Cooling issue on highway

George Jets said
Had to go in and straighten out someone else's electric fan overheating build. That's why they came to me. Had to install the low profile, silent running non-flex manual 18" fan.

Low parasite loss, moves lots of air as it cuts the air not flexing the blades. Runs Quiet, keeping the engine cool without worry even on the hot days.

Simple Fix . . . without all the added electronics and headaches and worries if all the sudden it's going to overheat.

A mechanical fan with no clutch does not have “low parasitic drag”. The higher your RPM, the worse the parasitic loss gets. And at speeds where you don’t even need a fan.

Literally the worst thing about mechanical fans. At low RPM and low speed, when you need airflow from the fan the most, you have the least output from the fan. At high rpm and speed, when your literally don’t need the fan at all, it’s moving the most air. Which is why pretty much every new car runs electric fans.

Bewy said
Elec fans. Sigh. An elec fan that can pull as much air as my 7 blade, 19" mech fan, would need an enormous motor to drive it. Substantial parasitic loss. I do not see anything clever in moving from a reliable, stand alone, mech fan to a complicated elec fan that needs a controller or relay to run it along with heavy wiring.

Yeah? How many cfm does that fan blade move? And at what RPM’s?

Let’s see the specs so I can show you the electric fan that will do it.

RustyRatRod said
I seriously doubt it takes even 2hp to drive a solid blade fan. But you are correct. It does take "something".

I bet you’re wrong. And remember, what it takes at idle and what it takes at 6k rpm are very different.

Bewy said
Yes, lots of modern cars use elec fans. But there is a big difference between these & our old iron monsters. New cars run 195* t/stats or higher. Our old stuff runs best with 180s. So elec fans on old cars would have to pull more heat out....

The factory thermostat on all of these A-body cars was a 195*F. Look it up.

New cars are harder to cool anyway. The engine compartments are tighter, the hp per cubic inch numbers are MUCH higher, and that means more heat with less metal to absorb and diffuse it.