The Jim G replacement engine cooling fan testing has begun
I have mentioend a few times that I have a project cooking to replace the wimpy and proven-unreliable stock engine cooling fan on the SSR. Yesterday, the installation was completed, and the testing begun.
Most of you know that the stock engine cooling fan is an under achiever in both air flow and in projected life when subjected to the demanding thermodynamic environment of the SSR. It can’t really keep the engine cool in high ambient temperatures when the vehicle is stuck in stop and go traffic, and it tends to have to run so high a percentage of its time that it fails prematurely. It is not unusual for it to fail in 12,000 miles or less when subjected to hot climate use.
I have been looking for a replacement fan for at least a year and a half, and MAY have found the right product.
There is an Italian company, SPAL, which has been in the automotive fan and accessory manufacturing business since 1959.It is an ISO9001 certified company, which means it has the control systems to make quality products. SPAL engine cooling fans are used in some pretty high end European cars, including Ferrari.
The SPAL product that forms the NUCLEUS (note entire package) of my trial solution is a TWIN fan setup, with dual 11 inch fans. This product has the following significant features:
The twin-fan package with shroud is almost exactly the ideal size for our SSR installation environment, as it is just slightly smaller than the stock fan setup in OVERALL (height, width, depth) dimensions, so it FITS, although it requires some fabrication and installation skills to install cleanly. The entire assembly is 23 ½ inches wide x 16 ¼ inches high, by 4.25 inches deep at its deepest point (most of it is just 2 5/8 inches deep)
The two fans together blow 2700 cubic feet of air per minute, which is definitely in the “extreme” range, while drawing only about 25 amps maximum.
The setup includes a reasonably impressive shroud for the whole assembly, which includes a series of TWELVE rubber flaps, which uncover 24 openings at both the top and the bottom of the shroud, to enable air to flow through the shroud, as well as through the fans, once your road speed is high enough that the speed itself makes more air flow than the fans can.
The motors have a design life of 10,000 hours, which means that if you average 50 mph, they should last 500,000 miles. If you average just 20 mph, they should last 200,000 miles. This assumes they have to run ALL the time that you are driving, which is clearly a very pessimistic assumption! So, the bottom line is that this should be, for all practical purposes, a “lifetime” solution.
Just in case you get some weird defect, SPAL provides a 3 year warranty.
The motors are fully sealed, which means they are dustproof AND waterproof.
The fan asemblies are individually balanced during manufacture, for long life.
My installer wired got the right parts, and had the right skills, to wire the fans up to the stock wiring so that BOTH fans come on at low speed when the PCM calls for low speed on the stock fan, and BOTH fans come on at high speed when the PCM calls for high speed. This retains my ability to adjust the “on” and “off” points via PCM.
The odds of TWO ISO9001-manufactured fans failing at once would best be described as “miniscule”, so your odds of ever being stranded should be basically nil.
If a fan should somehow be damaged or should fail, no matter how unlikely that is, the fan / shroud assembly is cleverly made in a manner that allows you to replace only the one that failed.
My source shop has installed this setup in its clients’ toughest automotive cooling situations, and it has always worked perfectly. In fact, they showed me a station wagon with a souped up Gen III engine that can be left idling in the hottest Austin weather and will stay “forever” at the thermostat setting (which I cannot remember but it was lower than my own 190 setting).
This setup is not cheap. The raw parts required go way beyond the $315 price of the fan ($280 plus freight from web sources seems about the best discount price). MY source had to custom fabricate some really nice mounting pieces, plus of course you need the usual array of relays, pigtails, fuse holders, etc. Likewise, there was considerable skilled labor involved. The talented owner of the shop himself personally developed the installation and mount strategy, after an initial strategy developed by one of his senior experienced techs became clearly too costly to be feasible for mass reproduction. It is in fact too early to estimate the cost of a COMPLETE kit (fan assembly, required other electrical parts, custom mounting pieces, and detailed instructions). The shop owner and I are working on this, but want to do some extensive testing first anyway. Note that the replacement FACTORY SSR fan costs over $550 at your friendly Chevy dealer, so this super high performance solution will STILL be a BARGAIN compared to a factory replacement fan, once the warranty on your SSR runs out. And, once you replace that factory fan, you are NOT done. It WILL fail again. Regularly.
Testing of this setup began last night, but Austin, Texas proved to be its usual weird self. Although the weather has been running consistently in the mid 90s for the past several weeks, yesterday, as the new fan assembly was being installed, it cooled off unseasonably, so the maiden voyage home from the shop was done in only 76 degree weather! This morning, it cooled further for drive in to work: 70 degrees and raining! All I can honestly therefore report so far is that
- The temperature gauge, once the engine warmed up, never budged from the point I have the PCM set to maintain: the left tip of the “2” digit in the “210” on the engine coolant temperature gauge.
- The replacement fans are louder enough (move so vastly much more air!) than the factory fan, that I was actually able to detect the sound inside the passenger compartment (roof up) when the fans came on.
I’ll report results as I get them. The Austin weather forecast is that we will not see 90s again until probably Saturday, so don’t hold your breath waiting! Once I have MEANINGFUL results, I’ll post them.
IF this all works, I will try to engineer a do-it-yourself kit, or contract with Mike in AZ to do it, and figure out a sensible price.
By the way, I intend to keep Mike’s auxiliary fan in my SSR. In the short term, it provides valuable backup while I test this prototype installation, just in case we messed up the electrical install somehow. In the long term, its location can be optimized to cool both my transmission cooler and the intercooler heat exchanger for my supercharger.
After a year and a half of looking, I have high hopes . . .
Jim G
Last edited by JimGnitecki : 06-01-2006 at 10:30 AM.
I have mentioend a few times that I have a project cooking to replace the wimpy and proven-unreliable stock engine cooling fan on the SSR. Yesterday, the installation was completed, and the testing begun.
Most of you know that the stock engine cooling fan is an under achiever in both air flow and in projected life when subjected to the demanding thermodynamic environment of the SSR. It can’t really keep the engine cool in high ambient temperatures when the vehicle is stuck in stop and go traffic, and it tends to have to run so high a percentage of its time that it fails prematurely. It is not unusual for it to fail in 12,000 miles or less when subjected to hot climate use.
I have been looking for a replacement fan for at least a year and a half, and MAY have found the right product.
There is an Italian company, SPAL, which has been in the automotive fan and accessory manufacturing business since 1959.It is an ISO9001 certified company, which means it has the control systems to make quality products. SPAL engine cooling fans are used in some pretty high end European cars, including Ferrari.
The SPAL product that forms the NUCLEUS (note entire package) of my trial solution is a TWIN fan setup, with dual 11 inch fans. This product has the following significant features:
The twin-fan package with shroud is almost exactly the ideal size for our SSR installation environment, as it is just slightly smaller than the stock fan setup in OVERALL (height, width, depth) dimensions, so it FITS, although it requires some fabrication and installation skills to install cleanly. The entire assembly is 23 ½ inches wide x 16 ¼ inches high, by 4.25 inches deep at its deepest point (most of it is just 2 5/8 inches deep)
The two fans together blow 2700 cubic feet of air per minute, which is definitely in the “extreme” range, while drawing only about 25 amps maximum.
The setup includes a reasonably impressive shroud for the whole assembly, which includes a series of TWELVE rubber flaps, which uncover 24 openings at both the top and the bottom of the shroud, to enable air to flow through the shroud, as well as through the fans, once your road speed is high enough that the speed itself makes more air flow than the fans can.
The motors have a design life of 10,000 hours, which means that if you average 50 mph, they should last 500,000 miles. If you average just 20 mph, they should last 200,000 miles. This assumes they have to run ALL the time that you are driving, which is clearly a very pessimistic assumption! So, the bottom line is that this should be, for all practical purposes, a “lifetime” solution.
Just in case you get some weird defect, SPAL provides a 3 year warranty.
The motors are fully sealed, which means they are dustproof AND waterproof.
The fan asemblies are individually balanced during manufacture, for long life.
My installer wired got the right parts, and had the right skills, to wire the fans up to the stock wiring so that BOTH fans come on at low speed when the PCM calls for low speed on the stock fan, and BOTH fans come on at high speed when the PCM calls for high speed. This retains my ability to adjust the “on” and “off” points via PCM.
The odds of TWO ISO9001-manufactured fans failing at once would best be described as “miniscule”, so your odds of ever being stranded should be basically nil.
If a fan should somehow be damaged or should fail, no matter how unlikely that is, the fan / shroud assembly is cleverly made in a manner that allows you to replace only the one that failed.
My source shop has installed this setup in its clients’ toughest automotive cooling situations, and it has always worked perfectly. In fact, they showed me a station wagon with a souped up Gen III engine that can be left idling in the hottest Austin weather and will stay “forever” at the thermostat setting (which I cannot remember but it was lower than my own 190 setting).
This setup is not cheap. The raw parts required go way beyond the $315 price of the fan ($280 plus freight from web sources seems about the best discount price). MY source had to custom fabricate some really nice mounting pieces, plus of course you need the usual array of relays, pigtails, fuse holders, etc. Likewise, there was considerable skilled labor involved. The talented owner of the shop himself personally developed the installation and mount strategy, after an initial strategy developed by one of his senior experienced techs became clearly too costly to be feasible for mass reproduction. It is in fact too early to estimate the cost of a COMPLETE kit (fan assembly, required other electrical parts, custom mounting pieces, and detailed instructions). The shop owner and I are working on this, but want to do some extensive testing first anyway. Note that the replacement FACTORY SSR fan costs over $550 at your friendly Chevy dealer, so this super high performance solution will STILL be a BARGAIN compared to a factory replacement fan, once the warranty on your SSR runs out. And, once you replace that factory fan, you are NOT done. It WILL fail again. Regularly.
Testing of this setup began last night, but Austin, Texas proved to be its usual weird self. Although the weather has been running consistently in the mid 90s for the past several weeks, yesterday, as the new fan assembly was being installed, it cooled off unseasonably, so the maiden voyage home from the shop was done in only 76 degree weather! This morning, it cooled further for drive in to work: 70 degrees and raining! All I can honestly therefore report so far is that
- The temperature gauge, once the engine warmed up, never budged from the point I have the PCM set to maintain: the left tip of the “2” digit in the “210” on the engine coolant temperature gauge.
- The replacement fans are louder enough (move so vastly much more air!) than the factory fan, that I was actually able to detect the sound inside the passenger compartment (roof up) when the fans came on.
I’ll report results as I get them. The Austin weather forecast is that we will not see 90s again until probably Saturday, so don’t hold your breath waiting! Once I have MEANINGFUL results, I’ll post them.
IF this all works, I will try to engineer a do-it-yourself kit, or contract with Mike in AZ to do it, and figure out a sensible price.
By the way, I intend to keep Mike’s auxiliary fan in my SSR. In the short term, it provides valuable backup while I test this prototype installation, just in case we messed up the electrical install somehow. In the long term, its location can be optimized to cool both my transmission cooler and the intercooler heat exchanger for my supercharger.
After a year and a half of looking, I have high hopes . . .
Jim G
SPAL makes some great pieces. The replacement fan that comes with the Corvette C-5 Procharger kit uses only 1 14" SPAL fan (at 500 RWHP) and stays super cool even when run hard. I like the idea of two for redundant back up.
Did you connect to the factory fan wiring or run a secondary relay?
I have not yet documented nor posted the details, as that level of detailed work is warranted only once we prove that the solution works and works well. Then, the required information will be assembled, documented, and offered in some form.
Note that this development project cost both me and the shop doing it a LOT. It was only once the shop owner himself got involved that we got an acceptable scenario for the installation. I had specified that in order tobe usable, the solution must be cost effective and doable on any SSR anywhere in the country (or beyond) with readily available skillsets. The shop owner had lots of manpower burned up on this, and he and I shared the costs. We are both out a bundle. Therefore, do not expect all the hard earned info to be distributed for free. The most likely scenario is a kit that includes all the parts (off the shelf and custom fabbed), and instructions for the install, so that the sale of kits can recover some of the experimentation costs. Mike in AZ and I have talked, as I am an admirer of Mike's past and current work, and we may be collaborating on this.
I put on an additional 60 miles today, but the ambient temperature never got above 79 degrees! So, no usable data yet. But, since the install, the temperature gauage has not seen anything beyond the point described above in my earlier posting.
My SSR: '05 Concept Truck, powered by Heavy Duty rubberbands, and a really BIG WINDUP KEY!
Jes keep up the more the adequate, actually excellent progress. I am darn tempted to head down to Austin before Ruidoso, and bribe you with dinner for a working fan like that.
I really want to improve the cooling on my engine before I drive up to Michigan in August.
Focks: I see the probability of making a turnkey installation available to those who can physically drive here (from Dallas, Houston, etc, or just "passing through"). I can see either the shop or Randy doing the install.
Turbines? Yes. You CAN slightly hear them, and they DO sound like turbines.
Well, the experimental fan setup passed a first, MODERATE test today.
The temperature was precisely 90 degrees here in Austin as I drove home from work today, and I provoked the fans plenty.
First, I did 2 miles of city traffic to get to the cross-town freeway, then 4 miles of slow and go, then 3 miles of 55 mph cruising, then a "spirited" departure from a highway traffic light (5 psi boost recorded on the new datalogging vacuum/boost guage), and then 5 more miles at 55 mph. The coolant gauage never budged.
Then, a stop sign from which you turn right onto a VERY busy 60 mph highway, during any available gap in traffic, immediately after which you must accelerate up to 60 mph asap to avoid being rear-ended, while climbing one of the steeper 1/4 mile hills in the area. I hit 7 psi boost on that hill. The coolant guage never budged.
Then, after "heat soaking" both the engine and transmission via that uphill sprint, a short 2 miles straight into the regular late afternoon stop and go in the area where three major highways intersect via 2 lights spaced just 1/4 mile apart. There is a solid 1 mile of stop and go here, with NO movement at all for most of the 15 minutes you spend getting through the bottleneck. Here, after 15 minutes of basically idling, I actually detected the SLIGHTEST moement in the gauage. It went from the left end of the base in the "2" in "210" to the CENTER of the base of the 2 in the 210.
I then accelerated up to 60 mph and did the last 2 miles to the apartment complex. The gauge moved just barely perceptably back toward the left end of the base of the 2.
Then, I parked for 2 minutes while retrieiving the day's mail. The gauge moved just barely back towards the right (higher) as a result of the brief heat soak, but declined again by the time I got to my garage.
So, net result in 90 degree ambient temperature was that the gauge had DETECTABLE movement from the left end of the base of the 2 digit to about the center of the 2 digit.
This is with a supercharged SSR in which the engine radiator is masked not only by the stock AC condenser and power steering cooler, but also by a large and dense aftermarket transmission cooler, and large and dense intercooler heat exchanger.
The bigger tests will likely occur this weekend, when temperatures here in Austin are expected to hit the more normal 95 degrees plus.
I'll let everyone know how the setup does in THAT tougher test.
But, early results are pretty encouraging.
By the way, ever since I had the new fan setup put on, Mike's auxiliary fan has not started up at all so far.
My SSR: '06 PB #21661 Born 8/29/05, GHL "Old School" True Duals, ADDCO bars, Eibach rear, Joe's Tune
Must be disconnected
Jim,
The Aux fan will come on in either of the two following conditions:
1) The sensor mounted inthe radiator core reaches the set point of your thermostatic controller. I suspect it is still set at the 210 point and your coolant (as you noted) has never gotten there.
2) Any time the computer turns on the main engine fan, you should also have the Aux Fan running. It is here that I think something is not right. The "break-in" harness picks off the low speed fan drive signal and (when hooked up to a stock OEM installation) will also come on when high speed is commanded by the computer.
I suspect that the installers left out the heavy duty 3 pin "break-in" harness that went to the OEM fan when they rewired to accept your new fan set.
Do you have a schematic of their installed system yet?
My SSR: 2004 Redline-#11446-1 of 43 Calif. Speedway Parade Lap Trucks 9/05/04 (#48 Jimmie Johnson)
Hey Guys ???
Dumb Question... I'm in no way an engineer or understand that stuff. But my question is just common sense, has any one tried taking the OEM fan bracket and tried to make a different fan or fans fit it???? Maybe a new fan or fans to attach to OEM bracket with a few mod's to it. Would make for a much easier install, old fan out, new fan or fans in, plug in and go...
If you repy to my question don't rip me to hard...
crazyrtr53: Re-using the stock moutning frmae was the first approach I tried, but it and the crappy fan are too "integrated" to make that work and have any strength left.
Mike: This is NOT a "production" installation yet. Neither me nor the shop owner wanted to get too refined until we knew these fans would indeed solve the problem. Assuming the testing goes well, we will then refine and try to simplify for reproducability.
My SSR: 2004 Redline-#11446-1 of 43 Calif. Speedway Parade Lap Trucks 9/05/04 (#48 Jimmie Johnson)
Quote:
Originally Posted by JimGnitecki
crazyrtr53: Re-using the stock moutning frmae was the first approach I tried, but it and the crappy fan are too "integrated" to make that work and have any strength left.
Jim G
Leave it up to GM to take the time to "integrate" a crappy fan...
Well it peaked at 92 degrees here in Austin today, and I just spent an hour and a half in this weather with the SSR.
I went shopping, then loooking at a building lot, accelerated mutiple times vigorously, drove a few miles of winding and hilly Hill County backroad with some enthusiasm, and then spent a full 20 minutes either idling or craw
Hey Guys ???
