Build Thread My First Notch Build Thread - Remember me?!

[stangboy]

My new Samsung Galaxy S9+ made my car look way better than it actually looks. Went out to a car show yesterday with my club members.

 

[stangboy]

Look what arrived Wednasday evening!

 

[a91what]

Oh.. yeah!

 

[stangboy]

Ok so I'm having fan issues again. I took the car for a ride Friday night it was running the same as it always has. It was kinda warm and muggy so temps never got below 180° with the fan on so I never turned it off the whole ride. Well at the end of my ride I stopped at Hooters to get something to eat. Before I turned the car off I did my same routine of checking the temp and if its over 180° I let the car idle with the fan on so they can come down. Then I'll turn the fan off then turn the car off. Well when I turned the car off I heard what sounded like the fam still running. So I walk to the front of the car and yep, the fan is still running.

So I popped the hood and pulled the fuse fron the relay board. It was burned/discolored on one side. So I said to myself, "Ok, the fuse is f'ed up. No prob" I keep spare fuses in the car because the fuse will blew after about 10 good rides in the car(about an hour or more each ride). Anyway, I put a new fuse in and the fan came back on....I pulled the fuse right back out and went inside to order my food.
Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to take a look at the relay board to make sure it's not melting away like the last one did when I was using wiring that ws too small. I hope its not the board because if it is then I don't have enough time to order a new one and it be here in time for Cruising the Coast. I'm hoping its the relay. Finding a 70amp relay should be pretty easy to find locally.

This is another reason I want to get ride of this Mark VIII fan. Its not worth the headache. I need a fan that doesn't have a huge amp draw but can keep my 363.... with a turbo coming in the future. Will a Black Magic fan do the job?

If anybody is wondering, no I haven't installed the PIMP engine management yet. I wanted to have the car at Cruising the Coast and I didn't want to possibly not finish in time. So I'll start tackling that install along with a list of other things after.

The list:
Change valve springs(so power doesn't fall off at 6k)
Change pushrods
Chnge valve covers(sick and tired of this oil leak)
Rebuild rearend....AGAIN
Adjust rear suspension
THEN install PIMP with new harness.

 

[a91what]

I am running a dual speed MarkVIII fan and have had no issues with it at all.... I trigger mine from the ECU and use 2 plain 40A bosch relays wired with #10 in parallel... low speed only i have never needed to put the fan on high. For future you could have the board trigger a separate relay [or set of relays] to turn on the fan so the board is not seeing the actual motor load.

 

[stangboy]

I am running a dual speed MarkVIII fan and have had no issues with it at all.... I trigger mine from the ECU and use 2 plain 40A bosch relays wired with #10 in parallel... low speed only i have never needed to put the fan on high. For future you could have the board trigger a separate relay [or set of relays] to turn on the fan so the board is not seeing the actual motor load.

Do you have pics of how it's wired? My fan is dual speed but I use it on high only. If you don't have pics can you draw it for me. Now how do I incorperate that into the fan wiring in my new harness that I will be putting on with the PIMP?

 

[a91what]

This is a good example, fuse the line going to pin #86 as well, a 5A fuse will do fine.

The MS will wire to pin #85 and pull the relays to ground when you have the fan output programmed and wired in.. you can also set it up to turn on when the AC comes on.

Both relays need to be 40A bosch style relays, you can feed them with a single # 8 wire from the battery and solder/shrink 2-#10 wires that will terminate on pins #30. The same method can be used from pins #87 out to the fan.

Now if you wanted to get really fancy you could use 3 relays and wire the system on low and then have it transition to high.... but like i said before I have never needed the high speed... I live in Florida even sitting in summer traffic with the AC on the car never got hot.

If you want to know how to setup the dual speed wiring let me know i can explain it.

 

[stangboy]

Awesome! Thanks @a91what

 

[wiseguyk]

I have my Mark VIII fan wired up the same way and it works great. @a91what Steve can confirm this, but for pin 30 constant + to the battery I wired in 40A maxi fuses. My understanding is that they are designed to handle large inrush currents like the Mark VIII pulls when it starts up.

PiMPxs/MS3 has a dedicated fan control feature that makes configuring everything super easy too:

 

[stangboy]

I have my Mark VIII fan wired up the same way and it works great. @a91what Steve can confirm this, but for pin 30 constant + to the battery I wired in 40A maxi fuses. My understanding is that they are designed to handle large inrush currents like the Mark VIII pulls when it starts up.

PiMPxs/MS3 has a dedicated fan control feature that makes configuring everything super easy too:

Awesom!! Thanks! This will be one of the first things I set when I install my PIMPxs. Did you use your factory engine harness or did you get the harness designed for the PIMPxs? I bought the harness for it. I know it has a designated fan relay in the harness so how would accomadate for that?

 

[wiseguyk]

Awesom!! Thanks! This will be one of the first things I set when I install my PIMPxs. Did you use your factory engine harness or did you get the harness designed for the PIMPxs? I bought the harness for it. I know it has a designated fan relay in the harness so how would accomadate for that?

No problem man, I'm excited for you to get that baby installed and start digging in

I used the factory harness with mine and added a relay near the computer to make the fan output ground coming from the ECU stronger and wired it to my 2 fan relays.

I would imagine your standalone harness with the fan relay built in will already be set up to be triggered by the ECU fan output (that seems like the whole point right? haha) so you should just have to see if the fan relay puts out positive or negative and wire your fan relays accordingly.

If you do decide to go the Mark VIII route, I took a bunch of pictures of how I did the mounting and whatnot in mine and could shoot them over to you.

 

[stangboy]

No problem man, I'm excited for you to get that baby installed and start digging in

I used the factory harness with mine and added a relay near the computer to make the fan output ground coming from the ECU stronger and wired it to my 2 fan relays.

I would imagine your standalone harness with the fan relay built in will already be set up to be triggered by the ECU fan output (that seems like the whole point right? haha) so you should just have to see if the fan relay puts out positive or negative and wire your fan relays accordingly.

If you do decide to go the Mark VIII route, I took a bunch of pictures of how I did the mounting and whatnot in mine and could shoot them over to you.

I already have the Mark VIII fan. I've just been having all kinds of problems with it burning up controllers and relay boards, but I was able to remedy those issues by using larger wire(#10). When I first wired it in I was using #12 wire. It killed 2 fan controllers and melted 1 Leash Electronics relay board. When I rewired everything with #10 wire and a toggle switch I didn't have anymore of those issues. Now it just blows the J-case 40a fuse on the new relay board every now and then. My issue Friday night was a new one. The relay board is Leash Electronics single 70a relay board and it's a nice piece. I guess I just need to wire this amp-hungry fan the way you guys did.

I currently have it all wired with #10 wire. I have a 100amp breaker between the battery and relay board, and the toggle switch just switches the 12v power source on/off to the relay board. Oh and the fan is wired to be on high when it comes on...so the power to the fan is powering both power wires together. Maybe when I wire it into the new harness I'll use the low speed and just have the high speed ready for when I put a/c back in the car or if its needed when I put the turbo on.

 

[a91what]

The issue is not the constant amp draw its the in-rush or startup current the fan draws. with you having it wired on high the startup current is huge

 

[stangboy]

Yeah, I'll see how it does with low speed. But this hot and humid climate here in New Orleans makes me nervous when I drive the car. But looking at the temps you have your fan set to come on and go off has me thinking I should stop being so nervous. I switch my fan on as soon as it gets around 190.

 

[wiseguyk]

Ah crap, sorry I forgot you already had the fan and the problem was burning through relays and controllers

It's interesting, in all my reading about Mark VIII fans before I bought mine, it sounds like certain years had dual speed fans while some were single speed. I tested mine with all combinations of the 3 wires and the speed was always the same so I assumed mine was single speed...

About a week after installing the fan, the motor decided to seize up on me, and I've since replaced it with a 4 Seasons unit but hadn't even thought about the new one possibly having the dual speed option I might have to test it again to see if I now have 2 speeds lol.

As far as ambient temps and cooling, with mine kicking on at 198 and off at 190 and a 180* thermostat, even in the peak FL heat it only occasionally kisses 200-205*. I'm quite happy with that, as before I did the fan swap it was getting up to the high 220's.

 

[mikestang63]

have you tried the FAL 33054 controller or the DCC controller? Both are soft start up and I have used both with this fan and no issues.

 

[stangboy]

have you tried the FAL 33054 controller or the DCC controller? Both are soft start up and I have used both with this fan and no issues.

I think the last one I used was a DCC controller...and it was advertised as a "high amp" controller. Controllers don't matter anymore because my PIMPxs will control the fan, among other things, when I install it.

Correction...the last controller I used was a Derale controller not DCC.

 

[stangboy]

@a91what and @wiseguyk if I'm not using a thermostat switch do I just ground that wire? Would that be the wire I have the ecu to activate the fan?

 

[a91what]

@a91what and @wiseguyk if I'm not using a thermostat switch do I just ground that wire? Would that be the wire I have the ecu to activate the fan?

I assume you are using the derail or other type of relay controller correct?? if so the wire on the Stinger labeled FAN will hook up to where the thermostat used to. the thermo switch just grounded when it got to temp, the MS will ground the wire when the conditions are set as well.

 

[stangboy]

I assume you are using the derail or other type of relay controller correct?? if so the wire on the Stinger labeled FAN will hook up to where the thermostat used to. the thermo switch just grounded when it got to temp, the MS will ground the wire when the conditions are set as well.

Right now I'm controlling the fan manually with a toggle switch. So I just grounded that wire. The fan works.