Churnd

I've been running my Hayden electric fan for almost 2 years now, and it's still running just as good as the day I bought it. But I'm thinking about transfering back over to mechanical, and still maintaining low weight on the pulley. I found this from LC Engineering:

Fan and spacer



From what I can tell, it eliminates the need for a fan clutch. The fan itself is supposed to eliminate it's own drag when picking up speed by having the blades turn. It's not as good as an electric fan, I know... but it's better than the stock fan and clutch. As most of you already know, LC Engineering makes stuff strictly for 4 cylinders. I see no reason why it wouldn't work with the 3VZE. Anybody care to prove me wrong?

The reason I'm considering this is because my electric fan draws a little too much current for my liking, especially at idle. It just gets on my nerves when my lights dim sitting at a stoplight with my headlights and brake lights on. I do have a lot of electrical accessories, and I've considered doing without each one. I deemed the electric fan most dispensable. This is mainly because I've never felt completely confident that the fan is cooling the engine enough, even though the guage on the dash says it is. They're not the most accurate guages out there.

Questions you may have:

Why don't you just get a better battery and alternator?
I have a 140 amp alternator, and it still doesnt put out enough at idle to keep me happy. I'm not shelling out $500 for one that will. At least not now anyway.

As for the battery... I'm not sure if a deep cycle battery will help me out or not, as the alternator wouldn't be able to charge it any better. If it would be able to handle the constant current drain without dropping in voltage so much (13.8 with the fan off, 13.2 with it on), then I might reconsider my options.

I'd appreciate any feedback you guys might have. It certainly isn't an easy decision. So, if you think this is the most idiotic thing you've ever heard of... let me know. If you think the idea has merit... let me know. I'd especially appreciate any other ideas you guys have.

Churnd

I've been doing a lot of research on the topic of re-wound Toyota alternators, and I've come up with a couple of alarming issues.
[list=1][*]Re-wound Toyota alternators can only be wound to put out at max 110 amps[*]Re-wound Toyota alternators tend to put out less power at idle than stock alternators. The extra amps don't kick in until you rev it up a little. In my case, they don't seem to kick in until I get to 1500 RPM's.[*]Re-wound alternators have a relatively short life span compared to stock alts.[/list=1]

I found most of this info from searching PBB.

It's pretty disheartening to learn. It completely explains why I've been having trouble with my 140 amp alternator from Mr. Alternator. In case you didn't know, every alternator he sells is a re-wound unit. I feel betrayed. But at the same time, he didn't claim that they wouldn't do any of these things. He really is a nice guy... I just want a better alternator.

PirateFins

Not to discurage you but I swear I read on one of the Toy boards (here, 4x4wire, or off-road.com) about those flexible blades destroying the radiator and any thing in their path, this might have been during a water crossing but you might want to do a search and check it out.

A thought to your current draw / voltage regulation problem. Have you considered putting in a voltage regulator for the fan to smooth out the demand on the charging system. Also how about a capacitor bank to store energy for you. They would get charged during normal driving and then bleed off and smooth out your power during idle. Think about it like the guy's that run the high end stereo systems, ever seen a competition stereo car? About half of the trunck is a capacitor bank to keep the power to the system steady.

Just a thought.

Churnd

No discouragement taken. I'm looking for both the pros and cons of this idea. LC Engineering emailed me back and told me they were working on a setup for the 3VZE, but there's no telling how long that will be.

Basically, I think that if I can just solve my alternator problems that I'll be good to go. I just need to find one that'll put out a good bit of current at idle. That's probably going to mean doing some fab work, which I don't have the tools for right now. I'll have to weigh my options and see what I can do.

Right now I think my first priority is changing the alternator... even if it means going back to stock. I just want to get rid of that damn thing, since it's caused me so much stress.

The only thing I'm going to consider now is going back to stock or swapping in another higher rated alternator that puts out what it does in stock form. I will not buy another re-wound alternator after all this. I still have my stock 60 amp unit, so I'm probably going to swap back to that until I come up with some other option. I hope I can still send the 140 amp back.

WATRD

When I was doing my search, I found much of that same info and elected to go with a new, larger capacity alternator. I keep reading over and over again that rewound Toyota alternators cannot exceed 110 Amps without severely hampering the idle output, so I wondered why everyone was going with them.

Sorry to hear of your troubles.

Plays_with_Toys

I have been considering this for a long time. I posted a thread about it and people asked why in the world I'd want one of these.

The fact of the matter is my dad is running one on his 72 Chevelle SS which is rated at close to 400HP, so why would it cause a problem on my 100hp 4cylinder? I notice alot of hot rodders use them as well, looking at their fans at car shows. I am sure they are for looks mostly, but some of these guys take their cars to the strip afterwards, so they have to perform. I think they are extremely bad for water crossings and can blow up (from what I've read), but wouldn't that be the same for the stock plastic fan?

I think if you keep the thing out of deep water you will be fine. Also, you might look for a flex-a-lite fan on summit for your truck, that's who I was planning to get mine through, they are like $30

Robinhood150

Why not try the taurus fan? On the low setting it only pulls about 7amps.

Churnd

I read that the high setting pulled 100 amps at startup and around 33 amps continuously. I figured the low setting would be about half, which is what my fan pulls now.

If you're right about the 7 amps, that's awesome! I was looking into doing it anyway, but wrote it off because I thought it would tax the charging system too much.

Robinhood150

I read that somewhere on pirate, and again on the MarkVIII fan page. I haven't actually tested it though.

Arnold

I raised my idle speed up to compensate for when my e-fan kicks on. Back when I ran a carb, I used my hand throttle to bring the rpms up whenever the fan kicked on while idling. Kinda hack but worked for me.

apc

I have seen those fans years ago when I was modding my Nissan car. When it is rotating, the blades are suppose to "flatten" out to reduce drag, yet still draw air. It looks like a good unit until you get to the topic of water crossings. The stock Toyota fan has the "ring" around it which is suppose to hold the fans shape when immersed in water.

In my opinion, I would say that if you are not doing any water crossings, go for the LC fan.

halcyon0

Have you looked at this yet?
http://www.off-road.com/toyota/tech/100alt/index.html
It may be worth something.