Electric fan install help.

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Yes, that's the reproduction Dorman version. 620-104. Same one that's in my car.
 
TXDart said:
Both mine and Knuckleduster came out 2000 something mercury cougars v6 cars with harnesses and resistors.
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Yup, same set up. The dual fan set up only came on the V6 cars.

Ford Contour (1995 - 2000 )
Mercury Cougar (1999 - 2002)
Mercury Mystique (1995 - 2000 )

I used the Dorman version of the fans on my car, but I pulled the harness, connectors and resistors from the yard. Heavy gauge wire and good connectors are needed for the fans. The OE connectors for the fans by themselves are like $12 a piece and there's 3, one for each fan and another for the resistor. I forget what I paid at the yard for the harness and connectors, but it was less than $12.
 
Well see, yall seem to forget I am building a V8 Mercury Bobcat. What do you think I will use for a fan? Yeah. Electric. I never said they were the devil. Yall read too much into stuff.

I still don't think the contour fan assembly is small enough, though. My Mustang II V8 radiator is only 23 X 16 so I need something different. Flex a Lite makes a dual setup that's over 5K CFM I am lookin at.
 
It would hang over the edge of the radiator by probably 1/2" per side.
 

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I was checking the specs on the Dakota fan controller and noticed there is no AC control. Is there a controller that will kick the fans on with the AC compressor?
 
???? The PAC-2750 controller referenced DOES have an AC control input. I am not sure why it has been referenced as a 'Dakota' fan controller unless that is a brand .....my 2003 Dakota had a clutch fan LOL.
 
PhillH said:
I was checking the specs on the Dakota fan controller and noticed there is no AC control. Is there a controller that will kick the fans on with the AC compressor?
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Yes, my Dakota digital has a pin you can connect so the fan turns on with the A/C
 
Now I see, it states the relay is not included. I went and picked up the wiring harness from the salvage yard today. $33.00. Crooks, really, a core charge for wiring.
 
RustyRatRod said:
The best advice I can give is don't install an electric fan.
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HIPOVALIANT said:
^^^^^^^^^^this!^^^^^^^^^^^^
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Oh good, another useless comment. :banghead:

There are several people in this thread that are successfully running electric fans on their cars, myself included.

I installed the contour electric fans on my car because the mechanical fan wasn't cutting it. The stock fixed blade mechanical fan didn't move enough air. I didn't have enough room to run a fan clutch with the 3 core radiator. The flex fan I installed moved too much air, and the drag it was causing on the pulley was throwing my fan belt every time I stabbed the throttle. It's not about flowing the most air, it's about flowing the right amount at the right time.

My electric fans perform flawlessly. My car warms up faster because it isn't pushing air through the engine compartment at idle. I don't toss the stupid fan belt when I stab the throttle anymore. And once my car is warmed up, the water temperature is pretty much always between 190 and 200*F, regardless of whether its 20* outside or 110*, and I have driven the car in both of those conditions.

No, not everyone needs to run an electric fan. But some do, and it can, and HAS, been done successfully.
 
72bluNblu said:
Oh good, another useless comment. :banghead:

There are several people in this thread that are successfully running electric fans on their cars, myself included.

I installed the contour electric fans on my car because the mechanical fan wasn't cutting it. The stock fixed blade mechanical fan didn't move enough air. I didn't have enough room to run a fan clutch with the 3 core radiator. The flex fan I installed moved too much air, and the drag it was causing on the pulley was throwing my fan belt every time I stabbed the throttle. It's not about flowing the most air, it's about flowing the right amount at the right time.

My electric fans perform flawlessly. My car warms up faster because it isn't pushing air through the engine compartment at idle. I don't toss the stupid fan belt when I stab the throttle anymore. And once my car is warmed up, the water temperature is pretty much always between 190 and 200*F, regardless of whether its 20* outside or 110*, and I have driven the car in both of those conditions.

No, not everyone needs to run an electric fan. But some do, and it can, and HAS, been done successfully.
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It's interesting that contrary opinions, however knowledge based they may be, are judged to be "useless". It has been stated on here at least a thousand times that with clearance available, the combination of the right rad, the right shroud and the right fan will do the job of cooling well, is trouble free and IS done successfully every day.
 
HIPOVALIANT said:
It's interesting that contrary opinions, however knowledge based they may be, are judged to be "useless". It has been stated on here at least a thousand times that with clearance available, the combination of the right rad, the right shroud and the right fan will do the job of cooling well, is trouble free and IS done successfully every day.
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Yes, and this is also done with electric fans. The OP asked about install help for an electric fan...so saying not to use one isn't exactly useful to the OP.

Wierdly they make pickups with electric fans on them today that are rated to tow many thousands of pounds...through death valley with the A/C on.

I won't argue that there are certainly some crap electric fans out there (mostly the cheap aftermarket ones). But the Contour fan deal...well, I'd highly recommend it if you can afford it, My experience is exactly the same as 72blunblu's. Incredibly consistent coolant temp. I'm not even using all it's capacity since the high speed never even comes on. If you ever looked under the hood of a V6 contour you'd know why this fan has to be good.

I even had "the right radiator" and "the right fan clutch" and "the right shroud" with my old 360 setup. 22" A/C or HD cooling radiator, stock Mopar thermostatic fan clutch, and the stock shroud, it was all in perfect working order...and it had less consistent temperatures than I do now. It would get a little bit hotter than I'd like (~215) at the dream cruise but it didn't overheat. So, it worked, yes, but it certainly wasn't better.
 
The problems boil down to the wrong fans and shrouds.

The problem with fan ratings is that they are all free flow ratings because those are the flow highest numbers and look the best. But radiators will have significant pressure drop (up to 1"or 1.5" H2O, which is a lot for fans) at any really usable air flow rate, and the cheapo fans' flow rates will just drop into the toilet with that level of pressure drop. But there is nothing on the distributors' or even manufacturers' websites that show the actual flow rates versus pressure drop, so us amateur auto designers have nothing to go on. That data is standard stuff for electronic cooling design but does not seem to be anywhere to be found for these auto fans.

If you want to see how 2 fans can flow a lot differently when installed, here is an illustration. http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/engineer/facts/06-057.htm

Even though these fans are for farm buildings, the principles are always the same. The graph about 2/3 of the way down the above page (Figure 6) shows 2 fans' flow versus pressure curves. Look at the upper solid line and compare it to the lower dashed line.
- Fan A flows 7500 cfm at 0 pressure and over 5000 CFM at .3" pressure, a drop of 30%.
- Fan B flows 5000 cfm at 0 pressure but only 1500 cfm at .3" pressure, a drop of 70%.

Even if you scaled up fan B to flow 7500 cfm at 0 pressure to equal the free flow of fan A, it would only flow just over 2000 cfm at .3" pressure. This shows what is going on with the poor auto cooling fans; their flow just goes to crap behind the pressure drop through a radiator.
 
HIPOVALIANT said:
It's interesting that contrary opinions, however knowledge based they may be, are judged to be "useless". It has been stated on here at least a thousand times that with clearance available, the combination of the right rad, the right shroud and the right fan will do the job of cooling well, is trouble free and IS done successfully every day.
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The fact that you have a contrary opinion isn't useless, and the fact that you apparently disagree with the use of electric fans isn't why I said your comment was useless.

But your comment is completely useless. Not because it's contrary, but because you didn't explain your reasoning and you provided no knowledge or evidence on the subject that might help someone make an informed decision. If your comment was based on knowledge, by all means explain. My guess is that it's not based on knowledge though, it's based on your bad experience with electric fans. And while there are many reasons your negative experience with electric fans could be useful, it by itself doesn't prove that electric fans are a bad idea.

The simple fact is that there are millions of cars out there with electric fans. Millions. Every car with a transverse engine, and nowadays most trucks too. That by itself doesn't mean electric fans are better, but it obviously demonstrates that electric fans can and do work. And there are several folks here, again, myself included, that are successfully using electric fans. It can be done, and when done properly they can work just as well or better than mechanical fans. That has been my experience, my car cools far better now than with any of the mechanical fans I used.

There are a lot of factors to consider, which is why not all electric fan combinations work. Not all mechanical fan combinations work either though. Ma Mopar never put a 340 that cranked out over 400 hp in a production vehicle, and never made a production Duster (or Demon) than had an engine that made over 400hp period, let alone with a small block. So, when I want to drive a 400+ hp small block in stop and go traffic when it's 110*F out, there's no reason to expect the factory engineered cooling system will keep up. And it didn't. My contour electric fans and 3 core aluminum radiator do. Obviously it requires more effort than just slapping on a set of electric fans, there has to be some fairly serious upgrades to the electric system. And electric fans aren't for everyone or every application. But they do work, so just saying "don't do it" isn't a useful comment.
 
Main electric cooling fans came into being ONLY because of front-wheel drive technology. With the engine mounted laterally, with the crankshaft and typically all the major accessory shafts parallel to the front axle, so as to directly drive the transaxle, a fan, mechanically mounted on an accessory pulley would blow sideways and would not face the radiator. This is why electric engine cooling fans had to be and are used virtually universally in front-wheel drive vehicles. Modern engines are designed and intended to run at much higher temperatures than in the past and the electric fan provides adequate cooling to that scale. The conversion of mechanical energy to electricity and back to mechanical rotary power with a fan motor is less efficient in a number of ways than a direct mechanical connection. Mechanical fans are still common in trucks, SUVs and some RWD cars presumably as a result of sound engineering judgement.

I'm glad that you resolved your cooling issues. Whatever it takes! There are few things more frustrating. You are right that on both sides of the debate some setups work and some don't for whatever the reason. You are also right that I have had bad times with a number of electric setups. I am running 400+ HP with an OEM re-cored (3) 22 inch A/C High Altitude rad, OEM Steel Shroud and an OEM 7 blade mechanical fan. Runs at 180 whatever it's doing and whatever the weather. So we're both happy. There are current threads on FABO where guys are pushing 600 HP with basically OEM cooling setups.
 
HIPOVALIANT said:
Main electric cooling fans came into being ONLY because of front-wheel drive technology. With the engine mounted laterally, with the crankshaft and typically all the major accessory shafts parallel to the front axle, so as to directly drive the transaxle, a fan, mechanically mounted on an accessory pulley would blow sideways and would not face the radiator. This is why electric engine cooling fans had to be and are used virtually universally in front-wheel drive vehicles. Modern engines are designed and intended to run at much higher temperatures than in the past and the electric fan provides adequate cooling to that scale. The conversion of mechanical energy to electricity and back to mechanical rotary power with a fan motor is less efficient in a number of ways than a direct mechanical connection. Mechanical fans are still common in trucks, SUVs and some RWD cars presumably as a result of sound engineering judgement.
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Other than it being a requirement in FWD cars, and partially on the higher temps, you're totally wrong.

Please show me a new RWD car with a mechanical fan. You won't find one. Not the hellcat, not any LX body car, not the camaro, not the vette, not the cts not the mustang, not mercedes, not bmw, not Hyundai Genesis. There aren't any. For pickups, I know the 3.6 Rams have electric fans and I also believe that the ECODiesels have electric fans as well. Mechanical fans are getting far more rare on GM trucks as well, and I doubt they exist on any V6 2011+ F150s, as I haven't seen one personally. You see mechanical fans on 3/4 ton + trucks because they don't care about CAFE standards there. At that point it's probably a cost saving measure more than anything anymore.

Why is this? Because electric fans are more energy efficient. And they work. They can actually be turned off. This saves fuel. The auto industry HAS to be obsessed with saving fuel thanks to the CAFE standards. They can run at a higher temperature because they have better control of the temperatures as well.

I've written this ad nauseam but the only thing that governs the electric fans horsepower draw is ohm's law and the alternator efficiency.

Ohm's law= Power=Current*Voltage. So, pretty much every electric fan is going to draw under 50A steady state current, and let's say you're keeping the battery topped off at 14.6V. So, 50A*14.6V=730W. Alternator efficiency is let's say 55% which is probably even a little ineffcient. So, 730W/.55= 1327.27W. 745.7W in a HP. So 1327.27/745.7=1.78hp. That's the most the electric fan could EVER draw. Now, most of the time you care about power, it's off. It's on at idle where you'd have plenty of headroom. It's likely to really only draw 20A for the fan as it is, so less than 1 hp load at the constant speed it's running.

Your engine doesn't have to accelerate a mechanical fan which is basically a weight with a large lever arm. This is helped somewhat by a clutch fan, however you still have losses with the fluid coupling. It cannot be turned off.

Here's a commonly referenced car craft article
http://www.network54.com/Forum/215655/message/1066184641/Car+Craft+Cooling+Fan+Dyno+Test

My electric fan on my Duster is on for about 20% of running time. Overall it's using less energy. Unless the A/C is on the stock FWD car I have barely has the fan on at any time when it's not idling or running below 15 mph.

Sound engineering judgement is to use the most overall energy efficient fan that can keep the vehicle cool in the test environment. The car companies do heat tests in death valley in the summer.
 
Thanks for your reply and I'm happy that you too have been able to cool your car that well with an electric fan setup. I never had any intention of starting or participating in a defensive pissing contest here so I'm done. You have what works for you and I have what works for me. So its all good. As an old racer/engine builder used to say to me: "Lessons are extra".
 
HIPOVALIANT said:
Thanks for your reply and I'm happy that you too have been able to cool your car that well with an electric fan setup. I never had any intention of starting or participating in a defensive pissing contest here so I'm done. You have what works for you and I have what works for me. So its all good. As an old racer/engine builder used to say to me: "Lessons are extra".
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And that's fine that a mechanical fan works for you. The OP asked about electric fans and installing them. Clearly he wants an electric fan, and specifically information about the Contour fan, which at least several of us have used very successfully now.

Unfortunately, you felt the need to chime in with telling them not to use an electric fan and then go on to claim an engine driven fan is more efficient when both theory and real data show that to be false. We're all here to actually help each other. I'd value your opinion and experience if the OP would have asked about what type of fan he should use, but he asked a pretty narrow question. There certainly may be some cases where you have to use a mechanical fan, if you don't have the space/money/need more flow than what you can get with commonly available electrics.

I'd rather not get off topic if we can help it. Any additional information about what works and doesn't is actually GOOD for everyone, especially if that's what's related to being asked. Please don't take it personally.
 
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