I don't believe any pre-97 Dakota came with an electric rad fan besides the 4 banger right? ...oh and the Shelby.

I think I can get a good 10hp from dropping my mechanical fan but I do not want to go aftermarket. I'm thinking Jeep, Neon, something from the junkyard but I'm unsure whether one larger or two medium fans are more efficient? I assume the shroud is just as important as the fan(s) and keeping that in mind maybe the more surface area fan blades cover the better its just one large fan is cheaper to mass produce but two smaller fans will be quieter?

My friend is using his auto transmission cooler on his Jeep as a power steering fluid cooler since he swapped to manual...can I hunt down a small radiator in the junkyard off anything and do this or is steering fluid something I have to worry about eating away at certain types of radiators??


Thanks!

 

This has been discussed (a lot) already. Use the search option. If your truck didn't come with an e-fan, everything is aftermarket. Why are you limiting yourself to Chrysler products? You can cobble the electrics together, but for my money, you can't beat Flex a Lite fan controllers.

10hp gain dreaming, not gonna happen. All that stuff about fans and shrouds, in my experience, isn't necessarily so. I'm using a '99-'00 Ford Contour dual fan setup and it really does a fine job (and doesn't cover the bottom 15% of the radiator surface.) Best was that it was available new on Ebay for $50 shipped..

Is your power steering overheating? Mine with the trailer package (96) has a little inline cooler. I think it's pretty unnecessary most of the time--tho if I was parking a travel trailer it might come in handy.

 

But the 4cyl efan fuse position is still in the fuse box I just did not check for the wires in the harness...of course the brains for the fan are in the PCM which I would not be swapping obv since I don't have a 4cyl.

Is there something important about not covering the bottom 15% of the radiator?

Nope not overheating its a reg cab short bed all street just thought it was a good thing to have in case, or possibly cooler fluid in general extends the life of your rack and pump??

 

Most dakotas if not all already have a small one that kind of hangs below the ps pump, mine does atleast and everyone I saw at the U-pull yard did. Might want to see about getting one of those as I think a trans cooler is going a bit excessive and overkill, that and the stocker is pretty small so it can fit about anywhere.

 

Yeah I just read that on another forum most Gen3 Daks and the Durangos have them so I will deff be adding one to my GenI.

 

i used a dual fan setup out of a maxima. worked fine for my old 93 v8 dakota even in an hour of stop and go traffic.i had it setup to run one fan till a certain temp and after that point both fans would run but the second fan never kicked in till i got the first on super soaked and it seized.

 

how well do you guys think a single 18' would do in normal conditions?

 

I think I would rather use both the fans in parallel at a lower rpm to reduce noise and increase the cool surface area of the radiator so one side did not run warmer than the other for efficiency reasons.

I believe that is what is on our 5.9L Grand Cherokee and it is factory.

 

Mine are both on at 60% at 195F, kick up to 100% @ 205F. I don't know what speed they are running at when the a/c is on. This is using the flex a lite controller and the dual fan Contour setup.

It's been well over 100F here since Jun. 1. So the a/c never gets shut off. To my knowledge, the engine, a V8, hasn't gone over 195F. And so far, hasn't kicked the 30 amp fuse (big mother!) Took-sun is traffic light city, btw, so running is always stop and go.

 

Adding an electric fan is generally a pretty good idea, I don't think you'll get a 10 hp gain, but you should get something noticeable, especially with that small 4 banger. I think the jeep 2.5 liter engine is similar to what was used in the early Dakotas and I know that the jeep was really underpowered with it, so any gain is a real improvement. With that engine, almost anything will work, aftermarket, junkyard, chrysler, or not. My approach would be to determine how I wanted the fan controlled before settling on any particular fan. Choices for controlling a fan would be:

• Manual with ON/OFF, High, and Low - this would apply to dual speed fans or dual fans and you could have an auto air conditioning kick in of high speed when the a/c comes on.
• Automatic temparature control for dual speed or dual fan units. This would need the selection of a couple of thermal switches if you use relays or you could spend a bit more and get a pulse width modulation (PWM) controller that can work off your temp sensor. The latter is more expensive, but a lot more versatile.

You wouldn't need any real heavy duty "air movers", so any components (fans, relays, PWM controller, wiring size, etc.) that could handle 30 amps would be adequate.

Unless you have all the original equipment harness in your truck, I wouldn't play around with a fuse or relay slot in the trucks power distribution center. You'd really need to do a lot of digging to see how much power it could take etc. I find it's a lot easier to just add the control circuits separately (one for the low amp side and one to run the fans) and then I know what I've got. Each of these circuits should be adequately wired and fused for safety.

As far as using a cooler for your PS, I'm not sure you really need it unless you do a lot of slow driving with a lot of steering involved, and if this is the case, any small rad that can handle the pressure would work. If you need to use hoses, ensure you get hose that's the right diameter and rated for the pressure and the fluid.