I was wondering if anyone other there has fabricated their own electric fans and was it worth it? I have heard of guys doing it before and was thinking about giving it a shot if I could get some info on how it was done?
Thanks a lot to anyone who responds
Iron

 

are you just trying to save some money on having electrical fans, instead of paying the $350 it is for flex-a-lites and what not ?

 

HI!... I was one of the 1st to go to electric fans on the newer F-150's. I used two DERALE 16" electric fans and one fan controller. At the time it all cost me $245(U.S). I fabbed up and installed eveything myself. Been on for about 5 years now with no problems at all.

 

Check out these posts I ave done a home made fan kit with tauras fans and they look and work great. You can get temperature switches from an escort and a tempo that have a 1/2 NPT fitting which make the wiring easy. The escort sensors cut in the fan at 95C and the tempos at 105C. I used a thermistor from a crown vic and made an electronic adjustable controller for both fans which is harder but the sensor bolts right in the crossover on the manifold.

https://www.f150online.com/forums/sh...hreadid=158997
https://www.f150online.com/forums/sh...hreadid=146014

 

Hey thanks guys for the info. I got a buddy that is a little better with this stuff than me to help out so this should work. I hope
Iron
P.S. Sorry about the late reply. I work graveyard and it is still new to me:o

 

I used a crown vic fan. It moves more air then a mustang fan and keeps my 351w cool on low speed. $85 eBay fan and about $25 for switches and relays.

 

I like forums like this, useful if you need to diagnose problems with ______x (be it a ford truck or a kubota tractor or a briggs and stratton engine).... there is always some expert out there to help me with my problem. so I guess I might weigh in on the topic of electric fans on a 4.6 (Expedition in my case)......


I am a B0SCH fan engineer (formerly we were Airflow Research) and we have had hand in every electric fan design I saw posted in pictures here on this tread (we license technology to Tripac which makes those aftermarket fans - and of course we did all of Ford's electric fans back in hte 90's and still do quite a bit today).

Everyone here probably is aware of hte benefits of electric fans, but the main reason you don't see them in trucks is available power. Basically you need too much current to get enough cooling for extreme trailer towing (high output power but low speed of vehicle). The complementary reason is cost - either you need a high voltage system (which I can describe) or bigger heat exchangers for fans that can use 12V - and the OEMs are driven by COST COST and did I mention COST..... oh yeah and then there is COST too - they use that as the basis for all decisions ....

I bought my 97 Expedition explicitly so we could invent, build and market high power electric fans for trucks. We did it on my truck. We patented a method where we used a second high voltage alternator to run the fans up to 42V and we made a special dual fan assembly with extra high power motors and fans and shroud specially optimized to fit the Expedition radiator. - In the Ford windtunnel our system almost cooled as well as the stock system for extreme trailer tow (I think it was like 2C worse on toptank temperature). For all other conditions it was as good or better than the stock system. Years later I have reinstalled the stock fan because I was tired of all those extra parts and computers in my truck and the experiment was over after 4 years. No doubt that the truck had better pickup as compared to the occasions that the clutch happens to be locked up when I hit hte accelerator. ALso no doubt it was much quieter.

But the kicker in the whole thing was the price - basically OEMs were not interested because it cost more money. In the future you will see electric fans on trucks as we transition to 42V (also I might mention that GM is using a 12V system now - they increased the fin density of their radiator because the electric fan offered enough cooling at idle for the A/C ... hey, system engineering ...what a concept ..) but I think that they probably reduced their trailer tow spec as well - they must have.

One more thing I can tell you is that for regular driving around New England without any trailer our computer log showed that virtually the only time the fan came on was for idle operation of the A/C. Basically the radiator is oversized for normal driving in moderate weather.

Oh yeah - on Mustang I can recall that after the switch over to electric fans we had to shut down max speed tests after only 2 (5 mile) laps due to higher oil temps. I think you could go maybe 6 laps max speed with the engine driven fans (I attended those tests back in hte mid nineties)

So unless you are towing (up hills in the desert) or plan to drive really fast - then electric fans should probably work out just fine for all you truck enthusiasts out there.

J