FD Taurus Fan Install

[digitalsolo]

Originally posted by LS6 FD:

Get your Dremel ready!

I used a fan from an early-mid 90s 3.8 Taurus, I think it has 9 blades. This fan is suppose to flow 2500 cfm on low speed and 3800-4k on high speed and has a built in shroud.

Here's a seperate writeup
http://www.fordmuscle.com/archives/2003/02/electricfan/index.php

I wanted to stay with Hinsons radiator so I needed extra mounting straps welded on. The two inside straps are for his 16" fan and the outer two straps are for the Taurus fan.

This fan is about 5" deep so I had to trim down the shroud a bit and cut off various pieces. I had to shave a little off the top to give clearence for the radiator hose. I also had to remove one of the blade gaurds that the water pump pulley hit. The wp pulley sits inside the shroud but is about 1" from the blade. I have poly motor mounts and my motor does not move at all, I'd recommend getting those. Using Hinsons top mounting shroud I was able to pull the radiator forward more and get it away from the wp pulley.

The fan has 10 gauge wire. I bought a Weatherpack kit off ebay to make my own plugs. On the other end of the wire I used spade connectors and put them into the stock FD fan plug. I only used the high speed wire.

I've only driven it for one day so I don't have much test data. This is with a 160 thermostat. It was about 75 degrees outside today and the temps stayed between 165 - 175. I let it idle for able 10 minutes and it got up to 180 and stayed there.

-Mike

[digitalsolo]

More pics...

[digitalsolo]

And a couple more...

[halfspec]

Nice.  The fordmuscle site was informative as well. Are any of you guys using the high speed wire? I was planning to, but if the fordmuscle site is correct I'm worried it will break the 60A fan fuse on startup I setup for it. Currently I have mine wired up this way:

Low speed = 30A Relay powered by one 30A fuse
High speed = Two 30A Relays in parallel  powered by one 60A fuse

but... I haven't tested it.

I guess it depends on if the Mazda fuses are short blow or delayed blow.

Lane

[digitalsolo]

I run the high speed wire (high speed only in fact) with a 40A fuse.   If it bakes a 60A the motor on the fan needs replaced, mine did.      They are ~45 dollars for a new motor at Autozone.

[BAD-LSX-7]

that would make my intake fit sooo much better

[halfspec]

Good to know. Hopefully I won't have any motor problems since all my stuff should be new from Samburg. I'm planning on just letting the PCM low and high outputs control the relays to my fans.

Lane

[digitalsolo]

That's the right way to do it (PCM control).

[clocker]

You guys might find this helpful...
I've been using this Volvo relay setup to wire my two-speed fans (Taurus unit on the dd FC and a Volvo two-speed on the swapped FD)...it makes life extremely simple.


Feed it switched/fused +12v, connect the fan and either use the PCM to ground the trigger wires or use standard thermoswitches (temp range of your choice) and you're done.
The switching circuitry from low to high speed is built in.


Both cars have been running with 30A fuses on the feed line with no issues whatsoever.


These relays are easily sourced at the junkyard but even if you opt for new it's good to harvest the connectors from a donor car.
With this relay unit and the stock connectors, wiring up the fan is simple and painless.

[Pez]

I'll let you guys in on a little wiring secret....

The Taurus fan is designed for a low/high operation.  Feed one power wire (don't know the colors off the top of my head) and you get low, feed the other power wire and you get high.  That all works great, when it's controlled by the FORD PCM, but not the GM PCM.

See, when the Ford PCM wants low, it grounds the low fan relay coil and for high it removes the ground on the low relay and puts the ground on the high coil. But when the GM PCM triggers the low fan, it sends a ground to the low fan relay coil.  When it goes to high fan, it ADDS a ground to the high fan relay coil while leaving the ground on the low fan coil.  So, this means both relays are actuated AND both low and high fan motor coils are engauged.

This essentially makes the low and high fan motors work against each other and you got more of a 'medium' speed.  Probably isn't good for the fan motors either.

Here's the fix.  Run the low relay control through a relay BEFORE it goes to the low fan relay.  This second relay needs to be spliced into the the high relay control wire so that the low relay control wire is interrupted when the high fan relay control comes on.  I'll draw up a diagram when I have time.

If any of you have HP Tuners, turn on the scanner and open the 2 way control window.  Play with the low/high fan controls and you'll see what I mean when both low and high are on at  the same time.

[digitalsolo]

Pez, interesting, I hadn't thought of that (I wire mine for high speed only).

Thanks for the tip!

[halfspec]

I'll let you guys in on a little wiring secret....

The Taurus fan is designed for a low/high operation.  Feed one power wire (don't know the colors off the top of my head) and you get low, feed the other power wire and you get high.  That all works great, when it's controlled by the FORD PCM, but not the GM PCM.

See, when the Ford PCM wants low, it grounds the low fan relay coil and for high it removes the ground on the low relay and puts the ground on the high coil. But when the GM PCM triggers the low fan, it sends a ground to the low fan relay coil.  When it goes to high fan, it ADDS a ground to the high fan relay coil while leaving the ground on the low fan coil.  So, this means both relays are actuated AND both low and high fan motor coils are engauged.

This essentially makes the low and high fan motors work against each other and you got more of a 'medium' speed.  Probably isn't good for the fan motors either.

Here's the fix.  Run the low relay control through a relay BEFORE it goes to the low fan relay.  This second relay needs to be spliced into the the high relay control wire so that the low relay control wire is interrupted when the high fan relay control comes on.  I'll draw up a diagram when I have time.

If any of you have HP Tuners, turn on the scanner and open the 2 way control window.  Play with the low/high fan controls and you'll see what I mean when both low and high are on at  the same time.

That's a GREAT observation and something I was worried about. I had plans to monitor the PCM triggers to make sure they behaved the way I expected (low=on / high=off or low=off / high=on), but now that you've cleared that up I'll be sure to wire in the low interruption relay

Whew! I'm glad you cleared that up before I wrapped up my front harness. I had plans to bench test the harness before wrapping, but a bench test wouldn't have caught this.

Lane

[clocker]

The Volvo relay does all that for you.

[halfspec]

The Volvo relay does all that for you.

Sure, but it's $55 and you have to find a place for it. Why not do it with all the extra relays existing wires that you don't use with the swap for a cleaner free'er installation?

Lane

[clocker]

Sure, but it's $55 and you have to find a place for it. Why not do it with all the extra relays existing wires that you don't use with the swap for a cleaner free'er installation?

Lane

The junkyard I haunt charged me $15 for the Volvo relay, wiring and fan...cost was minimal and there was no mystery how to install it.
T'was merely a suggestion, if you'd prefer to reconfigure the stock relays to the job, that would be another option.


FC's- with their stock mechanical fan- have no preexisting relays to work with and our FD was butchered to hell and back, so this was the best option for me in both cases.