I am curious for the opinions of others here.

In the spring, I'd like to do a minor upgrade to my cooling system. Nothing too big. I was thinking a 180 degree stat, maybe some of that royal purple coolant additive and upgrade the fans.

I was wondering what the benefit of a stock dual fan setup would be over a stock single fan setup. Just looking at mine and the measly 50% of the radiator It's covering, I have to say I am expecting to see some gains.

 

Is the car having cooling problems now?

Flushing out the old coolant and filling it up and replacing the thermo is good maintenance. However if the car isnt over heating, I wouldnt swap fans. My Z came with the dual fan setup and its not the great either. The fans cover the whole radiator width wise but are not very tall.

If you want a fan that moves a TON of air, I have a fan off a 95 or 96 (the model year is important) Lincoln Mark VIII. It is an electric fan and requires running one very heavy relay and fuse, or two relays and fuses like I have. The fan draws nearly 50 amps. It also moves almost as much air as a mechanical fan at 2000 RPMs. After I built the new motor for my car I was having cooling issues. This fan solved everything.

 

The only thing that concerns me with the superchaged single fan or dual fan setup is the current draw. Wouldn't the heavy load being placed on the alternator negate the benefits of an electrical fan over mechanical, not to mention suck up a good portion of the vehicles available amp draw?

 

I've thought about that but I'm not sure. I got this fan becuase nothing else was keeping the car cool. At least at the track, I can turn the electric fan off to do my run. You cant do that with a mechanical fan. I'm not sure how much horsepower an alternator running at full capacity will rob.

 

I have seen on one of those car sites (car craft, chevy high performance) that a mechanical fan can rob more then 20hp from the car.(they tested it on a mustang) Just knowing that i will never use a mechanical fan....

 

electric fans will draw some power off the engine when
they are on,due to current load on the alternator,but
the power drawn is low compaired to the h.p. draw of
a non-clutch belt drive fan at higher rpm-very powerful
electric fans have a motor of around 1/6 hp,1/4 for the
most powerful,to power a motor of that size the
alternator will pull around 1/2-3/4 h.p. off the engine.
a belt drive fan might pull 20hp or more at high rpm-
depending on pulley ratio and other factors,but will
far more airflow than the limited h.p. of an electric
fan's motor,so those are still best for certain heavy
duty applications where max airflow is more important
than the high rpm h.p. draw.
A clutch fan provides lots of airflow at lower rpm,
but the clutch limits the torque that can be transfered
so they freewheel at high rpm,limiting the h.p. draw
to around 3-4hp for a short time until the clutch
freewheels,then the power draw is nil.