Hi,

First off I have a 87 S4 turbo import from Japan ( I live in new zealand so it isnt marked as a "turbo 2".)

Its largely stock, the previous owner custom built an exhaust for it, lowered it and put a fixed back bucket in the drivers side, but other than that its mostly stock.

Ive removed the power steering (properly!) and the air pump, and am looking to remove the standard fan for a e-fan. I am well aware of the "situation" with an e-fan so please do not tell me to keep the stocker.

The question I have, is that the previous owner also removed the fan shroud. I have had the car for a year now and its never moved above halfway on the temp gauge - even in stop/start conditions. Without the shroud, is the fan actually functional ? theres a small electric fan in front of the radiator (about 25cm in diamater) which appears to be temp-controlled and comes on as the gauge just rises above half, bringing it back down to the half-mark.

so, IF the clutch-fan only does little to no cooling without the shroud, would it be viable to remove it, under the idea that having it there isnt doing anything, the smaller e-fan is dropping the temps when they get to a point, so removing the clucth fan wouldnt change anything?

so just to clarify
- i know having no fan shroud heavily impacts the performance of the stock fan
- i have a small e-fan which is temperature controlled
- without a shroud, is the stock fan functional as a means of cooling the radiator?

 

On the s4 like you have, the typical temp is around 1/4 on the guage. I would imagine that in your case, the lack of shroud would explain why the needle is at 1/2. Since the fan sits at an angle farther back than most vehicles, the shroud is very important to having good airflow through the radiator. I removed the clutch fan and shroud on my car, then replaced it with an e-fan from a ford taurus. Just to clerify, the small electric fan in front of the radiator will in no way effectively cool your engine by itself.

 

isnt the small efan for use on the air con radiator?

I removed my fan and shroud and it got very got very quickly. i couldnt drive over 50kph.

i currently run a 16 thermo fan with no shroud and the front elec fan disconected and have no over heating problem. Its is currently on a switch as i havnt found a way to hook it up to a thermo stat.

Your car should run at 1/4 on the temp gauge

 

ok cheers guys, ill leave it as-is untill I get a proper sized e-fan next month to replace it

 

I overheated my turbo II sitting in a backup with an (unbeknownst to me) busted clutch fan. Pegged the 250 degree aftermarket gauge.

I still have the stock temp gauge running. I'd say halfway up an s4 temp gauge is a good 210-220 degrees dude.

 

Halfway up the stocker is around 200 degrees. That is when my pda (rtek) reads 198 and the 200 degree temp switch kicks in. I have seen many people that have the thermoswitch installed into a coupler in the middle of the upper rad hose. I opted to install mine in place of the factory temp switch in filler neck.