Yeah.. stear clear of the HHR fan unless your running a little 4-banger..

Just remember the Fan shroud is key.. if you really want it to work to full potential.. thats something HHR fan lacks.. it only pulls at a very low rate.. part of the Radiator.

Good Luck the Ford Fans I hope you find one that fits what you need.

 

I'm steering clear of the HHR and Taurus fans...if I can get the mark8 fan..as they say, 'no kill like overkill'. With the V6 and 180 stat, I may have trouble getting to full operating temp. I'm hoping they're 2 speeds so that I can have it always running on low, then manually put it to high while stationary.

 

Get a controller that kicks it on and off when it's needed.

 

Found another couple grains of salt.

http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles...ans/index.html

 

Out of curiosity, I poked through the FSM.

I found this.

Does that mean, theoretically, if one could find a 50A slow-blow (I'm assuming they have a fast blow by default?) fuse, it would be possible to power the Mark8 fan using the stock wiring? The diagram says it uses 10 gauge wire already.

Now that said, that wire will be selective to turning on (I think when coolant is 210 or AC is on). Hemifever is supposed to be able to fix that through the SCT unit.

I'm going to wire mine on 2 relays. One supplies power to the fan at key-up, the other uses that factory pigtail to switch the fan from low to high speed. I'm also going to have a rocker switch on my dash wired to that relay.

So the fan should come on to low with the key,
run on low until the coolant reaches 210 or I turn the AC on, then switch to high
or run on high when I flip the switch (IE for sitting in traffic, I can shut the motor off but keep the fan on high to cool things off)

I made myself a relay box with 4 40A SPDT switches in it. I'd have to replace one with a 70A, and another 70A down by the fan to control speeds. Get the ford pigtail at the yard, and the pigtail for the dodge fan off my fan (since it's dead anyways).

The hard part I've had, is where to find an available key-on connection to tap into for signal. Apparently alot of people just tap onto the windshield wiper wire.

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Just a couple of general questions on this topic. When people replace the clutch-fan for a large electric fan, are they also removing the small electric fan from the front?

Also, I've heard that allowing the fan to run on after the engine has stopped can lead to thermal shock. This happens because the fan runs until the water in the rad has cooled but not necessarily when the engine has cooled down. If the engine is restarted soon after the fan has gone off the engine gets a hit of cold coolant whilst still being hot. It may be BS but I've noticed how factory electric fans all shut off with the engine nowadays, when they used to run on after the engine when they first stared fitting them to cars.

Finally I've had to replace the relay for the electric (cooling) fan twice in the 7 years I've owned my truck. Fortunately, they fail in the Closed position, so the fan just keeps on running after I've switched the engine off, rather than not coming on at all. Luckerly, the Fog-Light relay beside it is identical, so I've just swapped them over to get me home. I just wondered if this was usual or if there's an underlying fault. I do have the engine programmed by Hemifever via a SCT and it brings the fan on earlier than standard, so its running most of the time but the first time the relay went, it was before I'd had it tuned. Its not a big deal as I now carry a spare relay in the glove-box! Just interested in people thoughts on the matter.

 

Yes. I'm actually going to re-use the connections for that fan to trigger the high speed.

That was probably one of those "I didn't know it could happen" things from above. It's fine if the water pump is electric or electric-assist (thats how all racecars work for the most part) but I could see some damage happening from having 80F water go where 180F water just was.

Other than cheap relays, I'm not sure what would cause that to happen.

The 70 amp relays I found are single pole, they don't make HC relays in a dual pole formation. So I'm gonna have to use one relay to enable on key-up, one for each speed, and a low-power SPDT one to enable the relay for each speed. It's gonna be a bit of a mess.

The fan I got is a white connector with no inspection cover. I had the yard test it, their tester couldn't handle the 80 amp startup requirement, but they do believe that it's a 2 speed. Once the guy put on welders gloves to not kill himself with the lightning bolt of the connections, it made a hell of a lot of wind (and noise). Probably on high speed.

The yard gave it to me for $45 since I'm using it to mod, the guy said they sell for $95 to OEM replacements. He said I was the second guy in a while to come looking for it to modifiy. I took 10 inches or so of pigtail lead while I was under the hood, so I have plenty of wire to work with.

Also, Jondakotaguy & the Mods, I am continuing on Jon's thread so that one thread can serve as an in-depth fan DIY FAQ knowledge base for searching/stickying purposes.

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So here's what I've bought:

3x 70 amp CB1AH-M-12V Relay with mounting bracket

1x 20 amp CB1-M-12V Relay with mounting bracket

I have room for 2 of the 70A relays in the box I built- I'll have to make space somewhere for the third 70A and the 20A. The 20A relay can probably hang out down attached to the fan shroud since it's just toggling coils on 18G wire and attaching to the tire already here from the stock fan. The big power-on relay might be able to reside on the outside of the relay box if there's room. (the illustration below says 40A instead of 20A)

Note the 70 amp relay uses 3/8" quick connects on the contacts and 1/4" on the coil. The 20A relay uses 1/4" on all 5 terminals.

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I don't know about all that mess.. having the fan run run after the engine turns off.. remember that.. Therm is still open while over a certain temp.. and heat seaks out the cold.. like; light to darkness..

 

Picked up 4 3/8" QC's, the 4 relays, and 10 feet each of black, red, blue (they didn't have yellow ) wire. Need to get 2 more QC's- th3y come in tomorrow but I'm picking them up Monday.

I put a quarter on one of the relays for size comparison.

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