My fan is rigged to come on all the time... I get really good water and air temps, my volts read at around 13.5-13.9 on a somewhat old battery.

Now is this bad? too much electrical load?

I'm running a single turbo btw...

 

The problem with running your fans all the time, is that when the fans blow air, they blow it right onto your pulleys. The air they are blowing is usually very hot. What happens over time, is that the hot air overheats the bearings in the pulleys. They will start squeelling, and possibly sieze. I siezed my air pump because of this, and my alternater pulley is now making noise as well. Keep in mind, I have a lot of miles on my 7. I had a bad thermostat, so I had to run my fans all the time until a got one.
It's possible you might not have these problems, but I figured i'de give you my experience with this.
Good luck
Jim

 

Thanks for the input, I freese the pulleys ever so often, and do have some squeeks in the winter but haven't had any problems since, I have a Greddy Pulley kit.

I'm thinking if there's nothing wrong with this, why doesn't everybody have their fans come on all the time.

 

It will also take longer for you car to properly warm up in the winter time.

 

i know for certain that it will take forever to warm up to have the fans on all the time, and there are times the temps will drop below the opening of the thermostat if the fans are on too long. I would think that having the fans on 2-4-7 would cause a bit of wear on the fans?

danny

 

but is there a performance gain/loss by doing this

 

Yes, there is a performance loss. With the fans on all of the time, you will easily drop below 180 degrees on the highway or in colder weather. The double-throttle will not open until 180 degrees. There IS such a thing as running too cold.

As the others have pointed out, it would probably be severe wear and tear on your fans as well.

 

It will also increase the electrical load on the alternator making it harder to turn robbing hp. Instead of the standard fan mod, I'm opting to rig a turbo timer to just run the fans after shutdown (not the motor).

 

Why not have the engine run as well to cycle cooland through the radiator?

 

i have been running my fans constantly for bout three years now. No squeaking pulleys or running to cold summer or winter. The car has been rock solid round the 84 degree celsius mark.

 

I have my fans set to come on at 87, 88, 89C on my PowerFC. It keeps the temps very cool (almost always below 180F when the engine is running for street driving). I haven't experienced any problems yet, but I do imagine it is harder on the electrical system and fans.

I don't know if I buy the hot pulley thing, as the underhood temps might actually be lower with the fans running all the time. Hot air going into the air pump (from an open intake) is the common cause of dead air pumps. I had one die before I started running the fans most of the time.

I have a small battery and it seems to be able to keep up.

I think running them 100% of the time is bad because it slows warm-up. The double throttle seems to open just under 170F or so on my car, so I don't have any problems with it being closed once the car warms up (even if it only warms up to 170F).

-Max

 

This is gonna sound stupid to an Pfc insider, but here it goes...

I just got my Pfc and was wondering how I might program my fans to come on at a specific temperature?

I am almost completely Pfc illiterate, unless it comes to just reading the diagnostics on the main display. So, PM me a detailed reference, as I probably will run into trouble due to my lack of knowledge...

thanks to whoever will help out a layman!