Rubberduck, Yes I did fab the shroud, but the hardest part in doing it is having a cornice brake. I have one at work so that was easy, but find you one and the shroud will only take a few hours to fabricate. It mounts with the same bolts as the radiator and just bends around it. Worked out perfect, and fit nicely.

Bobcat7 My fans are pulling. From what I read and studied the pulling action with a shroud is the most efficiant. That way you dont lose too much air or energy. The shroud is key, but I have seen some nice set-ups without it that have had no problems with heat eiether. Check out the guy with the Black truck he also put a set on his and runs a very hot motor and says he loves it. All he did was buy some fans at the junkyard.

Mark Kovalsky, I still stand by what I said, but I will say I have not had those situations yet, where I am working that hard and sitting still, but then again I have never had an issue with heat eiether. If you guys would mind stating where some factual information suggest that even though I move more air then what was originally required by Ford is still not good enough. I would like to read it and learn my self. For I have never read anything factual just peoples opinions that they heard from someone who heard from. Not to argue at all with you I would just like to read it and make myself aware should I ever have a problem, which I highly dought, but I am open to the suggestion.

 

Well said Casey. I'm with you, I don't care what everyone else says. I'm going to try the fans and see what happens. I DO pull heavy, and I live in TX where it's 9000 degrees 8 months out of the year. Once I get a few more major projects on the truck ironed out, the fans are going on. That should be about the time the sun decides to park over TX.

 

I swear that I read about the cfm differences a couple weeks ago in the SD forum. However, I didn't bookmark the page and don't feel like doing a search. So I can't back myself up 100%. However, most electric fans out there are only rated for 18-20,000 lbs gross IIRC.

Alright Casey, I guess I'm gonna join the wagon as well. I have some time before the temp gets back up. A few questions:

1) Ballpark price of your setup?

2) What is the best fans to get?

3) Is there a write up out there?

 

What I had is data from when I worked at Ford. The last three years I worked as a transmission cooling engineer. I left the data there when I quit, and even if I still had it I couldn't share it with you. I can tell you that the engine fan moves A LOT more air than any electric fans that will fit under the hood.

I hope they work well for you. I offer my knowledge to help people make their decisions.

 

I know the stocker moves a lot more air, but I can't help not believe the guys running the electrics and having no heating issues.

I can spend $200 on an oem fan clutch, or spend maybe half that with an electric setup.

 

This is what I've been looking for. I don't tow/haul that much weight. I guess I don't understand the conflicting opinions regarding type of fan and CFM. Why does it matter if an engine-driven fan can move 5500 CFM? Why does it matter that an electric fan can move 3000 CFM? If you're using two electric fans, moving 3000 CFM each, simple math (3000 CFM time two fans = 6000 CFM. 6000 > 5500.) tells me I'm covered with the CFM requirement.

I, too, would like to know the answers to these questions. If there are any write-ups available, especially with pictures, I'd like to see them.

I consider myself an intelligent individual. Show me your data. Tell me what you did and why. Show me with pictures if possible, I'm a visual-type of learner. Present what you liked/disliked about the results. Tell me what you do with these modifications, (towing/hauling 40 million pounds in 2000-degree weather, etc), so I can decide if my situation is similar to yours.

If the mod works for you and my situation seems similar, I may give it a try and send my thanks back to you. If your situation isn't similar to mine, I may decide to NOT try it or I may decide to try it with additional/different modifications. That's the whole point of information-transfer.

I like trying new things. If those things improve my performance and mileage, all the better. So...let's have the information-transfer begin.

 

Mark, I definatly don't want to say that your info is not valid. Knowledge that you have is very valuable to all of us. Therefore you are definatly an asset to us. I just want to say that so that you don't think I'm just being a jerk.

For me, I don't give crap about the data. You could tell me it failed 99.9% of the time and I will still try it. Untill I see it fail on my truck, and I have the chance to tweak it and try different setups, I'm not gonna say it does or doesn't work. But I WILL try it. And I believe where I'm at will definatly tell the tale as far as heat. But if it doesn't work, Mark I'll add you to the LONG list of people who have told me "I told you so!" LOL

 

I'd like to know if the CFM comparison is an apples to apples comparison.

The stock fan is 5500 CFM - measured airflow through the radiator with the hood closed.

I'm suspecting the airflow on the electric fans is the free air flow rate. Put some restriction on any fan, and the flow drops a whole lot. I'll bet the airflow of any of the electric units is a LOT less when they are mated to a radiator and the hood is closed.

Why am I so confident on that? The stock fan uses 15 horses. The electric ones don't have any magic that makes them move air with less power. 15 horses at 12V takes over 900A!

 

Thats a good point Joe. I'm sure it's gonna take a little more to suck air through the radiator and an intercooler. Maybe this setup will have to have a cowl induction hood. Give it a little more freedom.

There's about 6 guys on here running electrics with no problems...

 

Mark/Casey, how much weight are you guys talking about??? i don't pull over 5t, normally 1-3t.
i would also have to agree with fishmandotcom, the electric fans rpms are consitant regardless of your vehicle speed, whereas a belt driven fan is dependant on the engine rpms. and cfms are cfms regardless of what fan is producing them. if you know what the max cfms the stock fan produces, then match the electric fan to the same cfms.

 

I'm talking at max GCWR.

As for matching the electric CFMs to what the engine driven fan produces, good luck. See Joe_13894's post above. Does your alternator have an extra 900 amps? Do you have large enough wiring to move 900 amps?

The math doesn't add up on this. I'm happy for those that are happy with their electric fans. I would never do that downgrade on my truck.

 

has anyone heard of doing this and overheating? i'm with RuberDuck... you can do all the math in the world but it will never add up to real world situations. when i hear of someone doing this mod and they have problems then fine, i will agree. but until then i will at least keep an open mind and be willing to try something new.

theres a lot of things in this world that dont make a lot of sense but seem to still work!

one thing to think about... the reason the stock mech fan uses/needs so much horsepower is because it is so far away from the rad. mine measure about 4-5". now an elec fan is slap up against the rad and with a decent shroud could easily pull a good deal of air through even the most restrictive radiators.

also... back to my example of the taurus fan on my bronco trail rig, i do not have a shroud, at all. the fan is bolted to the front pushing air through. this is by NO means the most efficient way and that sucker keeps my engine (with stock radiator) from overheating. in fact it will pull down 15* in a matter of minutes. i dont think i could keep my engine warm if i put a shroud on it and put the fan behind the rad as a puller!

-cutts-

 

I am running dual electric fans on my 97, with a Manual transmission.

I pulled 22000 lbs GCWR across the land fill scale, it was an hour haul 45-55 mph up and down small hills on a windy road with multiple stop signs, I did not have my AE hooked up so I didn't have live oil temps, but I could see my 203 deg thermostat opening and closing the whole time. My fans never came on and the temp probe is set at 160 deg about one third down from the top of the radiator. So absolutely no issues with over heating. the outside temp was around 55-60 degrees. I do not have a shroud and my total install cost was about 80 bucks. I agree with RD and the rest of the guys, give it a shot try it out if you want to I enjoyed the install.

click here for the install write up.

As for the stock fan moving 5500CFM, yeah that may be true and accurate when your truck is running at 3000 rpm, but fan blade velocity has a huge impact on the amount of air moved. Google search the lift equation and you will see that the velocity value is squared when everything else is a one for one exchange. So a decrease from 3000 - 2000 rpm will decrease the CFM exponentially. Fishman is right your electric fans move the same all of the time.

All that said, if you have an auto tranny I would think real hard about putting in electrics if you tow, cause your tranny overheating is a lot more likely than your truck engine.

As for fuel savings if you increase 2 mpg from 18 -20 mpg in 18,000 miles you will have spent have put 1000 gallons in with the stock fan, and 900 with the electrics, at $3 a gallon that is a savings of $.016 per mile. I looked at installing electrics on my excursion, but the cost benefit was not good enough for me.

 

I wanted to make sure I can only say so for myself, my truck and any of the studying I have done.

First off, the heat issue eveyone is worried about is only an issue if you are at slow speeds or stopped. If you are cruising down the road and you cant keep your temperature down then it is probebly not the fans fault, so with the stated back to our discussion.

I have not write-up on mine to show how I did it except for the pic's in my gallery. I can tell you the price was cheaper then I thought it would be.

Cost 2 16" perma-cool fans off ebay rated at 2950 CFM each and only pull 9.8 amps each. http://www.perma-cool.com/Catalog/Cat_page16.html

One fan controler by flex-a-light this was the most expensive but well worth it. The list of options on it are very nice, and no they just dont come and off they are actually progressive the come on at 60% power to begin then they go up to full 100% power if need, and I can set the temperature to what I want. Check it out here http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?autofilter=1&part=FLX%2D31165&N=700 +115&autoview=sku This is where some of you are wrong they dont move the same air all of the time atleast not with this set-up.

The shroud I made myself out of steel with a cornice brake. I did buy an extra switch to turn the fans on and off manually, and a A/C switch that turn them on when you turn the A/C on, but that is all I used.

I also know that many companies offer this step for you to buy such as Flex-a-lite, and they make no restrictions on you towing limit or wieght or how hard you drive. They just want $500 for the same set-up. Look here

http://store.summitracing.com/egnsearch.asp?Ntt=electric+fan+diesel&searchinresu lts=false&Ntk=KeywordSearch&DDS=1&N=700+115

I guess they must think the fans can do it too.

As for my experience with the fans. I have never had a heat issue, but I have also never been towing at such slow speeds that my fans come on and stay on for more than a few minutes. Most the time even towing or hauling I am moving at a rate of speed that the engine cools itself and the fans dont even come on.

Mark why would you tell us something if you couldn't prove it is creditable. I would like to know what info you have but you say you cant share it anyways. It seems kinda fishy. We cant figure it all out with holes in the information.

fishmandotcom you are exaclty right it dosen't matter much if you hood is closed or not. The fan dosen't pull air from the engine bay. It pulls the air though the grill. The closer your fan is to you radiator the more air it pulls through it and the more efficant the system. Mine is about 3/8" off the radiator, and my shroud covers the entire cooling area so the fans are pulling air through all the cooling fins not just the ones in front of the fan. This why the shroud is so important, that is to spread the suction of air across the entire radiator.

 

... What going to 900 amps? I'm confused.

The 16" fans are not even pulling 20 amps.

Nice information Casey. Thanks for listing the parts that you have in your setup. Do you think it would be possible to fit two 18" in there?

In any case, your not supposed to operate loads during prolonged slow speeds. Every operating manaul I've read for tractors all say this. I'm sure our trucks are no different.