't rule out a good used unit. Check out local CL ads there are usually some for sale. As long as they had oil in them the pumps are hard to kill. It's a good way to get a quality piece at 50 % or less from the cost of new.