mechanical fan horsepower & torque loss test video

[76 bronco J]

>>> been thinkin' about going back to a clutch fan setup for simplicity even though my electric fan setup been workin' very good for 30,000ish miles....heat pours out the back of the open cowl induct hood like a chimney when sittin' still or barely moving...I know open back cowl hoods are not good on the highway ,but my bronco doesn't seem to care.... actually was burning up fuse holders every once in a while even though my fan supposedly only draws 14 amps while running ,but not in the last 10,000ish miles 'cause I went to a fusible link wire instead of a fuse holder/fuse setup.... know the debate well that all fans electric or mechanical draw power... anyway check out the latest video from Freiburger & the boys...think their electric fan horsepower loss guess might be low ,but they do play on the dyno way more than I do >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXdLgaFXZzs

 

[73azbronco]

Good info, but for bronco folks, I think we want the highest drain fan IMO, it means it's most likely moving the most air. They chimed in with how much power you could get with an electric fan, yet never tested it with an alternator sucking energy off the motor. They also never tried heating up that clutch fan to see what it really did, most likely moving into the fixed steel range of drain.

 

[76 bronco J]

>>> yeah.... I thought the same about heating up that fan clutch & rigging up a electric fan with a alternator for a more complete overall test......

 

[bronconut73]

Its just an area that us eb people can't skimp on.

We need the best cooling, horsepower loss be damned,
Haha...lol...

 

[Broncobowsher]

Doesn't matter how much HP you make if you can't use it (because you can't stay cool).

I know that video would show up here sooner or later. Slightly surprised it took this long, and we will be seeing again every few months for a few more years.

What I wish they did would be put and airflow meter in front of that radiator. Any good HVAC tech has one. Square inches of the vent (radiator) and the flow through the meter and you have a CFM measurement. See how much air those fans really are moving. Something else I know they could have done is put a pressure transducer between the fan and the radiator, to measure how much pressure drop that fan is creating. They really screwed up and ignored a big part of actual cooling.

Yes, mechanical fans took a lot of HP off the engine. But they totally neglected the airflow that they make. The best HP is no fan at all. You still loose HP with electric as the alternator puts a load on the engine. It isn't as much as a mechanical fan, but they don't move as much air either.

 

[blubuckaroo]

It's interesting to see these tests, but I have trouble applying it to my cars.

Most off us enjoy our cars in the grunt RPMs. The losses to torque are much less at lower RPMs. That's where most 4X4s driven.That's also where we tend to need our cooling, at low RPM.

Also, that engine hit its maximum torque at 3900 RPM. That's almost double that of a stock 302 and certainly double that of a stock 351W.

I would have liked to see a real flex fan in their test. My factory super cooling seven blades has pretty flexible blades. They're suppose to flatten out some at RPM increases.