So, just for laughs I removed the mechanical fan from my Sube GL (89 Coupe)
Ambient temp today was about 52 degrees, normal for this time of year.
Temperature ran warm until the thermostat opened, and then...ran
absolutely normal.

However, the low end grunt from the engine was better, throttle response
was better, and the car just seemed to run easier without it.

Hmmm...

The electric fan is still installed and when last tested 2 months ago was
working perfectly.

On Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:33:07 -0400, Hachiroku ???? <Trueno (AT) e86 (DOT) GTS>
wrote:


Yeah, at 52 Degrees it's probably ok. They have to design the vehicle
for places that will get up to 115 degrees.

Hachiroku ãƒ�ãƒ�ãƒ*ク wrote:
to idle very long.

Fans really get called into play for long periods of idle, or in very
slow driving traffic. In fact, I have seen cars in days of mechanical
fans that had a limit on how long they would idle in warm weather
without overheating.

I used to work in a gas station when I was a teenager, and one of my
jobs was responding to folks who had locked themselves out of car.
You'd be surprised how many did so with engine running! In most cases,
by time I got there the car was overheating. This was in fifties.

The regular simple belt driven fan was replaced in some cars by the
clutched fan that would freewheel above a certain engine speed, so it
could be turned with a better ratio at idle. Of course, when they went
to transverse engines the electric fan with thermostat came along.

In the hot rod era of fifties and sixties the clutched fan was very
popular, but many just took the simple route (cheap) and removed fan.
Had to avoid more than a couple of minutes of idle, of course.

Don Stauffer wrote:
The nice thing about clutch fans is that they can be made to tighten up
when the engine gets hot.

Unfortunately, the thermostatic style are not available anymore for old
Studebakers (nose of the water pump is very large compared to a typical
GM engine, so you can't just use someone else's) so I personally am
stuck with the type you describe that just limit the max speed of the
fan, which makes for a noisier and less efficient drivetrain.

I see a lot of hot rodder types removing the engine fan completely and
using an electric, but I'm not completely sold on the idea that the
electrics can move enough air for a 300+ HP engine, especially when
using a radiator that was designed for a lower output engine.

I do know that some cars, e.g. a Porsche 944, actually require some sort
of fan (although that car does use an electric fan only) due to the
aerodynamics of the car; it doesn't naturally draw enough air through
the radiator even at highway speeds to keep the engine cool in warm weather.

nate

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Nate Nagel <njnagel (AT) roosters (DOT) net> wrote in
news:hbvb4a02qup (AT) news4 (DOT) newsguy.com:

first time you see it and know what it is.
Due to the twin 911 engines stuck together of course.

That's bad. I would have recommended one of the BMW clutches, which you
could probably machine an adaptor for. But they are just naturally pretty
deep. No way you can move that radiator forward a touch?
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."