Fan clutch upgrade...

[ifrythings]

Been reading about better fan clutches or going electric and the general consensus is mechanical is the only way to go, now I have heard/read that one company (Hayden I believe) made a electro-viscous fan that would bolt to the idi but it was very expensive and I believe is no longer made.

Now lucky for us, ford has made us an almost bolt on factory option, the 6.4L powerstroke has the same standard rotation (left hand thread) fan clutch, it also has the same fan mounting diameter (5”) and the same fan bolt circle (6”), what this means is the idi fan blade will bolt to the 6.4L ps. clutch. Now the fan blade will be pushed forward (toward the radiator) by about 1/16” or less, not a big deal.

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

Now the differences, the bolt holes used to mount the fan are smaller (6mm) and the idi is 5/16”, this may or may not be a problem but if it is there is more then enough meat to drill out the 6mm threads and tap it to 5/16”. The other problem is the threads for attaching the clutch to the water pump, the idi is 1-1/4” x 16 and the ps is 40mm x 2.0.

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

Now I’m working on trying to get a used 6.4 water pump to see if we can just press off the flange and press it onto the idi’s water pump taking out any machine work needed or I’ll have to try and machine a thread adapter bushing so it can be just bolted on.

Now the other part I still need to see is if there is enough room to run the 6.4L fan behind the idi radiator, this thing is huge compared to the idi (2” bigger on each side) if it will fit without hitting the inlet and out let of the rad then a custom shroud can be made and utilize the large fan.

You must be registered for see images attach

 

[ifrythings]

Here’s a few more pictures oh just how big the fan blades are and how much bigger it is compared to the wide radiator fan shroud.

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

More to come soon after some r&d work.

 

[no mufflers]

100% interested on this. I would love to have a clutch like this

 

[jwalterus]

 

[ifrythings]

100% interested on this. I would love to have a clutch like this

The nice part about this clutch is they are easy and plentiful to find and even not too bad to buy new. If you can find a fan controller that outputs PWM instead of on/off you can take full advantage of this fan and if the fan controller has multiple temp inputs you could keep the ac cold at idle, bump the fan up if the auto trans is getting too hot or even turn it up if your intercooler is starting to get heat soaked. This definitely opens up the possibilities of cooling control.

 

[no mufflers]

I added oil to my clutch so it works great for Max cooling but most of the time I don't need it engaged so much.

This would solve that problem.

 

[crash-harris]

Subscribing to this one. It would be ideal to be able to use the 6.4 electric clutch with the IDI fan bolted to it. As for mating it to the water pump, what about a threaded adapter that can be installed with a spanner? 1 1/4-16 inside threads, 40mm-2.0 outside threads and a small few holes in the material between to tighten/torque with either a readily available spanner socket, or a standard socket that the installer must cut out to make a pinned spanner. Would be cool if it could be tightened with an AR barrel nut spanner wrench, but those are over 44mm to the outsides of the pins.

 

[ifrythings]

Subscribing to this one. It would be ideal to be able to use the 6.4 electric clutch with the IDI fan bolted to it. As for mating it to the water pump, what about a threaded adapter that can be installed with a spanner? 1 1/4-16 inside threads, 40mm-2.0 outside threads and a small few holes in the material between to tighten/torque with either a readily available spanner socket, or a standard socket that the installer must cut out to make a pinned spanner. Would be cool if it could be tightened with an AR barrel nut spanner wrench, but those are over 44mm to the outsides of the pins.

Won’t need anyway to tighten the parts separately as when you put the bushing on and then torque the clutch it will tighten both parts together. Now removal mite get interesting as the bushing will be left either in the clutch or on the water pump and may not be removable. I don’t think there will be enough material in the bushing to leave pin holes in it or not, the bushing is going to only be around 1/4” thick.

 

[ifrythings]

About an inch of clearance from the clutch to radiator.

You must be registered for see images attach

Tried the 6.4L fan to see if it would fit and it doesn’t unless you want to move the radiator to the passenger side by about 2-3” and raise it up a few inches.

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

Bolted the idi fan to the 6.4L clutch but forgot to grab a picture, just need to make a bushing now and try it out.

 

[no mufflers]

it seems all that will need to be made is a thread adapter? i have found the stock fan has plenty of cooling power once engaged.

 

[no mufflers]

now how does that clutch operate?

with no power is it just a slight amount of engagement?

could you make it lock in stages or would it be full lock when it has power put to it?

 

[laserjock]

I think they use a pwm signal. Essentially the longer the duty cycle the more torque is applied so with a micro controller, you could in theory turn it on or program different operating curves for it depending on what you were doing. Water temp plus some other parameter. Put a more aggressive profile on it when towing. Add an air temp sensor so that when it’s hot outside, the fan curve is more aggressive. Lots of ways to skin that cat.

 

[crash-harris]

Won’t need anyway to tighten the parts separately as when you put the bushing on and then torque the clutch it will tighten both parts together. Now removal mite get interesting as the bushing will be left either in the clutch or on the water pump and may not be removable. I don’t think there will be enough material in the bushing to leave pin holes in it or not, the bushing is going to only be around 1/4” thick.

Good point. Maybe mill 2 small slots opposite each other on the 40mm side so it could be removed with a simple piece of angle iron of the appropriate thickness cut to fit?

As for a controller, I'd use a simple, universal controller with the probe in a head plug and use it to drive a seperate relay (to avoid burning up the cheap unit, ask me how I know, lol). With e-fans, I like to run that kind of setup with a second relay for manual control (useful for offroad/heavy traffic and temperature controller failure use).

 

[ifrythings]

As for a controller, I'd use a simple, universal controller with the probe in a head plug and use it to drive a seperate relay (to avoid burning up the cheap unit, ask me how I know, lol). With e-fans, I like to run that kind of setup with a second relay for manual control (useful for offroad/heavy traffic and temperature controller failure use).

I wouldn’t recommend a controller like that if your going to put a nice fancy controllable fan clutch on then drive it with an on/off controller.

As laserjock said, these clutches use PWM to drive the clutch, there’s ignition controlled 12v sent to the clutch and the controller supplies the duty cycle to ground for how much lockup you want. The clutch also has a built in tach sensor that can be used for monitoring or part of the feedback control of the controller if you wanted.

So far it’s looking like a custom made controller is going to have to be built as I’m not finding any online that will do more then just on/off control, I’m going to try and build one that takes engine temp, ac pressure, trans temp and pre/post intercooler temp and control the fan probably in a step format as I don’t know how to intergrate PID control into a controller.

 

[no mufflers]

ill get the name of the controller i used with e-fans.