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Blown & Ventilated

Blown

Elite Explorer
Joined
December 6, 2007
Messages
1,074
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829
City, State
Montrose, CO
Year, Model & Trim Level
2000 X-Edge
Summer time and my blown 306 gets hot under boost. I have a 180 degree thermostat installed and I am seeing 190-195............. OK I can see that after a hard pull and it recovers well if moving, but idling after a pull in the summer heat is questionable. A small V8, Headers and a supercharger make for much heat under this little hood.

I added air and added a couple more hood vents.

The back of the radiator is covered with two 12" and two 8" thin line, 80 watt fans. I made a compromise for fitment as only a thin line fan, smaller 80 watt motor, would fit after adding the supercharger pulley in front of the crank pulley. They fit, but are lacking in power and don't pull the CFM a bigger motor will. I have been running a couple of 12" pushers, 80 watts each in front of the radiator. I am replacing the front 12" pushers with better fans, bigger, 180 watt motors for more RPM and higher flow. I also am going to use some aluminum sheet to make a pusher shroud., forcing the air through not bouncing back.
 



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I know it sounds crazy but my intake temps dropd to 120° when I put a 167 thermostat in it
Truck stays at 170 unless its idling then fans kick on at 175
I run 180 in the winter
 






Summer time and my blown 306 gets hot under boost. I have a 180 degree thermostat installed and I am seeing 190-195............. OK I can see that after a hard pull and it recovers well if moving, but idling after a pull in the summer heat is questionable. A small V8, Headers and a supercharger make for much heat under this little hood.

I added air and added a couple more hood vents.

The back of the radiator is covered with two 12" and two 8" thin line, 80 watt fans. I made a compromise for fitment as only a thin line fan, smaller 80 watt motor, would fit after adding the supercharger pulley in front of the crank pulley. They fit, but are lacking in power and don't pull the CFM a bigger motor will. I have been running a couple of 12" pushers, 80 watts each in front of the radiator. I am replacing the front 12" pushers with better fans, bigger, 180 watt motors for more RPM and higher flow. I also am going to use some aluminum sheet to make a pusher shroud. wan the air going through not bouncing back.

Seeing 190-195* isn't that hot for a 180* thermostat. They do vary for each one you might buy and test, but that 10* or so above the rating is about where it should end up at. If it was much higher, I'd try a new thermostat and hope for one that opens a little earlier for that rating. But you're fine, the fans may need some rethinking depending on what cfm they do move. Make sure the OEM air control flaps and shrouds etc, are all working well. The one under the radiator most people discard, be sure you have that one too, it stops air from going underneath.
 






Consider wrapping your headers? Push that heat downstream
 






330380AA-CCCC-4BD2-90A2-3A3A29255F06.jpeg

IACs under full boost not higher than 120s and 98 degrees outside. Dual Contour fan keeps truck cool (about 3500 cfm)
 






Hey Y'all! Thanks for the input. I was able to get the fans installed. The thermostat is working, opening at 180 and the new additions keep the temp there.

I wish I had wrapped the headers before installation and started with stronger pushers fans.

I had previously done much work to route cool outside air through the radiator and to keep hot underhood air from recirculating. It is now working with the stronger pusher fans installed more efficiently in aluminum shrouds and more heat is escaping out the additional venting.

Totally ventilated:
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Super Cooled! I have completed making the cooling system better. I now have two 12", pusher fans at the top of the radiator and three, 8" pushers down low. They are efficiently sealed with cowling to direct the flow through the radiator and for a total coverage of the radiator. They are pushing a combined CFM of over 4000. I didn't have time to engineer this build and it's good to get back to this. I removed the fans on the back of the radiator, now you can see and work on engine accessories without removing a fan. The fans do not have to be removed to work on the radiator or AC condenser.

I used aluminum plate to mount and shroud the high pushers. I had previously made a shroud to go underneath the radiator. It goes from the front fairing back to the radiator to keep hot engine air from being pulled back under and through the radiator. I use the same aluminum plate to make the lower fan mount/shroud. I bent it to make it more rigid.

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Now I want to learn how to wire them to the EEC to run them and make use of the Tweecer tuner I have to control them...................................
 






If you can figure out which 2 pins for the computer control the fans please let me know
 












Do whatever you can to make sure no air circumvents the radiator. A lot of people remove the baffling in front, for what reason god only knows, and a fluid is always going to take the path of least resistance. You want to give it no choice but to go through the rad.

Also make sure you haven’t done anything funky behind the radiator that will cause high pressure to form. Sometimes people add vents that end up pressurizing the engine compartment instead of creating a vacuum. If you pressurize the area behind the radiator, you’re creating a resistance to flow through it. Sometimes what you think will improve flow can actually hurt it—fluid dynamics is weird as **** in that regard.

Glad to see the fans are helping.
 






I have done much work to make sure that relatively cool air is pulled in from in front of the grill and that it is not recycling heated engine compartment air.

This most recent work is making sure all flow goes through all of the radiator surface area.
 






I can confirm that the EEC-V uses pin 45 and 46 for fan control low and high, respectively. These outputs are generally used to ground the field coil of a relay when activated.
 






My act x4 Allows me to adjust the high and low temperatures for the fan
 






Low and high for my 5 fan set-up could be used to run 3 of 5 on "Low" and add 2 for "High".

My Tweecer Tuner has switches to turn on low and high speed fan control and many more Functions to control them.
I see these so far, in the Strategy:

High and Low speed fan on and off by ECT temp.
Low speed on and off on by MPH.
High Speed (HS) fan High Load Temp to turn on
HS High Load MPH
HS High load RPM

I got more research to get the right numbers in those functions to get the fans correct and with the 180 degree thermostat I am running. I need more time and perhaps some help.
 






Yup, I don't understand all this, have asked for some help on the Tweecer Forum and plan on doing more research.

I found these Functions for "Fan Control" Some of the existing values don't make sense, the temps are high as is the load value.
Fan High Speed Enabled 0
Fan Low Speed Enabled 0
High Speed Fan High Load Temp to Turn On 234
High speed Fan Off ECT 230
High Speed fan On ECT 242
HS Fan High Load Minimum 1.5
HS Fan High Load MPH 40
HS Fan High Load RPM 1808
Low Speed Fan MPH To Turn Back On 42
Low Speed Fan MPH To Turn Off 48
Low Speed Fan Off ECT 212
Low Speed Fan On ECT 216
Low Speed Fan Invert output 1
 






So if you want to have 2 independent control outputs from the EEC, enable both the high and low speed enabled bits. I would just lower the high and low speed fan On/Off ECT scalars. For my supercharged 5.0L in an '89 Fox Mustang I've got the low speed fan turning on at 184F and the high speed turns on at 186F. There's a 4 degree hysteresis value to turn either fan off if the ECT falls below the turn on threshold. It works well, but make sure you pay close attention to the power cabling you setup to drive all of your fans. Experience has shown me that one should never use a fuse for the fans (due to the very high in-rush current load), but a circuit breaker instead. Heavy gauge wiring and good quality connectors and a solid a ground reference are required for reliable operation, day in, day out.

The other thing you'll want to pay close attention to with the EEC-V is whether you need to invert the low speed fan output or not. The EEC-V can drive the pin high or low, but in order to connect the pin to the field coil of a relay, you'll want it a specific way, usually low. Grounding the field coil with the EEC output is probably the safest way.

I wouldn't worry about all the other speed related tuning parameters, just get the system turning on and off at the right temperatures first.
 






Thanks for the help! I got to get my A/C fixed. Then I can get back to running/tuning the cooling fans.

My next job is installing new A/C - compressor, condenser, receiver/dryer and orifice tube plus I will flush the hoses and evaporator which are relatively new if needed.....I had previously used aluminum tape to seal between the condenser and radiator. That's important with the pusher fans in front of the condenser. All that airflow needs to go on through the radiator core.
 






New A/C installed and no fade at idle, well at 85 degrees ambient temp and with 4000CFM being pushed through the condenser now!

I think it will extend the fan life and charging system by utilizing the EEC's on off functions for speed and ECT. I got a couple of old EEC harness pins with pigtails, will insert them into 45 and 46 and test for grounding at temp for turn on................Open for turn-off at speed. I should I see control, then I will grab a couple breakers and remake the harnesses for the fans.
 



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This is very interesting :)
 






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