I'm considering replacing the stock radiator fan/viscous clutch with a thermostatically-controlled electric fan. Goal is better fuel economy and faster engine & cabin warmup in cold weather, WITHOUT overheating in summer towing. The unit I've seen is a Hayden 16" with adjustable electronic thermostat.

Anyone have experience or thoughts on the expected results?

Vehicle is a new-to-me 97 F-350 crew cab, long-bed, single rear wheel, 4x4, automatic PSD. My towing is a 19', 2000 lb boat, about 50 miles each way on good highways, very small & gentle hills on the Maryland western shore. Don't see myself going over about 24' / 3500 lbs for future boats, but might occasionally head up to an Appalachian lake.

Cutting the cabin warmup time is important because I'm to be paddling whitewater in the spring. Think standing in a muddy parking field in the middle of nowhere after several hours in low-40-degree water, air temperature is low 40s and dropping, and the breeze is picking up. Heat isn't just a comfort, it's a safety issue. More heat quicker = better. Oh, and using less fuel on a 400 mile or longer weekend excursion would be nice, too.

I know this is small potatoes to the folks who pull 5th-wheels halfway across the continent, but I'm looking to set this vehicle up nicely for my uses. Oh, 4" exhaust, aftermarket intake, gauges, and maybe a chip are probably also in the not-too-distant future.

Thanks for any help!

 

I tried a 12" electric on a 91' Explorer and it was not enough for the summer months with the A/C on, I would be hesitant to try one on a PSD.

 

Most folks recommend the Cyclone fan for PSD. I think that a Cyclone is OEM on 6.0 PSD.

It will help with two cooling, not sure about warm-up.

Kind of expensive and the install looks a little complicated.

 

Thanks for the responses, Alan & jschira. The 16" Hayden is rated at ~1950 cfm. Extrapolating from specs for an 11" Hayden, Alan's 12" fan probably pulled about 1200 cfm and still wasn't enough. I'm guessing the Explorer had a 5.0 or 5.7 l gas engine? Looking at the HUGE radiator on the 7.3 PSD and taking an educated guess from Alan's experience, 1950 cfm is probably marginal or worse in summer, AC on, boat on the hitch, and stuck in traffic.

The Cyclone IS expensive, and I've got no idea what it takes to install a magnetic clutch. For less than 1/2 the price of a Cyclone, I can get 2, 16" electric fans & thermostats.

Hmm, the radiator might be big enough to take 2 of those mounted diagonally. One upper right behind the transmission cooler set a bit above thermostat opening temperature (help the tranny as much as possible), the other lower left set at a bit higher temperature. This sounds attractive, but I'll spend some effort to try & find out what cfm the Cyclone is rated at. Then, when it's warmer outside, I'll measure the radiator and start figuring out what will fit.

For the meantime, I can always block off some of the radiator with a piece of cardboard.

Thanks for the input, guys!

 

It's even smaller than that, 4.0 V6.

 

Ouch! Now you've really got me thinking about airflow requirements. If I can't find airflow ratings for the stock viscous clutch fan or the Syclone magnetic clutch setup, I'll do the following comparison:

Airflow cross section for 2 x 19" electric fans x 2/3 derating factor (wild guess that the electric fans move 2/3 the air per cross-section unit) gives equivalent of a single 22" fan. Now how big is that stock fan?

Note from a prior post- I'm also the one with "no heat"; I suspected stuck thermostat and you (and several other people I talked to) concurred that sounded about right. Well, we were all wrong. New thermostat made at most a marginal improvement; I have confirmed that the heater core is HOT when the temperature gauge stabilizes. I'm used to fast-warming, stabilize-in-middle of gauge gas engines, and the PSD's behavior is apparently much different. I'm now pretty sure the problem is that the temperature blend door in the heater plenum is barely opening for heat. Now I just need a warm day to tinker with the linkage- and measure fan and radiator.

 

Diesels are more efficient than gas engines so the cooling requirements are not the same. So while that guy's gas engine may overheat with an electric, you may not have problems with the PSD. But I hear that the auto trannys need lots of cooling, especially if you tow. I have a 6-speed so I don't know about that first hand. Plus I don't tow.

I'm also planning on installing an electric fan for quicker warmup, better highway efficiency, etc. What I'm looking at is the Flex-a-lite 290. It's a dual fan setup that flows 5500 cfm. It is just about the perfect physical size for the radiator, it's not a drop-in fit, but looks like an easy "custom" job... just some simple brackets and such. I've read about a couple people that have installed this fan on their PSD and they say that they get nice frosty A/C at idle, & their auto trannys and engines stay cool.
One thing I like is that it comes with an automatic variable speed controller, so it's not just and "on/off" fan.

Regarding the Cyclone, I've heard some good and bad things about the it, but the two things I don't like are
1) the viscous coupling is gone, so it's and "on-off" fan, and when it's on, it's LOUD. Plus it seems like a clutch that cycles on and off at engine speed is kind of hard on things...
2) apparently many people are having problems with the serpentine belt slipping with the stock fan, and the Cyclone would still have that problem since it uses the same pulley and belt. In fact I've read posts from Cyclone users that still have the "cycling fan" problem.

Anyway if you ever do install an electric it would be cool to hear how it worked out. When I get mine done (may be awhile) I'll post info too.

 

The Flex-a-Lite electric is one I haven't seen. Do you have a URL you could pass on?

The 5500 cfm intrigues me- the dual 19" Hayden idea I concocted would be about 3900 cfm, if it even fits.

I'm loathe to compare gas to diesel cooling requirements without some good data. The 4.3 l gas S-10 I sold when I got the PSD had a MUCH smaller radiator- maybe 1/2 the frontal area or smaller, and it also wasn't as thick. My very rough thought is that the PSD has much more than twice the radiator VOLUME but less than twice the displacement of the gas engine. Seems like the PSD installation has notably MORE cooling per unit displacement than a gas engine- and even more on a per-horsepower basis. Maybe the PSD cooling system is over-engineered- or maybe the diesel DOES need the extra cooling under some circumstances. The latter possibility makes me want to be careful.

 

www.flex-a-lite.com is their site. Click on Automotive, and it will give you the different models numbers.

 

Ford has only sold a little over 1 million 99-02 SuperDuty's. You'd think that Flex-a-lite would have a custom fan available for them.

 

I looked at that link for the electric fans.. it does not recomend using the eletric fans inplace of the conventional ones but as an auxilary one infront fo the rad.. it says not to be used alone with 4 core rads unless I misreadit.

 

My opinion is this. Running at higher speeds there might not be a problem. At lower speeds such as stopped idleing then it may heat up.

Examples to suport my reason are,
1; In my bus I can hear the fan kick in. Most of the time it doesn't even run. It still runs off the engine but has an electric clutch.

2; Another example why an electric fan may be ok to use is, We once had an idler pulling bust and to get it back to the shop we ran a shorter belt in there in such a way I can even describe. But to get the broken bolt out we removed the fan. Then we didn't even bother putting it back in for the 10 mile trip back to the shop. No overheating. That was in the summer with temps around 80 for a high.

I still wouldn't recomend an electric fan for use even if I thought I could get away with it.

 

I would just stay stock,if you are having problems it is probably something to with a blocked rad.etc...We pull a 30 ft fifth wheel and a 19 foot boat behind and have never had problems here in Montana,can't see the concern or expense of electric fan(s) unless something else is wrong or just worrying about nothing.