Electric fan help
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Laughing Gas
Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 769
Likes: 3
Electric fan help
I am thinking about changing my 16 in fan on the motor to electric fan on the radiator. (my current fan has no shroud and is about 2 in from the radiator) I am wondering if 2 10 in electric fans (they are rated at 1570 CFM each) pulling air through the radiator would cool the engine enough or is the regular fan better? Any help appreciated.
Junior User
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 70
Likes: 0
I've been researching this a little lately, no aftermarket fan is going to be as durable or move as much air as some of the stock units you can pick up at the junkyard
The Taurus units are great, but the absolute gold-standard right now seems to be the '93 to '98 Mark VIII unit. If you're not using a fancy controller your electrical system has to be ready for 100 amp spikes on startup and 35 amp draw when it runs but it moves one *heck* of a lot of air
The Taurus units are great, but the absolute gold-standard right now seems to be the '93 to '98 Mark VIII unit. If you're not using a fancy controller your electrical system has to be ready for 100 amp spikes on startup and 35 amp draw when it runs but it moves one *heck* of a lot of air
MSEE
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 10,386
Likes: 35
From: Austin, TX
I think 10" would be a little small, considering that the radiator core on that truck is about 19 inches tall, so effectively you're leaving half of the radiator without air flow, even though you are getting near-complete horizontal coverage. It may heat up a little at idle, but since you don't have a trans. cooler you may be OK. I'm in the proces of swapping one into my '79; I'm using a 16" fan. The stock fan on my truck was about 17". The Taurus fans are famous but I don't have much room to work with in my setup so I had to go with a farily thin (and unfortunately lower CFM) fan.
Postmaster
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 4,517
Likes: 3
From: SE Wyoming
I've never had good luck with the 3.8L fans and had no trouble with derale 16" fans. The only thing you want to pay attention to is getting as much coverage of the radiator as possible. I also like dual fans in case one fails you still have some cooling capability. If you can't run 2 fans then obviously go as big as possible with one or buy a smaller one with a shroud built in to suck air through the whole radiator.
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Posting Guru
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 1,940
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I have one taurus fan cooling my 5.4l and it does an excellent job....temps hold steady and that is on the low speed. I adapted the fan to my stock shroud which helps pull air across the whole rad....very important.
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Hotshot
Joined: Oct 2002
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From: The Big, Oregon
Get a factory electric fan or a good aftermarket one. Don't cheap out. I got my Galaxie cheap because someone put an electric fan in, then proceeded to overheat it until the head gasket blew and the valves sunk in the heads. This was on an engine with less than 5k on it, and the electric fan system was fairly new.
I would go with a Be Cool or Flex-A-Lite system, but that puts you in the $500-$800 range. The Explorer, Expedition, Crown Vic, Taurus, later Thunderbird V8, and most Lincoln cars have a fan that can be adapted to the older truck radiators.
I would use a non-adjustable controller like Summit SUM-890015 - Summit Electric Fan Thermostat Kits - summitracing.com
I would go with a Be Cool or Flex-A-Lite system, but that puts you in the $500-$800 range. The Explorer, Expedition, Crown Vic, Taurus, later Thunderbird V8, and most Lincoln cars have a fan that can be adapted to the older truck radiators.
I would use a non-adjustable controller like Summit SUM-890015 - Summit Electric Fan Thermostat Kits - summitracing.com