Myth of the electric fan

[thunder550]

i was watching an off road race today with the baja trucks, you know what they all had? electric fans. while the article was written for a small foreign car that i dont know much about i dont think its applicable for our racing uses with trucks. I know some off roaders prefer the stock fan to electric when mudding, deep water, but most people here have on road racing trucks anyways.

Keep in mind that to protect the radiator, it is located in the back on those trucks where it's impossible to get a clutch fan to and it's not in the path of flowing air, so it needs fans to pull air through. There really is no other option in those cases besides e-fans.




I had e-fans, and I went back to a clutch fan. The wiring was a PITA for the e-fans. I tried 2 different controllers. First was a Nelson harness, and it kept eating relays. E-fans don't do any good when they have no power going to them. The voltage drop when the fans started up was horrendous too. I have a factory 145 amp alternator, and the voltage would drop from 13.9 to low 11's when the fans first started, then it would come back up to low 13's. I tried a DCControl soft start controller next. It worked better, but I was still unhappy with the low voltage once the fans were up to speed.

I had problems with my truck overheating while towing with the e-fans.

Under normal operation in normal weather I noticed absolutely no SOTP difference between e-fans and an unlocked clutch fan. Of course, in hot weather when the clutch fan would normally lock, it was nice to be rid of the drag from the clutch fan.

Overall, the costs of switching to e-fans for me were far greater than the benefits, so I'm back to a clutch fan for good. I don't have any complaints.