Hey James--- I am running this fan on my wife's 72 Plymouth Satellite Wagon, 318 car. Previously it had a direct drive, non-viscous fan--- then a clutch fan, then a flex fan-- it over heated with all of these (radiator isn't big enough)-- I had installed a pusher aux fan in front of the radiator, and with it turned on, in traffic, with ANY of the fans mounted to the water pump-- it was 'ok'.. in the middle. Then I switched to the Viper fan, and removed the pusher electric & water pump mounted fans.
Since the Viper fan two things are obvious-- one, temps don't CLIMB as high (with the fan off) than the car did with the flex fan alone. When the fan is turned on, it brings it to approx 1/4 (from 1/2 where it normally ran) in about 3-4 minutes. Also, the car gets better gas mileage (thank god), and has more grunt off the line (which is needs with a 4100 # wagon w/3.23 gears). No difference in performance can be felt with the fan on or off-- so any additional ALT load is minimal in comparison to swinging a flex fan or clutch style.
I'll have to video tape it and put it up on my website, but when I turned on the fan during testing-- parked-- I had a bunch of packing paper in front of the car-- and a good piece of it got sucked up into the radiator-- It was pretty funny... If you are within 1' of the front of the radiator, you can feel the pull this fan puts out.
Sam
www.socaldakota.com
>
> From: james.zito@ps.ge.com
> Date: 2003/08/28 Thu AM 09:27:44 EDT
> To: dakota-truck@dakota-truck.net
> Subject: DML: Re: RE: Viper fan question
>
>
> From Andy:
>
> Helps if we explain why that is though.
>
> The factory fan setup is a fan with a clutch attached to the water pump
> (and in some cases an auxiliary electric fan). Because it's directly
> connected to the engine, turning the fan requires that power be sent
> away from the driveshaft and into the fan to get it moving and keep it
> moving. Remove that parasite and the engine revs a little easier and
> gets slightly better mileage.
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> I don't entirely agree with you. The Viper is still a parasite, unless you
> are using a little electric generator stored in the bed to power it.
>
> The electric power to drive the viper fan comes from somewhere. And since
> the fan is moving more air than the stock one, it probably uses more power
> for the job (not considering actual blading design here). Granted it
> probably doesn't spin all the time, due to the temperature controller, and
> although the point to the fan clutch is similar it is not as effective.
>
> I agree that the engine will rev easier without the inertia of the stock
> fan...But there will be additional load on the alternator when the viper
> runs eating up your "free-ed" horsepower.
>
> Jim
> 2003 qc 4x2 Dark
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Feb 06 2004 - 11:46:54 EST