I cannot believe I’m on my 3rd revision of my setup! For all of you that have missed my other entries, here are the links for both #1 and #2.
Part 1
Part 2

Brief update of why I am now on my 3rd setup. Recently I attempted to get my AC working and unwilling to spend roughly $180 to see if it would work afterwards, I removed it. By doing so I was able to remove the condenser, remove the small 9” fan and put in a larger, higher flowing 12” fan in it’s place.


Where or where to begin, how about the beginning. This day started off as a simple enough day, I was just going to install a new Mishimoto 143* thermostat. Packaging was very nice and it should be for being roughly a $50 thermostat . I go and install that in about 10min and lookey who shows up, it’s the UPS man!!! Maybe he showed up now because I just inquired about my package or it was just dumb luck, but he showed up and with my new 12 SPAL fan!

SPAL P/N 30101505
Medium profile straight blade pusher rated at 1230 CFM
Coupled with my other fan P/N 30102038, I have a total CFM rating of 2860 CFM.

Being about 5pm and not having to work the next day I decide to tackle putting on the new fan. Luckily I went out and bought some more Gorilla tape and got the large roll this time.

Started off pretty well, unbolted everything I needed to remove the bumper, and boy-oh-boy was that sucker on there just from the tape. I needed to do a lot of tape cutting to remove everything from the car.

Finally, there she is, my baby 9” fan attached to the soon to be gone condenser. Took out all the bolts hold it in place and finally pulled it out.

Condenser and the 9” fan


Looks like something is missing.


It’s amazing at the size difference here


With everything out, I need to get the new fan mounted in. Just one problem, I need to figure out how to make brackets for this a little differently than the others. The previous fan installs some how managed to have the aluminum bar line up with a flat area so no bending was needed - this fan is going to suck.

I started off by just seating the radiator in it’s place and loosely bolting it in. I know I cannot directly mount the fan to the radiator in case I need to pull the radiator out so after about 30min of fiddling around I came to the conclusion of 90* brackets for bottom feet.

I ended up using the only fan mounts and just bent them up and they ended up lining up very well actually. I decided to push the fan in towards the radiator to remove the space that would occur when the foam insulation is installed. I just started struggling working against it so I had another spark. What about installing the radiator now instead of later? Oh boy, now that was a great idea! HAHA

I ended up needing to go back to ACE hardware for some more double sided foam tape as I couldn’t find anymore. I bought a 15ft roll for 1$ than a 5ft roll. Started at the top by putting the tape strip on and then *I put the tape down behind me somewhere*. Put on the foam and trim it up. I’m ready for the bottom piece. Turn around for the tape and it is gone, G. O. N. E, gone!

I am on my hands and knees tearing up my garage for about 30 minutes looking for this blasted tape that I just bought for this very purpose. Cursing up a storm and 100% believing that some gremlin came in and took it just to piss me off. Looking around I end up find a roll in my tool chest and I swore I didn’t use anywhere near 15 ft as this roll was almost done.

I just use that roll to finish up the foam install and I just couldn’t believe what happened during that whole ordeal. I’m done with it and move on.

I installed the radiator with the foam so I wouldn’t have to deal with pushing against it and everything will be lined up where it should be.



Brackets went right in and now that I have 2, I need at least 1 more up top to prevent rotational movement.


This was the fun one to make, I decided the best spot to mount it would be through one of the now unused bolt holes for the condenser mount.

Took a longer piece of bar that was used, started bending it, came up with the shape that works and it lined right up.



No new holes needed drilled on that one either. The only holes that did get drilled were 2 for self tapping screws into the lower rad support and a new hole for one of the feet.


Side shot of the fan against the radiator.


At this point I am very happy as the hard work is pretty much over so it’s time to start the ducting. I have a lot more open areas now that need covered but they are now much easier to access.

Tape here, tape there, here’s some tape and there’s some more tape! I found out that with the new fan, the top shroud that I was using wouldn’t work on this setup, so more TAPE!!!












Side note:
My GF came by after work to see how long I would be and the funny thing, she goes and ask “is this yours?” like something was out side in the driveway. Sure enough, my *tape roll made it outside the garage and half way down the driveway*. Seriously, I was really starting to think a gremlin actually came by, took the tape, and just snickered as I’m frustrated and angry looking for this tape that could or should not have been able to make it outside!

Could this be it???


Looks like a solid Gorilla duct! I was looking at different angles to see if any light shown through anywhere and if I saw any, I covered it up. I also needed to run the wiring at this point and just hooked it up to the other fan.





Installed the FMIC and proceeded to seal it to the ducting from every angle possible while trying to avoid covering any of the fins and bars towards the end tanks.





My next decision was trying to decide if I wanted to retain my crash beam this time around or ditch it. Thinking about it while I started installing various parts back on the car I decided to ditch it. I can make a better seal with it out of the way.

So off it stayed and on went the bumper. Bolting it up I went to seal the bottom of the bumper to the FMIC and did it very well this time as the previous tape job came off. It was the only area that the Gorilla tape failed but there wasn’t a lot of contact area so I’ll blame that on myself.


Trying to figure out how to tape the top of the bumper to the FMIC (where a majority of air would escape on my setup) I realized I needed to remove the bumper support setup and take out my head lights again. For the second time I go and remove the lights, my passenger side one strips out (again) a mounting hole so I needed to re epoxy it back in. Cleaning the screw with a pick, I end up stabbing my finger, woohoo…bloody finger time.

I go and start sealing the top bumper to the FMIC and I end up running out of Gorilla tape . I had to switch over to regular thin and crappy duct tape. I layed down 3 layers in alternate directions to give it some more strength, luckily I didn’t need to use too much and the areas that do have it I can still access from the top.

Here is how the bumper is sealed.







Final shots from the front.





I currently do not have temperature data yet, hopefully later today or I’ll have it next week (vacation). But so far with my fans on 100%, I have yet to go above the first hash mark in the middle of the gauge in 85* weather. I’m going to guess that could be 170*ish? But I’ll update with some real numbers with different testing setups (fans on, fans of, coolant offset changes, etc.)

DATA

Well I did some cruising around and I'm not too happy, here's why.

Having an offset of 30* to have the fans come on at 180*, I was sitting in the 190s and even in the 200s still. When the temperature gets up, even the high amount of CFM and blowing air wasn't really bringing down the temps. My IAT was reading in the 100*s as well with an outside temp at 90* currently.

I did do an idle with the hood propped up and idling got it down to 170*. So I'm coming to a conclusion that I'll greatly benefit from a vented hood. Too much hot air is trapped under the hood and is causing the radiator to become counter productive.

Also making an air box will be on my list too to keep out hot air from the radiator from being sucked in. I'll most likely wrap my intake pipe too to keep more heat out of it.

I'll have to get a cold run with the fans on and see where the temps travel too.