SPAL Fans

Julian,

I like Spal fans, I have installed them in other folks cars in the past. They are a very well made product. They are an oem supplier. Better quality than the Flex-a-lite.

I purchased dual 11" Spal hi performance fans for my new cooling system, as yet not installed. They're 1390 cfm each. That ought to keep things cool, eh? I chose 11" because I mounted them on a shroud, and the 12" fans would not have fit side by side on the shroud.

The variable speed controller strikes me as overkill, but I see some advantages. Less noise from the fan when its not needed, and less current draw on the electrical system when its not needed. I may purchase a pair of them for those reasons. The controller is a new product, it wasn't on the market a year and a half ago, when I purchased my fans.

I also plan to mount the a/c condenser up front in the future, to gain room for a flat bottom trunk tub.

Hers's a pic of my fans, mounted on my custom made Evans radiator. The radiator has 2 rows of 1 1/2" wide tubes, single pass, 1 3/4" inlet & outlet nipples.

Your friend on the DTBB, George

George,

Nice looking set up, especially like the custom rad, but it's not gonna cool anything sat there on your garage floor for a year and a half is it now

The high volume (1650cfm) SPAL 12" fans like yours are 5 blade, but they weigh in at 2lbs heavier each than the medium profile 1250 cfm version, so I have to weigh up whether that extra 800 cfm total is really needed.

I got put off of a shroud (and the flex-a-lite 220 for the same reason) as a number of people have commented to me about overheating at sustained high speed, because the shroud can stifle air flow. Hopefully, by going with your high cfm choice system it will not be so prone to that.

I just liked the idea with the controller that by using the SPAL T sensor in the rad in conjunction with the controller the on-off temps can be varied, so if I want to change T-stat at any time I can just re-program the fans to match. Actually, it doesn't work out that much more expensive than buying standard sensors anyway, plus the controller will run two fans and override them both to 'on' when A/C is switched on; good if I relocate the A/C condenser later.

Have a good weekend trip
Julian

Julian,

Evans (a company specializing in race car cooling systems) also advised against the shroud, but it's my money, so they built it as I designed it.

The shroud serves 2 purposes: (1) to hold the fans 1" off the surface of the radiator, necessary for the fans to operate efficiently, they will NOT pull the rated air flow when attached directly to the radiator; (2) to expose the entire surface of the radiator to the air flow of the fans.

The advice you received about shrowds inhibiting air flow is race car advice, not road car advice. I agree, if you're going to race an open road race, or perhaps even make a multi-lap pass on a track, the shroud may hinder air flow. But I'm not racing this car, just road driving it, so my system is skewed towards performance under those conditions. The shrowd holding the fans off the radiator core and exposing more of the radiator's surface area to the air flow, is maximizing cooling at a stop & at low speeds, when cooling is dependent upon the fans.

I also wanted the core thicker, for more cooling area, Evans advised against that too, as it is harder for air to flow through a very thick radiator, so I followed their advice in that instance. The thickness of a radiator is more of a concern at slow speeds, i.e. road driving, as opposed to high speed racing. So again, I skewed my decision towards my intended use of my Pantera, i.e. road driving. I believe the open road guys have opted for thicker radiators in order to achieve enough surface area to cool the motor at sustained high speeds.

The point I would like to make for all who will read this post is that there is no hard fast rule that a radiator shrowd is a bad choice in every circumstance. The use of the vehicle must be taken into consideration. I would point out that the vast majority of road cars have radiator shrowds.

Your shrowded friend on the DTBB, George

That is a sweet set up George, I am with you on the shrowding. I think aluminun is like 4 time more efficent at exchanging heat than copper.

George,
My fans are right up tight on the radiator, so I should move them out about a inch. Is that correct.
Thanks
Dennis

George,

I was thinkin' (yeah, more like lustin' ) about your BITCHEN set up there and one question is; are you going to go 1 3/4" tubes all the way to the motor?

Julian

quote:

Originally posted by daleyracing:
My fans are right up tight on the radiator, so I should move them out about a inch. Is that correct.

Maybe. There are 2 cosiderations Dennis. (1) Is the fan currently mounted to the radiator fins? If so, it would be wise to mount it a better way. The little attaching rods that pass through the core will eventually wear a hole in one of the fins, even if the fan & the hardware on the outside have foam rubber between them and the core. (2) If mounting isn't an issue, then only consider spacing the fan if you are having an issue with the car running hot at low speeds, stop & go, etc. If the car isn't running hot at any time, don't sweat it.

Keep it in the back of your mind, if you run into a situation where it seems the fan isn't cooling the radiator well enough, you could improve things by spacing it from the radiator core. Besides being a good way to mount the fan to the radiator, and a good way to space the fan away from the radiator core, a shroud will also help insure all the air moved by the fan is moving in the way you want it to.

By the way, since I'm mentioning fan shrowds, I would like to explain, the reason I chose two 11" fans instead of one big fan, is that the shroud, having two 11" holes cut out of it, offers very little resistance to air flow. There is very little shroud, it is mostly cut-out.

quote:

Originally posted by Joules5:
are you going to go 1 3/4" tubes all the way to the motor?

Yes Julian, 1 3/4" tubes in both directions.

Getting spaced with my friends on the DTBB, George