How long have you had your spal and how often does it run. I am just wondering about how long I can expect mine to live. Going down the road mine never comes on. But let me set and idle for a little while, temp gets up to 195 and the fan comes on until it cools back off.

Just wondering.

 

Hi Eddie, Greetings from Tom, Everytime I see my old hood it brings back memories hope you are enjoying it! In regards to the spals, my setup is the same , on at 195 and off at about 180. I would not worry to much about how long they are going to last, they are a very high quality unit made for many hours. Sure do the job in cooling our vettes don't they? Your small block should run cooler than my 454, and my fans only come on in traffic. Have fun!

 

Normal ops.....

 

I just installed mine on a '68. Used a '65 BB DeWitt aluminum radiator and twin 11" SPALs.

They pull more amps then I thought they would. I thought I heard they would pull 12.5amps each. They don't. I have them each on a separate feed and they blew 20 amp fuses. I went to 30 amps and they seem to be holding okay. I'm more worried about pulling too much current through the wiring harness and burning out the alternator then the fan life.

What set-up do you have and how many amps do yours pull?

Also the fans are a lot noiser then I expected. Are yours loud? Wife says I ruined my car and it now sounds like a vacuum cleaner when the fans kick in.

They do pull the air through though! A draw back is my engine compartment is picking up dus very fast from the slanted fans hitting the ground underneath.

I have mine set-up to kick in at 195 and out at 175. I plan to switch to on at 200 and off at 185. When cruising through town or on the highway they don;t come on. Soon as I stop they kick in.

Originally I set them up so 1 would come on at 185 and off at 165 with the second on at 195 and off at 175. THat had one running most of the time. At idle 1 fan would not quite keep up. It would take about 10 minutes or more to slowly creep up to kick the second fan in then quickly cool down and kick it out. I changed that primarily because of noise. I might experiment with kicking 1 on at 195 and off at 175 and the other on at 200 and off at 185. That could increase fan life and minimize current draw.

Comments and advice welcome.

How noisy are your fans?

 

Zwede diagrammed a relay circuit for me that runs both fans at low speed until the second relay kicks in then they both run at high speed.
I haven't tried it yet due to multiple other projects underway but it should deal with some of your issues.

 

I just recently installed them in 72 SB. They kick on at about 195, and it takes less than two minutes to drop to 180. What I don't like is the fan switch and T-Stat trying overcome each other at the 180 level. So to fix that I have an adjustable sender coming. Once the high temp kick on is set, it cools down 6 degrees only. So I'm going to stay with the 195 kick on, then off at 189, which won't overlap the stat.
http://centechwire.com/catalog/cooling/fc2p.shtml

This unit wires into the temperature gauge so things work in unison.