Power management is a bit of a problem on my car. The EFI system uses a lot, and the alternator supplies very little!
One problem was that with the fans running at idle the battery went flat. This meant that I didn't know what to do in heavy traffic. Stopping the engine would mean needing to restart (flatten battery), keeping the engine running would mean the fans running (flatten battery), and setting a higher idle would mean too much heat which would cause over heating.
I have been working on generating more power (new regulator), and using less power (HID and LED lights), and now I decided to address the fan.
Initially I had a single fan from a gsxr1000. This was not ideal and at the SVA things got a bit warm. So, I added a second gsxr1000 fan. This meant that the fans cycled on and off in the required manner and all seemed good. Total power draw from these fans was 10A, but in the old days of carbs I had enough to spare (I thought this, but it might not have been true).
To address the current problems, I tried the 2 fans in series, this dropped the current draw to 2.5A, but in this mode it couldn't cool the engine sufficiently such that the fans cycle on and off. Next I tried a single fan, but this was not juicy enough either.
Plan B, get a new fan. Went down to the scrappy in Berinsfield, and had a look. Specification was 12inch diameter, less than 4inches deep, and it needed to be a sucker (i.e. behind radiator). I looked at a few (tempted by the absolutely miniscule citroen AX fan) but ended up with a Mazda 323 fan, these cars have 2 electric fans, and this is the less powerful of the two.
Fits nicely with the Polo radiator, draws 5A (12A at startup, so 20A fuse needed), cycles on and off (on for about 90seconds before temperature drops, this was on a hot day, at 1200rpm idle).
Picture needed
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