To add to the Torque App.. Spinning onto another topic: *Smart* Electric Fan Conversion...
It actually came in very handy the first week I had it. I removed my stock belt driven fan and fan clutch and installed an electric fan I got for free from a parts sportage. It was the A/C fan and yes it's smaller, but it does the job just fine. Anyway, I've been running it on a toggle switch for the winter. I've only needed to use the radiator fan when I've been parked and running for a few minutes and the air under the hood stagnates and builds up heat. Problem is, sometimes I forget to turn the switch on till after I notice my temp gauge climing and once I had it one but forgot to turn it off when I parked and it killed the battery. The simply solution would be to put the fan direct off my ignition switch or some sort of power that is only on during engine on operation, but then you deal with increasing your cold start engine warm up times and every moment that fan runs is a moment off that fan's life and that's just more electrical load on the alternator (decreased life) and in turn more load on the engine (worse fuel eco) which totally cancels out the idea of an electric fan conversion! SO, I found the answer on ebay. For about $55 after shipping, I got this module that monitors the radiator temperature with a temp probe supplied. However you must calibrate the module to your radiator the first time. You must dial in the module so that it kicks the fan on once the engine begins to go beyond norm. Typically the engine will self regulate with the use of a thermostat without a rad fan while moving. The Tstat's are typically marked when temp they are when you buy them. Mine is 185F i believe. As I've been monitoring my temp during driving.. It never drops below 185 while driving based on my scan tool. This tells me my tstat is closing (probably not fully) at this temperature to maintain good engine operation. It's when you sit parked for a few minutes that the radiator's cooling power is stunted by stagnant airflow. Thus the thermostat is full open and coolant flows 100% but the temps begin to climb still, this is around the time your fan needs to kick in to prevent it from overheating. So I used my cell's scan tool app to monitor the temps while working under the hood.. instead of going back to the dash.. which wouldn't be near accurate anyway. I found that the 'happy spot' my needle is always at when driving is between 170-210! There's about 40*F of temperature variation and our factory gauges do not reflect this! This is done on many vehicles and it's done intentionally so you don't freak out when the car starts to get a little warm and bother the shop over nothing. Being performance minded, I prefer to see the fluctuations personally. Anyway, once my temps began to rise over normal temp, i turned the adjustment screw back till the fan kicked on. So now my Sportage self regulates its own Electric fan. Plus the kit comes with a green (12+) overide input wire. So if your plannin on muddin/snow wheelin and want a head start to keepin the motor cool, you can flip an over ride switch to this wire and the fan runs regardless of current temp. The manual recommends wiring the module from an ignition base source but I preferred it to be direct off the battery (fused of course). This way when the motor shuts off the residual heat can be dispersed. That will be handy in the summer. Currently, after shutting the motor off, the fan will kick in a minute or so after shut off and run for a minute and shut off then kick back on one more time for a minute a few minutes later. This is not nearly enough to drain the battery. [color:"red"] [/color]
