hello I have a 1993 f250 and I was thinking of converting it to electric fans. I have an escort and took the fan out. I think that it is a 14" fan. People supposedly like using this fan for sand rails and I was wondering if it would work on my radiator or should I buy another fan size.

 

That is not enough CFM's for a diesel engine.

I did the same thing to my 86 6.9, but I used 2 of the 18" fans from Advance Auto.
They cost about 90 dollars and it did make the fuel mileage increase about 1 MPG.
But I burnt up a fan every year so the fuel savings went into the cash register at Advance Auto. Then one day my 10 year old son turned the AC on without turning a fan on and I also lost about a pound of R 12 through the high pressure fuse on the AC pump. After two years I gave up and put the stock fan back on.

NAPA has a fan that has the required CFM's and is rated for constant duty, but it was a little over 300 dollars. After I burnt up about 4 fans from Advance I was a little leary of paying 300 for 1 fan. (A couple of the fans I got at Advance were covered under warranty, the blades broke off.)

It was kinda nice in the winter to just leave the fan off, the engine warmed up a lot faster. In fat I did not need the fan in the winter unless I was plowing snow or hauling a heavy load. I did not need it in the summer if I was driving empty at about 25+ MPH with an empty truck. But when I was hauling a heavy load I needed both of them.

 

There are hundreds of electric fan stories out there, the bottom line is none can do what the clutch fan does on abad day. Don't waste your money or gamble with your engine. If you need more fan cooling for towing there are clutch fans available that come on at a lower temp.

 

Are there any plastic variants for the clutch fan?

I off road, and if I go through water it an create a big disaster-the fan propels itself through the water and into the radiator block. One person's didnt stop until it had barely scratched into the AC rad. Im a little weary now...

Could I possible adapt a newer PS fan?

 

What I wish I could find is a fan clutch that worked like the Horton fan clutch on a big rig. In the rigs I drove back in the days of hauling meat we had switches on the dash that you flipped down for automatic operation. You flipped it to the center position for manual off. And then if you flipped it up it was manual on.
The clutch removed all fan drag from the engine when it was off. If you were sitting still the fan would stop rotating when it was turned off with the engine running.

I had no trouble with overheating when I used the electric fans and I did notice a fuel mileage and power gain. But the auxiliary fan I used was not able to last long enough to reap financial benefit from it. In fact it was costing me money and the power gain alone was not worth the cost to me.
I also did like the fact that the engine was even quieter at high RPM's when the fan was off.

RawPower, I do not think the plastic fan will gain you anything for protection for your radiator. If it is rotating the slope of the blades will pull it into the radiator. Your only protection would be if the fan was not rotating when it went into the water. It does make a very large boat propeller when it is spinning. The fact that the viscous fan clutch threads onto the water pump shaft does not leave you any option for for mounting another type of fan that I have found so far except for the electric ones. But I am still looking.

When you say newer Power Stroke fan, how new are you talking? Do they have something that I am not aware of? I have not looked at anything newer than like a 95 Power Stroke.

 

99+. They have a plastic fan with a circular guard all the way around it, witht eh fan set back 1/5" into the "shroud". The "shroud" is actually part of the fan, to increase protection. It also has a traditional rad mounted shroud to help out as well. I was hoping that I could mount this and then fab some sort of ring that would go around the lip of the fan so if it were to free it would stay there, no go into the rad.