Alright. Well my fathers 97 ram needs some work. The radiator is leaking and the battery cables are shot. So he hands me the keys and his credit card so i can fix er up.

I go to rock auto and order: upper and lower coolant hoses, 180 t stat w/gasket, and one new radiator. Everything for 188 shipped to my door. Nice.

Sometime this week i need to go by the dealer and buy new battery cables, very exspensive ive heard.

Now on to the electric fan project. I think i will take this opportunity to introduce my father to the world of benefits that electric fans provide. Jegs has a nice wiring harness with thermo switch... perfect.
http://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS/555/10560/10002/-1
I also need to figure out how to tie the fan into the a/c circuit. The fan i plan on using? It comes from a thirdgen camaro.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a11...ictures111.jpg

Its somewhere in the 16" to 18" range, and its not a huge amp draw either. This particular fan came from an early carb'd camaro, with only a 90amp alt. The fan was stock for the 84 z28. My friend used this same type of fan to cool his ls1 swap into his thirdgen, and many thirdgenners are using this fan to cool off 350+ ci engines. I think a 318 shouldnt be a problem.

What do i have to lose? After all its not my credit card. Ill keep this thread updated with pictures.

 

If you have the wire harness from Jegs, you shouldn't have any issues. The fan size (16-18 inch) is more than satisfactory, if the sensor is working right. Good luck.

 

So instead of the 3rdgen fan im going to go with a fan off of an 86 turbo buick. The thirdgen fan was dead and this buick fan was pulling very strong, plus it has a built in should. Should mount much easier.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a11...s/TTYPE038.jpg

Still waiting on parts though.

 

Don't know if you are trying to save on cash but Perma Cool makes a direct fit electric fan setup for 94-03 rams i think the draw on it was less than 30amp with both fans on. about 230 for the setup i think

http://www.perma-cool.com/Catalog/Cat_page18-1.html

 

What is the reason to do this? More HP? Torque? MPG? I was under the impression that the vicious fan did not run most of the time, and the draw down on the alternator negated efficiency gains with electric. Did you read HankL's article?

Unless I get more info, I think I will stay with the vicious fan.

 

I put e fans on my 86 monte carlo a while back and LOVED it. Better MPG's, and the old butt dyno felt a difference. With the price of gas the way it is, every little bit helps. Thats why im trying to make this as "low-buck" as posslible. I feel the wiring harness is essential, but the fan it self can be adapted from other car leftovers.

 

have you bought the cables yet, here in florida we havea hurricane battery dealer and they make custom starter wires for cheap, they will even run bigger wire if you need it. I had a wire made for a f350 dually we have, that thing has a high torque starter and i was tired of spending money at the dealer, so we used 1 gauge wire between the batteries and 2 gauge wire to the starter. For less then 50 bucks, I couldnt beat it

 

From what i can tell the battery cables are a big f'ing mess. Normally ive seen just one main cable go from the battery to chassis ground and then one main cable that goes from the battery to the starter. Then maybe a secondary to the fuse box, most of the time i can get replacements at my LPS. But these cables have at least 3 cables of the same diameter on each post, and they all go somewhere, so i think i should just go with the stock replacements. The truck isnt having a problem with amperage draw, its a bad connection at the terminals. My father had a problem with them before so he cut the stock connectors off and used some aftermarket ones that clamped the cables together, well now they are not getting a good connection at that clamp point and the truck will just die randomly. Besides, i went to Chrysler parts direct and i can save a little over 50 dollars off of what the local dealer wants.

 

Finally got all of the parts in and got time to do the work. Everything went smoothly. Had to pull the a/c comp, alt and bracket to get to the t stat. The 180 t stat makes a HUGE difference, before the truck was running over 210. Now with the new rad and t stat it never went over 200. The truck runs a hell of a lot smoother with the new battery cables, they were much easier then i had though.

No time this week for the fans, maybe next week.

 

Woah! where has this been hiding. Anyone ever use this?