I have a satisfactory radiator and the stock metal fan and fan shroud on my '73 F250. It does fine on the freeway but in stop and go the temps start climbing to past 210F. It's not horrible but I want lower temps, especially since wifey also drives and the truck needs to be bulletproof on hot days & heavy traffic.

What would you all recommend? I see a very highly rated B&M oil cooler for like $130 at Summit. Meanwhile folks also recommend the 'modern' Ford (Taurus, Lincoln) electric fan upgrade.

Cost isn't as much of a factor vs. labor/time and of course performance. If you had to choose between one or the other which would you do? This is a brand new motor and I want to treat 'er right.

 

I personally would go to an electric fan. It's going to kick on and off when need be. It's also one less thing for the engine to drive so a slight improvement on gas mileage and power. But then the matter of having enough juice to feed it. Are you running a stock alternator? I'm not sure off hand how much an electric fan draws. You more than likely will need to upgrade if you go this route. 3G upgrade is easily available. Or a performance replacement alternator. I have a 140 amp "one wire" from summit racing. I'm very pleased with it. Powers my 1,800 watt amp with ease. I plan on going to an electric fan soon.

 

Currently running a 100 amp alternator, btw.

 

Don't quote me on this but I wanna say about 30 amps per fan is what they pull. Now of course that depends on what fan you use so that's just a rough estimate. Eventually somebody with far more knowledge will come and put me in my place lol 100 amps should be good enough if you don't have other accessories and only plan on running a single fan setup. Dual fan may be different.

 

Hi I live in Phoenix and have AC in my truck and run in Lincoln fan. I built a whole fan shroud for it to mount to the radiator. My temperatures sitting in traffic never go above 190 degrees and stay at 180 while driving. Before I made the full fan shroud I had it just mounted to the radiator with some straps and was not pulling air through approximately 4 inches of the core with temperatures above 195 sitting in traffic.

I did look into doing an oil cooler and couldn't find a good location to mount one.

One thing you can look at is maybe upgrading your fan to one that has a clutch with more aggressive blades. When I was running my 360 I did that and work pretty good. You can find one at the Boneyard for pretty cheap.

 

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Good looking fabrication. Did this fan have a two speed option and if so did you preserve it? Also, do you turn it on manually or have it set based on a controller or thermal switch? Lastly, do you know how many amps does this pull? (per Vickadelphia's comment)

 

There are links to articles in the Tech Info Compilation covering the amperage draw... it's a large spike. Articles on various set ups too.

I recall there is a vendor out there that has a "soft start" feature that gradually applies voltage to avoid the instantaneous amperage draw. Derale? Consider going with a PWM controller.. the fan spins faster based on the temperature that is sensed.

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I'd do the electric fan upgrade. My set up is a Lincoln Mark VIII fan, Volvo relays, and speed temps (Hi/Lo) programmed through an E-Street EFI.

Just a note, according to what I have read and researched, a full coverage fan shroud is not necessary if the shroud covers at least 80 percent of the radiator area. However, full coverage is good in maximizing cooling efficiency... just know that ya don't gotta bust your ***** to do it.

 

I don't think the engine oil cooler will help much with your problem. A stronger fan would. That said, 210 or even 220 sitting in traffic does not sound bad to me as long as it cools off on a roll.

 

Good looking fabrication. Did this fan have a two speed option and if so did you preserve it? Also, do you turn it on manually or have it set based on a controller or thermal switch? Lastly, do you know how many amps does this pull? (per Vickadelphia's comment)[/QUOTE]


Thanks,

It is a 2 speed fan and I'm using a 93-97 Volvo 850 relay part number 1398845 it is a nice heavy duty relay that will hold the power surge of the start up of the fan and is made for two speed fans and there inexpensive. I wired the low speed to come on when I start the truck and the high speed to come on when the AC compressor comes on.

If you look here it talks about the AMP pulled. Taurus Mark VIII Fan Information

If you look under the Technical Info Hyperlink on the front page it has a lot of information on this subject. You can also google Mark VIII vovlo fan relay and there are diagrams.

Anything else let me know

 

Great info! Thanks to all who replied to the thread. I do appreciate it and this forum.