i was thinking of picking up and after market fan blade for my car.
(i got the older style metal fan) anyway i was just wondering do aftermaket plades really make a diffrence?

 

The aftermarket fans work well if you get the right one. The one with the real skinny blades don't work as well as the fat flex blades in traffic, and that's where you need them the most. At highway speeds the air moves thru the radiator on it's own.
in traffic you need to pull some good air thru the radiator and when you get the revs up a little (like 1500 or 2000rpm) they flaten out causing less resistance to the engine.

 

kool, and what would be the right one? just anything thicker? do u happen to know of any companys that u would recomend?
thanks

 

Jay... I would go with a electric fan. Much better overall IMO.

 

I can't recomend any certain brand, You just need to shop around and see what's available. I would prefer a wide blade stainless flex fan, their stronger than fiberglass and draw alot of air at low speeds. usually come W/ 5 blades. Be carefull though, they will remove fingers and skin if you should happen to accidently stick your fingers in them. Make sure to measure the width of your existing fan, and shroud so it will fit good. You might also need a fan mount spacer in order to get the fan deep enough into the shroud to do any good. Elec. fans work good also, but only come on at a certain temp. The advantage of an engine mounted fan is more consistant temp in city driving instead of having to wait for selected "fan on" temp. or running a maual fan switch. I'm sure (as you can already see) there will be alot of feed-back on this subject, but it all boils (for lack of a better word!) down to, What do you prefer?

 

I would go electric if possible, or a mechanical/clutch fan, with a flex fan there are to many people getting hurt by pieces of it flying off, they tend to fall apart. Its just safer to go with anything but a flex fan.

 

Do you mean people actually stand next to their car with the hood up and rev it to 6 grand till their fan flies apart? Sounds like their asking for it! I did have one blade fly off at 6 grand one time and it went clean through the power steering hose, and then through the fender well but I was behind the wheel fortuatly!U know, I had forgotten all about that!
I also had a stock harmonic balancer fly apart once too. Pieces of it came through the hood. You make a good point! If he is going to pull rev's above 5 grand, maybe an electric fan might be a wiser choice for saftey's sake. I sure wouldn't want anyone to get hurt from one of my recommendation's! I believe a trip to the bone yard might yield a low cost set-up. How would you wire up one of those on a car that doesn't come with it? I'm sure he's going to want to know that next.

 

A good flex fan will be rated to 10000 rpm. I've been running a flex-a-lite flex fan with the spacer(eliminated clutch) for a long time without any trouble. 17 inch fan will fit perfect with the early mech. fan shroud.

http://store.summitracing.com/partde...art=FLX%2D1307

 

thanks for the info i just got the flex a lite fun u gave me the link to with the spacer.

call me stupid but 2 days ago i went to take off the old fan to check the clutch. after unbolting the 4 bolts on the pully/waterpump the stupid fan would not come off. 30min after pulling and prying it just came off with a little wiggleing. the thing is i went to take off the fan just after i shut down the car and engine still hot.
now today after picking up that fan and spacer i shut down the car and unscrewed the bolt...guess what the fan wont come off AGAIN. my question is does it lock on the pully/waterpump when hot??

 

Couldn't tell you, I'e never taken one off when it's hot because i'ts HOT! But, metal does expand when it heat's up so I guess the answer would be yes! Leaning over a hot radiator isn't my idea of fun but I've had to do it working in a garage because of the available time needed to repair some things in a timely manner such as fan belts and so on. Today though, they have mech. gloves that disapate heat like an oven mitt. If you don't have them I would suggest letting things cool down a bit to avoid injury. I've burned fingers and all kinds of body part's just from being in a hurry/ignorant/stupid and whatever! Want to here a good one? Recently my 29 yrs old son called me to help him change a bent axle on his s-10 and when I got over to his house, he had been banging on the brake drum for 30 min trying to get it off. I asked him, you didn't set the emergency brake did you?
(LOL) I reached in and pulled the release lever and it fell off the truck to the ground! I laughed so hard my sides hurt!

 

i went out and tryed it again when engine was cold and the flippin thing was still stuck. i had to beat at it again lol but i got the new flexfan on so its all good. thanks for the info! lol nice story..u know what thogh i think everyone has done something stupid like that. last time i took off the fan i leaned my arms on the top of the rad and got to purn line on them lol. heart like hell