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If you are going to go to electric fans, this is the one you want... Brushless... uses far less current, like half!! so no need for 100 amp alternators...... , constant speed under any condition, computer regulated... thus if you are going done the freeway at 80 and the fan is self turning, the computer will only apply the needed power to get it to the proper RPM.... ... And noise??? I can never hear it turn on or off... and my Spals were as loud as fudge...
new technology... same computer controlled motors as used quad copters and drones... and Half the noise level... Half the current draw, Half the weight....Twice the efficiency.
shouldn't the e fans be mounted more upright like the original? that way the air flows around the motor and out the side vents? facing down the air is forced under the car.
i still comes out of the side vents, i checked with the engine off
shouldn't the e fans be mounted more upright like the original? that way the air flows around the motor and out the side vents? facing down the air is forced under the car.
I have so much under hood pressure that it creates problems at around 120mph... Any air I can move out I'm fine with.. My new l88 hood (not mounted yet or painted) I will put in some air vents...
I live in so cal... 110 in the summer 427 650hp engine... Cooling just fine:-)
Originally Posted by 81corvettevortec
Convinced me. Added to my spring list of mods. The noise is what I hate most about the old clutch fan.
EDIT: man that is awesome pricing for a whole kit with controller! what did you use, a single 14inch?
Yea... Pricing is amazing for what you get....
I have no idea why anyone would want to buy a brushed fan now with what options are avlable in brushless computer controlled units...
And I left out... Nearly zero EMI so if you ever go computer controlled fuel/spark FI... You are much less likely to have problems and interference!
I see brushed fans like flat tappet cams.. Yea they work... Great in the day.. But why would you go flat tappet when you can go full roller???
What good reason is their to stay with brushed?
1. Half the noise
2. Half the current draw
3. Always maintains a constant speed regardless of driving conditions
4. Almost 0 EMI
5. Half the weight
6. Reasonable price
7. No brushed also means they will last longer..
Last edited by pauldana; Feb 13, 2016 at 01:00 AM.
I run the Lincoln MK VIII fan and keeps my iron headed big block at 180-185* during the middle of August in Houston, blasting the AC...
It's a beast!
You will need a good 70 amp continuous use relay, 50 amp circuit breaker and 10 gauge wire to feed it.. You'll also need a 140 amp alternator to run it correctly.
You will gain about 15 rwhp getting rid of the clutch fan and going to an electric (assuming the electric is not running when you dyno).
I have no idea why anyone would want to buy a brushed fan now with what options are avlable in brushless computer controlled units...
And I left out... Nearly zero EFI so if you ever go computer controlled fuel/spark FI... You are much less likely to have problems and interference!
1. Half the noise
2. Half the current draw
3. Always maintains a constant speed regardless of driving conditions
4. Almost 0 EMI
5. Half the weight
6. Reasonable price
7. No brushed also means they will last longer..
Oh great. Now your going to make me buy brushless fans!
Are you looking to cutout the area in the front of the hood? I have a 468 with over 600hp
and the big block hood (69) I was looking at turning the two front fake grills functional
I have so much under hood pressure that it creates problems at around 120mph... Any air I can move out I'm fine with.. My new l88 hood (not mounted yet or painted) I will put in some air vents...
I live in so cal... 110 in the summer 427 650hp engine... Cooling just fine:-)
Yea... Pricing is amazing for what you get....
I have no idea why anyone would want to buy a brushed fan now with what options are avlable in brushless computer controlled units...
And I left out... Nearly zero EFI so if you ever go computer controlled fuel/spark FI... You are much less likely to have problems and interference!
I see brushed fans like flat tappet cams.. Yea they work... Great in the day.. But why would you go flat tappet when you can go full roller???
What good reason is their to stay with brushed?
1. Half the noise
2. Half the current draw
3. Always maintains a constant speed regardless of driving conditions
4. Almost 0 EMI
5. Half the weight
6. Reasonable price
7. No brushed also means they will last longer..
well i spend much time researching e-fans this is the first i heard about brushless,otheriwse i would have at the very least considered it as an option, too late now
is this the technology of supercars?
anyhow, mundane as mine is, it's fine for my cruising chores
well i spend much time researching e-fans this is the first i heard about brushless,otheriwse i would have at the very least considered it as an option, too late now
is this the technology of supercars?
anyhow, mundane as mine is, it's fine for my cruising chores
I tried a 17" Spal Brushless fan in a custom sheetmetal shroud, ($700 worth) on my C5Z, And I had nothing but problems with it. It did not cool as well as my regular dual 11" spals (brush style). And the logic that is built into the fan and it's temperature controls was very quirky... The fan wouldn't come on when it needed to, wouldn't come on until the actual temp was back below activation temp etc...
I sent it back, went back to my dual spals and controlled off the ECU and no more issues.
I think there is benefit to the Brushless technology but not until Spal gets a better handle on the logic/control of the fans...
Meanwhile, an 18 year old Lincoln MKVIII fan will blow the doors off of any other fan for cooling, they run forever and you can get them for $100, plus about $75 for good relays/wiring. Throw it on and forget it..
Are you looking to cutout the area in the front of the hood? I have a 468 with over 600hp
and the big block hood (69) I was looking at turning the two front fake grills functional
Un-shroud the frontal air flow by repositioning license plate bracket and moving it lower (or dispensing with it completely) to allow additional frontal cooling area. All this talk about electric fans etc if fine if you really 'want' a 'modern' type set-up but reality is that by using a fresh water pump, making sure that all internal water passages are cleaned out and one of Mr DeWitt's wonderful alloy creations is all you really need. Do a double check of fillet seals in front bulkhead. Just need to re-assure yourself that ALL cooling air ONLY passes through front end AND radiator AND its shroud. I took the time to additionally seal shroud to the rear of the radiator and front bulkhead with caulking compound so cooling air could ONLY pass through radiator.
Long long ago I used to live in a land far far away....Maryland outside DC, and so my '72 350 vette grew a '89 F body radiator, and electric fan mounted in OEM shroud, which worked ok for the most part, but not ideal, I changed over to serp drive and 108 amp alt very early on....and Md. required a front plate because PC......
When moving here almost 19 years ago, I just mounted a C4 license plate piece to the holder and not thought much of it....not realizing the plate holder came off and I had a center section to match the outer sections.....and when I made THAT discovery the summer traffic overheating was cured.....but till not happy with the clearance .....so went Dual Spals and ran the wire directly off the alt, forward to the control relay that is actuated by the FI computer and of course they cool immediately, shade can be 100f, figger that black tarmac, and in traffic easy 130f ambient.....the wires are ~8 ga both ground and power off the alternator.....run through a ~2" fuse link near the alt.....yeh, they loud, who cares?? it's a convertible.....
I run the Lincoln MK VIII fan and keeps my iron headed big block at 180-185* during the middle of August in Houston, blasting the AC...
It's a beast!
You will need a good 70 amp continuous use relay, 50 amp circuit breaker and 10 gauge wire to feed it.. You'll also need a 140 amp alternator to run it correctly.
You will gain about 15 rwhp getting rid of the clutch fan and going to an electric (assuming the electric is not running when you dyno).
In what ways is the best please explain to me because I just don't see it other than maybe it's cheaper
Originally Posted by Gordonm
Oh great. Now your going to make me buy brushless fans!
It's an awesome fan you won't regret it .... Mine is a single 17"
Originally Posted by colesweat
Are you looking to cutout the area in the front of the hood? I have a 468 with over 600hp
and the big block hood (69) I was looking at turning the two front fake grills functional
Yes some venting on top that should help with the high mph
Originally Posted by ajrothm
I tried a 17" Spal Brushless fan in a custom sheetmetal shroud, ($700 worth) ....
I think there is benefit to the Brushless technology but not until Spal gets a better handle on the logic/control of the......
Maybe Spal doesn't have it together but Delta PAG does. AND at $385 for compleat computer controlled brushless fan.. And if you don't use there ecu like I do not, as my EFI turns it on and off.. Now its like $225...
O! And by the way... MADE IN THE USA!!!
Last edited by pauldana; Feb 13, 2016 at 01:11 PM.
I see a lot of misconception about the OEM ford fans on this forum so I'd like to take a moment to clarify some points. The Taurus fan is an OK fan but it's not the OEM fan of choice for hot rodders. A Taurus fan moves about 2500 cfm at full tilt, its only a single speed fan as well (iirc the plug port is a standard 3 port plug but only has 2 contacts). The be all end all of electric fans is the Mark VIII (mark 8 yrs 94-97). At low speed it flows around 2500cfm and high its over 4000cfm. In addition to the 2 speeds the blades are different. The Taurus uses 7 "C" or sickle shaped blades, whereas the Mark VIII uses 9 "S" shaped blades. (see below). Lastly, the Mark VIII fan (again 94-97) is 18" and the Taurus is 16". There are variations of the fans on different model years on both the Mark viii and Taurus. However the ones not discussed here are used but they are not the premium pieces (ie: 6 blade, 8 blade, single speed Mark VIII, etc.). Note* the inferior Taurus units are the same as the Mustang units so you will see Taurus and Mustang as interchangeable terms generally due to ignorance and not because they are talking about the same piece. [please scroll down to read further]
Mark VIII Taurus
Now lets talk about electrical draw: Once the fan gets rolling the drain is minimal (20-25 amp?), and an 86 amp alternator is sufficient so long as you're not burdening it with other electronics (sound system etc). The draw to be concerned about is the first 5 seconds of run up time or the 1 or so second ramp up between low and high speed. Now I'm going off memory here but from what I recall if you turn the fan from off to high the amp pull is a exponentially diminishing ~140amp for that 5 seconds. This is a fire concern. Not immediate but over time it can cause the wire to degrade. Now power wise this is fine to power off of battery, but in the C3 the battery location makes this a bit tricky because of additional load due to wire length. In my Malibu the wire runs through a 70 amp relay and about 1' of 8 gauge wire direct to the battery which gives me a satisfactory margin of safety vs fire. To run from the battery up to the radiator you'll probably want to run a 4 gauge battery wire to a distribution block up under the hood and then take off with your 8 gauge from there.
Availability and price: These Mark VIII fans can be found in a bone yard for about $50-75 or on ebay ~$150-250. (be careful that you identify the fan properly, because nearly all the fans advertised as Mark VIII are actually Taurus fans. People assume because the electrical connector can fit into either that they are the same fan.
My experience: I run one of these Mark VIII units on my Malibu, and my friend runs a Taurus on his Malibu. At low speed the fans are identical but the high speed is starkly different. My Malibu rarely gets over 175~180 even in the hot summer months in traffic. My friends Malibu is usually in the ~200-205 range during the same season. (FYI the radiator core size on my g-body Malibu is identical to the C3, just vertical not at an angle)
Why the difference? Ford made the Taurus with the single speed fan because it had a separate fan for the AC condenser. The Mark VIII just used the main fan unit for both engine cooling and ac condenser heat exchange; hence the 2 speeds.
I hope this helps clear things up.
Ok...I am going to address some mis-conceptions in your reply about Mark VIII fans. First of all, your image of a Mark VIII is not correct-you show an RF24 T-Bird fan as evidenced by the black plug in-Mark VIII fans have a white plug. Mark VIII fans used a Ford style variable step controller allowing up to 4 speeds based on engine temp, TPS position, AC useage and ambient air charge temp data. The fan by itself is NOT 2-speed-there is a shunt joining both primary and secondary windings of the motor. The RF24 T-Bird looks identical to a Mark VIII (which you have pictured) and it IS a 2-speed motor.
As for why Ford chose that style of fan, I've discussed this very issue with one of the internal engineers at Siemens Group Canada who built the original motors for OEM Ford applications and Ford wanted a fan motor robust enough to quote "run for 24 hours per day, seven days a week for 10 years if need be" because those motors will bebused in service duty police package Crown Vic's and higher end luxury models (Mark VIII).
Ford owns the fan blade/shroud patent design, Siemens holds the fan motor patent design. Now that has expired however so that's why you see Chinese Dorman copycats on the market. I sold these fans in kits when they were available from the dealer and even an engineer @ Spal (Mark K) said their controller (all 3 defunct versions of it) could not reliably run the Mark VIII fan because it was the most powerful fan they've ever bench tested for airflow and current draw.
I designed my own 3-speed conversion harnesses for it without issue but beyond that the only other Variable speed controller I've seen handle it would be the Delta Current Controller from DC Controls.
I agree its the most powerful fan you are going to find but since they are obsolete from Ford now, and I don't trust the offshore copycat fans, I'd toss my vote to the 2010-up Mustang GT fans now....I've been building those kits for awhile now and they are an equal to the Mark VIII in terms of performance.
For the record, current draw on the Mark VIII fan with my harness is on average 11, 19 and 24 amps for low, medium and high speed. There are ways to wire a big ole fan without worrying about insane inrush current or voltage spiking....butnusing just a single relay to trigger them on/off, yeah....that will cause some issues for you.
Last edited by gmachinz; Feb 14, 2016 at 12:32 PM.
I would no do the swap without switching to a newer style alternator. The high current 10SI based alternators are just forcing a higher current into a design never intended for it. The result is poor low speed/idling current output. For this reason. I would only use a CS130, CS144 or AD244 alternator.
Using a higher current alternator then means the charging wiring needs to be upgraded. A heavier wire between the alternator and the solenoid is required. You may want a junction block under the hood to connect other accessories to.
I read cases of people recommending to run the wires right to the battery. It makes absolutely no sense to run a 6 gauge charging wire to the battery when there is a 1 gauge wire between the solenoid and the battery. Use it and save yourself some wire. Same with running the fans. It makes no sense to run a 10 gauge wire right to the battery when there is a hugely oversized wire compared to the current the fans need already run to the solenoid. Just take advantage of the wire from the battery to the solenoid that already exists.
Originally Posted by 7T1vette
Whether you get that work directly from the rotating engine or from the electrical power supplied by the alternator means NOTHING to the engine...it still requires the same loss of horsepower to move that air.
This is 100% wrong.
The mechanical fan is required to operate from 600rpm to 6000rpm and move air at all those speeds. So, the whole design is a compromise, both the fan blade and clutch. The electric fan is designed to operate at a single speed and the efficiency of the design can be optimized at that speed.
See above posts, the MarkVIII, which moves a huge amount of air, is listed to draw 24A at high speed, which is about 0.45HP of electrical load. Assuming the alternator is about 75% efficient, this is 0.6HP.
The first link is great, it shows the same 0.6hp used by the electric fan in their tests. It also shows you can gain about 18hp with electric fans vs a heavy duty thermal clutch fan.
The second link showed about 19hp loss for the thermal clutch fan, assuming it wasn't engaged. The second link gives some testing of the effect of the inertia of the mechanical fan. It is also interesting to note that he had issues with the thermal clutch locking up at high rpm.
I would no do the swap without switching to a newer style alternator. The high current 10SI based alternators are just forcing a higher current into a design never intended for it. The result is poor low speed/idling current output. For this reason. I would only use a CS130, CS144 or AD244 alternator.
Using a higher current alternator then means the charging wiring needs to be upgraded. A heavier wire between the alternator and the solenoid is required. You may want a junction block under the hood to connect other accessories to.
I read cases of people recommending to run the wires right to the battery. It makes absolutely no sense to run a 6 gauge charging wire to the battery when there is a 1 gauge wire between the solenoid and the battery. Use it and save yourself some wire. Same with running the fans. It makes no sense to run a 10 gauge wire right to the battery when there is a hugely oversized wire compared to the current the fans need already run to the solenoid. Just take advantage of the wire from the battery to the solenoid that already exists.
This is 100% wrong.
The mechanical fan is required to operate from 600rpm to 6000rpm and move air at all those speeds. So, the whole design is a compromise, both the fan blade and clutch. The electric fan is designed to operate at a single speed and the efficiency of the design can be optimized at that speed.
See above posts, the MarkVIII, which moves a huge amount of air, is listed to draw 24A at high speed, which is about 0.45HP of electrical load. Assuming the alternator is about 75% efficient, this is 0.6HP.
The first link is great, it shows the same 0.6hp used by the electric fan in their tests. It also shows you can gain about 18hp with electric fans vs a heavy duty thermal clutch fan.
The second link showed about 19hp loss for the thermal clutch fan, assuming it wasn't engaged. The second link gives some testing of the effect of the inertia of the mechanical fan. It is also interesting to note that he had issues with the thermal clutch locking up at high rpm.
Now, of course this is dealing with single dual speed fans-there are plenty of OEM dual fan assemblies that are more than adequate to do the job as well. There are options available that allow you to convert ANY fan to multi-speed-no reason to think you HAVE to only have 1 speed and feed it with a single big 70A+ relay. I vary the resistance to ground for up to 4 speeds and this is a mechanical operation for ease of replacement parts.
I'm not sold on the brush less fans yet-not fully embraced by the OEM's yet so I'll sit on the fence awhile longer with those fans.
Not embraced by the OEM's? That's a silly argument. Car companies use the cheapest technology that will work for the purpose. Not the best. Brushless fans are used by higher end cars. BMW for example uses them.
Does anyone have experience with electric fan(s) and leaving the stock shroud in place?
I had an electric fan on mine but went back to stock because the fan mounted on the tilted radiator would create a minor dust storm under the car, messing up my clean and shiny engine bay (not to mention annoying people walking near by).
Does anyone have experience with electric fan(s) and leaving the stock shroud in place?
I had an electric fan on mine but went back to stock because the fan mounted on the tilted radiator would create a minor dust storm under the car, messing up my clean and shiny engine bay (not to mention annoying people walking near by).
I have both the stock fan and an electric fan with a 180 F on/off temperature. Unless you sit for a long time in a pile of bone dry dirt you will not have any problem. The air flow goes into the engine, which slows down the velocity to the point that it does not make a big dust cloud. This isn't like some big leaf blower.
