Author Topic: flex-a-lite #165 black magic fan  (Read 2966 times)

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BigMike

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Re: flex-a-lite #165 black magic fan
« on: Oct 12, 2005, 03:35:13 PM »
Hey Man,

Yes, switching to an Electric fan will free up some HP and improve mileage, but the whole theory of cooling better than a clutch fan is rather relative.

In my opinion, nothing can out due a stock fan at keeping an engine cool. It's larger than the radiator core itself! What, 17 or 18" or so? However, there are exceptions.

For instance, if you are somehow able to maintain a large engine load at both a low rmp and a low vehicle speed, then the stock clutch fan, being RPM dependent, may not have the RPM speed nor the air flow (because maybe you are only going 5 mph) required to keep the engine cool at that load.
In this case, en Electric fan would be better, because it is only dependent on air flow, ie. vehicle speed since it can run at it's full RPM no matter what the engine RPM is.

But, without ample air flow (ie you are only going 5mph) then unless the fan is 16 or 17" or larger, then you might have cooling problems. A 16" fan I'm sure would be ok, but consider my story....


From my experience, I was running a 14" electric fan. The fan could not reach the lower 1/4 of my radiator because it was to small. And last winter, on a night run in the SNOW nonetheless, hammering down the 3RZ working it hard plowing new trails in the snow in the middle of the night, maybe averaging 10mph, my engine would slowly creep up to 3/4 gauge and I would have to stop and let it idle while the e-fan cooled it back down. After I hit 3/4 gauge for the 3rd time, I got mad, pulled over, and put the stock clutch fan back on (as I used to carry the stock fan incase the e-fan died).
Wa-la. Cooling problem solved. In fact, it didn't even get up to normal 40% gauge operating temp. It was down about 25-30% for the rest of that night.

So clearly, 14" e-fan on a V6 3-core radiator is not sufficient to cool a 3RZ when averaging 10mph under a full load in the cold winter with snow. Wow.

But I would like to regain the power that that e-fan freed up, and also get a bit better gas mileage, so when I get some $$ (spring time) I am going to buy a New 16" fan and see how that goes.



Really, h0nke, I don't think cooling will be an issue, but I just wanted to scare ya and make sure that you know this could potentially be a problem.

You know, anoter advantage that many people don't mention or don't realize until the get an e-fan installed, is that its much quiter at the higher RPMs. That's maybe the first thing you'll notice! Much quiter and snappier throttle responce up high :gap:

Take it easy
BigMike
« Last Edit: Oct 12, 2005, 03:39:23 PM by BigMike »
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