Electric cooling fan project a success!

I had today off from work and I decided to make a run to the local pick and pull. Among some other junk I got I also picked up two cooling fans from a Ford Escort. They are pusher type cooling fans and seem to be either aftermarket or optional equipment. There were over 20 Ford Escorts at the place, and only two of them had the fan I needed. But all I needed was two, so I was set.

The install was pretty simple. I hacked up one bracket that the fans came with and used two others as they were. I bolted the two fans together and then mounted that assembly to the four radiator bolts that hold the radiator in. It looks really slick, I just need pictures to prove it /forums/images/icons/smile.gif!

As for the temperature control, I used a water heater deally bopper (that is the technical term for it) wired in between the battery and the cooling fans. Sitting still, it will warm up just over half way on the gauge then the fans kick in and down it goes. If I were to wait for the fans to just kick on then turn off the engine, they will run for less than 5 minutes and all will be cool. I kept them wired straight up to the battery so that they can cool it down even though the engine is off. And they won't stay on longer than 5 minutes anyway, but I may just wire in a manual switch to shut them off on those really hot days in Davis were they could run for longer than 5 minutes.

When I drove the car, after having the fans turn on, it only took a mile or two of driving to cool it off enough to shut them off. And as long as my car is moving, those fans will never kick in.

As far as the power gains, well, I left a 200ft+ peg leg mark instead of the usual 150-175 mark /forums/images/icons/smile.gif. It is quieter at higher revs, and it makes reaching into the engine compartment less hazardous to my health. My timing is being weird, it is stumbling below 1500rpm. Something may have moved that shouldn't have. It was doing this before I did the conversion, but I wanted to do other stuff before looking at that. So for overall performance gains, I have no idea yet. But I will let you all know if there is an improvement.

And eventually I will put pics and a little description of what I did on my webpage, so stay tuned....