i wonder why you have trouble with the HHR, Blown used it and kept his motor cool even with boost.

 

The fan and shroud are there principally to control air flow through the radiator to facilitate better heat transfer. Ducting that air, to help cool the engine really isn't required - there's a lot of the engine "hanging in the breeze" with exposure to airflow from underneath the truck. The shroud needs to act as a reverse funnel to allow the fan to pull adequate cooling air across all of the radiator as evenly as possible and if you cut holes in the shroud, you're going to screw up the air flow. Also, if the shroud is more or less a flat plate with a big round hole in it, that wouldn't be good either since that flat plate would block the air flow from the area of the radiator it covers.

 

You guys that are worried about the HHR cooling, you do realize, that no matter how big your fan is, its not going to bring the temp down any futher as long as you have a thermostat in, the thermostat will always regulate to keep the temperature at what its rated for, even if you have a 10,000cfm fan.

 

That's pretty obvious, however my thermostat didn't decide to open at a higher temp over night. It's heat soaked after short trips, the needle is much higher than it was. We haven't even had any real hot days yet. What I'm worried about is that I think it's barely holding on to that sliiiightly over half way point, if it gets hotter though...

 

Obviously a fan is only going to cool the vehicle so much a stronger fan will cool the vehicle faster once the thermostat opens and not need to run constantly to keep up with the heat produced by the engine.

 

not sure why youd have issues. i just did the 180 thermostat & hhr fan w/ derale but ive got the adjustable derale with the temp sensor that screws into the upper water neck right where the upper hose connects.

i used the superchips to see my coolant temp,adjusted the derale to where it kicks in around 195-197,just past where it usually sits with the 180 t-stat. its pre-set to kick off 10 degrees below the kick on temp.

temp gauge usually runs a little over between 1/4 of the way up & 1/2,warmer days it may get about 2 needle widths below the half way mark.

the only trouble with the set up so far was initially i had the derale where it could get wet & in a killer thunderstorm it got soaked , water & electrical connections dont mix,lol, & it cooked the inline fuse.

i replaced the inline fuse holder with one of the Maxi fuse holders from napa, relocated the derale to a dry location inside the k&n heat shield & i put a heavy dose of dilectric grease in all the connections.

then, for kicks i did the big three upgrade with advance auto generic battery cables to ensure better power & ground since the fan pulls a few amps when it kicks in.

since then, so far so good.

if i did it again, id probably go with the spal controller, i think blown said it had more options & could kick the fan in on low speed as well as wide open?

 

Well I guess I will see how it performs with the 180 in the hemi, and a freshly flushed radiator, new block, and that plastic thing out of the lower tube (it's sideways now, I just discovered lol)

I have the push-in sensor, but right now it runs 100% of the time so it makes no difference and often goes just above the middle line.

And back to Alfons, did you choose a controller for your Taurus fan yet?

 

No, I've narrowed it down to either the Delta Current Control Pulse Width Modulation design or the same design from Spal, but what I need to do is confirm a few things before making my final selection, so I plan to try getting in touch with both. DCC appears to be hard to get hold of, and their shipping takes time but everything else appears to be what I want. I need to ask Spal if the PWM model can handle the amp thirsty Taurus fan. With this process, you can make the motor turn from very slow up to full speed depending on the pulse size & frequency - this also limits the amperage needed to get the motor up to the desired speed. If I get a good response from DCC, I'll probably go with them since their units appear to be more robust.

Whichever unit I go for, I'll hook it up to the fan h-speed & give the controller the full speed range to play with. I also want to ask both companies if I can get a recommendation for a "screw in" style sensor - I'm not a "fan" of the ones you stick between the fins of the rad - you might have a problem with yours in this area FrenicX, did you ever test it on it's own?

 

I haven't tested it no, but my adjustment screw will turn off the fan when I adjust it up high, so its operarating within the derales range (170-220 as a guess). Its 100% on 100% of the time as far as I can tell. Its kinda quiet though so it might be turning off and I don't know it. Perhaps I'll adjust it a little more and see if it stays lower.. the derale also has a lead that can go to a manual switch in the cab, I may hook that up too.

 

Although DCC appears to make an extremely good unit, they don't appear to be very customer friendly - read here for example. It appears that the builder operates a small facility and has become too successful to care much about customer contact, so I doubt very much that I'll have any opportunity to talk to the famous John Baskin or anyone associated with him. I'll see what Spal has to say.