Electric Fan Set Up

[nigeljones]

Does anyone know about an electric fan set for our trucks. If so what and where?

I have looked thru the site and could not see anything on this subject.

As a newbie how do you search for this info

Thanks

[moondoggie]

Good Day!

Just click "search" - I think it's at the top of all the forum screens.

If you're asking about electric engine cooling fans, basically none move enough air. The best I've seen move ~ 5500 cfm; the stock belt-driven fan moves ~ 10,000 cfm.

Blessings!

Brian Johnson

[JMZ]

What about adding a pusher fan like the 454`s had, I was wondering if this would help the A/C in slow driving conditions?

[MikeC]

Nigel,

Flex-a-lite makes a set up that fits right on our trucks. I have the model 250 but obtained a variable speed thermostat control free from them after I called and told them I did not care for the on-off switching.

I had the fans on when I towed a gross of 17K from Columbus, Ohio to St Louis. Hot humid summer trip and my temps never got above 210. Several here believe they don't move enough air and I agree with that until we look at moving down the road at speed. Ram air effect into the front of the truck has 60 mph air getting pushed at the grille for it's entire area.

That being said, I still did not like the 210 temp and wanted to keep it lower. I now have a Kennedy fan clutch on it with a Dmax fan. Having not towed the camper in the same conditions I have no apples to apples info, but the temps "seem" to be running about the same at highway speeds. Where I guarantee the Dmax fan maves more air is at slower speeds.

Bottom line to me is that if I am towing mostly at highway speed the electrics are fine. When you get to towing in traffic or where road conditions make you run slower the non electric fans do better.

This is all my opinion and may not be agreed upon by all but it is from my experiences.

I do have the electric set up sitting on a shelf in my garage and have not put it back on due to the fact that when I looked at it overall I was equally satisfied with both set ups. It has not seemed worth the time to switch it out.

Mike

Let the discussion continue.

[Kennedy]

Actually, the steel blade moves SLIGHTLY more air except where there is a lot of ram air which is where the Dmax blade moves SLIGHTLY more. This is without trimming the 21" blade down to 20" for clearance. My take is that the plastic blade flexes under load...

[GMCfourX4]

Nigel;
I have the Flex-A-Lite 280 on my truck (necessary for fitting the Cummins intercooler in front of the radiator, I even had to trim ~1/2" off of the water-pump shaft for clearance) and they move a LOT of air, and do MUCH better at idle than any clutch fan. I think the root of most cooling problems has more to do with having healthy coolant, T-stat, and clean radiator/condenser than anything else (others opinions vary on this, but look up HowieE's info on cleaning out the bugs and crap from the radiator). I don't tow heavy loads much, but I've never had a cooling problem with my truck. The other advantage of the electric fans is that they automatically come on with the A/C (this is key while sitting in traffic, my A/C didn't work well with the clutch fan unless I got the RPMs up) and you can also wire a switch to force them on full-speed if needed. I also got a slight increase in fuel mileage by eliminating the clutch fan (its hard to say how much though, somewhere between .25 and 1.5 mpg....) The Flex-A-Lite setup can be purchased from most suppliers like Jegs, Summit Racing, etc.... Here's Flex-A-Lite's info on them: Flex-A-Lite 280 (http://www.flex-a-lite.com/auto/html/chevy-full-size-truck.html)

-Chris

[nigeljones]

GMCFOURX4 and MikeC

Thanks for your feed back it seems that the electric fans are not as popular as the fan clutch style. I have little to no experience in this arena but it will be interesting to learn.

I intend to take a trip out west this summer pulling my travel trailer - barely 4000lbs it's a 23'hybred. But last year when trailering around Michigan -mostly flat, you could watch the temp gauge rise and fall. To me it was alarming because of the light trailer and flat terain.

I checked the back of the radiator and found suprisingly, a considerable amount of leaf matter. I had the the fliud check for the right ratio which was high and the thermostat checked for type, It has a 195. I intend to put the dual thermostat and high flow pump in this summer prior to completing the trip. Now as regards the fan/fans. What would you say about hills and altitude ?

[MikeC]

Nigel,

You said thermostat, do you only have one?

If so, one of the best cooling mods you can complete is to put in dual stats and the HO water pump.

Early 96's (like mine) have a single stat and 68 GPM pump whereas the late 96's have twin stats and a 135 GPM pump.

Mike

[BigDiesel]

Originally posted by MikeC:

Bottom line to me is that if I am towing mostly at highway speed the electrics are fine. When you get to towing in traffic or where road conditions make you run slower the non electric fans do better.

Mike- Would you say for a truck that doesn't tow, doesn't see extreme temps(Canada) or idles in traffic about as often as a beatles reunion, would gain from a elec fan set-up?

P.S- Do you want to sell your dual fan setup sitting on your shelf in the garage? ;)

[GMCfourX4]

Big Diesel;
I can tell you that I don't tow often in my truck, and don't see the temps that a lot of our southern friends see (Boston gets warm, but nothing like some places) and the electrics work great for me. Keep in mind, though, that a major difference between my truck and Mike's is that he's driving an auto, and I have a 5-speed. This throws 2 new factors into the mix:
1: When I'm sitting in traffic, I run at VERY low RPM, especially the way things move around Boston... This makes for a very slow-moving clutch fan, unless I'm doing at least 10MPH and can keep it in L gear to get the RPMs up.
2: The auto adds a lot of heat to the radiator that I just don't have.

Hopefully this helps!

-Chris

[BigDiesel]

I will be adding a mag-hytek deep tranny pan, redline water wetter, and possibly a larger dedicated tranny cooler as well as removing the tranny lines from the radiator. As I mentioned my truck never idles in traffic and tows at most a couple of quads. I feel pretty comfortable running electric fans in my application. Did you notice a mileage improvement after going electric? Thanks
Dave

[GMCfourX4]

Dave;
I did notice a small improvement in mileage, but it is har to gauge what it was b/c I did multiple changes at the same time. At the times when my fan clutch would kick in with the old setup, it felt like I went from having a 454 to a 2.2L under the hood, so I'm sure that on the really hot days with the A/C on is when the largest differece was made. It did also make a slight difference in throttle response (which I noticed mostly when I blip the throttle to downshift). Flex-A-Lite claims a 1-2mpg gain, which may be realistic.

-Chris

[moedog]

I BOLTED ON THE FLEXLITE DUAL CONVERSION PACKAGE I BOUGHT THRU SUMMIT. TRUCK HAD NOTICABLE MORE POWER WITH NO FAN, THEN I HIT THE FIRST INCLINE WITH MY 7500LB. TRAILER AND ALL OVERHEATED. DONT WAIST YOUR TIME AND MONEY ON ELECTRIC FANS. THESE DIESELS NEED MORE AIR THAN ANY OF THE ELECTRIC FANS CAN PULL. PERIOD. SUMMIT REFUNDED MY MONEY. I TALKED TO THE DAUGHTER OF THE OWNER OF FLEXLITE FANS AND THEY NO LONGER RECOMMEND THIS CONVERSION FOR THE DIESELS. GAS ONLY.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!

[BigDiesel]

I will never tow with my tahoe. I leave the real towing duties to my Cummins.