Electric Fans (VERY LONG!!!)
 

Originally posted by Brian D. Cain to the TeamFC3S mailing list... cross posted with permission.

*** start ***

Hey guys, I'm just too itchin' to keep quiet about my latest little
"what-if" hack-em-up project on the FC that I had to say something. As some
of you guys know, I've run an air-to-water intercooler setup in the past
before but had trouble with the heat exchanger core per bad welds and
initial construction. This pushed me in the direction of re-doing the
entire charge intercooling setup in favour of a better (and/or even more
complicated, sophisticated) setup. Ever since I gutted A2W stuff out of the
vehicle, I've been using the Quality Mazda Product intercooler known as the
stock top-mount. As everyone knows, it's plain and simple garbage and
barely does the job in regards to the stock powerplant let alone anything
demanding low charge temperatures.

Anyways, I purchased an Isuzu NPR (light-duty diesel truck w/ a square
front) intercooler off of eBay a few months back just for kicks and for the
intention of playing with it perhaps on this FC or another vehicle. I
test-fitted it several different ways and places, etc., consistently testing
the changes in oil and water temperatures throughout because of the then
lesser amount of pressurized, front-air dam inlet air. Because of noticing
drastically rising oil and water temperatures during the first set of
experimentation, I decided to remove the front-mount air to air core and
figure out another way to do it.

Well, to fast-forward to present day, I've gone through a few electric
radiator fans in the process of trying to make that whole deal more
efficient. Sunday entailed a trip to the junkard to get a few more electric
fans off of factory cars per an idea that Richard Alford gave me while I was
in Pensacola last week. Putting two and two together, it became obvious to
me that factory-built cars that use electric radiator fans must be atleast
fairly to very efficient, if not exceedingly, per the notion that these same
factory-built cars are being sold to consumers with varying driving habits
and are being driven in varying climates and geographic areas, etc. So, on
that tip from Rich', I went to the junkyard when I got back from the FL trip
and started hunting around. I picked up three unit with each costing $10:
1988 Pontiac Fiero (better known as "Fire-O" in our area), 1988 Chevrolet
Cavalier, and then one off of a late 80's (probably '88 knowing me) Ford
Escort. Right off the bat, I've noticed characteristics about these fans
that differ from your common, aftermarket unit (Permacool, Vintage Air,
Spal, Hayden [Pep Boys], Mr. Gasket, etc.): These factory fans' blower
motors are not short and wide but rather skinny and tall, making them take
up more room heighth-wise. These fans are also typically shrouded inside a
metal/plastic, square/rectangular shroud that enshrouds the entire width and
heighth of the said heat exchanger (radiator usually) that they're providing
a cooling medium for. Most aftermarket fans, with the exception of the
Black Magic line, have circular shrouds that enshroud directly around the
fan blades.

So, being overly excited about my new-found electric fan collection for a
measly $30, I picked the largest unit (the Fiero unit), mock-fitted it to
the Griffin radiator, and went to town. The fan just barely fit; infact,
it's got an inch or two of room left on the bottom. I weather-stripped the
shrouds unto the radiator for better sealing. I then wired the unit up to
the Haltech E6K's PWM output I've got designated and configured to run my
radiator "thermo" fan (set to turn on and off at (x)F degrees water
temperatures) and fired it up.

This unit is just plain kick-butt. It blows all of my other aftermarket
fans out of the water easily like a submarine fighting an 18th century
Spanish ironclad. :D This unit pulls an incredible amount of air. I'm not
sure of its current draw at 12VDC but it's atleast under 25A per the fuse to
the relay off the battery not blowing yet.

More good news: Even with the addition of the Isuzu NPR core back up front
again covering about 95% of all inlet air, my water temperatures and oil
temperatures dropped (per cruising around town loads). My water
temperatures dropped from the high 180F's to the low 180F's (181F/183F) and
my oil temperatures dropped from 165F/175F to 148F/155F!!! This is with the
addition of that huge intercooler core up-front blocking everything! Here's
some pictures of the install:

http://www.angelfire.com/home/rx7tur.../ElectricFans/

All in all, there might be hope for you front-mount intercooler guys
searching for ways to help solve the inherent problem of running
front-mounted air-to-air charge intercooling cores whilst utilizing electric
radiator fans. I believe the trick here is two-fold: First of all, the
shrouding is the biggie. If the fan is pulling air through a sealed
shrouded that envelopes the entire backside of the radiator, it will draw
more cooling medium through a larger area of the radiator than a circular
shroud will. Cross-reference to the stock clutch-fan and radiator shroud.
Secondly, the lesser width of the blower motor (take a close look at the
Fiero unit vs. any others) and related plastic housing mean more air can be
extracted and pulled closer to the centre of the radiator, adding even
further efficiency to the process. The reason the oil temperatures dropped
is because, with respect to the previous, circularly-shrouded fans being
used, this fan enshrouds the entire bottom half of the radiator, plus more,
and is able to pull air directly through both the bottom of the radiator as
well as the oil cooler that's mounted directly in front of it. The factory
FC3S oil cooler is thermostatically-controlled at 140F.

Have fun guys. This gives me the green light to plumb the Isuzu NPR core to
the turbocharger and the throttle body and go to town. :D

B

*** end ***

If this setup will keep a 425 RWHP TII cool, it should work for those of us with less radical setups!!!

Brad

UHHHHHH?
 

I always see a lot of riff raff about people saying for more power, to get an electric fan. how is this done, and whats all the jibberish about. And man, do you have a way of makin things work.:bigthumb:

I know everybody says that it helps to recover more of the engines natural power by removing the clutch fan but wouldn't adding an electric fan drain power from the battery causing a power loss therefore cancelling out the gains from removing the clutch fan?

no, because if set up right the E-fan should only come on when you are either stoped or moving slowly. once you are up to speed the air flows by itself so the car will stay cool enough without the fan. therefor it turns itself off. so you are only losing power while stoped or slow moving, which doesn't matter.

Ragtop,
Does this mean your GF finally let you get that T04 and the rear end you had sittin on your balcony actually in the car :D And thanks again for the wheels :)

ok ive kinda been out of it here life was good :)

Anyway.... Electric fans are a good way to make power on any car.

BTW are you still employed with ......... the big N?

thats pretty dayum good setup u had.. i bet you had a day cutting all that stuff out and mounting. i would like to see how you pipe your intercooler tubing to that front mount that you have.. when u do it be sure to put up some pics.. wild way of doing things man! very cool tho!

im definitly gonna call the local wrecker yard and see if they got one of those fiero fans sittin round i can mount up.. can you explain more how your mounted it to your radiator? i would be mounting mine to stock so...


scott

HOW DO YOU GET THE ELECTRIC FAN?
 

Im new to this, electric fan sounds nice, how is it achieved?

is there a way to setup up the fiero e-fan without a haltech? i was wondering if they came with a temp module or something. my fc doesnt have any fans on it besides the clutch fan. wiring anyone?

yes wiring please! im gonna call the yards around here this week and see if i can locate one of these babies!

scott! oi

Brian uses a Haltech, well, because he's using it to make 425 HP on a street driven FC.

To use this on a "regular" FC, you will need a thermostatic switch of some kind. I have one from Summit- I think it was about $20 and it works great.

For wiring, you would want to go from the battery, to a fuse, to the thermo switch, to the fan. You also want to split BEFORE the thermo switch, and run it to a relay, then to the fan, and use the wire to the A/C compressor clutch to run this relay, IF you have A/C. (use a big relay, like the ones used for fog lights, etc.)

Simple, cheap, quick.

Brad

Keep in mind that this of for a street driven car, and not a race car. As soon as I get mine installed then we will know how it works in a race environment FC :D Mine only has around 300rwhp though. I have a black magic fan now, and it works well. The fire-o fan has a larger shroud. I wish BDC had had a black magic installed so he could have compared it to the fire-o. The thing that made me perk up so much was the FMIC idn't cause higher oil and water temps, which my HKS did to mine. We will see...

BDC is the man:D

by the way i should mention that his trip to pensacola that was just recently made, was to help get my haltech-mobile running right.

MUCH thanks to brian for that.

was this a 4-cylinder Fire-O or a six? does it matter???

FWIW The Ford V-6 (Tarus) fans are not as strong as the Fiero fans, but do the job in S5 NA's.

COol!

wow this post is almost as old as BDC :D

The point is; AS I HAVE SAID ALL ALONG, Is to properly shroud whatever fan you are using, don't just zip-tie it through the core like a ricer-boy.

Anyone have pictures of this kind of setup...either the fiero or taurus radiators?
TIA
Crispy

All 86+ fiero fans are the same. '85s are weird, don't use one . (they're also failure prone, I had THREE go on my car in just six months) If you do go with an '85, the auto transmission rad fans are the better of the two, (beefier fan for both 4 and six cyl) followed by the manual... '84s are the smaller of the two '85s.

i just put on a Fiero fan holy sit . does it cool better then my stock fan i have a getto set up i had to cut wood and make it where the fan did`t hit the stock rad but my wiring is really nice i just have to fig something out for how the fan sits for now its cool. it`s cooling so good i cant think of using this fan wit a meatl rad .

Ive got a 18 incher off of a Thunderbird. Im pretty confident in its ability,

This often-repeated statement always makes me laugh. Unless the stock fan is actually broken, an electric fan is not going to cool any better.

All the fan is there for is to pull enough air through the radiator to keep the engine cool at low speed. If the stock fan is doing that job, and the temps stay the same whether at high speed, low speed or while idling, then it is working perfectly. There's no way an electric fan can do any better than that.

If by better you mean it pulls the temp right down, then you've got the thermoswitch set too low (or don't have one). The temp is supoosed to say reasonably static, not swing up and down.

Exactly right. Thumbs Up!

posted by i dont care .
This often-repeated statement always makes me laugh. Unless the stock fan is actually broken, an electric fan is not going to cool any better.

your wrong wit that one buddy . if your emisstions are gone your stock fan sucks and your blet slips cause of it . in my car anyway in good working order took it off . put on a e-fan and it cools better even kdr said they cool better .black magic ones and fiero fans . i have done it seen it for my self dont care what u say or think . and my car feels faster now . and cools better.

I'm afraid I'm right. A $20 dual-belt pulley will solve the belt slipping problem. If your stock fan is working as it should, then you can't really improve on it in terms of cooling.
Please define "cools better". Just tell me why you think it cools better. Convince me.
Faster? Unlikely. Unless the stock fan was locked solid (which would give amazing cooling) there's only a small amount of drag caused by the fan in normal running, because it's only engaged enough to keep the temps stable. Maybe it does feel faster, but you'd never notice it at the dragstrip.
BTW, if you're going to reply, please make it some sort of logical answer. "I don't care what you think" is something a 10yo says.