advice on converting from mechanical to electrical fan

[eacmen]

Bump.

Below are a couple docs that may help folks wiring up a SPAL Fan to an E46 or E36. Hope it helps!

[WOLFN8TR]

I found the tech sheet numbers for the 2082 but I can't find them for the 2049,do you happen to have a link? Thanks

See Post #21

[Wernd]

I can’t find it anymore either. When I was shopping for my fan one of the websites selling them had all the data sheets but I forget which one now.

Thanks for checking anyway. I actually live 5 minutes outside of Ankeny so I'll just stop by Spal

[repoman89]

I found the tech sheet numbers for the 2082 but I can't find them for the 2049,do you happen to have a link? Thanks

I can’t find it anymore either. When I was shopping for my fan one of the websites selling them had all the data sheets but I forget which one now.

[CrisSilberGrau]

For sure it will improve, as more air will be flowing thru the condenser and the coolant radiator. Without shroud, the fan just cycling the air from its back to front going around, and less air flow thru the radiator and condenser.

Silly question but which shroud are we talking about, I'm assuming the frontal one with the kidney cut out... Since the rear one has to be removed with the clutch/mech fan... If thats the case I kept the shroud in and used the 2049 w/mishi fan controller, no track days yet to report. Previous oem setup the coolant was creeping way past red after 2 hotlaps. This fan setup may not be the total remedy but I want to see how it performs on the old components and then go from there.

[Wernd]

Look for the full spec sheets. The 2082 has much higher claimed airflow at high static pressures (such as when mounted a couple millimeters from a restrictive radiator). The 2049 falls off very fast when it has to overcome resistance to airflow. I run the 2082 alone with no shroud with slight adjustment to the fan curve and it has handled it all so far, including mid 90s at idle with AC cooling the car down at the paddock. Just change the fan curve so it’s on 100% by 85C.

I found the tech sheet numbers for the 2082 but I can't find them for the 2049,do you happen to have a link? Thanks

[repoman89]

sorry to bump an old thread... had a couple questions regarding the SPAL's people are running

quick background on my car and issue..
E36 S54 swap..
Z3M S54 Behr Radiator,
GEBA water pump
OE Thermostat
OE BMW coolant
E36 aux fan

i had ditched the S54 mechanical fan in favor of the SPAL 2049 as it has one of the highest rated CFM @ 2024. now this set up cools the car just fine so long as i am not using the A/C in really hot weather (greater than 95* ambient temp.) it will slowly creep the temp up to 205-215, as soon as you stop using the A/C we are back down to 185-195 range. Fans come on @ 185, aux fan 195.. monitoring this with a VDO mechanical gauge with sensor in the upper radiator hose.

I see there is a SPAL being used 2082 by WOLFN8TR. this 2082.. has a slightly lower CFM rating of 1876.. and i see you have no issues with cooling your car with A/C. can you elaborate on why this 2082 is cooling better than the 2049?

Look for the full spec sheets. The 2082 has much higher claimed airflow at high static pressures (such as when mounted a couple millimeters from a restrictive radiator). The 2049 falls off very fast when it has to overcome resistance to airflow. I run the 2082 alone with no shroud with slight adjustment to the fan curve and it has handled it all so far, including mid 90s at idle with AC cooling the car down at the paddock. Just change the fan curve so it’s on 100% by 85C.

[tlow98]

sorry to bump an old thread... had a couple questions regarding the SPAL's people are running

quick background on my car and issue..
E36 S54 swap..
Z3M S54 Behr Radiator,
GEBA water pump
OE Thermostat
OE BMW coolant
E36 aux fan

i had ditched the S54 mechanical fan in favor of the SPAL 2049 as it has one of the highest rated CFM @ 2024. now this set up cools the car just fine so long as i am not using the A/C in really hot weather (greater than 95* ambient temp.) it will slowly creep the temp up to 205-215, as soon as you stop using the A/C we are back down to 185-195 range. Fans come on @ 185, aux fan 195.. monitoring this with a VDO mechanical gauge with sensor in the upper radiator hose.

I see there is a SPAL being used 2082 by WOLFN8TR. this 2082.. has a slightly lower CFM rating of 1876.. and i see you have no issues with cooling your car with A/C. can you elaborate on why this 2082 is cooling better than the 2049?

Ive also heard the Geba may not be the best for flow and tends to become apparent at high temps with AC load. The impeller is smaller when viewed next to an OE pump fwiw.

[eacmen]

My latest testing indicates that simply deleting the mech fan and shroud and retaining stock pusher fan is the best cooling setup I’ve been able to achieve when running A/C at idle and in slow speed traffic. Some adjustment to the fan curve in the ECU was required but the fan seems to be able to handle the load no problem.

The electric puller fan with no shroud would overheat at idle with A/C on. I believe electric fan with the shroud would perform significantly better but I don’t have much data to back that up yet.

For my application (dedicated track) I plan to swap the OEM pusher fan with a higher flowing pusher fan once the OEM one dies.

[T3amfish]

sorry to bump an old thread... had a couple questions regarding the SPAL's people are running

quick background on my car and issue..
E36 S54 swap..
Z3M S54 Behr Radiator,
GEBA water pump
OE Thermostat
OE BMW coolant
E36 aux fan

i had ditched the S54 mechanical fan in favor of the SPAL 2049 as it has one of the highest rated CFM @ 2024. now this set up cools the car just fine so long as i am not using the A/C in really hot weather (greater than 95* ambient temp.) it will slowly creep the temp up to 205-215, as soon as you stop using the A/C we are back down to 185-195 range. Fans come on @ 185, aux fan 195.. monitoring this with a VDO mechanical gauge with sensor in the upper radiator hose.

I see there is a SPAL being used 2082 by WOLFN8TR. this 2082.. has a slightly lower CFM rating of 1876.. and i see you have no issues with cooling your car with A/C. can you elaborate on why this 2082 is cooling better than the 2049?

[evanr614]

Installed a CSF radiator and still experiencing the same issues with the AC. Which shroud would you guys get first? The one on the back of the radiator or the one in front of the car?

[bigjae46]

Think of a shroud as a restriction. It creates high pressure on one side and lower pressure on the other. Then it directs that high pressure air into the engine bay with a purpose. The back of the engine bay will probably overheat slightly without a shroud.

My understanding is the shroud creates a larger pressure differential between the front and back of the shroud. It increases air pressure on the front side which allows for better flow to a lower pressure region behind the shroud.

Bernoulli’s principle - high pressure = lower flow and vice versa. High pressure will flow to low pressure.


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[Icecream]

I'm just going off what you said. You said it was enough, and I'm giving you a data point that it is not in some areas of the country. My testing is this: removed the fan clutch and the car overheated while at a steady state of 70mph on the freeway. Put the fan clutch back in and it stopped overheating.

I know you posted this a while ago but just another data point, I removed the shroud and mechanical fan since I thought the clutch was on its way out and I have had zero issues in LA for the last few months. It was hot last week and I sit in an hour of traffic and the needle stayed rock solid centered, rest of system is stock. Even driving hard, nothing, stays centered and I have never seen it go past the middle and I can say since I owned this car, before I removed the fan, the temps would creep pretty regularly (though I usually had AC on and recently no AC since I broke the tensioner...). I'm guessing the fan clutch was bad and the fan was just blocking airflow. Interested to see if it gets hot up the grapevine again with the fan back on (drove up it last week and again, solid temps without a mechanical fan and I think it was 85-90 at the bottom, I was hauling up it at around 60-70 and its a good climb). The cooling system is all OEM. Surprised me tbh, almost don't care to put it back on.

[Syfon]

I bought the mishimoto fan with the kit and ran it off the aux fan controller. Phoenix gets up to 42c regularly and it couldn't keep up at all! My car was custom dyno tuned on 93 though, and running 91 in the heat is a contributor. I recently was experiencing overheating on track with 91 octane. Once I put in a 1/2 tank of 100 octane the overheating was far less frequent. My car needs the timming pulled back a bit, but even in normal sub 3k diving, just the mishimoto fan was incapable of keeping the car cool with or without the AC on.

I've been running mine for a month or so with no issues. Running off the aux fan controller (I have not adjusted the oe aux fan controller settings).

Granted we're coming into winter, so no real data yet as to how the mishi puller will perform under hot external conditions paired with either city traffic or hard driving.

My car will be custom tuned to 98ron fuel in due course. Be interesting to see how temps go when it gets hot out.

[sapote]

The shroud was removed. You think that’s all it would take to solve the issue?

For sure it will improve, as more air will be flowing thru the condenser and the coolant radiator. Without shroud, the fan just cycling the air from its back to front going around, and less air flow thru the radiator and condenser.