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Any preference on the optimum cooling fan? 'Not worried about noise factor

2 vane steel?
4 vane steel?
6 vane steel (tropical)?
16 vane steel?
12 vane plastic 12A2129?
11 vane plastic 12G3105?

I especally want to hear from you Portugese/Spanish/S African/Chilean boys!

Don't know the difference between 12A2129 and 12G3105, but I've read that 11 vane plastic fan gives the best cooling for your engine.. Waiting for more specialist than me answers..

no idea ,
but with my South African 1967 Traveller came a 6 vane steel fan and so I will use it for rebuild.

Standard plastic fan is 11 blade. Works OK but becomes less effective over time.
I've not seen any scientific tests of fans, but I can't believe any on your list will push more air than the 6-blade, "tropical" fan.

[Corrected for typo. Should be "can't believe...". In other words, if you need to push air, use the tropical fan.)

The plastic fan comes in two types - one for 998 and one for 1300's. The difference is the cord-length (width) of each blade... the 1300 being wider and thus pushing more air thru.

Nick Swift recommended to me that I'd use the 1300 variant on my race engine.

I think it may depend on the application, too much cooling is no good either...

OK from a South African point of view

I ran my 1380 pre A+ motor (11.5-1 compression, MSC Evo cam, home modded head) with the smaller / thinner plastic fan, with a small fan spacer and a Metro water pump pulley with a std 3 core rad. I had timing cover breather issues with running the wider fan.

The thing would get to 110 degrees in traffic. AND that was with an 82 degree VW Golf thermostat.

PS, i do also run a small 10" el cheapo electric fan mounted in the wing to help draw the hot air away, i would hate to think what the temp would have hit without it.

i bought a MSC 2 core from Rich @ Mini Spares (Guru_1071) put on the wider fan and clubby fan spacer to clear the timing cover breather, which leaves me the smallest clearances to the actual rad, BUT i sat in hectic traffic this morning and it never went above 90 degrees. Now i only put the electric fan on when i do hit traffic, but i've just done a 2 day 1300 km trip up to Johannesburg from the coast and back and the temp didn;t go above 90 once, not even at 130kph on the freeway.

Mini Spares 2 core rads rock !!!!!

Sean

too much cooling is no good either...

You can't get "too much" cooling if a sensible thermostat is fitted. I usually fit a 76 or 78° one.

mk1 wrote:too much cooling is no good either...

You can't get "too much" cooling if a sensible thermostat is fitted. I usually fit a 76 or 78° one.

I guess that's why radiator muffs were invented

let's not get started on muffs again.

Is there an electric fan kit you can buy that fits inside the wheelarch which doesn't require butchering of the inner wing ?

mk1 wrote:too much cooling is no good either...

You can't get "too much" cooling if a sensible thermostat is fitted. I usually fit a 76 or 78° one.

True. Somebody over here fitted a 74 degree theromostat in an 850 plus an extra fan! The guy couldn't really understand why his engine didn't run that well...

YMJ wrote:I especally want to hear from you Portugese/Spanish/S African/Chilean boys!

Hi there...

I have a 11 plastic blade on a 1275 a+ engine... Radiator clean, all the circuit clean...
It runs perfectly well even in the warmest summer here in Madrid... Only if I stop at a red light or in a traffic jam, temp rise up a bit, but nothing really worring.

worth to mention that summer in Madrid can be very hot... some days over 40ºC

LDR209H wrote:Is there an electric fan kit you can buy that fits inside the wheelarch which doesn't require butchering of the inner wing ?

Define butchering, Minispares do a kit which my brother fitted after the original inner wing fan died on his 93 sprite and I just fitted a cheapo fan off ebay, all it needed was two holes drilling to hold it in place?

Richspec wrote:

LDR209H wrote:Is there an electric fan kit you can buy that fits inside the wheelarch which doesn't require butchering of the inner wing ?

Define butchering, Minispares do a kit which my brother fitted after the original inner wing fan died on his 93 sprite and I just fitted a cheapo fan off ebay, all it needed was two holes drilling to hold it in place?

Sounds good Rich,was it this one ?

http://www.minispares.com/Product.aspx?ty=pb&pid=35516

Some people cut away the louvres on the inner wing which I don't really want to do,I don't mind drilling a couple of holes though.
Thanks again.

That Mini Spares fan is one of a few different ones I've used. It can be set up to work from a switch on the dash and/or to turn on automatically at a certain temperature. It is most effective at idle or slow speeds.