Electric Radiator Fan Tech Talk

[Mogwai]

I'm about fed up with trying to get my stock clutch-driven cooling fan to sit in the right spot and not clatter against the shroud. Rather than messing with driveline and front clip positioning anymore, I'm thinking now is as good a time as any to upgrade to an electric fan setup, so I get the benefit of being able to run it at higher speeds on the trail while crawling and maybe 1 or 2 extra ponies out of the engine.

So, who knows their way around this? There are plenty of kits out there that are stupid expensive, but I have a feeling this can be done for a lot less money if I source the parts separately. What kind of CFM do I need? How should I wire it up? Do I just need an on/off switch for running it while idling, or is speed adjustment a thing?

Jeep is an '86 CJ-7 with a stock radiator, for reference.

[dboat]

Well, I have had a mixed bag. I would suggest staying away from the cheap end, in general they tend to fail. Also, be sure to wire a relay in the loop and where you can easily access it. Swap in a new one every year. I was out on the trail when mine gave out and had to rewire around it, that was a pain. Also, the cfm is important, its a bit of a balancing act. Too much and the air goes over the radiator too fast to be effective and not enough and well, not enough volume to cool. My last one was around 2000 cfm, very thin and was a two stage (a higher speed for a/c I believe). or you can get a setup with two fans. I ended up with a custom setup that was very pricey but it works, and everything else failed. But I run a stroker. Good Luck!