Fan Upgrade
 

I know a few people have upgraded their fans, a few questions. I have upgraded to a CSF radiator but looking at upgrading the fans now.
-What did you buy?
-Was it plug n play or require rewiring?
-How was the install?

I'm considering the GTM radiator with spal fan upgrade but its quite expensive. the car still has cooling issues when pushed hard in the heat with CSF and fan control

Vent the hood. Trust me it is very very very good at cooling when teamed with a z1 34 row oil cooler and a csf. I can run the heck out of my z with no issues. You can buy the spal fans and retro fit them into a mishimoto fan shroud. then it has to be wired in with the factory wiring. You have to know what your doing. I think gtm took it further and made it plug and play but they made there fan setup only work with there radiator.

vented hood is definitely on my list, my only concern is a lack of garage and the elements :shakes head:

I held off on purchasing the CSF because it's only 30mm thick and 1 row.

You may want to do some research on the NEW Mishimoto Aluminum Radiator. Click here for engineering report. It's 40mm thick and has 2 rows. I installed this radiator several weeks ago and I'm extremely happy with the quality and performance. I don't have any technical data, however, one thing I noticed is that my oil temps with 25 row cooler usually hovered around 195-220. Now my oil temps pretty much stay a constant 180 - 190. If it has this kind of effect on my oil temps, it must be cooling extremely well.

Check out my install pictures here.

wow, great detailed write up. nice job, I like the added pictures and text on the pictures :tup:

I took the plunge with the GTM kit and SPAL fan upgrade. There is so much stuff in front of the radiator now, it's almost needed. Front opening of the Z isn't really large and desert weather isn't kind to cooling either.

yeah, my friend who is stationed at Nellis said it was 117 yesterday. I've seen oil temps of 220+ in 80 degree weather. 117 is HOT lol

I will have to look at the actual flow design of it, bigger is not always better with these things. Also, I am not going to replace my CSF as it performs very well for basic needs but looking for the next step above that. Which I figured would be the fans to help move the air more efficiently.

A vented hood is in the works, probably by years end at the latest. Need my factory hood for something else, will share later. My idea is if I do the vented hood and can easily upgrade the fans it will be a double bonus, but it is sounding like the fans might be more work than originally thought.

Aero Jacket is currently adding vents to my hood. It's nothing too spectacular, but it's better than nothing all. Plus, it's probably much cheaper than the preferred dry carbon vented hood at the moment.

One thing I wish I did was to ceramic coat the hotside of the turbo... just too much piled up lol.

Not sure if anyone else is interested but after realizing that the nismo radiator cap is rated slightly less than oem (137kpa oem, 130 nismo) I placed an order for the GTR Spec-V oem cap, rated at 180kpa. seems like a good upgrade for anyone pushing their cooling system, especially if you're running more water than coolant.

I wanted to go with GTM radiator with their shroud + SPAL fans but they didnt have the radiator in stock so went with CSF.

However, they do sell shroud with spal fans for stock radiators so I called Mike@GTM and asked him if it fit with CSF radiator, he said if it fit in stock mounts then he dont see why it should not fit.

So basicly, I have CSF radiator with GTM shroud + dual 14" SPAL fans for stock mounting radiator.

This is the best thing to do. Value and performance. If you need more than that something is wrong. Course adding a vented hood is a big plus. Don't forget with Uprev you can control the fan %'s in stages.

See this is what pisses me off because I asked those guys more then once if the gtm fan setup will fit the csf and gtm repeatedly told me no no no. That's what drives me about this car stuff sometimes.

If it fits that would be a very good direction to go. We have a guy on here that did his own spal setup with the csf and he's in IRAQ. Said 130 degrees no problem. He had a 34 row oil cooler too.

A lot of times they say no if its not a 100% bolt on. But anything can be made to work. Most of the time it's something so little. Or they just want you to buy there products.

So were there fans plug n play with the current connections?

Maybe just head over to SPAL's site and see what they have that is an improvement over stock that fits in the same shroud. From what I hear though, the fans that came with the Z are pretty nice. If you already have a CSF radiator and you have an intercooler up front, maybe create some ducting on a Z speed undershroud that wind.zero did: DIY Zspeed Nismo370Z aluminum under pan diffuser but point the fresh air towards the radiator. Not sure how well it'd work but it was a thought. I know the 4th gen F bodies ran something similar because the limited cooling (if any) coming from the front bumper.

Edit: looks like someone beat me to suggesting SPAL fans for oem shroud lol.

Yea me and another guy from Iraq was throwing ideas back and fourth about a year ago about spal fan upgrades. We came up with a conclusion which was to use a mishimoto fan shroud and fit the spal fans to that. Then wire them in. Z1 was going to build it for me. I didn't do it just for the fact I didn't need it. But it was a solid idea tho.

Might be time to push some companies into making a "kit" for this possibly, besides just GTM, if there is enough interest.
This way it is a fairly plug-n-play setup with no wiring involved which is where I throw in the towel.

Making your own shroud is very easy. Especially if you own or can rent a metal break.

What's wrong with GTM's shroud with SPAL fans?
I was told by Mike that the SPAL is made to plug in play and i dont have to buy any other wires.

So whats wrong with it? lemme guess.. price?

I have not even looked at the price, so no idea how much it costs.
I am thinking of having options so if people want different fans or come out with a different/better design people can choose. Nothing wrong with GTM's setup, but more than one option is always better for our cars. If no one produces anything better I will probably be purchasing the GTM option.

GTM Motorsports*::*COOLING SYSTEM*::*GTM H.O. 14" Dual Fan Kit For Z34/V36 For Stock Radiator

Price: $488.00

That is actually fair for what I was expecting for a complete kit which I can just throw into the car.

I haven't install the whole cooling process (CSF + GTM shroud with Fans) to be honest with you so i cant give you any experience review.

But I did a lot of search about these SPAL fans before purchasing it and I think its safe to say that its one of the best/fastest fans out there!

Now with plug in play and if it fit with CSF. Im not sure yet. Mike said if CSF fits like stock then the shroud should fit with no problem and just plug it to stock connection and youre good to go.

Ah, well let us know once you get them in and how it goes.

Here a picture of my GTM 14" dual SPAL fans :)

http://i677.photobucket.com/albums/v...ps5bc03dda.jpg

Its definitely nice upgrade over stock, our stock fans are smaller and curved blade type fan. These are bigger, better motor, faster, and more powerful due the straight blade type.

Here a quote from SPAL website.

Source: SPAL High Performance Cooling Fans

:tiphat:

Those straight blade fans will be LOUD lol.

Yes they are loud. I've heard spal fans on other cars.

500 bucks for these? Geez.

I have Z1 urethane mounts, 3" down pipe with external wastegate, 3" GTM exhaust, high rpm idle. I dont think ill even hear these blades doing their work :p

Especially if you just stay above 5k RPMs. :driving:

Dammit, every time I think I've reached a good stopping point with this car, someone has to go and show me a part I just have to have. Oh well, that's modding for you.

Glad I can help. :tup:

You people realize I have another project car, right? How will that ever be done if all my disposable income keeps going to my daily driver?

All kidding aside, this looks to be a good upgrade, especially for the FI guys. I've got the CSF radiator, a big oil cooler and the fans are programmed to come on much earlier than stock, but there's still some movement of the water temp gauge if it's over 100 degrees out, I'm stuck in traffic for a long time and the AC is on. Granted, that's to be expected, but I don't like seeing the little dot move. I'll try these fans, swap to a thermostat with a slightly lower opening temp and swap out the coolant for something closer to a 80/20 water to antifreeze mix. That should do it. If not, it's vented hood time.

If you have the mula then hey go for it. I will tell you tho I was told more then once by gtm and z1 that there fan and shroud will not fit a csf radiator. If you pull the trigger please keep me updated.

Oh, I'm holding off until G37sHKS tries it first to see how much massaging to fit is required. If they fit the stock radiator, and the CSF isn't dramatically larger than stock then it should work. I'm just not dropping $500 on a "should".

As you know logical reasoning almost always bites you in the ***. It's like people design stuff on purpose just to piss you off lol. Ill be looking out for a review

Lol ain't that the damn truth.

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