Electric fan contour swap.
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Post by bdmontero on Oct 27, 2015 11:25:12 GMT -5
It works but is close to needing a High amp. I already have one so...;D ;D if you didn't have any other extra lights or stereo stuff it might work but I'd still recommend getting a HO alternator
Sent from my SM-N900V using proboards
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Post by ES_97Sport on Oct 27, 2015 13:51:49 GMT -5
Painless wiring harness? Will our stock wiring handle the amperage. Just use the ford connection? Our hdlmp wiring is pretty cheesy though. The +/- of the fan harness connects directly to the battery. There are no connections to the factory wiring harness. What you will need are battery terminals of some kind. The + terminal has a eye connector that bolts to the terminal. You can unscrew the nut, and connect to that if absolutely necessary. The - terminal is old style cable formed into the negative terminal casting. You COULD attach an eye connector to the bolt that tightens the terminal but its small and very awkward and kind of a pain to work on. It looks like the ones I use on the big Sport aren't sold anymore. I wasn't ever overjoyed with them but they had three independent screw attachment points on the top which was very convenient. These will be what I use on the '99 build ... Amazon - NOCO TZKIT3 Lead-Free Military Grade Zinc Battery Terminal KitAgain, not overjoyed but they'll work. You can't use the boy racer audiophile stick a bare cable in the terminal and tighten the screw with a winch. They most certainly don't work anywhere that deicer is used. Take into account what you're going to be attaching in the future! I have a independent headlight harness, electric fans, a winch, an on-board air compressor, and I'm planning on adding an independent horn harness. Thank God, I took my sub-woofer and aux lights out a few years ago. Mine kinda 'grew' over time and now I have a HUGE electrical nightmare under the hood that's going to take major surgery to correct. Its dang near impossible to tell what does what and goes where. Figure out where you probably want to go and plan accordingly is the best advice I can give. If you're going to have more than one or two things connected, run a separate multi-fuse block and attach to that. Run a 4GA or whatever from the fuse block to the battery. It might be a pain initially and kinda overkill, but down the road you will be VERY VERY happy you started right. I already have one of these for the '99 build ... Amazon - Blue Sea Systems ST Blade Fuse Block - 12 Circuits with Negative Bus & CoverBut something like this will make managing the underhood electrical a lot easier. pinstryper take a good hard look at the entire negative cable. Odds are that's in need of replacement by now. It wasn't one of Mitsu's more brilliant designs and has a tendency to corrode between the cable and connectors. Edward
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Post by bdmontero on Oct 27, 2015 14:11:32 GMT -5
That's what I like about the painless harness. One positive cable goes to main fuse, then you bolt the power to the harness and positive of both fans on other side, so there's no guess work. ;D
Sent from my SM-N900V using proboards
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Post by ES_97Sport on Oct 27, 2015 14:18:00 GMT -5
Did you upgrade your alternator also? I know have seen it mentioned about the extra amp draw. If it is needed I'll be bummed out. Just put a new mitsu alternator on about 8 months ago. If it wasn't 18 below zero when I needed to fix it I would have the local alternator shop rebuild it to High output. They did that for my last car and the extra amperage came in handy with the wayyyy over the top stereo I used to run. If you have NOTHING else plugged in and you don't run all the gee-gaws at the same time ... yes you can do the fans without a higher amp battery. Get a really good AGM with as much reserve as you can. The largest battery that will fit under the hood is a Group 65. I am/was running the Sears Platinum which was a re-badged Odyssey. The Odyssey is a very, VERY good battery but very, VERY expensive. The Sears version was 2/3rds the cost. Sears no longer sells the Platinum. They are reselling Phips or Phillips or something like that. I have no idea if they're worth a damn or not. The Contour fans pull between 20-30 amps EACH depending on the motors. My Motorcraft motors will blow a 25 amp fuse on 100% continuous and at start-up. My Rock Auto specials were happy with 25 amp fuses for years. YMMV. To be safe figure on a total of 60 amps draw with both on 100%. This would be the absolute highest when brand new. KIM, that as motors get older they tend to pull a little more in amperage and aging connectors won't help. So this is a good max figure to use over time. The stock alternator is between 84/95 amps. Autozone used to sell a 95 but I notice its gone away in the last few years. So, a safe bet is 90 amps at most around 3-4000 RPM. I seem to remember max was about 3800, but I'm not sure I'm remembering that correctly. Amperage goes down at lower RPMs. Below 2000 RPM it will become less likely that the alternator will be able to supply all the power needed and the battery will be making up the difference thereby depleting the battery. Besides the computers, FI and ignition, and the A/T solenoids, the power sucking parts of a Sport are the cab front and rear blowers and the A/C aux fan in front of the A/C condenser and the external lighting. The computers, FI and ignition MUST have adequate power or driveability suffers. In English, the system suffers for a 'brown out' - lack of adequate power. Fuel injectors stop working correctly and the engine becomes prone to miss-fire because of inadequate voltage to the coils and spark plugs. So, this is what you have to protect. But if you start adding up draw from the 'accessories', it doesn't take much to get to the point where the alternator isn't even close to adequate. And that's without adding any 'after market' accessories to the mix. What I can absolutely say for certain is that with a pair of IPFs, a pair of 80/100 headlights on dim, and the front cab heater on medium, I could drain a 1000 amp Optima blue top in 4-5 hours wheeling. That was running the RPMs between idle and about 3000 RPM - probably averaging about 2000 RPM. This was WITHOUT electric fans and without the A/C aux fan running. Edward
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Post by jkdv8 on Oct 27, 2015 16:35:18 GMT -5
I really need to quit doing this from my ipad.
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Post by jkdv8 on Oct 27, 2015 16:52:45 GMT -5
You can't use the boy racer audiophile stick a bare cable in the terminal and tighten the screw with a winch. They most certainly don't work anywhere that deicer is used. Edward I used the plasti-dip on mine when I did the big 3 and they're fine. I can't contest to the salt creep issue but if you seal it from getting in, it wouldn't be an issue. This plasti-dip actually does a better job than some of the connections from the factory. Any high temp silicone would work as well. So does the A/C work any better with the additional airflow?
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Post by bdmontero on Oct 27, 2015 17:43:34 GMT -5
Absolutely mine does. If you look at the front of the engine its sucking in so much air it actually spins the ac condenser fan with the ac fan off! ;D Sent from my SM-N900V using proboards
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Post by ES_97Sport on Oct 27, 2015 18:11:22 GMT -5
I used the plasti-dip on mine when I did the big 3 and they're fine. I can't contest to the salt creep issue but if you seal it from getting in, it wouldn't be an issue. This plasti-dip actually does a better job than some of the connections from the factory. Any high temp silicone would work as well. So does the A/C work any better with the additional airflow? That's right, I'd forgotten you'd done that. That is something. So, if you plastic dip the terminal after everything is assembled, and I assume that includes the screws, how do you take anything apart? Salt is something, but de-icer works like penetrating oil. Nasty stuff. But, you are right about that. That negative cable is just kind of embarrassing. I was referring more to trying to use one of those for a 4GA, 2GA, 0GA, line from a winch. The lowest I think I've seen is 4GA. But, mostly that's not a good connection for something carrying 300-500 amps of continuous draw. In fact, its not a very good connection just in general. We had 100+ degree weather in Moab in Aug so the A/C was on a good part of the time with the fans running at 100%. I couldn't tell any difference between one fan on at 60-70% and both on 100%. Freshly charged and maintenanced system so maybe it would be more noticeable on an older system? Edward
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Post by ES_97Sport on Oct 27, 2015 18:22:00 GMT -5
Absolutely mine does. If you look at the front of the engine its sucking in so much air it actually spins the ac condenser fan with the ac fan off! ;D Those fans are wicked, aren't they? Its surprising the Motorcraft motors are even worse. Better? I have had two huge Derale fans on my 'Bird, neither of which pull anywhere close to the air the cheap OEM Contour fan pulls. Never mind that ONE Derale costs what an entire Contour assembly costs new. The only OEM setup I've see that's more impressive is the Taurus, Mark VIII? The huge monster 70 amp dual speed fan. My old tech at the dealership that did the 3.5L swap installed one in his Tacoma. That was overkill on a level unimagined. Edward
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Post by bdmontero on Oct 27, 2015 18:40:18 GMT -5
ROFL I bet Edward!! Lol squirrels and small children would have to be 100 feet back or risk being sucked in! Lol;D Sent from my SM-N900V using proboards
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Post by jkdv8 on Oct 27, 2015 20:21:29 GMT -5
Absolutely mine does. If you look at the front of the engine its sucking in so much air it actually spins the ac condenser fan with the ac fan off! ;D Sent from my SM-N900V using proboards Nice, that's cool. Literally. That's right, I'd forgotten you'd done that. That is something. So, if you plastic dip the terminal after everything is assembled, and I assume that includes the screws, how do you take anything apart? Salt is something, but de-icer works like penetrating oil. Nasty stuff. But, you are right about that. That negative cable is just kind of embarrassing. I was referring more to trying to use one of those for a 4GA, 2GA, 0GA, line from a winch. The lowest I think I've seen is 4GA. But, mostly that's not a good connection for something carrying 300-500 amps of continuous draw. In fact, its not a very good connection just in general. We had 100+ degree weather in Moab in Aug so the A/C was on a good part of the time with the fans running at 100%. I couldn't tell any difference between one fan on at 60-70% and both on 100%. Freshly charged and maintenanced system so maybe it would be more noticeable on an older system? Edward Yea the one I have is for 0 gauge. Has one 0(added alt +/-), one 4( factory power lead), and two 8 (aftermarket fogs and preamp wired on 1 and the other is for additional goodies) gauge inputs. Same on the ground. I still haven't permanently coated the terminals yet. I was waiting on running the other 0 gauge back to the amp first but the connections would technically be permanent. Just the ring that fits around he post would be exposed. If I ever get around to finishing it I would have to cut it off, do the repair, and redo it. However, I was going to try first to coat the whole thing then cut and peel it back some so it would act like the factory rubber protector on the the actual battery terminal. As for the ring terminals, I dipped the whole thing, cut the bit of the actual ring part off and sealed the cut. I did that on the + & - of the alt. Those fans are wicked, aren't they? Its surprising the Motorcraft motors are even worse. Better? I have had two huge Derale fans on my 'Bird, neither of which pull anywhere close to the air the cheap OEM Contour fan pulls. Never mind that ONE Derale costs what an entire Contour assembly costs new. The only OEM setup I've see that's more impressive is the Taurus, Mark VIII? The huge monster 70 amp dual speed fan. My old tech at the dealership that did the 3.5L swap installed one in his Tacoma. That was overkill on a level unimagined. Edward Yea having jet propulsion turbines for cooling sounds like an American car. Reactive instead of the proactive approach. Instead of designing the engine to run cooler they work around it and yet they are still notorious for overheating. ROFL I bet Edward!! Lol squirrels and small children would have to be 100 feet back or risk being sucked in! Lol;D Sent from my SM-N900V using proboards Haha too funny.
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Post by ES_97Sport on Oct 28, 2015 16:15:01 GMT -5
... I was going to try first to coat the whole thing then cut and peel it back some so it would act like the factory rubber protector on the the actual battery terminal. As for the ring terminals, I dipped the whole thing, cut the bit of the actual ring part off and sealed the cut. I did that on the + & - of the alt. AH! Ok, that makes sense. He did that primarily just to see if it was even possible. That fan is HUGE and there isn't that much room in the front of a Toy pickup. It also takes a lot more fan to cool an engine off road than it does to cool the same engine on the street. At sub-couple MPH speeds you have NO air flow except the fan. Edward
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Post by jkdv8 on Oct 28, 2015 19:29:57 GMT -5
... I was going to try first to coat the whole thing then cut and peel it back some so it would act like the factory rubber protector on the the actual battery terminal. As for the ring terminals, I dipped the whole thing, cut the bit of the actual ring part off and sealed the cut. I did that on the + & - of the alt. AH! Ok, that makes sense. He did that primarily just to see if it was even possible. That fan is HUGE and there isn't that much room in the front of a Toy pickup. It also takes a lot more fan to cool an engine off road than it does to cool the same engine on the street. At sub-couple MPH speeds you have NO air flow except the fan. Edward Yea I can see that being very beneficial while off-roading but seems a bit overkill on a road going car with a v6. Maybe on the MarkVlll or SHO with the v8 but I don't think the contour was ever available with a v8. I could be mistaken.
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Post by ES_97Sport on Oct 29, 2015 14:50:54 GMT -5
AH! Ok, that makes sense. He did that primarily just to see if it was even possible. That fan is HUGE and there isn't that much room in the front of a Toy pickup. It also takes a lot more fan to cool an engine off road than it does to cool the same engine on the street. At sub-couple MPH speeds you have NO air flow except the fan. Edward Yea I can see that being very beneficial while off-roading but seems a bit overkill on a road going car with a v6. Maybe on the MarkVlll or SHO with the v8 but I don't think the contour was ever available with a v8. I could be mistaken. On the street it would be crazy. All that would do is suck gas. But, its the same thing with an A/T cooler. Off road you have to run a fan on the transmission cooler otherwise they won't do anything. No air flow. Nope, the Contour only came in a 4 and 6 cylinder. Those monster fans were only on the v8s. Too much even for my big Sport with the 3.5L conversion problems. I NEVER had an overheating issue in the big Sport even out in UT with the stock radiator and the Contour fans. That is a nasty hot place to be wheeling in the middle of summer. But, its hard to judge by mine because it doesn't have the sub-frame anymore and there's 3' of wide open space under the engine. I've noticed that ever since the SAS it runs much cooler than my stock Sports. IMHO, though, the Contour setup is pretty much perfect for our v6's. If you could fit the Mark/Lincoln thing in the engine bay - which you can't - I agree that would be crazy stupid overkill. But, if you put enough stuff in front of the grill then maybe .... Edward
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Post by jkdv8 on Oct 29, 2015 19:08:48 GMT -5
I NEVER had an overheating issue in the big Sport even out in UT with the stock radiator and the Contour fans. That is a nasty hot place to be wheeling in the middle of summer. But, its hard to judge by mine because it doesn't have the sub-frame anymore and there's 3' of wide open space under the engine. I've noticed that ever since the SAS it runs much cooler than my stock sports. Edward Haha open it up and let it breath. I could see that.
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