Thread: Electric or belt driven fan?

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Im setting up my 429 in my T roadster and not sure wether to go with electric or belt driven fan. Im pretty limited on space. My radiator is rated to 600 HP. its 2 row, 1 inch tubes. Im expecting to get aound 500HP. The car will mostly be a cruiser so low speed cooling is most important.

If you have room I would go with the belt driven fan and a good shroud.

Electric ................

T's do not not need a belt driven fan. There's a plethora of exposed heat transfer surfaces to aid in cooling. IMO in general belt driven fans are ugly and require a lot of room and an ugly fan shroud.

I would say that today only a small fraction of pre 40 rods use belt driven fans.

Kitz

Personally, I would never use a belt-driven fan again unless I was going for a true retro look.

Ditto. It is like the argument of using a generator or alternator. Just because you are building a traditional type car there is no reason to stay with 100 year old technology, electric fans have it all over belt driven fans. Safer (have you ever nicked your fingers on a spinning fan or seen what they do when they explode? ) they are more efficient, especially at low speeds, and they release a couple of HP.

The secret is to use the best brand you can, in the biggest diameter that will fit. Also, use a shroud like the one in the picture below. I can't get my T up to 180 even sitting at redlights, and I live in Florida, my Sons T (pictured) won't go over 170.

Don

it not hard to cool 500hp they never make 500 at idle i used both but still like the belt they work if the belt is on the pulley .if the electric fans die you may have more work and money to get back running .low speed may not be to bad with a open engine bay i sold a bbc 548 soild roller 14.8 cr that did make 700+hp EZ in 28 ford with a very small alum rad and one big electric fan never ran hot at idle and was driven on the street i had the same engine in my gto that did run a bit hot so alot has to do with air getting in and out of the engine bay water speed running thru the rad has alot to do with keeping something cool so do not over look it

Sometimes alignment is an issue. If you look at Don's picture above, a belt driven fan could be an issue here.....

Belt driven is usually more reliable and moves air better, but if you have limited space, electric may be your only choice. In some cars you might need a water pump riser to get the belt driven fan centrally located on the radiator. I would probably go with a Cooling Components unit with a shroud.

One thing that I have recently found out is that I have overlooked PLENTY of excellent electric fans at the junk yard and e-bay. I bought a set of lS1 dual fans for 40 dollars and 25 shipping to my front door. These fans pull plenty of air to cool a vette engine so they should be fine for my stock build. The LS1 fans are made better than any aftermarket cooling fan I have seen. There is a Ford fan that is a single unit that is supposed to pull 5500 cfm if a single fan is needed.

I also got a VSC unit from flexilte to operate the fans. It brings the fans on at 60 % load and as the temp goes up so does the output of the VSC to 100%. It even controls the fans to come on with the A/C. I paid about 200 with every thing ready to turn on. Using 10 gauge wire and good connectors. For a unit that is made for my truck with the same controller I would have to pay 600 dollars for the unit.

Double post

I saw a friend after the mechanical fan blade broke off ,from a 2 to 3 thousand rpm snort,it aint a pretty site ,1/4 scalped and most of the ear 20 ft away in the street.
He was pretty lucky ,it could have split his noggin down the middle.

The electric fans are pretty reliable ,as long as the correct relays and wires are used.

Thanks for the input guys. I think the alignment would be somewhat of an issue. Im pretty sure and electric is the best way for me to go. Has anybody ever made their own shroud? It seems to me like it would be fairly easy with a bending brake and a jig saw. I cant seem to find the right size shroud. and I think I can make one with a cheap piece of aluminum from the scrap yard.

Yep, we made the one on my Son's T. Just as you described, we just took some 18 gauge sheet metal and bent up about a 1 inch rim all the way around and welded up the seams. (looked like a 18 x 20 inch pizza pan when done), then we cut a round hole in the middle, painted it, and mounted a 16 inch electric fan on it. We welded four studs on it to mount the fan. It was a one evening project.

Oh, we bought weatherstripping at Home Depot to put all the way around the sharp edges of the shroud so it wouldn't cut into the radiator. The glue that came on the weatherstripping didn't hold it so we sprayed 3M # 77 on it and that did the trick.

Don

And finally...............

Don

( I knew these pictures would come in handy some day )

That looks great and seems as simple as I thought it would be.