3.4 TBI cooling fan

[86FieroSEv6]

You can also go to Jegs and Summit's web sites, they have a wide selection of fans. My buddy's pro street Camaro uses three fans actually. He has two mains on the back of the radiator and because of the set back of the radiator we mounted a pusher fan in the nose for the times he gets caught up in traffic during the summer. His system also includes an air box in the nose to direct the air from the grill to the radiator. At 40mph and above it doesn't need the fans on at all. If you have an AC condenser in your setup, take the time to install some sort of wind fence or seal between the condenser and radiator to help cooling efficiency.

[geoffinbc]

If you have a 5 speed without A/C you wont need much of a fan at all. Surprisingly I have an 11 inch fan and if it ever does come on then it easily keeps the temp at the thermostat closing point. With and auto trans or A/C or both you may need to step it up. Flex A Lite sells a bolt on fan kit for S-10's

[stimey]

yep I agree, I have an automatic 3.4 its pretty much stock. Everything I have been reading doesn't particularly indicate that I need a 3900 CFM fan. I really don't want to upgrade my Alt. at this time, not do I want to spend a $100 dollars on relays and set ups. Correct me if I am wrong, but a properly fabricate shroud and a 2400 CFM fan should go along ways. What I have seen is fans setting on radiators with out proper shrouding and people are losing cooling efficiency because of only pulling air through 50% of the radiator.
My intention is to go with a 12 or 14 inch fan and a shallow rectangle to round transition in order to ensure the air flow is evenly distributed through all the radiator . I am looking at the 30 amp relay kit at autozone, this might be where I am making my mistake, I hear these relays are not reliable? or are they maybe being used on fans that are pulling more amps then what the relays are designed for?

[WrathOfSocrus]

Those autozone relays have been expensive and unreliable for me. $10 a pop is somewhat insane for something that may or may not last. The last car I sent to the junk yard I ripped out everything I could possibly use including the entire fuse box. Now I have a handful of used but working relays and fuses. I guess it depends on how cool the people at your local junkyard are but it might be more cost effective to pick up a few junkyard relays or find a buddy with a parts car. My friend with the S-10 came over with a bad relay and I had to pull one from my car to get him going so he could drive to work the next day

The wiring doesn't have to be terribly expensive or complicated. They have temperature sensors in the $25-$40 range at places like Jegs and the rest of the parts should be easy to find locally. Also, on the reliability, I know houses and cars are slightly different but the electrical properties are the same. A continuous load should be wired and fused for 125% of the load. This helps a lot with start up, where the cold resistance of the circuit causes a larger current draw than it does once up to speed. So if you have a 30 amp fuse and relay and 10 gauge wire on a 28 amp load (125% of 28 is 35) then you will likely have issues with blown fuses and burnt out relays. Increasing the wire diameter and shortening the power wire length will help reduce resistance. That's what makes the relays so handy, you can have your power wire run from the battery to radiator to ground and back over just a few feet as opposed to running inside the cab and back.

[neo71665]

I'm using the hayden dual fan controller on mine and it works just fine. I got it cause I knew I would be running dual fans at some point.

The single 16 inch kept up fine with the stock auto 2.8 with 4x4 until I turned the ac on.

The 2 intrepid fans are high low fans so I'm gonna wire them up to come on low with the engine temp and high when I turn the ac on.

[geoffinbc]

Find a second gen S-10 in the junkyard and take the relays off the firewall. They are high amp relays and are mounted on a strip that is secured with metal screws. They look clean and can be transplanted into any vehicle.

[86FieroSEv6]

Personally, I wouldn't have a fan motor that needed more than 12 amps continous. In my more than twenty five years as a mechanic, I have replaced many relays across all manufacturers lines and the one thing I want to say about relay longevity is that you MUST have proper grounds and SHOULD use dielectric grease at both the relay socket and the fan motor connector.

[stimey]

Good info guys, I agree about the not needing some 48" dia. fan at 100,000 cfm to cool this stock 3.4. I am heading to the salvage Sat. to pick up various items, fan and relay being a couple of them. I will look for the second gen. S-10 and pic up the relay that betterthenu mentioned. I agree I have seen a lot of motors pull high amps because the ground was bad, first thing you look for on AC motors pulling high amps is check the ground, or any bad connection.

[stimey]

E fan upgrade was done over the week end. I picked up a two speed fan at the salvage, its a 14" fan with a built in shroud, I done a little cutting and pop riveting of the stock shroud and it came out pretty nice. I am running it on low and seems to keep up just fine. It is 30 degrees here so that isn't saying much I guess. My temp meter gets to just shy of 200 and the fan kicks on, runs about 4 min. and kicks back off. I don't see a huge drain on the alt. if july comes around and the fan don't keep up I always have the high speed. I think this came off of a Ford Tempo, not sure but it really is working good right now.
Thanks for all your responses and teaching guys it really made this go much better.

[86FieroSEv6]

Right on. We'll look forward to your summertime beach cruise report.