Well after reading and researching electric fans, I decided to purchase the Flex-a-lite Electric Monster Fan 270 kit. It comes with pretty much everything you need for a complete install. The kit is for the old body style F150's (up to 2003) but after emailing their tech support, they assured me it would fit on a 2006 F150 so i figured it would fit the 2007 F150's as well. To start with this kit isn’t very cheap, but considering it comes with its own shroud and everything you need to install, I figured it was worth it.



Well all things considered it was relatively an easy install, it took 2 of us about 4 hours to do the install as most of the instructions were useless to us as they were referring to the older style trucks, but our common sense made up for the lack of relevant instructions. If i had to do it again it would probable take less then half that time as we now know what to look out for and what tweaks we will have to make. As well the mounting hardware actually lined up with our trucks so we did not have to modify it like I thought we would have to. That being said we did have to make a few tweaks to my truck to get everything in nicely.



The first thing we did was remove my air raid intake as it was in the way. We then disconnected the upper rad hose and moved it out of the way so that we could easily install the new fans. We then removed the factory fan, but as we did this on a holiday and we didn’t have a wrench big enough and narrow enough to loosen the old fan so we had to make our own wrench. The old fan came off quite easily by hitting our home made wrench with a hammer towards the passenger side of the vehicle. We disconnected the sensor and the factory shroud and pulled everything out.


Continued......

 

We did have to move the ABS mechanism back about 1" (towards the firewall) to make room for the new fans. We just drilled 2 new holes and installed new nuts and bolts to hold it in place.

Before: ABS box held in place my 2 bolts facing us, and 1 visible from the wheel well.

After: You can see the old mounting holes and where we made a new hole, 1 on each side.


We then had to wire everything up, and seeing as we had to do this from scratch it took us a little longer as we had to find the appropriate locations to splice into for our Ignition Positive signal, and our AC compressor Positive or Negative Signal (kit only requires splicing into 1 of the 2). We ended up having to wire the ignition wire to a green wire under the dash.
We tested every wire running from the AC to see which one activated the AC when it was turned on. We could not determine which wire we needed to splice into so we have not hooked up the AC signal wire yet. This is where I will need help from the master minds here who know more about our trucks wiring than I do, so please help me out if you can. We are thinking that we might have to splice into the wire running directly from the electronic control in the dash if all else fails.

As you can see we also trimmed the radiator cover to sit flush with the new fans.


Once we got everything cleaned up and sealed up nicely, we tested the system out and it works awesome, excluding the AC not that we need it up here yet so i am not in a big rush for it yet.

I noticed a little more get up and go, and there is allot more room behind our radiators for future mods. We are already gearing up for a supercharger and some pulley mods as well as a lowering kit.
Oh and dont wrry Rockpick, i allready washed the engine so it is much cleaner now.

I have more pictures in my gallery!

I will also update this thread as i tweak things a little more.

 

Looks great! The kit looks like a quality piece. This is the e-fan set up I am leaning towards, thanks for the write up

 

Are these a reliable set? I've been looking at E-Fans for awhile now but get turned off when all these people post about there trucks heating up, bad controllers, etc, etc....... Texas heat! They look really good though , Nice install!

 

I have been wantinfg to do the e- fan kit for a while too but like a lot of other people I get turned off reading about controllers frying and things like that. Wondering if its a southern heat thing? Keep us informed how well your kit holds up here in Canada. Maybe (with any luck) it will stand up better.

 

I'm curious as to where you got yours and how much it cost, being that I'm looking at these also, but haven't seen any Canadian stores or prices for them.
Thanks

 

I had Efans for quite some time and eventually went back to stock. I had my truck overheat a few times from blow fuses and controllers just not starting when supposed to. The gains do not outweigh the concern of a overheated truck!

 

Good write up. Thanks for the information.

 

Well to answer everyones questions, the kit costs me $500 canadian, and it is better than OEM.
http://www.flex-a-lite.com/auto/html/whatsnew.html
I purchased it at a local performance shop, but for the other canadian's out there im sure Parts Source or Canadian Tire will be able to order the kit in now that i know it will work on our trucks.

As far as i can tell from my research most problems with the electric fans is that the wiring needs to be done very well and with the proper guage of wires for the job. This is why this kit was the way to go as it comes with everything you need to get it done right.



The fan controller seems to be very good as well, and it has the soft start feature, so that it only starts at 60% of load which will help avoid all the problems that come with controls that start out full throtle everytime. Also the fan surround has a rubberish weatherstripping around the front that touches the radiator so that you dont have to worry about the radiator leaking due to it being worn out by any potential rubbing issues. Also the mounting hardware included in the kit fits the OEM mounting locations perfectly, so you dont have to stick anything through your radiator which will also lead to potetial rubbing problems like most of the other options i have seen on line.

Also the controller does have an option to have a switch installed so that you can control the fans, but i figured the automatic way was the best way for me. We did let the truck warm up before we did adjust the temperature setting on the fans so that they wouldnt turn on untill the truck was warmed up. The temp guage in my dash sits in the middle now, and the fans dont have to stay on very long to cool our trucks down.



Keep in mind i only installed this yesterday, and my truck is still brand new, so i wont be able to tell how much the gas mileage has improved till my truck is broken in. God knows it is very hard to resist flooring my truck to really test it out.

Oh i am still waiting for an answer on the AC signal wire as that is the only thing we havent hooked up yet.

 

Bump...I still need someone who has access to the wiring info for our trucks. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks Trevor

 

The kit looks good. I do have one question though about the AC wiring, does that just turn the fans on whenever the AC is on? I have my AC on pretty much all the time and wondering if that would be bad for the fans.

 

Yes the wire we are trying to find is the one that turns the AC on in the engine compartment. We will as a last resort splice into the wiring behind the electronic temp control module bit it would be easier to trouble shoot if the wire we needed was near the fans and the AC unit. We tried the wires running from the AC unit, but they seem to stay on all the time, which isnt a good thing.

 

Krazy, you have a PM.

 

Thanks I appreciate the help.
Trevor

 

i just bought this kit also, and havent installed, is that a good spot for the controller, sitting on the shroud, Ive heard of burnt controllers from heat sources, and relocating to near the headlight, my instructions also says lo put it there