a buddy of mine told me he took the stock fan off and put a electric fan on a v-10. he said this is one of the best upgrades you can do to a v-10 for hp. has someone tryed this or think it would make good hp for the money?

 

We've talked about this before, do a forum search. Less rotating mass cuts down parasitic loss resulting in more power/torque/mileage. All newer Crown Vics/Grand Marquis have them stock for mileage purposes.

 

If I had a good step by step guide I would love to do it.

 

If you want an easy install, use Painless wiring's Fan-Thom II electric fan relay kit. I used it on a prior car. The location of the wires is imprinted on the sleeving throughout the length of the wire. One wire went to ground, one to a fuse (included in kit), one to a power source that hot when the ignition is on, and one to a temperature sensor (also included in kit). It was a really easy install. I put the temperature sensor onto a plugged off hole in my thermostat housing.

 

How well will the fan work if you where pulling a trailer? Will it keep the engine cool enough?

 

The fan turns on at certain temps depending on what thermostat you have. The one I ran was on at 200 degrees, off at 185 degrees. As for towing, flex-a-lite makes dual electric fan kits for trucks that deliver 5500 cfm of air. No flex fan can touch that. Not only that, but your truck will be working less because it doesn't have to sling around all that dead weight of the fan.

 

I have been looking @ the flex fan. I was not sure how it would do when towing a trailer. The question is that how many amps will a dual fan pull. (I think it requires 35 amps) Does anyone know how many amp the F250 pulls in full operation. I have not put a meter on it yet, but when I get time I will. Do you have to change out the fan pully? I image you do not have to.

 

I don't know, but if you get the painless wiring kit, it comes with a relay to lessen the load on the electrical circuit. Check out:

http://www.painlesswiring.com/

Look under their tech talk section for more info on relays and check out their web catalog/relay link for the electric fan fan-thom kit.

 

Thanks 73Fastbackv10.

 

The relay will not lessen the load on the vehicle alternator and charging system. The painless wiring or any other method of providing power to a High Amp device would use a relay to ensure High amperage draw can be supplied to a device with out subjecting the current to run too far on too thin a wire and burn the wire or switches.

With a realy (electric switch) in the circuit we can direct low amp control by a manual switch or automatic switch (thermostat in this case) and that low volt or low amp circuit can control the high volt or high Amp power to the motor or device.

One of the reasons for using a relay is that all wire has resistance to current flow. The longer the wire is, or the thinner the wire is, the more resistance there is. That reduces the voltage and increases heat. So what we need is a short heavy gauge wire from the voltage/current source (battery) to the device (fan motor) so that max voltage and amperage can be sent. From that relay we can use very thin and long control wire because the relay selonoid does not require a lot of juice to energize.

The V10 Ford alternator is maxed out at 130 amps @ 80F @ 6000 alternator RPM. The alternator pully is a 2.71:1 ratio so max volts and amps are achieved at 2200-2500 engine RPM. On the web site I list later in this post are the 130Amp alternator power curves. What you need to know is that at 100F and less than 6000 rpm there is NOT 130A of juice available, in fact it is safe to say that on a hot day at engine idle there is not much extra juice at all.

There must be some head room on the SuperDuty trucks amperage wise but you need to be carefull with all you add to the systems total load. The Ford 130 Amp alternator very rarely operates in a 80F environment. As heat increases alternator effeciency decreases. I also understand that these alternators are a poor design and do not handle high loads and heat very well. I have not had a problem with any of mine, but there are plenty of other folks posting on these sites that do have fried alt problems, mostly traced to the poorly designed heat sink for the diode rectifier bridge.

If you add in electric fan/s rated at 35 Amps they will draw 45-60A at start.

If you have a 200W or larger Stereo/Mono power amplifier it will draw between 22 to 35 amps depending if class AB or D method of drive.

If you have added fog and reverse flood lights they will eat many Amps when on.

So on and so forth. I have searched extensivly for definitive info about normal "full on" system load from the factory and I can't find the info I need from here: https://www.fleet.ford.com/truckbbas/

I always add lights, stereo, amplifiers, Ham Radio gear and linier power amplifiers. Until I can determin total load I am staying away from the electric fan because the factory one works fine and I doubt that $300+ will ever pay for it self in any tangible way.

I know it has been debated extensivly but I will say it again just for sake of argument.

There is no free lunch. Removing the mechanical parisitic drag of the belt driven fan to save a few HP requires your to spend HP to drive the electric fan. No, I do not know what the delta is. (delta= is the difference between Watts of energy used to lower water temp via belt or electric fan) But I do know that if it costs 10 HP to spin the belt fan then it MUST require some HP to spin the alternator to feed the Electric fan.

No the battery is not some big giant resivoir of juice that getts topped off every now and then. If a 10 Amp draw of power is sensed at the battery the same demand is on the alternator. If a 200 amp draw is on the battery the alternator cannot supply that much. The alt will produce as much as it can until it over heats and dies or the load reduces. Here is another example to help paint a picture of how the charging system works: The starting cycle can draw over 800Amps! This high amp draw is momentary and once the motor starts, that very high load is reduced, then the alternator can replenish the battery energy at a slower pace over time.

 

Fredvon4 thanks

That is what conclusion I more than likely would have come up with once I have seen the amp draw of the F250 @ idle. I think I am going to stay away from the elet. fan, but you got to look into alternatives & way out the good & bad.

I check the amp draw @ idle simply because that is my lowest point. That right there will tell you a lot.

 

j4rdemotox

Just so I am fair, I know a lot of people who successfully use the twin fan set up and don't have any serious issues with it other than they claim it seems louder than the factory fan.

I tow very heavy in very hot conditions severaly times a year accross Texas on I 10 and into Arizona. I use external Water and Trans temp gauges and other than cooling issues with the tranny, I never saw a water temp rise that concerned me. Once I installed an additional Hayden aux tranny cooler to the 4R100 those temps stayed in the "zone" also.

My gut for the 2001 and newer SuperDuty series is that they finally got the radiator configured and sized big enough to handle heavy towing. There were some serious issues in prior years.

If the electric fan is part of an all out attempt to squeeze every ounce of HP and torque out of her for go fast reasons I can see getting one. But for every day driving and heavy towing, I think the money can be spent better on aux cooler and real gauges.

My .02

 

Let me clarify- I think it is a nice upgrade. The only reason I am going to stay away from it for know is because of the price. I just like to look into different alternatives. If I found one for a good price I probably would put one on.

 

Stay away from flex fans on a heavy vehicle. A flex fan flexes at higher RPM's to reduce drag and free up a bit of horsepower. Now imagine climbing a long grade with a load and crusing in 2nd gear at 4000 RPM. That flex fan isn't doing anything to cool your engine at that RPM, just when it needs cooling most.

I've been tempted by the twin electric setup, but I think the best solution is an electric clutch on the stock fan. I have a link somewhere to a company that makes a kit to replace the factory fan clutch with an AC style electric clutch. No increased load on the electric system, and retains factory cooling capacity when needed.

Eric

 

when you do look at those clutch fanshere is something to consider. on my tractor trailer our clutch fans operate on air instead of electric cuurent. the style that was on the truck when i bought would not kick on when there was a problem withit in any way shape or form, changed to one that the air pressure shut it off. So what i am saying is, look and see how that clutch is operated, does the intrduction of power to the clutch shut the fan off or turn it on, i would prefer the sooner. meaning if there is any power or clutch failure the fan remains on, better to have more cooling than none. IMHO