Slim rad fan install and questions

[Hawgman]

FYI: Air flow should go from the front of the car to the rear. Unless you plan on backing up everywhere you go.

FYI: You just lost a LOT of cooling capacity at low speed. Even if that fan moves as much air as the stock fan, it is only cooling a small part of the radiator. There is a reason that the factories spend the size/weight/cost and put a shroud on the cooling fan.

+1 on decreased cooling due to the lost effects of ducting of the OE shrowd. It may not matter because the main core area is still being cooled with your new fan, but only time will tell. Let use know how you do in slow traffic in the summer in NC. I hope you see no difference, but think you might?? Thanks for the pics!

What these guys said. That shroud serves a very vital purpose. I highly recommend you keep an eye on your temps especially in the summer. I speak from experience on this. Not with a Mustang, but a previous car that I did almost the exact same mod to.

 

[RRRoamer]

It covers almost the exact same area as the stock fan, the stockers blade diameter is just under 17", so i lost a little over a inch in fan diameter with the 16'' slim fan. And this fan flows 200 scfm more than the stocker. Granted i dont have a huge shroud that covers most of the rad area anymore which i can def live without. I also have a twincore 52mm aluminum radiator, so i def didnt loose any cooling.

When I say "area" I am referring to the area of the RADIATOR that has active air flow over it due to the fan. The whole POINT of the shroud is to spread the airflow out and have slower air flowing over as much of the radiator as possible. The more area with airflow, the more cooling capacity that radiator has.

While you MIGHT have as much low speed cooling as a stock setup, you DON'T have as much cooling capacity with that radiator as you COULD have with a shroud. That's simple physics at work.

But, as long as you are not overheating while stuck in traffic on a hot day, that is all that matters!

 

[RRRoamer]

Oh! One other thing: These cars have a "smart" (aka: dumb!) temperature display. It has a VERY wide temperature range where the needle sits right in the middle of the normal range. The needle only starts going up when the car decides it is starting to overheat, NOT when it initially starts to warm up. That's a long way of saying that the needle is NOT linear to the engine temperature. Far from it.

 

[06Roadstarman]

+1 on decreased cooling due to the lost effects of ducting of the OE shrowd. It may not matter because the main core area is still being cooled with your new fan, but only time will tell. Let use know how you do in slow traffic in the summer in NC. I hope you see no difference, but think you might?? Thanks for the pics!

Just reading this thread.....saw this post and ABSOLUTELY......your ambient capability when not moving just took a shit. Yes the fan might move the same amount of air but at what level of restriction? If it moves 5000 scfm @ 1.5" of H20 but your restriction is higher than that.....cooling capacity goes down. Also, this new fan had a swept area of something like (15.5"/2)^2 * 3.14 which is 188+ square inches. The old fan had a swept area of (17/2)^2 3.14 or 227 square inches. Your new fan HAS to be fighting a higher restriction than the stocker just because of flow area. Add in the cowl of the stock system which allows the stock fan to pull air through the ENTIRE rad core and I would bet you run the risk of overheating in a traffic jam situation. Without heat rejection numbers on the engine, the flow rate of the coolant, the fan performance curve, and the heat rejection capacity of the rad core, I can't give you a very exact number but sitting still, especially in a traffic jam, I bet your car will overheat below 100F....or even lower.....90F wouldn't surprise me. I hope I am wrong but I don't think so. You will see in a few months.

Naww.....I will change that.....I bet you start seeing High engine temps at 70-80F if you sit still long enough. Good Luck

 

[Greg Hazlett]

Since he has a higher capacity radiator won't that offset some of the fore mentioned issues?

 

[06Roadstarman]

Since he has a higher capacity radiator won't that offset some of the fore mentioned issues?

Is this the Mishimoto rad talked about in the other thread? If so, probably at least to some small degree. I assume it is more free flowing (has less static restriction) than the stock rad so that air will flow through easier. However, when sitting still he has sacrificed over 50% of his core area by not using a shroud. Internally, it may also allow the coolant to flow at a little higher rate so you get more heat transfer but that can backfire because as dwell time goes down (higher flow) you need higher external air flow to take advantage of the opportunity for heat transfer.....your moving x BTU/min into the cooler and your cooling air can pick up y BTU/min FOR A GIVEN CORE AREA which are very different when not running a shroud and sitting still. My guess is the higher performing rad won't help much if at all when the car is sitting still.

 

[JeremyH]

A shroud wont work with the sllim fan unless i completely hackup the cover thats on it. This slim actually mounts closer to radiator(right on it lol). Where as on the stock fan and shroud assembly the fan actually sat back away from the radiator 2 inches.

I saw that most do the dual 12'' fans but they only flow 900cfm a piece and this 16'' flows 2,000 cfm. Which is more than stock and saved me $80 not having to buy 2 fans.

I understand what a fan shroud does and its benefits when sitting still.
So i will keep an eye on it when summer rolls around, but i am confident i will be fine with the alum radiator and slimfan, over ther stock rad and stock fan/shroud.

Thanks for the input guys!

 

[JeremyH]

UPDATE. Well its 90 degress today and i took the car out with the slim fan unplugged drove around the neighborhood for 5 minutes and sat and idled at full temp (oem temp gauge halfway) i have a upgraded radiator btw and it was hot to touch but no over heating yet. So i left the fan unplugged and took it on the highway drove it hard got on it a few times and stopped back at the house about 30 mins of driving and temps were fine. Let it idle hood closed watch the temp gauge after about 1-2 minutes of idling the temp gauge slowly shot up to about 75-80% of full sweep and held there for a few minutes. I plugged the mish slim fan back in and after another 5 mins the gauge swept back down to half scale so the fan is def working with the radiator and no issues with overheating in 90 degree weather. Im gonna test it out again next time we get temps closer to 100 this summer. Looks good so far as glad to see the temps actually went down after the fan kicked on.

 

[RyanS197]

You had already relocated your power steering reservoir?

 

[SilentScope]

dual 12" fans would cool better, even thought they flow less, because they will cover more area than the one 16" fan.

 

[JeremyH]

You had already relocated your power steering reservoir?

Yes. and coolant res.

 

[JeremyH]

dual 12" fans would cool better, even thought they flow less, because they will cover more area than the one 16" fan.

Not exactly, in theorey that sounds good, i thought about that as well. The dual 12s have a little more surface area yes (113 in2 each) the single 16" fan has 201 in. So granted the dual 12s have 25 more in of surface area but the 16" flows 300 cfm more.

But none of this really matters anymore as the fan does its job quite well. 90 degrees at a stop idling and thats all that matters to me.

 

[retfr8flyr]

Yes the fan should draw the air through the radiator. I may be wrong but I think you will have cooling problems with that setup. The fans flow about the same but without the shroud the thin fan won't be nearly as efficient drawing the air through. I have never had a cooling fan work well without some kind of shroud.


Earl

 

[KungFuHamster]

Lol me and greg are gonna give the front brakes another shot this weekend.

greg....yasika?

 

[JeremyH]

No greg hazlett. And sorry guys this is an older thread i just wanted to update with my results on a 90 degree day. I will continue to watch it and on the next hotter day than 90 im going to run the test again, run it hard for 30 min and let it idle hood closed for 15-20 mins and see how she holds up and try the fan unplug, plug in test again to see if it gets hot and then cools back down.

 

[Greg Hazlett]

greg....yasika?

WOW..there is a name from the past that many people around here don't want the be reminded of!

 

[KungFuHamster]

WOW..there is a name from the past that many people around here don't want the be reminded of!

LOL so are you a former MAS Racing guy or HOLESHOT PERFORMANCE?

 

[Greg Hazlett]

Neither..Steen Racing.

 

[Greg Hazlett]

Sean Kelly is still here at working at DTP speaking of MAS...all the other shops around here are gone-Steen, Performance Unlimited, MAS, Holeshot..don't hear a lot about Abacus anymore either....

 

[KungFuHamster]

Neither..Steen Racing.

Cant believe i left out good old Jason Steen!

Sean Kelly is still here at working at DTP speaking of MAS...all the other shops around here are gone-Steen, Performance Unlimited, MAS, Holeshot..don't hear a lot about Abacus anymore either....

Wow....sounds like a LOT has changed there...of all the shops that survived, im rather surprised DTP would still be around. Congrats to them.
i just moved a month ago and found an old dyno sheet from 03 from Abacus. Man i remember when that was the only dyno in town.

so who's shop is the hot ticket now? other than DTP?