Bast cooling electric fan

[Goldust1971]

Looking for a cooling fan that will work with my car, 1971 duster 408 484 cam headers, 750 Holly, M1 intake, stock heads, 10 five compression, 410 gears, four speed factory 340 radiator. I have one pushing and pulling need better.

 

[Bodyperson]

Looking for a cooling fan that will work with my car, 1971 duster 408 484 cam headers, 750 Holly, M1 intake, stock heads, 10 five compression, 410 gears, four speed factory 340 radiator. I have one pushing and pulling need better.

Man one pushing and one pulling is really plugging that radiator air flow. Id look into getting rid of the pusher at least.

 

[RustyRatRod]

Mopar Performance Viscous Fan Package. Belt driven bowl of badassary.

 

[junkyardhero]

sounds like you're trying to treat the symptom and not the cause.

what's the rest of the cooling system set up?

 

[72bluNblu]

If you're going to run a stand alone electric fan you're going to need a minimum of ~3,000 cfm from the fan. There are really expensive fans out there that only flow half that.

Using a pusher and a puller at the same time is extremely inefficient. You're blocking a ton of free air flow. Above 25mph in the majority of situations you shouldn't need a fan at all, the air coming in through the radiator should be more than enough. The fan should only be necessary at slow speeds and idle.

What was the car doing (or not doing) that led to that set up? When does it run hot? When does it run cool?

And for the record, if it's running at 200° or less, it's not running hot.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Throw it all away. You want a stock-type 7-blade clutch fan and a shroud.

 

[supertruck]

Dual electric fan from the old Ford Contour with a Dakota Digital controller. 72Blunblu recommended it to me and it works flawlessly in my built 340.

 

[RustyRatRod]

sounds like you're trying to treat the symptom and not the cause.

what's the rest of the cooling system set up?

I don't disagree with that. But you get tired of recommending the same CORRECT fixes over and over and over and over and over AGAIN and it falls on deaf ears. So I just throw somethin out there now. My junk doesn't over heat.

 

[junkyardhero]

I don't disagree with that. But you get tired of recommending the same CORRECT fixes over and over and over and over and over AGAIN and it falls on deaf ears. So I just throw somethin out there now. My junk doesn't over heat.

of course not! slants don't make enough power to realize any serious heat!

*ducks*

 

[RustyRatRod]

of course not! slants don't make enough power to realize any serious heat!

*ducks*

muh huh.

 

[harrisonm]

Mopar Performance Viscous Fan Package. Belt driven bowl of badassary.

Agreed. I am not a fan of trying to fix old Mopar cooling problems with electric fans.

Throw it all away. You want a stock-type 7-blade clutch fan and a shroud.

Absolutely 100% Totally agree. I spent a lot of money several years ago chasing the electric fan thing. I eventually went with stock Mopar cooling stuff. It worked 50 years ago, and it still does.

 

[72bluNblu]

Agreed. I am not a fan of trying to fix old Mopar cooling problems with electric fans.

Absolutely 100% Totally agree. I spent a lot of money several years ago chasing the electric fan thing. I eventually went with stock Mopar cooling stuff. It worked 50 years ago, and it still does.

Sure, the original “Mopar cooling stuff” works great for a lot of applications.

Of course they also make millions of cars every year with electric fans. And a lot those cars make more horsepower and go a hell of a lot more miles than the old Mopar stuff did. You just have to put together a system that meets the requirements of your application, and that can be harder than just spending a bunch of money.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Sure, the original “Mopar cooling stuff” works great for a lot of applications.

Of course they also make millions of cars every year with electric fans. And a lot those cars make more horsepower and go a hell of a lot more miles than the old Mopar stuff did. You just have to put together a system that meets the requirements of your application, and that can be harder than just spending a bunch of money.

People have a strange desire to try reinventing the wheel. I'm a 7X Long Hauler on the Power Tour...and have found that the fancier the cooling system looks, the hotter the car usually runs. Three electric fans and a $1200 custom radiator? He's the guy with the hood open 4" and the heater blasting in 90-degree temperatures to not boil over in traffic.

Car manufacturers will happily spend $10+ million on cooling system R&D to eliminate a clutch fan for an extra 0.1MPG (or to save $1 on each car built) in the EPA tests. Most people have neither the money nor the desire to put that level of effort into it.

I wish I remember who said it, but one thing that has served me well with cooling systems: the factory engineers knew what they were doing. Start there.

 

[harrisonm]

You just have to put together a system that meets the requirements of your application, and that can be harder than just spending a bunch of money.

Very true. Unfortunately, who is going to help you put that system together for your car? A lot of people are more eager to sell you a system that will bring them in a nice high profit margin than a system that will really work well. That is what happened to me. I bought a Griffin Aluminum radiator with their custom-made shroud and electric fan system. Guaranteed to handle 600 HP. It didn't. I tried everything, but I wound up trashing everything except the radiator. The radiator itself worked pretty well when paired with a factory fan shroud, fan blade, etc.

 

[72bluNblu]

People have a strange desire to try reinventing the wheel. I'm a 7X Long Hauler on the Power Tour...and have found that the fancier the cooling system looks, the hotter the car usually runs. Three electric fans and a $1200 custom radiator? He's the guy with the hood open 4" and the heater blasting in 90-degree temperatures to not boil over in traffic.

Car manufacturers will happily spend $10+ million on cooling system R&D to eliminate a clutch fan for an extra 0.1MPG (or to save $1 on each car built) in the EPA tests. Most people have neither the money nor the desire to put that level of effort into it.

I wish I remember who said it, but one thing that has served me well with cooling systems: the factory engineers knew what they were doing. Start there.

So the factory engineers that came up with the Ford Contour set up I run don't know what they're doing, but the factory engineers that put a fixed blade fan behind a 19" radiator for a /6 did?

I didn't "reinvent the wheel" putting an OEM Ford electric fan system on my Duster. I found an OEM electric fan that was roughly the right size for my radiator core and met the ballpark CFM requirements for my engine and used a decent fan controller to replace the ECU that originally controlled that fan system. It's harder than just slapping something on there but if you take a few steps to make sure you do it well it's not like it's all that difficult. And at this point there's literally a set of instructions and a parts list on how to do exactly that set up, so you can pick the parts out of the catalog just like buying the OE Mopar stuff.

Just admit you don't like electric fans. That's fine, don't run them on your car. No need to make up BS about them, like anything if you set it up right they work just fine. And if you don't, they won't. Not the fault of the electric fan.

Very true. Unfortunately, who is going to help you put that system together for your car? A lot of people are more eager to sell you a system that will bring them in a nice high profit margin than a system that will really work well. That is what happened to me. I bought a Griffin Aluminum radiator with their custom-made shroud and electric fan system. Guaranteed to handle 600 HP. It didn't. I tried everything, but I wound up trashing everything except the radiator. The radiator itself worked pretty well when paired with a factory fan shroud, fan blade, etc.

Yes, I recall that Griffin set up, their “exact fit” electric fan combination only flows ~1730 CFM. So probably about 1k CFM short of the bare minimum for a stand alone fan on one of these cars, and almost half of the low speed output on the ~$150 Ford Contour fans I run.

It's a shame that a major name like Griffin markets that set up, but it's also not that hard to go online and find that the people that are successfully running electric fans on these cars have fans that pull more like 3k CFM. Blindly buying the expensive set up in the catalog doesn't always work, that's true for a great many things.

 

[RustyRatRod]

So the factory engineers that came up with the Ford Contour set up I run don't know what they're doing, but the factory engineers that put a fixed blade fan behind a 19" radiator for a /6 did?

I didn't "reinvent the wheel" putting an OEM Ford electric fan system on my Duster. I found an OEM electric fan that was roughly the right size for my radiator core and met the ballpark CFM requirements for my engine and used a decent fan controller to replace the ECU that originally controlled that fan system. It's harder than just slapping something on there but if you take a few steps to make sure you do it well it's not like it's all that difficult. And at this point there's literally a set of instructions and a parts list on how to do exactly that set up, so you can pick the parts out of the catalog just like buying the OE Mopar stuff.

Just admit you don't like electric fans. That's fine, don't run them on your car. No need to make up BS about them, like anything if you set it up right they work just fine. And if you don't, they won't. Not the fault of the electric fan.



Yes, I recall that Griffin set up, their “exact fit” electric fan combination only flows ~1730 CFM. So probably about 1k CFM short of the bare minimum for a stand alone fan on one of these cars, and almost half of the low speed output on the ~$150 Ford Contour fans I run.

It's a shame that a major name like Griffin markets that set up, but it's also not that hard to go online and find that the people that are successfully running electric fans on these cars have fans that pull more like 3k CFM. Blindly buying the expensive set up in the catalog doesn't always work, that's true for a great many things.

Them Ford fans just flat out work. Lots of people use them. I'll tell you something else that's popular too. Remember the Volkswagen Sirocco? Lots of drag racers use those radiators and fans because they cool good and move some air. Just cause something ain't Mopar, doesn't mean it won't work. You know me. I'm a huge fan (pun intended) of the Mopar clutch fans, but I'm a bigger fan (another pun) of whatever works!