Thought i'd throw some pics up of a fan shroud i built for a buddy of mine. As some of you know i dove into the diesel scene pretty hard a few years back. Love fabbing my own parts for the trucks since some of the stuff is easy to build, can save a ton of money DIY.
Have right about $50 into materials down to the fasteners.
This is what we started with




Fan is off a mid 90's jeep i believe and they are real popular with the diesel guys since they move the air and are cheap on ebay. FYI this is on a 04 ram 2500. Electric fan was put on while radiator was in the truck so clearly it was not centered and was rubbing the radiator on the bottom. Truck made upwards of 750hp last few years running mid 11's and still seeing street duty, the electric fan helped but was getting hot in traffic and towing.

So this is what i put together for him. Retains all the factory mounting including the hose and battery cable hold downs on top, overflow resivor is in stock location as well. Long welds were run with a syncrowave 200 all the final small stuff i did with a syncrowave 180sd.







Only mistake i made was i had the big parts with me at the shop with plans of welding it up there then doing the final brackets and what not at home so i didnt lug the massive radiator in with me. Had one of my guys there that ran outta work on a saturday so i had him tig up the angles on the side to the big plate. Needless to say he got nervous and its not the smoothest straightest beads i've ever seen him produce. But luckily the guy is more into function than look. Have 2 more guys that want one, waiting to see how it works first. The truck this is going on is spec'd out for 850hp on fuel and if he hits that he will spray it to over 1k.

 

I am by no means an expert on cooling, but wouldn't you still need some vent slots or holes on the shroud for extra cooling? You do excellent work welding and fabricating, nice job!

 

I was under the same assumption that you still want that air free flowing in as well but apparently not. The flexalite kit they make for these trucks is the same way. He is also adding a pusher fan infront so that may make a difference as well.
I just do as i'm told
Thanks for the kind words!

 

Thats the right way to do it! Before it was just pulling through one circular area of the radiator, now it will pull air through the entire radiator. This will cool really well, I think! Nice work, and it will get the job done.

 

I would have done some vent holes in the shroud covered by trap doors on the back. When the truck is moving the pressure of the air pushing against them would open the vents allowing more air flow through the rad. When its not moving, the negative pressure created by the fan would close the vents making it work like it does now.

 

That shroud is welded to the radiator?

Good luck cleaning bugs & leaves out. Anything that slips in the fins, is gonna be tricky to get out & impossible if anything slips through. It'll build up between that shroud & the fins.

 

No it's not welded to the radiator in the pics you can see it has 4 tabs that allow it to bolt to the radiator. Really clean design.

 

Certainly better than the old arrangement you had. Looks very neat & clean!

The one thing I want to point out it that the aluminum is going to completely obscure the airflow through the covered portions and might not be much of an improvement. The ideal is the do what you have and make a funnel like cone that allows the airflow to completely cover all the fins - at least when it is in motion.

 

typically a car setup will have some trap doors, look at the 4th gen shrouds, but I'm guessing that the truck doesn't usually move fast enough to matter...

 

Well the truck has gone mid 11's on his old setup
i am going to check out the trap door thing though, it'd be easy enough to mod this one wouldnt be a huge deal to add down the road

I got a ford radiator now guy wants the same setup, this is basically how the flex a lite setups work, they're flat like that. Trying to hold off building anymore since we have a good background of the temps the truck ran whether it was towing, traffic, on the dyno or down the track. Really itching to see what our results are.

Mounting wise its actually less time to remove than the factory. 2 tabs slip in the slots on the bottom of the radiator, 2 bolts up top remove the entire assembly as one piece. Welded blocks i tapped onto the back so the fan can be removed without taking the shroud off and trying to cram a arm in there with a wrench. I'm all about making it look as if it came that way along with using all the stock mounting when possible.

Shopping for a tig setup as we speak!!

 

The silver truck is the one this shrouds going on. we had a bad day at that track, when they back him out they yelled at us we couldnt do burn outs in the box or launch in the groove after our first go round we had torn all the rubber off the starting line

Black trucks on its way into the low 9's this coming season
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jToK_a7Z-Dc

 

bad idea. that fan shroud actually blocks air from passing through the coolings fins. think of it this way. Get a screen off of a window and put it in front of you and run. You'll feel no resistance or pressure. Now get a sheet of cardboard and cut out a hole the size of the fan itself. Then run again. You'll feel a difference in resistance. Same concept with your fan shroud. Believe me, It looks extremely good. But your actually reducing the cooling efficiency of the free flow air and the lower front valance. Its like gaining horse power by removing and adding tubular suspension components, but then you add a sub woofer box. Defeats the purpose of reducing weight. Catch my drift?