Im about to purchase an e-fan but not really trying to spend $300-400 bucks unless its truely necessary. The mods I have already are an K&N CAI, flowmaster exhaust, edge evo and underdrive pulley w/gatorback belt.
I do not do alot of towing or much off-roading. In other words the truck doesnt get driven very hard.

My question is, can I get by with a single fan and still see some performance gains and a quieter motor, or do I need to suck it up and get the dual?

Thanks guys! Happy New Year!!

 

If you can find a HUGE single fan, then yes, you can run a single.

HOWEVER, I (along with others Im sure) wouldnt recommend it. If something would happen to that fan then your pretty much screwed, sitting along the road waiting for some one to come pick you up. If you have two fans, you can have one crap out and still have a second one to drive on.

 

Id recommend dual 14's or 16's. If one fails, you have a backup.

 

go with the proven dual fans bud. safer is better aye?

 

HI!... Ya for sure go with a dual fan set-up. Just like was said previously, one fan craps out you have another for a back-up. Your single fan craps out, your screwed!!!!!!

I've got two 16" DERALE fans from SUMMIT RACING. Been running these fans for about 7 years now with no problems. Cost me about $200(U.S) for both fans 7 years ago.

 

Nice picture of your fans, by the way does anybody suggest doing this when still under warranty or does it void the warranty?

 

im runnina single 3800cfm fan off a mustang on mine its 16" its been holding up fine. im about to go to install my 2core radiator though so well see.

 

ford has used single e-fans for years now...

 

Used in...? I'm having the similar delima as Ryan... I know we don't NEED $400 worth of 5500 cfm's blowing into our engine bay but we do NEED to get rid of those power-robbing obnoxious non-E fans.

On a side note where does Mike get off charging so much? When I saw the price tag on his e-fans I wanted to send him a picture of two of those old skool oscillating bedroom fans duct taped to the front end of my truck with a caption saying "$50 from Walmart; adds 5 to 10 HP at the wheels; it'll do".

 

Dual fans for reasons listed above.

 

its the demand for them, a complete kit may be hard to piece together for the amature... now if you know what your doing, build your own fan kit.

 

Run duals.. It would be a big mistake to only run one fan.

 

In my book, singles versus duals is a moot point. The truck arrives with a single mechanical fan, many aftermarket kits are duals, but the argument of single versus duals is irrelevant. You may be able to find a single fan that moves as much air as duals, but that's the key: Airflow; not how many fans it takes to generate that volume. Heck, I'd love to see someone run a gang of PC case fans just for fun. A good PC case fan will move around 13 CFM, so you'd need roughly 50 fans to move the air the stock fan moves at idle LOL!

There are some vehicles that run a single electric (crown vic comes to mind, but don't quote me), there are a ton that run duals, and even a few vehicles running a hybrid setup of a mechanical and an electric (Ranger and Dodge Ram Pickup). There is no one right answer to the problem.

Now that being said, if one fails, yes, you (sort of) have a backup. If it takes two fans to maintain the cooling airflow, one fan may not be enough and it may overheat anyways. If you only have one, and it fails, it isn't a big deal. The engine will go into limp-home mode and you'll be able to drive it (at reduced power and speed, of course) as far as necessary to get it fixed. All F-150s since '97 have been equipped with fail-safe cooling.

-Joe

 

Limp-home mode...? The motor obviously thinks it is overheating and thus drops rpm range capability etc? I was not aware of that but I've only overheated one motor in my time (Honda) and it was because the upper radiator hose blew wide open and I lost all coolant in about .5 seconds... It wasn't that fast but purdy damn quick. So ideally the redundancy is nice with the duals but not a necessity. I guess the bottom line question is how many cfms do we really need to push? Obviously this is per application: someone going extreme off-roading in the desert as compared to a daily driver on the country roads in the midwest are two different stories. What does the daily driver need (worst scenerio Florida humid summer) to push cfms to properly cool their motor?

 

Hey, I didn't say I had ALL the answers LOL!!

The fail-safe cooling info is in the owner's manual. In theory, you should be able to drain the cooling system and drive it home. Basically the system causes the engine to run on 4 cylinders while the other four cylinders move air to keep it cool. The system alternates which four cylinders are pumping air and which four are burning fuel (generating heat) to maximize the cooling. You're not going to win any drag races, but it'll get you home.

As for the CFM requirement, more is always better. My best guesstimate would be to look at the airflow of the Troyer, LFP, or Flex-A-Lite kits (all established systems with a track record that work well) and find something comparable.

-Joe