more Efan fun

[Swamprat]

so the story goes i bought a wrecked jeep cherokee. 90 xj laredo 2x4 renix model blah blah blah. but anyways, i want to drop an Efan that'll push more cfm, and replace the mechanical fan with another efan. my plan was to delete the mechanical fan buy to 12" torque flight push pull fans. (i want to say they did something like 700+ cfm? i dont remember) wire one into the existing efan wiring so it'll come on when it gets warm, but have a switch on the ground wire to stop the fan for water fording, crawling, and stuff. and the other fan i'd hook up off a 12v source somewhere with an on off switch.

now for the confusing part, after doing some research. i read two things that have confused me and im no longer sure about my wiring ideas. one being that my renix era jeep with be angry with me and throw a CEl for cutting the ground on the factory wired fan. and two being something about dual efans and something or the other.


now i thought about just wiring both fans free from the factory wiring, but i like the idea of leaving the factory wired fan on always and my jeep not over heating. so with all that being said can i just wire it like i originally thought? or would that be a bad idea?

 

[cruiser54]

Renix throws no CELs. It is before any OBD system.

 

[Swamprat]

hmm, then i guess i can try it.

 

[NotMatt]

1400 CFM (700x2) is nowhere near enough to cool a 4.0 even under light on road driving, let alone off road. I run a single 3200 CFM Spal on my 4.0 YJ, and it's "adequate", IMO.

Keep the mechanical fan, keep the shroud on it (or replace it if it's missing) and if you feel you must, an HD fan clutch from a ZJ or YJ.

In addition, the existing e-fan wiring is not heavy duty enough to support two aftermarket electric fans unless you upgrade the feed wire from the battery. If it were me, and I were going to do this, with good fans, I would build a two relay setup to run them because you're going to see a pretty big spike when the fans both turn on at the same time.

ALSO, the factory electric fan wiring is not configured to come on until the engine temp sensor sees like 215 degrees, which is waaaaaay too late. They should be coming on around 185 or 190 if you want to keep it cool. If you do this, get an aftermarket electric fan control so you can adjust it... again, the factory wiring will not turn on the fan soon enough.

If you're dead set on having all electric fans, spend the money and order that three fan kit I've seen on here before... I can't remember who makes it, but I'm sure you can find it if you do a search. That's the "right" way to do it, and you'll end up spending that money anyways fiddling around with different cheaper setups trying to find something that works.

 

[Vanimal]

even with the 3 fans i've heard it pushes less cfm than the stock setup.

also, i do not believe the zj hd fan clutch fits. you'll likely need the non hd clutch, but i could be wrong. they regular non hd clutch is MORE than enough anyways.

 

[Red91Laredo]

I belive the triple fan setup is made by Dirtbound Offroad. Looks like a sweet setup with a nice shroud made specifically for the XJ radiator.

However... if you don't have deep pockets and don't mind a little DIY fabbing, I'd suggest looking into OEM electric fans. They generally pull a lot more CFM than all but the most expensive aftermarket units for about 1/3 of the price and tend to be more reliable than most aftermaket fans too. If you eventually burn out the motor in one of these you can usually just go to Napa and get a new motor rather than having to mail order an entire new fan.

The 3.8L Ford Taurus e-fans are popular for retrofit, they're a single fan around 16-18" diameter and move a ton of air. Very popular with the 5.0L Mustang crowd (I've ran one in my own '90 Mustang GT for about two years with great results), and I've heard of people swapping them into XJ's as well. I was selling reconditioned Taurus fans for a while and sold a couple of them to XJ owners. Or, the Ford Contour has a dual fan that I've heard is very good as well. One of those might fit the XJ radiator better than the Taurus unit. I've heard of people using fans from midsize Chrysler cars, Nissan minivans, Volvos... most cars made in the last 15 years came from the factory with e-fans (pretty much any FWD vehicle will) so you have a lot of options. If you take some time to do some Google searching you will find a ton of information out there on retrofitting factory e-fans into other vehicles.

I'd second the suggestion to run an aftermarket fan controller rather than trying to tie into the factory setup. The factory e-fan is really only meant to come on with the A/C or when the engine starts to get too hot, not to keep the engine at a consistent temperature. If you look at Summit or Jegs there are a lot of options for aftermarket controllers. You can get anything from a simple unit that kicks the fan on at full speed when the engine hits a preset temp and then turns it off when it falls below that temp, to a variable speed controller that throttles the fan speed up an down as needed to keep the engine at a very consistent temperature. The latter is what I would recommend as it'll draw much less of a load from your alternator and keeps the engine at a more consistent temp. Flex a Lite makes some great units, they run about $100 but are well worth it. I'm running one in my Mustang and it controls the e-fan just like it was factory installed.

Converting to an e-fan is said to help gas mileage... I can't say for sure if the MPG on my Mustang improved due to the fan since I installed it along with a few other mods, but I like how well it functions that converting to one on my XJ is on my long term to-do list.

 

[NotMatt]

also, i do not believe the zj hd fan clutch fits. you'll likely need the non hd clutch, but i could be wrong. they regular non hd clutch is MORE than enough anyways.

You're right, I brain farted that. A regular 4.0L ZJ fan clutch is an upgrade, the HD version for the ZJ won't fit. A stock 4.0 YJ fan clutch looks and seems to operate the same as the 4.0 ZJ one.

[EDIT]: and I agree with everything Red91Laredo said. All electric fans is a nice setup and you will save a little horsepower, but doing it right can get expensive.

[EDIT2]: I'm fairly confident that a stock 97 and newer aux fan pulls more than 700 CFM. It certainly felt like it was flowing more air than the 14" Hayden I played around with, which pulled 1200-something according to their numbers.

 

[cruiser54]

Napa #272310 is the fan clutch you want for an upgrade on an XJ.

 

[Demonoid369]

Flex a Lite makes some great units, they run about $100 but are well worth it. I'm running one in my Mustang and it controls the e-fan just like it was factory installed.

do you have a link to the $100 unit? I'm seeing $250-$280 range :/

 

[Weasel]

I ran 2 electric fans on a stock radiator (2 core) that was rated at 4000CFM. Sounded like a jet turbine spooling up. Louder then crap but it cooled it fine. I did have to do a ton of modifications to the plastic fan shroud to get them to fit and I ended up with less the 3/16" between the fan face and the engine pulley and the backside of the fan rubbed on the radiator fins and wore a hole in it eventually. Didn't work so well, radiator needed to be moved forward ~1" to give proper clearance. Since then I have switch to a Griffen radiator, moved it 1" forwards and am running the 3 fan setup (not the dirtbound) with a custom shroud. It work but it was alot of work.

Fan's were from these guys: http://www.ffdynamics.com/extremecherokeeB.html

also just saw that this company has a shroud as well, not details on it though.

http://www.hmf-fabrication.com/cooling-accessories.html

Anyways my setup is rated at 3300cfm and it seems to hold up fine during crawling last summer. I may look at a Spal fan if these don't work out but when you are in the 9" fan range there is just only so much air you can move.

 

[beastlydumass]

could always just grap 2 10 blade s style stock aux fans and run them. thats wat we do in florida with a 160 t-stat and never get over 210 on the hottest trail rides

 

[morgan320i]

i have 3 10 inch fans with 3500 cfm and i run at 195 to 200 ALWAYS