i was contributing because the topic starter was 'concerned' with the temps he was running. Several of you gave good advice about making him feel comfortable with the safety of 210-220 temps. While it may be unnecessary to run at 190 all the time, there are advantages. Many owners are not comfortable when that heat starts pushing into the interior. It's uncomfortable and there is also a mental aspect of the car being close to overheating. I happen to be one of those people. So I gave him a couple of ideas based on his situation.
As far as my recommendation, while you are absolutely correct that fan CFM can range greatly, if you compare apples to apples, a 16" Spal fan is going to outperform 2 10" Spal fans of the same line. That was my point. Our topic starter's temps are rising 15 degrees when at idle. The rise in temp at idle is directly related to air flow. Hence my comments on fans.
We're all here on these forums to contribute information that can help increase our collective knowledge about any particular topic with the assumption that future viewers may benefit as well. I'm fairly new on the forums but I'm not new to dealing with cooling issues. I think we have some pretty good knowledge that can help members here and there. I hope you long time contributors are open to that.
I’ve got no issues with vendors chiming in, good information is good information.
But he nothing he’s describing suggests he needs new fans. And if he did need new fans, using fan diameter instead of rated cfm to choose them is folly. Sure, cfm ratings can vary by manufacturer, it depends on how they’re actually doing their testing. But it’s a far better measure of fan performance than just diameter.
Engine temperature isn’t what you feel coming through the firewall either. That’s engine compartment temperature, and that’s from the exhaust manifolds or headers. Running at 190 or 200 vs 180 isn’t going to change that one bit.
Personally, I’m not big on SPAL fans. They’re overpriced for what they are and what they do. Cheap aftermarket fans aren’t usually good, that’s true. But you don’t need to spend several hundred dollars to get a good electric fan. The reproduction Ford Contour fan system I use is like $130 from Dorman, and it will even outperform the black magic fan
@RustyRatRod likes. Although at 4,000 cfm I’m sure that fan works just fine, most of the time mine are running on low speed at ~3,000 cfm.
It sounds like the fans, shroud, and radiator all came together? Wasn't this supposed to be rated for a certain amount of cooling as a package? I think it'll be interesting to see what happens when you do drive it. If the temperature does go down and it is the CFM of the fans?
I'm interested in this again as I'm having the same exact issues with a pretty hot 410 Stroker. In comparison I have a stock radiator with my own homemade aluminum shroud and to 12in fans that I bought from remember here that were supposedly in a motorhome with a 440. I can tell you one 20 amp fuse will not support the two of them wired together. It needs a 30 amp fuse or it will blow. At this point I'm taking into consideration just riveting a new Shield over top and cutting a new hole for one big huge fan and if that will work better, which it seems like it might.
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I have 65 amps total and I'm not sure if I have enough to support another Pusher fan or something?
Please excuse yellow rose he can't help himself derailing threads. You can see I tried to ward him off with the word snowmobile! that's usually like Kryptonite to him and keeps him away.
A single fan won’t necessarily work better. Again, it’s down to the shroud and fan cfm. Two fans have some advantages though, the fan motors are offset so sometimes you get more clearance to the pulleys because the fan motor isn’t right inline with the pulley. And if a motor craps out you lose one fan instead of both of them (assuming they’re wired correctly). Not a terrible idea with electric fans, I can get home with one fan running on high speed.
Yes, I bought it as a package from Griffin radiator. They told me it would run real nice as built. $1200.00 was a lot of money but I like to keep my money in American labor when I can. And regarding CFM flow of a fan, you have to be able to also factor in the tightness of the louvers and radiator fins. CFM means nothing without determining what you are pulling or pushing through?? Same as a blocked filter on an A/C unit. All the fan in the world is no good if the filter is blocked, right?? I will continue to post my findings here. The CFM rating of these two fans is suppose to be plenty for the radiator and shroud they designed. I fused mine on two separate circuits with a 15amp fuse for each. No issues there.
Cfm doesn’t “mean nothing”. Sure, the rated cfm may be different from the actual cfm, especially if the fan is a standalone deal that you’ve installed with some random shroud. But if you start with a 600 cfm fan you’re not going to make it pull 5000 cfm. That’s why I like electric fans that are built into a shroud and designed as a whole unit, not aftermarket stuff that’s rated as a stand-alone. Who knows what your actual flow is. With the fans as part of a whole system, with the system rated for 3000 cfm and 5000 cfm, I know there’s a good chance my actual cfm will be close to the rated cfm as long as I’m not doing anything to significantly restrict the airflow through radiator.
