pusher fans

[loman]

Does anyone know of part #'s for a pusher cooling fan that fits in a 65 without modifying the gravel shield? We are going to use hood pins and remove the hood latch assembly which will also help provide more room.

[vicegrip]

Not crazy about pushers. They do blow a lot of air but are a big restriction in the natural flow of things. Have seen a lot of guys with over heating probs with pushers. Getting something to work behind the radiator is way better IMO.

[bigdan]

Not sure of a part number, but Summit has an outstanding search/filter feature on their website. It'll let you search by height, width, thickness, pusher/puller, etc. My only $0.02 is this - avoid SPAL fans, they're loud as heck. Flex-a-lite is much quieter, even with straight blades.

Dan

[loman]

Thanks for the input. I'm not a huge fan of the pusher either but the water pump on the 390 doesn't leave much room on the engine side of radiator. The crew chief wants to hack the gravel shield so I'm just checking options before we go that route.

Dan, I was on Summit's site earlier and checking what's available. I just need to do a little measuring.

[poboyjo65]

I've seen guys use a dual fan so the pump snout is between them. some fans can be used either way as puller or pusher, it will tell in the description.

[bigdan]

Another option is 2 pullers staggered to miss your water pump snout.

Dan

[A/FX]

Just a question.
Why do you use electric fans? I have built numerous cars and have done just about anything to not have to use electric. The factory never used them in the era these cars were built so there should be all the parts available to swing a mechanical fan. The first thing I consider when mounting an engine is the placement of the radiator and fan, from that point I work my my back to the engine and trans. With all the various water pumps, pulleys, and fans available fitting an appropriate mechanical fan is a matter of thought and picking the right parts.
In the past I have resorted to re-engineering brackets and pulleys but have always been able to fit a fan that pulls enough or more than enough air to cool my engines. I use only hi flow thermostats and never skimp on the quality of the radiator.(always brass, never aluminum)
This is just my opinion.

[loman]

Jim & Dan, I like the way your thinking. If we found a double one to miss the snout of the pump, that would fit the ticket. We might also consider a single fan and just offset it a bit to the side of the pump snout. We are not ready to buy nothing yet, but we are trying to think a couple of steps ahead and we are getting close to that point.

A/FX, we want an electric fan for racing reasons. This is a track car and we would like to run the pump and fan in the pits after making a pass to cool the car down between runs. We are not worried about HP but a mechanical fan does rob a little bit of it. The more consistent we can control the temperature the better the chances we can predict the consistency of the car. Bracket racing is all about consistency in my mind. I ran a 351W in it for years with a mechanical fan. Whenever I had to make runs fairly closely together which would sometimes happen in later rounds my car became more inconsistent. There were probably several things going on but one of them was the engine temps would steadily get climb. I could run time trials and leave the line at 180 degrees. Wait an hour or so, make 2nd pass at 180 and so on. Later rounds sometimes you may run every 45, 30 or sometimes 20 minutes and the et's would be slower. When that happened, I would notice engine temps at 190-200. I tried different thermostats, no stats, and even restrictors. I think a lot of it has to do with the engine bay being small and holding the heat in.

[A/FX]

Loman,
I understand your thinking for a race car. Being that I build for dependable street use my train of thought is for the mechanical type fan. In the past I have tried to stay with OEM fans and shrouds where possible, sometimes when we have built a early bodied hot rod we have resorted to aftermarket flex type fans and a fabricated shroud. Picking a proper radiator is the most important component in the cooling system.
Jim

[SASSY]

I used to think belt driven fans were the best too but electrics have come so far plus all the factories use them in everything.
Heck, our minivan has almost 400,000k on it the fans have never been a prob. Sassy has the tiny factory rad from the tbird with the original electric fan from '89 which had proven completely reliable as well. So I think it's what ever floats your boat.
Fred

[loman]

Loman,
Picking a proper radiator is the most important component in the cooling system.
Jim

I totally agree.
The radiator that was used with the 351W is a crossflow radiator that the crew chief many years ago picked up at the junkyard from a pile of radiators. No idea what it is off of. It was functional so we never upgraded it but we probably should have. I have a feeling the 390 will run just as hot with that same radiator. If it does, we done decided it will be time for an upgrade.

[poboyjo65]

Bigger is better IMO when it comes to rads. just takes more time for a smaller one to rebound from a hot spell. & bigger holds more coolant. Summit has some universal fit rads in their brand & also griffin for fairly cheap. I'd get the widest one that would fit even if I had to notch out the framerails to fit it. A wide aluminum crossflow would have more core to fit bigger twin fans in there.

If this one would fit would be a good one, but they have all sizes;
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/gri- ... /overview/
the summit brand one is the one I use & it did great with no shroud but I added one anyway.

[A/FX]

As I mentioned in a previous post I prefer brass radiators. Here is the one I used in my Cyclone, I conferred with the manufacturer and was told the high efficiency design core was best suited for my application.
http://www.usradiator.com/ford-mustang- ... iator.html

I used a factory top mount and fabricated the lower mounts. With some searching the local NAPA I was able to come up with formed upper and lower hoses, with the shroud and Boss fan the installation looks like the factory did it.
Jim

[SASSY]

Very tidy!!