I have the single fan on my firebird and it has always ran a little warm at non-highway speeds or just idling. Being that the firebird nose has no vents for air to pass through the radiator, it relies completely on the fan to pull air through the radiator at low speeds. This would be fine, except the stock single fan only covers about half the surface area of the stock radiator. This leads to very poor efficiency of the fan to cool the engine. An easy and common fix to this is to use a dual fan setup, in which the geometry of the dual fans can cover more surface area of the radiator, which leads to better cooling. However, in my case, my crossover pipe for the exhaust is routed around the single fan, which makes a dual fan assembly impossible for me.

I made the following design using sheet metal, a press, & shears. Sitting back 1" from the radiator, they cover the area around the fan, and direct air to flow through the radiator. So far, they seem to make a huge improvement. Idle can now be kept at a constant 180º on a 80º day, where before it struggled to keep it below 200º. Also, I have the fan programmed to switch on at 190º & off at 180º. I plan to test highway and stop & go speeds next, to see how it affects driving temps.

 

Update with pics of shroud installed:

 

how do you have them attached? notice any improvement?

 

They are held in place with a couple screws going through the upper radiator support. I did notice a nice 10-20º difference in temperature when stopped or at low speeds. However the shroud on one side was mounted a little too close to the radiator and rubbed a hole it. It had a lifetime warranty though. Just be careful about spacing it out properly no matter what material you use.

 

wonder if you could just put a piece of hose or weather stripping around the edge of the shroud to help prevent the rub issue. Or just like you said, mount it far enough away that it wont matter

 

Yes, that's what I was thinking to do as well just to be safe. I haven't put them on again b/c it hasn't been that hot, but they'll be nice to have in a couple months.

 

sounds good. thanks for the help. Right now ive got to get mine back together, but once I get the initial bugs out of the system, Im going to work on other small things. this being one of them.