hi, i have a WEAK 2.3l ford ranger pick up, and im willing to do a few mods to make it more road useable.
it has a belt driven fan, and im wondering how much HP id gain by switching over to electric. btw i live in colorado, so it doesent get to hot here, and we have very thin air!
its fine in the city, but on the highway its like i hvae to max out every gear to get it up to speed!
ive done all the lil changes, oil, performance air filter, plugs, plug wires, fuel injector cleaner, etc etc.
just trying to think of a couple things to free up some HPHow much HP would i gain from a 4cyl with a electric fan?
Well it's no Powerstroke Diesel, but supposedly it takes up to 50HP to run the fan on one of those... From the articles I've gathered you can see that lots of people are reporting fuel economy increases by switching from engine driven to electric fans. If you can do a %26quot;mod%26quot; that increases fuel economy it must reduce losses somewhere else so it stands to reason that there's been some horsepower that was set free.
Here's a thread where someone reports 2-2.5 MPG increase from switching to electric fan in a 4.3L V-6 S-10 pickup.
http://pavementsucks.com/forums/viewtopi
Here's an article that claims up to 17 HP and 20 Lb*ft torque can be gained by switching to an electric fan. (Flex-A-Lite dyno numbers)
http://www.automedia.com/Electric-Coolin
Another article where they claim a 1-2 MPG increase:
http://www.fordmuscle.com/archives/2003/
An article that claims 26-30 HP gain on new V8 Ford trucks by switching to electric fan:
http://www.ford-trucks.com/article/idx/0
Here is a link to a fan kit specifically for the Ranger:
http://www.flex-a-lite.com/auto/html/ran
Finally, an article describing fan losses from 19-40 HP on a Chevy V8 and only 1.3 HP loss to drive an alternator at 65A. (65A at 14.4v is 936 watts. 936 watts is equal to 1.25 horsepower, so that sounds right).
http://carnut.com/ramblin/dyno.html
After all that you know that switching to electric will free up some HP, how much is hard to say as I couldn't find any actual dyno sheets. My guess: 10-15 HP and 1-2 MPG gains. One thing to keep in mind if you do this is that you will have to upgrade your alternator because the fan will draw a lot of power when it is on (Up to or beyond 30A)!How much HP would i gain from a 4cyl with a electric fan?
That's a very hard question to answer. The horsepower drain of a fan is a function of rpm: power drain increases with the cube of RPM. However, the fan in your truck may be designed to %26quot;feather%26quot; or %26quot;freewheel%26quot; as engine RPM's increase. These techniques reduce parasitic drag.
An electric fan doesn't eliminate parasitic losses, as the power to drive the electric fan increases load on the alternator. The answer to your question is that it will make some difference, but it's hard to say how much.How much HP would i gain from a 4cyl with a electric fan?
not enough of a difference to noticeHow much HP would i gain from a 4cyl with a electric fan?
About 3 hp plus or minus 1 hp.How much HP would i gain from a 4cyl with a electric fan?
I do not think this is a worthwhile mod. It might net you 2-3 hp tops and will surely lead to other reliablity problems.
You do not say how old the car is, but I'll presume it is old and that the engine is worn out. You might be better off having a valve job done and improving the cylinder sealing if its got some miles on it.
Astrobuf
