Admittedly I inherited this problem with the slim fans (set up to be pushers mounted to the front of the radiator) on my car as they were installed before I bought it. Problem is I don’t think they ever worked and I hadn’t driven the car in stop and go traffic before so I hadn’t noticed any high temps. I noticed while driving in traffic around the holidays the car would heat up to over 200 degrees measured via DSMLink while stopped and the slim fans would not kick on. Luckily one of the stock “puller fans” is still installed and working so it kicks on and keeps the car from fully overheating and temps lower back down when driving of course. However, since only one of the stock fans is installed only about half of the Mishimoto aluminum radiator is seeing airflow at a stop.

I have found these two threads but I am a bit lost as the wire colors don’t match up and one seems to be about splicing into the factory wiring and temp sensor.

http://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/slim-fan-wiring-questions.350229/
http://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/slim-fan-wiring-with-a-relay.345217/

The slim fans are no doubt China knock off's but I want to keep them if I can. Please see the photos attached. Here is what I have done so far:

Pink/Red - I have tested the pink (color coded “red”) wire that runs to an inline 30 amp fuse and then to the battery and I am getting power. Fuse is also good.

Yellow - the yellow wire is run up through the firewall into the car and attached to the interior fuse block via a circuit adder w/ a fuse. I believe the idea is that since this fuse block comes alive when the ignition is turned on the fans are only supposed to run when the ignition (and therefore engine) is on (e.g turning the key on send a signal through the yellow wire to the control/relay? I tested the yellow wire at the control box and I have power with the key on and no power with the key off.

Orange/Blue - The fans themselves are wired correctly and will work and the grounds are good. I removed the cover from the relay by accident and I can manually engage a connection that makes the fans turn on. I also sanded the ground spot very good to ensure clean grounding to metal.

Relay – I have just replaced the relay with a brand new relay and the fans still don’t seem to work when the ignition is on.

Grey Wire/Temp Probe – I am thinking there is something wrong here. When investigating how the fans were wired up in the beginning I found this probe was pushed in between the fins on the radiator on in front of the stock fan. In thinking that the stock fan kicked on before the probe got hot enough to trigger the slim fans to turn on, I removed the probe and tried to use a heat gun and boiling water to “trick” it to see if it would kick the fans on. Nothing. I am not sure how this thing works but it is two small wires going to the metal probe so I tried to bypass the probe and connect the two wires together with a butt connector, thinking this would complete the circuit and tell the fans to kick on. Nothing.

Green – finally there is this green “AC/Clutch” wire that is not hooked up? I have no idea what this is for?

Can anyone help me get my fans to work when the ignition is on? The car is not a daily so gas mileage isn’t a big concern. I am also in southern CA where we get 100+ degree temps in the summer and have brutal weekend traffic. I think my preference is to have the fans stay on all of the time when the ignition is on. Or, if easier to wire up - I would be okay with having the fans linked to the coolant temp sensor to kick on as the stock fan does.


Thank you for any help and input!

- Kyle

why not just cut the plugs off the stock fans and attach them to your new fans.

radiator fan:
(+) .... (white/black) and (white/blue)
(-) .... (black) and (blue/green)

condenser fan:
(+) .... (blue) and (blue/white)
(-) .... (black) and (blue/black)

Wow, I hadn't thought of that.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the condenser fan? My car only has one stock fan mounted to the radiator? Also, since the two aftermarket fans are "pushers" I was told pushing air is less efficient so I assumed I should keep the one stock fan "puling" air?

condenser fan is the one that kicks on with the a/c.

cant you just flip them to the other side of the radiator or do you not have enough clearance.

Oh okay i am missing that fan but i see the connector loose on the drivers side of the engine bay. The wire colors match up with what you note it your first post.

I would think that I would like both fans to kick on to cool the motor.

do you have any take on whether "push" or "pull" is better? I cannot easily move my aftermarket fans to the stock fan location so they would pull air through as they are already secured with those zip tie clips that run through the radiator. However, if "pull" is truly better I will order more ties.

They would fit. The j pipe is a bit close. I would just need to find new ties to secure them.

when you manual activated the relay and the fans kicked on, did you check that they actually push air thru the radiator.

KMJDSM said:

do you have any take on whether "push" or "pull" is better?

Click to expand...

pull set-up is more efficient than push. fans in front of the radiator can block airflow while the car is moving, and are only needed at idle and low speeds until the car gets moving fast enough for air to naturally force it's way through the a/c condenser and radiator. It sounds like you have 3 fans (two pushers and one stock?). The stock fan is way more efficient than most aftermarket fans (especially the cheap ones from eBay and Amazon), so keep that and ditch one of the aftermarket ones. Also, fans work best with a shroud, but again, you could probably make do with the stock fan and one aftermarket. As far as the controller for the aftermarket fans, it may be adjustable. Perhaps the previous owner never got around to messing with it and set it too high so that it never activated the fans. Anyway, I would just cut the plug and wire the fan as was mentioned above. If you don't have a/c, you could just splice into the wiring for the existing stock fan to make them both come on at the same time. The only issue would be if the wiring can handle the amp load, but if it's a cheap fan it's probably pulling less than 10amps anyway and should be fine. If you have a/c and want the other fan to come on at the same time as the stock one, you can just jump the relay (the condenser side normally won't come on unless the a/c is on and/or the coolant temp gets super high):

http://www.vfaq.com/mods/wayback/2gcoolingfan.html

They do and seem to push a lot of air through the radiator into the engine bay. In measuring out the clearance though I don't think I got do a puller setup on the driver side. The J pipe might be an issue and the car as a large tial wastegate and an external O2 dump that look to give clearance issues (probably why the previous owner removed the stock AC fan anyways)

Thank you for all of your help!

In searching around on here it seems that a pulling fan is said to be more efficient though. Since I am missing the AC compressor fan anyways, tomorrow I will likely wire up both fans to the OEM radiator fan connector and test the temps. I figure two 12 inch push fans might be equal or better than the stock radiator fan, that upon further inspection is cracked and missing part of the housing ducting the air to the fan.

Thank you both for your input!

Since my car does not have AC I wired up one aftermarket "push" fan to the AC condenser wiring so it will kick on when I hit the AC button. I do not have clearance to mount as a "pull" set up on the driver side. I retained the stock rad fan for now and removed the push fan in front of it on the passenger side to free up airflow.

I did some testing today and the car ran mostly at or below 193*. It did get up to 210* though during extended periods at idle and it seems like the stock rad fan does not kick on until about 205* or 210*. This is hotter than I would like.

I am going to try to research and get DSMLink to control when the fan kicks on. I found that I can keep both fans on any time the Ignition is on with Link in the Misc. menu section but I would rather not do that and just have the rad fan kick on earlier.

I am also going to look at the thermostat. I imagine like a lot of other parts on this car it is a cheap brand and probably doesn't open at the temp advertised. Seems like a 170* thermostat is what a lot of people use.

stock thermostat opens at 180F and is full open at 203F

so do you know if your pusher fans came set up as pushers or if they are puller fans with the polarity reversed to make them spin in the opposite direction?

on the mishimoto fans i have laying around, they are set up as puller fans. when running them as pushers (reversed polarity) they flow way better if the fan blades are flipped.



i don't know the exact physics of it but it appears to be because of the curve on the blades

this is the side toward the radiator when pulling

this side toward the radiator when pushing (opposite rotation)

If you change a pusher to a puller, swap the wires AND flip the blade if it is possible. Just thought I'd throw that in the mix.

Thank you for the additional input. The fans are set up as Push fans based on the mounting position and the wire the fan itself notes is the (+). If you reverse it becomes a pull fan. It seems to flow well but oem fan does move more air. I didn't realize the oem thermostat wasn't fully open until 203*. This now makes since then as it is about where my car is running. I would like it to stay under 200 if possible.

I tried to run a pusher on the condensor, I also tried it as a puller on the condensor.

Basically when you hook it as a pusher you get air deflection from the air that hits the fins and bounces off the condensor. If you run the fan as a pusher you can actually feel the air deflection if you hold your hand next to the fan.

That deflection hurts even more airflow because the air cant pass easily through the core, the air flow is disturbed and driving down the road the fan actually blocks air. The air bouncing off the core keeps getting larger

Even as an extra puller, there is only so much air the fan can pull though the core. Again the aftermarket puller is not as strong as oem so you get worse performance as a puller, because again only a predefined amount of air can pass through that area as a matter of square surface area vs suction

So oem is best. The best mod is to cut the tabs off of the factory condensor fan to make it hug the radiator to eliminate any air gaps to increase its suction power. Again I noticed worse pressures and temps by adding a fan