The Lawn Dart

[Deceus]

An electric fan setup from a 1995-2000 Ford Contour, Mercury Mystique, or Mercury Cougar with the 2.5L 24V V6 engine pretty much bolts right up to a 26" Mopar radiator. Unfortunately my car came with the smaller 22" radiator because it was about as basic as can be. The only reason I'm considering sticking with Spal for the dual setup is the super basic wiring. Will definitely have to look into the various OEM options out there if it comes down to plan B. Knowing what I know now, I should've just hacked up my damn radiator support and used the 26" anyways.

[ViPER1313]

SHO radiator fan is 22”x17”

Edit: 21.5x17x4.5 according to https://ls1tech.com/forums/conversions-h...-size.html

[ViPER1313]

And here is a guy who made it fit on a 22” mopar a body https://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/thr...or.281911/

[Deceus]

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/rnb-620-118

Oh baby there she is. Even found the pigtail for the connector to make it work with my controller. Definitely my new fall back plan. Not sure if I can get the shroud to work like the other guy did otherwise I'd just buy it today. Looks like he fabricated some brackets to mount it up top somehow

[Deceus]

So I ordered the fan and connector. Score another point for Ford I guess. Saw some metal brackets in Home Depot in the lumber isle I can definitely use to make it work for sure. Decided against doing anything this past weekend so I can just rip everything out at once when that gets in. Oddly enough I realized I couldn't get it to overheat with the hood up. I'm going to have to do something about my underhood temp, the fan is just step one. Hopefully the chin spoiler will force a bit more air into the valiance. Might relocate my front license plate as well since it's blocking like 75% of the biggest opening in the valiance and earn some JDM scene points.

I'd really like to be throwing on a fiberglass hood but that'll have to wait. Might be time to pickup the dual scoops since that should put a stream of air directly across both headers. I can go with a "snorkel" style scoop as well that basically puts them both in the middle. I like the look of the duals better but I do like the idea of putting a big center hole in the hood directly over my air cleaner. Decisions, decisions.

snorkel:


duel:

---

Currently leaning towards the snorkle because it's much easier to make functional:



So much room for more air flow. I could probably go with a taller filter and get it to sit slightly out of the hood as well. This is the factory correct way:



I'd basically be stuck with those (but further apart) if I go with the separate duals.

[Deceus]

Got real busy Friday. Idk the madness just kinda took hold and then I was in the garage all day and a good chunk of the night. Pulled the radiator (again), and pulled the thermostat. Poured a good bit of water through the block and radiator to make sure everything was coming out clear finally. Looked like the thin ring of RTV my dad threw on the old thermostat was dissolving and was causing at least some of the murkiness.

Got to work on the Taurus fan by trimming the shroud. There wasn't a chance in hell it was going to slip over the shroud tabs like I've seen some people do. Champion must've widened them a bit recent. I trimmed it to make it work but it was like an inch too long. With the power steering pump up on the March Performance bracket instead of down by the k-member like stock there just isn't nearly as much room as there should be with it offset. I tried trimming it to lay completely flat but there still isn't enough room to even get it started going in. Wasted a lot of time here and almost threw in the towel but decided to just go with plan A after all. I just threw the old setup back and decided to get to work on my cooling mods.

Got the high flow thermostat in place and got to work making some brackets for my external transmission cooler.



Out of curiosity I mocked up a bracket to offset the license plate to hopefully let more air through the valance. This car has a pretty small grille opening so I figured it could use all the help it can get.






Not as offset as I would like and needs some bracing + welds to be "done" but it's working for me now.

Decide to cut the hole for the hood scoop now since it wasn't going to hurt anything and I was anxious to see if it would help out. I forgot to mention I was really planning on making it to cars and coffee the next morning and was losing daylight thanks to all the cutting on the fan.



Guess I should probably order the scoop now, fortunately holes for the mounting studs were drilled in the bracing from the factory so that should be an easy job.

Managed to pull it off. Had real high hopes the cooling issues were solved because it sat right 190 for a good chunk of the drive down 33. I think my EFI is going really lean when coasting because once I started hitting the hilly section and coasted up to 2 red lights it kept jumping 4-5 degrees and climbed past 200 in record time. It's a common issue I can workout with some tuning but that's for another day. The hole in the hood seemed to help a good bit. It may have been a placebo but the engine definitely felt more responsive with a cold air source. Not sure what the temps were before but the hood would burn the shit out of my hand just pulling the pins and the heat from opening the hood would smack me in the face like the oven door does when I forget 400 degrees is hot. Didn't have those issues this time and I could see a column of heat waves coming through it when I was stopped. So the battle goes on, I'm hoping tuning and timing will fix what's left of the cooling issues. The engine definitely needs some more time to be fully broken in so there' that too. Still getting a little bit of oil in my breather cap but overall it's been running strong.

[Deceus]

This car is so fun to drive. The EFI seems to be dialing in well. Did a few 2000-2500rpm footbrake launches and it was so violent with no sign of hesitation or stumbling. Need to get it into the exhaust shop though. Apparently exhaust leaks can also cause it to go lean while coasting and I know I have at least one where the collector gasket is missing. Might have them weld a few of the connections and weld on my cutouts. Will probably just snag the trailer a day early next weekend and drop it off on Friday since I'm planning on hitting up the MBCA autocross.

Race car parts are on hold for a while. Saw this on ebay and decided to pull the trigger on my dream bike.



Probably going to spend a good chunk of the fall trying to ride every chance I get. It's something that's really been sitting on the backburner too long while I was sorting things out with the car. Just gonna cruise and hit up a few MBCA events for some test & tune. Hopefully hit the ground running next year and MAYBE pickup some power brakes and new wheels/tires come tax time.

[Senor_Taylor]

So what direction do you want heat leaving your engine bay? Is it designed to be blown out the bottom? What direction would your hood scoop go?

Facing forward would ram air into your engine bay and negate the effects the hole is having, I assume.

Facing backwards might act as a Venturi and suck even more air out then it does currently... Or it may make it worse, I'm not sure.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

[Deceus]

So what direction do you want heat leaving your engine bay? Is it designed to be blown out the bottom? What direction would your hood scoop go?

Facing forward would ram air into your engine bay and negate the effects the hole is having, I assume.

Facing backwards might act as a Venturi and suck even more air out then it does currently... Or it may make it worse, I'm not sure.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

It'll be facing forward and should be ramming air into the top of the engine bay and out of the bottom. It's wide open on the bottom:



The main function of the scoop is going to be as a roof for the hole really. I can't have rain pouring directly on to the top of my air cleaner especially since it doubles as part of the air filter. Also the hole is pretty damn ugly because I have the steady hand of a recovering alcoholic. In the long run I really need to get a better coating on my headers. That'll have to wait for if/when I make the jump to aluminum heads and bigger cam.

[ScottyB]

nice job man...so awesome to see this thing ripping it. great timing too with fall weather on the horizon, it'll be great to take it out then.

pointing the scoops backwards and/or getting a scoop too close to the rear of the hood will actually create a cowl induction effect from the high pressure at the base of the windshield. you need to get farther forward on the hood to create a venturi effect.

do other Dart guys with scoops report the same effects with heat? airflow in the engine bay is weird. IIRC the subaru legacy road racing efforts from years past found that the top mount intercooler hood scoop was doing weird stuff at high speed - in effect, the air pressure in the engine bay was starting to back-flow out the scoop in reverse and would overheat the intercooler as a result. they ended up closing up the scoop and running a front mount intercooler instead, which solved the heat issue. your scoop is much more aggressive, so if it can take enough "bite" out of the air it may keep the airflow coming inwards at speed.

you can see the coversion here: went with a standard non-scoop hood and coverted to a radiator vent and small engine vents.

[Deceus]

Sooo I ordered a mechanical fan today. RIP 25hp but I'm tired of this shit and it's only thing keeping me from driving the car. Probably going to go with a different radiator company sometime in the future. My best bet is to run a 26" and go with a Ford Contour fan setup.



There's some detailed instructions out there and plenty of people have made it work. I'm just not giving Champion another dime and don't feel like dropping $400 for a third radiator at this point.

[Deceus]

Painted my scoop and got my radiator out last night. Was a pretty chill night in the garage except for the fact the cheap chinese hardware came in 2 different sizes. The studs were #10 but the nuts were #8. It's also by far the cheapest feeling hardware I've ever handled. I would have preferred plastic over whatever "metal" this is. It's so light I wouldn't be surprised if it was hollow. Couldn't thread them into the mounts like the instructions suggested either so I'm just going to epoxy them into place. I'm kinda hesitant to do that with the cheap hardware because it's a little more permanent then screwing them into the hood. I might just cut the heads off some grade 5 bolts for that.

Mechanical fan gets here today, hopefully going to get that and the scoop on today and get this thing to the exhaust shop tomorrow morning. Holding off on the trailer for Sunday's MBCA for now. The weather is looking kinda iffy and I have too much crap to do to piss away an entire day to get 3 minutes of racing in. If the weather looks perfect I may or may not just drive the car up there but that's kinda risky without any wipers hooked up and the rear tires being what they are. We'll see.

[Deceus]

The new fan went in without too much issue. Just had to remove another pulley cap ...



Did a quick drive to make sure it could make it to the exhaust shop in the morning and it seems to be cooling fine without the shroud in the way. It's still climbing at idle so I guess I'm gonna have to either get a shroud made for the mechanical or pull the trigger on the 26" setup and pray it fits. Did some measuring and it'll be kinda close to the power steering pump but may be fine if the fan sits low enough. it's hard to tell because no one else has this pulley system it seems.

[ScottyB]

kinda OT but love the bike - just picked up a Magic Mary for my 26er and its awesome on the front end.

good luck on the cooling stuff. you aren't underdriving the water pump or anything right? i had no idea these V8's could tax a cooling system so hard.

[Deceus]

Small radiator, restrictive shroud and no room for a decent sized fan is a shitty combo. It actually ran really cool this morning with the mechanical fan. I was low on coolant when I can back last night, it must've had a pretty big air pocket causing issues. It was also like 60 degrees so we'll see.

[Deceus]

Finally got around to getting the scoop on. The manifold air temp sensor on the EFI is reading about 10-15 degrees colder with it on so it's definitely at least somewhat functional. The mechanical fan has been keeping the engine cool just fine so I'm just going to leave it for now. Eventually I'll drop it for the 26" radiator and Ford Contour fan setup since I know that's a working combo. Definitely going to pull the fan and give it the green/black treatment since it sticks out like a sore thumb being the only blue and shiny item under the hood.






Kept smelling coolant when I got out of the car. Couldn't find a drop of it anywhere though so I wrote it off. I was under the hood messing with the EFI later in the day and noticed I got a nice coat of mist on my arm when I reved it. Mystery solved. The upper radiator hose was dripping onto to the fan whenever I gave it some throttle. It was getting vaporized and leaving no trace so I'm glad I found this before running my coolant down low. Fortunately I had a spare coupler laying around since that one was toast from all the times I've had it on/off and cranked down on the clamps.

HUGE fan of the way this thing sounds with the exhaust complete and welded up.

[Deceus]

SUPER excited to take this back out to the MBCA autocross. It didn't do so well the last time it was out and I'm really excited to see how all the upgrades are going to work out. It's been almost a year since I've been there which seems crazy to me but it was the December race the last time I was out there.

Gonna be a little weird with trying to make it to Taylor's housewarming on Saturday as well. I don't want to drag the truck and a trailer to his house and I don't want to have to drive back home before going to Winchester Sunday morning with a hangover. Part of me wants to just drive the thing to NoVa using 33 and 29 so I can stop in Winchester on the way back. I've been watching too much Roadkill because this seems like the best plan at the moment. Worse case scenario I just end up on the side of the road somewhere and get a tow. I haven't had any hint of trouble outta this thing for a while now not counting the cooling issues that were just the result of a bad combo. My 2 biggest concerns with this are rain and parking this thing on the side of the road. I still need to get this reappraised and properly insured before it gets totaled and I get $500 for it.

Decisions, decisions. Please enable me, enablers.

[ScottyB]

i'd keep off the interstate with it. i've driven 81 and 66 just enough times to know that the way traffic bunches up makes me nervous about being rear ended in the case of a big slowdown from ~80 to 20mph in a couple hundred feet with people being as oblivious as they are.

it'll be more relaxing for you anyway, and if you do have to dive onto the shoulder it'll be a lot easier to find a pull off, parking lot, or store to sit the car in while you wait on a tow.

[Deceus]

Oh definitely, I actually take 33 > 29 to NoVa even in the Lancer because it's like a 5 minute difference with almost no chance of a freak pileup happening. It also has a fair amount of windy stretches which is always nice to break up the drive. I break 3000rpm right around 65mph with 3.73 and no overdrive so I'm not sure I'd wanna cruise at 70-75 for 2 hours anyways. I can take Rt7 to Winchester and then 340 home as well.

I hate to say it but the best bet to making it to the race seems to be skipping the party.

[Deceus]

First it was snow in April and now a Cat 4/5 hurricane rolling across SW VA and the Valley. Some divine being really doesn't want me racing this thing ...

Some models are calling for it to stall and dump up to 25-30" of rain over a few days.