So i am looking into doing the taurus fan swap in my 91 with the 318...

I am also looking into putting a smaller fan directly on the transmission cooler....

My biggest question is push or pull?

I assume the taurus fan is a puller (pulls through the radiator)

But how would i want my small 10" electric fan mounted on the trans cooler? Would i want to find one to mount behind it (between radiator and trans cooler)and have it pull through it as well or would i be better off mounting it in front and having it push...

i would think having it mounted in front and being a puller would just fight the fan in the engine bay side of the radiator...

I have the fan for the trans cooler already, and i would like to get it installed even before i do the taurus fan swap... so how should i set it up with the stock mechanical fan?

Just looking for pointers on how to set all this up... while keeping trans temps down as well...

Also how do the electric fans do with water/mud...

 

I haven't done this, but I would think pulling. ALso, but pulling, you avoid ^&*&*&^ getting into the fan going down the highway.

I also think you're over doing the trans by having it's own fan but it sounds like you are 4x4'ing it and need it.

 

The Taurus fan is designed as a puller the way it's mounted withing it's shroud, but if you're really hard set on a pusher, you can modify the shroud to do that. For modifications, I use a combination of 1/4" and 1/8" ABS sheet - it's easy to weld with solvents & mold with a good heat gun. If you do a bit of research on pullers vs. pushers, you'll find that the pullers are more efficient, unless you have a situation in which a puller can't be used.

In my opinion, the Taurus has enough capacity that you won't need a second fan for the transmission cooler - the second cooler might even be an impediment. You can "customize" the air flow capacity by using a programable PWM controller (Painless has one that will work on this fan), or a PWM controller with a manual speed selection (easy to do).

 

Yes i do alot of offroading, my dak ends up in alot of sticky situations with high revs and slow speeds.... doesnt take long to heat the trans at that pace... or the motor lol

I have the small fan for the cooler right now, which is mainly why i was asking to add it while i still have my mechanical engine fan... with the cfms of the taurus fan when i do the swap ill experiment on if its even necessary to keep the smaller fan...

As for the taurus fan im fine keeping it a puller when i do it, but i am curious if i keep the extra fan on the trans cooler, will it be better as a pusher/puller....


And my other concern is water/mud/and such... can these fans hold up to that?

Right now my thinking is mount my fan behind the trans cooler (in between the trans cooler and radiator. i removed all the ac components when i first got the truck) and have it pull through the trans cooler and the stock mechanical fan pulls through the radiator/entire system.... will that cause me issues with the motors cooling?

 

Designing a cooling system with fans in tandem isn't easy, the fan speeds, the shape of the shrouds, the areas of turbulence , etc., are all factors in this, so to give you a clear-cut answer without any of this type of info isn't possible. There is something that I can tell you - to cool the transmission cooler with the small fan, you need to design and implement a shroud that will allow the fan to pull air in relatively equal distribution over the entire cooler (just blowing air at it, or pulling air away from it, isn't very effective). This means that the engine cooling fan now won't be able to pull the air properly through the radiator because the transmission shroud is in the way except for the small fan "hole". Without any calculations, this would definitely reduce the engine fans effectiveness. In my opinion, if you want a separate fan for each cooler (engine & transmission), I would separate both so that the fans would have no possibility of interfering with each other.

If you off-road in mud & water, you know that these elements aren't very kind to fans. Most of the people I know that play in that environment have a fan shut off device of some variety so that they don't destroy their cooling systems when immersed in water (or mud). If you're in water, the water flow around the radiator will keep it cool, and when you leave it, you can turn on the fan (assuming it's electric). If you really need the fan(s) running 100% of the time, you'll need to re-design your cooling system to pull both coolers out of harms way and place them someplace above all the water & mud. All this can be done with a bunch of cash and fabrication - your truck probably won't look the same anymore.

 

Using the Taurus and equivalent Ford fans, homemade controllers are very do-able, you just need to keep in mind that they all use a lot of current to start and as such, you need to have quality components as well as some arc protection for the mechanical components such as relays and solenoids. For mechanical controllers, there are a few different designs that can be contemplated depending on the environment in which you want to run the truck. For off-road, I recommend a function grouping that includes OFF, Auto, and Manual & as manual selections, I used a switch that would select HI or LO speeds and this would pretty much cover the requirements as far as I could see. Rotary switches work best for me for the hand controls - these control the low amp circuits that select the mode/position of the relays/solenoids (if you use any solenoids, you need to make sure they're continuous duty, otherwise they won't last long). For the automatic selection for 2 speeds, I use 2 thermal switches (different temp ranges for these switches - these are NOT sensors unless you plan to use digital switch point circuitry). For highway use, you can even include an air conditioner compressor interface (you can have the fan jump to HI when the compressor comes on).

 

I did mine with a dual fan 2000 Ford Contour fan. It's a pretty good fit, covers the entire back of the radiator, side to side and all but the bottom 3 inches top to bottom. 2 fans. They are pullers. Found a new one on Ebay for less than $50.

I used a Flex a Lite fan controller, got it from Amazon for about $100. (It's gone up in price!) It comes on at 60% speed at 195 degrees, goes to 100% at 205. Turning the a/c on turns it on. It's got thermal protection, a huge fuse, and the temp at which it's actuated is adjustable. Came with all the wiring and connectors to get it hooked up.

My situation, a 95, automatic, 4x4, I don't do any off road so far. I live in a hot climate (Tucson in summer can get up to 107, is 100 to 105 regularly & for weeks.) It's already been in the upper 90's here this year and the electric cooling fans seem to keep up with the heat. I previously had problems with the motor getting hot when in traffic, slow going didn't push enough air through the radiator.

 

Well my truck sees alot of highway, in-town, and offroad. so it has to be something that can be adapted/suit all modes. As for the a/c side, the compressor was missing when i purchased the truck, and i just took the condenser and other a/c components out.

sow tih all these other fans popping up what is gonna be the best option for a fan? I like the dual fan idea, but i want as much cfm as i can get to be honest with ya. but as we know there isnt much room when dealing with v8's...

I dont know much about the fans, so wiring a "fan control system" from scratch would take me a while to think up and plan.... How bad are the start up surges. Would i have to beef my electrical system more? i already have a 136 amp alt from a durango, 0 gauge grounds (plus stock) and a 4 gauge direct charge cable from the alt (once again plus stock) as well as 2 batteries.... I dont really wanna have to up that system more, unless i absolutely am going to have to. (did the upgrades to handle the winch and offroad lights better)

I like the idea of just buying a fan controller, but atm the budget doesnt allow spending 150 more bux on this project LOL.

Does anyone have an designs, or even a sketch to give me a place to start on designing a fan controller and hopefully a way to reduce the current spikes and such?

 

There's actually a lot of room to install an electric fan once you remove the viscous clutch OEM fan - the fan is inside shroud and the electric motor sticks out a bit, but this still leaves more room.

If you understand enough about electric DC circuits to hook up an electric motor or light bulb with a switch, you can install a "multi-function" electric fan with a bit of explanatory help. You need to understand things like:

• What a complete circuit is,
• How a relay works and why use a relay (or solenoid),
• What "in rush" means in a DC circuit,
• What "back EMF" means in a DC circuit (there are a few other names for this as well),
• How to protect surrounding circuits from back EMF,
• How to protect switches from arcing,
• Basics or wire sizing and fuse sizing,
• Knowing a few of the basic DC formulas is helpful but not necessary,
• Knowing how to use a multi-meter.

The in-rush or start up current can be large on some devices (essentially it's a short circuit until the field is formed), but you don't need to rely on your alternator alone for this purpose - the battery is there to provide a buffer for things like that. Consider the scenario where you're using a winch - the alternator can't really carry what a winch needs to operate, so the battery kicks in for that period to supply what's needed and when that need goes away, the battery goes into a charge mode to get replenished. If the winch was going to be on constantly, then you'd need to have an alternator with enough capacity to cover that (large music systems can put this type of requirement on an electrical supply system).


There are lots of relay style controllers available, but most of them are only good for about 30 amps or so. The Taurus fan in rush current requirements will fry these controllers in no time, leaving you with an electrical fire or out in the sticks without a fan, so you need to get either quality components for the high amp circuits when you build your own or get a pre-built with high quality components. This is the draw back when using a fan like the Taurus, you're stuck with at least $100 for the parts and up to about $300 for a really good pre-built Pulse Width Modulation controller (the Painless controller was around that price the last time I looked). There are lots of fans you can find in an auto junkyard that will work withing the 30 amp range and still give you reasonable performance - dual fans or 2 speed will fit your needs nicely.

There are quite a few designs available that will give you the basic schematics for a 2 speed or 2 fan controller. Most of these are pretty basic and won't give you exactly what you want and normally don't include any of the switch arc or back emf protection that I normally like to see, but with very little modification to existing schematics, you can end up with a pretty good system. Here are some cost and simplicity points to let you scope what you want vs what you can afford:

• Completely manual systems are the cheapest. These are the ones that will have selections for OFF, Lo Speed, and Hi Speed only. This would mean that you'd need to glance at your engine temp every so often to make sure you have enough air flow (or leave it on Hi to make sure).
• Auto salvage yard components are going to be the cheapest and this includes the fans, power distribution box that can hold fuses and relays (along with all the fuses and relays it contains)
• The higher the motor start-up current is, the more expensive the components.
• One speed or one motor will be more expensive to control than those with built in multi-speed or multi-fans. This is because you will need more complicated electronics to vary the speed on such devices (the PWM controllers are such devices). However, one speed (one fan) units with a simple ON/OFF controller will, of course, be the cheapest.
• If you want to use temperature values to switch between speeds or fans, this function can be added (or is included in some of the pre-built units) and can be something as cheap or simple as a radiator temp probe - these sometimes don't work all that well) to more expensive thermal switching designs.

I can help you with some of the design, but I can't give you all the choices that are available. I don't know what the bottom line is that you'd be happy with and that you'd be willing to build up from - you need to do this research. I can help you with some of that, but you need to decide what the bare-bones system would be that you'd be willing to start with.

 

Only one fan will probably do you well, pulling is most efficient, put a puller on first then add pusher fans if the one isn't cutting it.

You will want/need a controller, I'm pretty savy with electrical stuff and messed around with 3 different homemade systems for a few weeks and blew over a 100 bucks on relays, fuses, switches, temp sensors wire and what not. It was hard to find relays that didn't fail immediately. IMO unless you get a variable controller your going to really heat up wires with your fan and and burn out relays and fuses real quick.

I would suggest getting either a delta current controller or the flex a lite controller. The Taurus fans have been shown to spike at over 90 amps at starup. In the past with my jerry-rigged system I could see all the lights dim when the fan was starting up, and like I said the relays and fuses failed quite frequently. The variable speed controllers slowly ramp up the current so you don't get the spikes.

I finnally went with a variable controller when the wires for my homemade fan controller burned up and shorted.

The fan istself has dealt with a few hundred miles of dusty/muddy forrest roads without issue. My biggest complaint is that that **** is really noisy at full speed.

Buy once, cry once, get a variable speed controller or don't do it at all.

They are easy and quick to install, reliable and allow you to manually turn the fan on and off, and wire it to your A/C system, just wire up some switches to it.

Oh and for good measure I always carry my old fan in my tucks tool box when doing any type of road trip or 4 wheeling situation just in case the electronics fail I can quickly rip out the e fan and spin that old fan on.