Fan questions.....

Stang_1973

Founding Member
Jul 13, 2001
565
9
38
San Antonio, Tx.
I have been looking to upgrade from my stock fan to like a Flex-a-lite or perma-cool fan. I dont want to go into an electric fan setup.

What exactly do i need to put one of these fans on my engine? I see things like spacers and clutches in the summit and jegs catalogs. How do i know what i need? What size would be best?

Any suggestions on specific fans would be helpful.

thanx.
 
Sorry about leaving holes in my post.

No fan shrowd.

What is the fan clutch?

The fan I have now is stock for all i know. It bolts up into a sort of cone shaped peice.

The reason i asm looking into getting a flesx fan is because a while back a few people here on stangnet recomended that I get one. Now that i have some money saved up i planned on getting one, along with some headers, and a shift improver kit.
 
Stang_1973 said:
What is the fan clutch?

The fan I have now is stock for all i know. It bolts up into a sort of cone shaped peice.

sounds like a fan clutch to me. The fan clutch is a circle sorta cone shapped piece that the fan mounts to. It has little fin looking things on the front. What a fan clutch does is as it cools down lets the clutch loose allowing for the fan to spin slower. For example. You are sitting at a light, no air flow over the rad, things heat up, fan clutch grabs and makes the fan spin. At cruise, air is flowing over the rad and cools the fan clutch, the clutch loosens causing the fan to slow down rotation. Basically it controls how fast the fan spins according to the air flow (or cooling of the fan). All you need to fit a flex-a-lite fan on is a small little $10 bracket that takes the place of the clutch assembly. I got mine from johnsmustang but Im sure summit and jegs has em. Its just a 3" or so wide cross with holes in it for the fan to bolt through to the block.
 
I have tried a flex fan, and I found that it sounded awful, and didn't cool very well at idle. I whent back to the clutch fan. However, there are two types of clutches, one that engages at heat build-up, and one at rpm (thermal and non-thermal).