jsteven

Hi,

I am new here. Have had my 03 for about a year and a half. Has anyone changed out the engine fan with electric fan(s)? Is it a good idea or bad?

03 Cummins Quard Cab 2500 2WD

HappyGA

Bad, you can't flow enough air to cool the Cummins. Do a search for electric fans, should give you some threads to read that will anser your questions without me having to type a book to explain it all.

RustyJC

Bad idea. If an electric fan setup draws, let's say, 50 amps, then 50 amps x 12 volts = 600 watts = 0.8 hp. You can't move the air required to cool the Cummins when it's working (towing heavy, etc.) with less than 1 horsepower.

Rusty

sled4fun

Don't do it. It will not pull enough air. Don't do it.

JCLeary

Bad idea.

I don't know why you'd want to anyway.

The stock fan free-wheels until the ECM engages it to cool, whether it's for the a/c condenser or engine temp.

Seems like an efficient system to me...

nickleinonen

in the last issue of diesel progress magazine, they had some nice electric fans there.. if my fan clutch goes for crap again [out of warrenty soon], i will be going electrics.. i am thinking 4 of them if i can fit them.. 2 pullers behind CAC, 2 more pullers behind rad.. gonna see if i can find a link to the manufacture

schu

You can get an electic actuated fan clutch like what is on your AC pump. That solves the crappy fan cluch problem while at the same time making sure there is enough air to cool it.

schu

RustyJC

What's the total amperage? What is your alternator rated at? The Flex-a-Lite Model 350 dual pullers I had on my 1996 3500 would draw 50 amps and pull the battery down if left idling with the lights on.

Rusty

nickleinonen

they are at 40A a piece.. you only need them all if you are getting out of control on the temprature. at stop, bump it to 1500rpm and one fan will bring it down to controlled tempratures.. and the fans can be pwm comtroled to drop the speed and current load. found the fans in the DP mag, might be too thick to fit in the space between the rad and the CAC. but 2 pullers would do well..

another option that could work, is a hydrostatic drive fan. could probably be made to run off power steering pump.. get an electronic controller for it and you can have lots of cooling when needed, none when not needed [could be over driven compared to engine speed if PS pump can handle the required flow]

Raspy

There is no way any hydrostatic system is going to be close to the efficiency of the stock setup. That is pretty much the least efficient way to drive anything (power in vs power out). And I can't see how it could be more reliable.

What would be the advantage of a hydrostatic drive fan?

Wetspirit

nickleinonen

these electric clutches on our trucks for the fan are not the most reliable units [one guy on the tdr is on his 10th fan clutch]

modern hystat systems have become pretty efficent. if it is designed properly, you could have a hystat fan setup running only as fast as needed for the required cooling needed. under load [2500rpm] if you only needed like 500rpm on the fan to keep the system at 190*. now if you needed 3000rpm on that fan under load [2500rpm] to keep the system at 190* you could.

i'm just throwing out ideas.. there are always other options.. electrics can work well too..

on some of the engines i have at work, we have >200hp electric fan[s] keeping 4000hp diesels running at proper temps..

MikeyB

Does Horton still make fan clutches for our Cummins?

MikeyB

RustyJC

So, if the relationship is linear for the sake of argument, then >20 HP electric fans would be required to cool a 400 HP engine. 20 HP x 746 watts/hp = 14,920 watts / 12 volts = 1243 amps. So, once again, what does the alternator put out? Maybe 130 amps? Your locomotive engines are driving generators/alternators, so plenty of power is available to drive a 200 hp fan - not the case with our trucks.

Electric fans are fine for mall cruisers, but for a working truck, they require so much power that they would require their own power generation system to drive them (either with additional alternator capacity or with a second alternator).

I bought my education on this - the largest set of pullers I could fit on my 1996 would not cool the engine when towing a 13,500 GVWR 5th wheel.

Rusty

NoChrome

As far as the hydrostatic fans go, at work we have these diesel powerd (cummins ) liquid cooling carts that we use to cool the jets when were working on the avionics systems, they use a clutch style fan as the primary cooler for the liquid (pao) and a hydrostatic fan as the backup when things get too hot. That fan screams, its huge too I bet its every bit of 36" tall and moves faster than the clutch fan. So Im sure a hydro static fan could cool our trucks, but can the powersteering unit take that extra load?

jsteven

Thanks for all the replies. I have the fan roar problem that is posted all over this site. It goes away but I was told to keep an eye on my mileage and if it dropped it could be that clutch was not releasing. I was looking at alternatives if this happened, but it looks like the best choise is to replace it or look at the electric clutch option someone mentioned.