>>> ELECTRIC FAN CONUNDRUM <<<

[subway]

i will be watching this since i was recently caught in traffic during some hot nasty weather down south on vacation with the family and it was getting to warm in the truck. once we got moving all was well but i to suffer from the poor ac performance at idle. no need to add poor working ac to an already aggrivating situation.

i did hear my fan clutch come on for the first time though but it waited till about 215-220 on my gage to do it.........

 

[RLDSL]

My 98 Accord has two electric fans. When the AC is on the second fan starts up and will cycle on and off as needed. The maight be just what you need for your ac cooling only at low speed driving....

Usually what they will do is rig the fan not to come on with the compressor, but to be triggered by a trinary switch, which is a pressure switch in the high pressure side of the ac system. It senses when the head pressure rises and kicks the fan on until the high side pressure falls below an acceptable level then the fan shuts off. For someone who lives in a cool climate this really is the most effecient way to rig a pusher fan so the thing isn't running all the time, but here in hotter than **** country I would rather just rig them straight to the compressor switch as a trigger for the relay for the fan so it funs full time while the ac is running and keep the head pressure down and the ac running at it's coolest, not to mention eliminate the risk of a blowout. When they are constantly kicking on and off, you run a higher risk of a misfire and in high heat that could meann an overpressure, and it all goes out the spitter or blows a hose. I have plenty of redundant fan backup so I don't run an overpressure valve

 

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

My 98 Accord has two electric fans. When the AC is on the second fan starts up and will cycle on and off as needed. The maight be just what you need for your ac cooling only at low speed driving....

We have an old 1990 Cherokee that has likewise two electric fans.

We got out in scorching hot South-western Colorado and Arizona and were having some engine cooling issues.

I went in the Dollar General and picked up a .99 extension lamp cord, which I spliced into the second fans HOT wire.

I used an ingenious means of leaving the female plug intact on the cord and hanging through the grille, with one strand connected to the fan, the other connected to battery=HOT.

I twisted the two wires of the male plug together, black-taped them, and this became my switch.

Plug it in and the fan roared to life; un-plug it and the fan was OFF.


That second fan sure helped with coolant temperatures.

I routed everything through a dash-mounted toggle-switch once we were back at home.

 

[oldblue05]

does anyone know a ballpark figure of how many cfm's of airflow would be sufficient for these trucks? I'm gonna put some on my truck, been researching this for awhile now that tid bit of info would go a LONG way. I live in TX and cannot afford to have a ****** cooling system on my truck.

 

[nsjames]

a suggestion Iw ould make is one of these:

http://www.dakotadigital.com/index.cfm/page/ptype=product/product_id=641/mode=prod/prd641.htm

and a single electric fan. You can program the e fan to come on at a preset temp, turn off at a preset temp, run for cool down after you turn off the ignition and wire it to your AC so the fan comes on whenever you turn it on.

basically just like a modern truck comes from the factory. It's also a handy digital temp guage that you can double check your dash gauge with.

it's a bit pricey, but is the end all be all of fan controllers IMO.

 

[oldblue05]

they have much cheaper options on ebay that do basically the same thing...

 

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

does anyone know a ballpark figure of how many cfm's of airflow would be sufficient for these trucks?

The CFM saga can be a deep pit to fall in.

Really, the way cooling fans are mounted, there is no accurate way to measure the actual CFM; there are just too many variables.

Now, if the fan were enclosed in a tight-fitting cylindrical tunnel, such as a long road-tile, then maybe some semblance of an accurate measurement of CFM could be attained.


Once above 40-MPH, even a big steel-bladed direct-drive engine fan could be removed and the difference in cooling not be noticed, as the ram-air is then doing the job.

 

[nsjames]

they have much cheaper options on ebay that do basically the same thing...

there are I'm sure, but I've found cheaping out on cooling system bits haunts me later. Of course they may be cheap enough on ebay that you could buy 4 of them for the price of one dakota.

 

[FordGuy100]

The CFM saga can be a deep pit to fall in.

Really, the way cooling fans are mounted, there is no accurate way to measure the actual CFM; there are just too many variables.

Now, if the fan were enclosed in a tight-fitting cylindrical tunnel, such as a long road-tile, then maybe some semblance of an accurate measurement of CFM could be attained.


Once above 40-MPH, even a big steel-bladed direct-drive engine fan could be removed and the difference in cooling not be noticed, as the ram-air is then doing the job.

Which is exactly why my water temp on a 100* day is 185* at 65mph with no fan on whatsoever.

 

[RLDSL]

does anyone know a ballpark figure of how many cfm's of airflow would be sufficient for these trucks? I'm gonna put some on my truck, been researching this for awhile now that tid bit of info would go a LONG way. I live in TX and cannot afford to have a ****** cooling system on my truck.

That bit starts getting REAL tricky because most ALL of the speed shop fans sold in the US are rated at zero static pressire, which means that they don't take into account the load of the resistance of the radiator and the condenser, and otehr junk in front of the fans that they have to suck through. Most of the US speed shop fans start dropping off in pull FAST once you start applying static pressure.
There are some european fans that are rated high at high static pressure, but they cost about twice as much and better and they still would most likely not be suitable for a stock radiator for E fan only.

 

[FORDF250HDXLT]

iv got these:
http://www.oilburners.net/forums/showthread.php?t=17484
( i didn't do the large motor swap.i had enough room.it is close though.the fans could just be installed upside down too.nor did i do the stock fan shroud blend.just not required.)

and working great.
soon to have the WP85.as far as i know it hasn't shipped yet though;
http://www.dccontrol.com/fancontrol.htm

i had the 2sp,but didn't have the dropping resister from the windstar to get the low speed.
(thats located behind the pass side headlight if your interested.)
and without the low speed,the fans are just overkill.
i mistakenly shorted it out messing around with something under the hood due to a temp setup though anyway,so rather than getting a dropping resister and sticking with the relay based type,i decided to upgrade to the variable rate unit which is likely best anyway.wasn't sure how well the fans would work out.now that i know,i would have just skipped to the enclosed unit from the start and skipped the relay based things.
the WP (water pump) kit just means it comes with the split loom.so rather than a water pump of course its just going to be the other fan for easy hookup.plus it comes with the engine outlet sensor rather than the rad prong thing,which was ok i guess,but if im upgrading anyway,i went right to the WP85.
i think the stock windstar setup was 30A for low fan and 40A for high.so thats 70A,so going to 85A was a safe bet.all around it seams like the best option for the windstar fans too me.

 

[oldblue05]

well whatever, I bought two of these... http://www.summitracing.com/parts/HFM-ZFU14S/ hopefully they work.

 

[RLDSL]

well whatever, I bought two of these... http://www.summitracing.com/parts/HFM-ZFU14S/ hopefully they work.

Good luck with that. THey obviously have WAY overinflated zero load CFM rating on those things . It takes power to make power and if it's only drawing 10 amps, you're looking at a mild booster fan at best. At least if they totally stink, I think Summit has a pretty liberal return policy. I dug around the zirgo website, they throw around a lot of wild claims, but nowhere do they have any actual information.
The Spal fans that I'm putting on my setup may only have an output at the actual static pressure of my truck of about 1636 CFM and draw28 amps and these things are built like OEM fans ( they build OEM fans for some european makes hence the similarities to the Taurus etc fans) These things will outpower all the fans with the overinflated CFM ratings. Thats the huge problem with electric fans, most of teh companies will try to make themselves look good by rating teh things with absoloutely no load on them sometimes even with a positive forward airflow in attempts to make ther product look better than it really is
There is a reason that none of the regular e fan companies will recommend an e fan combination for our trucks with their products on a stock radiator, it's because THEY KNOW the things won't pull enough.

 

[oldblue05]

****

 

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

>>> THE FAN SAGA <<<

I am gonna step out on a half-sawed limb and say this :

It is likely that I haul and work my engine as hard as any here.

Other than poor A/C performance, I have never ever had any cooling issues.

The thermostat is a 180* unit and the gauge settles at 180* and stays there, up hill and down, sitting in heavy traffic on HOT pavement, or climbing MontEagle with fifteen big cows.

And it does that with a sick wimpy never really engaged wore-out anemic lethargic coast-a-long useless piece of clutch-fan that I bet I could hold still with my hand when the engine was running full-tilt.

I bet a fat lady with a paste-board funeral-home fan could push more air across the radiator.


I locked/pinned my summertime clutches strictly in an attempt to draw some air across the condensor, not at all on account of engine heat.

I bet I could toss the mechanical fan, hang on a set of the wimpiest electric fans, and do just as well.


Since I started this thread, I have found a secret weapon that I had been searching for for a long time; I knew they had to be available somewhere; a genuine direct-drive fan hub.


I put the order in the mail Thursday for the hub and matching all-steel high-RPM fan.


When it arrives and gets installed, the next step is a segmented aluminum shroud.


Then, even if I have to (and the way it's looking most likely will) hang the grille on a nail in the barn, I am gonna mount the strongest pusher-fan I can find in front of the A/C condensor.


As I have limited space between the radiator and engine, any decent electric puller-fan is just too big.

So, I will let the direct-drive fan do the heavy work; and, when the RPMs are down to nothing, the constant speed of the pusher-fan can do it's thing for the condensor.


The is afixin' to hit the .