hey guys looking to install an aluminium radiator and electric fan, but would like to ask if anyone know what sort of temp sensor to get and/or the temp range needed sick of my car sounding like a bus ;)

 

thanks in advance :)

Hi, be very cautious with the type of electric fan you use, they normally do not work and I have not heard of many successful conversions. Here is my story I posted for another forum member asking the same.

 

Thought I might share my experience on this topic.

Electric cooling fan on a 300zx sounds like a brilliant idea, why not as most high performance turbo cars have them. The thing is there are countless guys who have tried and failed. I decided to give it a try and fitted a large generic cheap 16" electric fan onto a fibre glass radiator shroud I made which was fitted to my large aluminium aftermarket radiator. What a disaster as the car temp ( digital temp gauge) rose very fast to hot within the first 10 mins with the fan running almost continuously from cold in a typical South African day with average temps of 25-28 degrees C. I binned that and realised that I needed a fan with higher specs and importing the Taurus Fan as Funkysi stated was too much.

 

I decided to use a fan from a Volvo S60 and used a large relay that was rated at 80Amps dc over the contacts and fitted into a custom fibre glass shroud covering the entire radiator. It is controlled with a cheap radiator fan controller unit I got off ebay which you can set the fan to come on from any temp you select and when that set temp is reached and the fan switches on the display flashes. The nice thing about this unit is you can see what the water temp is, when the fan is running as the temp value displayed flashes and also see the temp drop as its cooling and when the flashing stops you know the fan is off.

This set up works very well in traffic on a hot South African day and the temp drop variation from when fan starts to when fan switches off is 5 degrees C and this drop is over a 30 to 40 second period. This has been tested at a few different settings for fan to switch on at 75, 80, 85 and 90 degree C and have settled on switching on at 85.

The temps at cruising speeds of 120 km/h is that the fan switches on and off as in traffic conditions which is not good as the fan should not operate at all. This is due to the fact that the fan aperture at cruising speeds is a restrictor for the incoming air and I have to now fit ports with one-way flaps into the shroud to allow more air in to pass through the radiator. Once I have done that I will report back with the results. The benefits so far is no drag from an engaged viscous fan, no whooshing fan noise and less stress on the water pump.

i asked the same a few weeks back as i think my viscous fan is goosed, still tempted to try it but according to info i was given you need aprox a 4000cfm fan to do the job the nearest i can find is a 3630cfm 16" fan from zirgo but it's not cheap at nearly $400 for the kit, but it excludes the temp adaptor for the top hose, and a fan shroud so all in around $600. a new viscous unit i was quoted around £300 from a stealer so the viscous unit is currently my cheapest option

If done right a bigger rad and decent electric fan is better for a modified car in my opinion. I've got a massive power enterprise rad and a 20" pacet fan. It keeps the temp well in check. On the track, in the alps, in traffic in summer no problems. Just the rad on its own keeps the temp down when moving. My opinion, get a massive quality rad, a decent large quantity fan with decent thermostat control and decent glycol based coolant.

Cheers

Danny