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Test Drive
- Location
- Toledo, Ohio
So I did a thing. More details to come 
E-fan conversion
- Thread starter triangles
- Start date
- Location
- Denver Adjacent
I'm here for it. I like the idea as long as it performs BETTER than the clutch fan. With the SC radiator, the clutch fan is fine. So I'm curious if you see any improvement.
triangles
Test Drive
- Location
- Toledo, Ohio
I'm not sure what you mean by "BETTER." My goal was to try and go for a bit better fuel economy by eliminating the parasitic drag of the mechanical fan when it is not needed. My fuel economy had been in the 14-15 mpg territory. My other reason was to have the electric fan for better AC while not moving. I can say without a doubt it is BETTER for this second case. I literally dropped the radiator in with the new fan shroud right before driving 1200 miles from Ohio to the Black Hills of South Dakota. Shortly after getting out there I had problems keeping the engine running under 1500 rpm. At idle it would horribly misfire and stall with absolutely no DTCs. I had gone over much of the motor last year so that helped narrow down what was wrong. I figured it was spark related and not fuel since it ran fine above 1500 rpm. The distributor appeared to be the original one with 20 years and over 241k miles (I had replaced the cap/rotor last fall) on it so that was my prime suspect. The rotor shaft had a bit of side play which did not seem normal. A painful $250 at O'Rielly Auto Parts, and with some basic tools I installed a new distributor at the camp ground. I set the timing by making alignment marks on the valve cover breather tube and the flat edge on the of the distributor before taking out the original distributor. Not sure what the timing is but it was close enough to get it up and running again. Fuel economy (and power) is much better now. So I don't know how I will be able to judge any improvement from the efans since I think the distributor had been going bad for a long time and is what was killing my fuel economy. Not sure if it's placebo effect or not but it seems to run smoother and spool up quicker with the efan. I kind of went overkill with the fan control side of things. as I have 2 temp controllers one for low speed (running fans in series) and the other for high speed (fans in parallel). I also went with the temp sensors shoved in the radiator fins instead of a proper install in the coolant flow. I'm also going to do a delay off so that when I turn off the car and it is really hot, the fans run for a few minutes to cool things down.
A few performance metrics: With the stock mechanical fan and air temps in the mid to upper 80's, coolant ran about 192F ish at idle and would increase a bit under load but quickly come back down. I didn't have the opportunity to see what it did under heavy load and 90F+ temps before conversion. With the efan idle temps were about the same and would be maintained under low speed fan. I think I want to set the high speed to come on at a coolant temp of 210F. Not sure about that as I don't know what is considered hot for a VG33E. Climbing hills aggressively in 90F+ heat, I did manage to get it up to 208F but the temp quickly came back down once I reduced engine load.
I didn't get any pictures because I was literally scrambling to install things in time to leave for our trip, but I will eventually do a write up on what I did so anyone can duplicate it if they want to. I do not have the SC radiator. The PO replaced the radiator prior to selling it to me so I couldn't justify a new SC radiator. I definitely will use a SC radiator if I need a replacement in the future.
A few performance metrics: With the stock mechanical fan and air temps in the mid to upper 80's, coolant ran about 192F ish at idle and would increase a bit under load but quickly come back down. I didn't have the opportunity to see what it did under heavy load and 90F+ temps before conversion. With the efan idle temps were about the same and would be maintained under low speed fan. I think I want to set the high speed to come on at a coolant temp of 210F. Not sure about that as I don't know what is considered hot for a VG33E. Climbing hills aggressively in 90F+ heat, I did manage to get it up to 208F but the temp quickly came back down once I reduced engine load.
I didn't get any pictures because I was literally scrambling to install things in time to leave for our trip, but I will eventually do a write up on what I did so anyone can duplicate it if they want to. I do not have the SC radiator. The PO replaced the radiator prior to selling it to me so I couldn't justify a new SC radiator. I definitely will use a SC radiator if I need a replacement in the future.