[94bird]

Are the fans in series in our LT1 engines? Can I remove one of them and still have one working fan? I'm in the middle of doing a few things on the car and the engine isn't running so I'm hoping someone knows before I reinstall everything.

[Jon A]

On your '94 you have one fan that kicks on first and a second that kicks on after that. In '95 or '96 they switched to a dual speed set-up where both fans kick on at the same time at low speed and then they both kick up to high speed when required. This is a much more efficient set-up. With both fans on low speed you're using less power, making less noise and moving a ton more CFM through the radiator than one fan on high speed--you can see why they switched. I've tested it quite a bit--one fan on high just doesn't cool worth a crap, both on low speed do better since you aren't sucking air through the opening for the other. And of course both on high speed flat sucks that radiator cold....

That's why I would worry about you removing one of your fans. If you do that you'll open up that hole even more which will make the other even less effective. I know it's not like you commute in the thing anymore, but if you did you would overheat it if you got stuck in traffic on a really hot day. If you seal up the hole for the fan you removed, you'd probably be OK but then you're really restricting air at high speed and will probably have problems there.

Just removing it you'd probably be OK if you only ran on the track at high speeds but I'd still be worried about getting stuck on a red-flagged track or something causing you to overheat. The best option would be to cut the shroud in half and re-sealing it so the one fan is effective at cooling at least a portion of the radiator well but not blocking the rest at high speed.

I know what you're thinking, those are heavy mothers, aren't they? (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) But I'll bet you'd have to search high and low to find an aftermarket set-up that moves more air....

[On Edit] Oops. Maybe this was just a simple wiring question...sorry. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Your fans should be wired in parallel...I think. If you have a Helm's they have decent wiring diagrams of them. Mine won't do you any good since it's different. I would assume they are wired in such a manor that if one burns out (or you disconnect it) the other would still be functional. This would be easy to confirm with Tunercat the first time you run it.

This post has been edited by Jon A: May 31 2004, 07:06 AM