Adam,
The stock fan setup has an extension piece that slides onto the front
of the harmonic balancer, and the fan bolts to this extension piece.
However, if you remove the mechanical fan, you can't just remove the
extension piece because the long bolt that goes through this extension
piece (which holds the harmonic balancer to the crank) won't work
without the extension.
If you want to install an electric fan, you have a couple of options:
1) Just add an electric fan as a pusher (ie: mounted to the front of
the rad) and leave the mechanical fan as-is
2) Add an electric fan as a pusher, pull the mechanical fan, but leave
the stock extension in place.
3) Add an electric fan as a puller (ie: mounted behind the rad), pull
the mechanical fan and replace the existing extension and long bolt
with a shorter extension and shorter bolt. For this, you have two
options:
a) Just cut down the stock extension with a hacksaw, and find a bolt
that is shorter than the stock bolt by the same amount that you have
shortened the spacer.
b) There is a supplier who has machined spacers and bolts specifically
for this, which replace the stock extesion and bolt. I don't have the
contact info, but I'm sure someone on 6pack does.
In theory, removing the mechanical fan will free up a bit of
horsepower, but from what I hear it's less than 5%, and is only at the
top of the rev range. You probably won't notice it.
I doubt you will notice any reduction in noise level either, since 1)
the stock fan is very small and doesn't make much noise, and 2) the
exhaust and various other engine sounds are loud enough that they are
the predominant sound!
For the time and effort, I would say the only reason you should bother
with putting on an electric fan is if you have overheating issues at
idle due to the fact that the stock mechanical fan doesn't pull a whole
lot of air at idle speed. It was for this reason that I fitted a 16"
Perma-cool fan as a puller on my car. It is a tight fit, but looks
very nice and works great. It helped me out because my engine tended
to get hot at idle when sitting in heavy traffic on hot days, but that
is with the fact that my engine is souped up (head, cam, rockers,
exhaust, etc). With a stock engine you should be fine with the stock
fan, and if it does tend to get hot at idle, the easiest thing is to
just add a small 12 or 14 inch Hayden fan as a pusher on the front of
the rad.
Tim Holbrook
1971 TR6
--- Adam C Beasley <adam@adambeasley.com> wrote:
> I'm considering an electric fan conversion and have a few questions
> (surprise!). When I remove the existing fan and spacer, do I need to
> put
> anything in it's place. like some kink of harmonic balancer? Also,
> what's
> the best fan to get. one from the big three. Autozone, Advance, NAPA?
>
>
>
> Does it make any improvement in acceleration? Quiter?
>
>
>
> Thanks!
>
>
>
> Adam
>
> 73 TR6
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