Kenlow fan and Intercooler

its entirely up to you .

normally the viscous fan with the cowling will obviously draw more air thru than a kenlowe fan will .

you may find the cooling effect thru the intercooler will be reduced but whether it will affect the performance noticeably i cannot say, they arent exactly high performence engines anyway are they .

personally i have gone throught the motions of electric/non electric fan but in the end i have kept the viscous fan and cowling for simplicity reasons .

all i do to warm the engine up quicker in winter is to have an aluminium plate dropped down in the gap between top radiator support plates which only covers the radiator and leaves 90% of the intercooler showing .

plate needs to be 500mmx 525mm with a 25mm 90deg bend on the 525 side , ie ends up with approx 500x500mm sqaure but one side with bend so it sits on top of radiator top plate with bend facing engine .

if the cylinder head is aluminium and prone to warping and head gasket failure if engine overheats then i am inclined to put up with slower warm ups and cooler running , that way i hope i dont blow the engine and have a large bill for parts and time off the road unable to be driven .

personally id have a viscous fan and an electric fan , i dont really trust the coarse indication of the landrover temp gauge, would prefer decent temp gauge with degs marked on its face .

ive not had a problem using the viscous fan and it is easy to remove with just spanner and mallet .

i did take the viscous fan off , but it didnt warm up and faster unless i blocked the front of radiator , and then if engine did get hot i couldnt remove the muff plate and have a fan already installed to cool it down quickly .

an electric fan in front of radiator is ok as far as i know , or some people remove the cowling and put fan on engine side of radiator so that air is also blown over engine block .

obviously the intercooler relies on having a lot of cool air passed through its core , so it needs a large high flow fan to do the job and no kenlowe fan will pass enough air for that , in fact adding an electric fan to blow air through to the viscous fan may increase the cooling effect through intercooler .

its all probably swings and roundabouts and whatever you decide to do im sure some will agree and some wont .

it seems to work both ways and is just personal preference in the end i think .

I know a few people who have just removed the viscous fan entirely and not bothered with an electric one, no noticably effect on performance or cooling. With one exception, one person I know was going over the brenner pass with tonnes of diving eqipment in the back and overheated the car to the point of doing the head gasket in. It was lots of stuff and the car was working hard at altitude. Other than that never heard any problems from anybody else. 9 out of 10 viscous fans sieze on eventually anyways so you would be saving fuel and cutting down on noise by removing it.

regards,

Mark

Any comments on different noise levels between a conventional fan and a Kenlowe? I've been considering fitting one to a staionary engine as part of a noise reduction excercise (6 litre ford turbo)

AWEM

Why would you do such a thing? If LR thought an electric fan was the best idea for the vehicle they would have fitted one in the factory i'd have thought.

Huw

Unless it was cheaper not to, says the cynic in me !

AWEM

Well, to answer some questions. Firstly, I have actually just removed the viscous fan and have been driving around without it. I have noticed a very significant reduction in engine noise, as well as improved warm up time. Also, the engine now stays at temperature. And, before someone says it, yes, I have tried replacing the thermostat, and it made no difference what so ever.

To answer Huw's question, while I am obviously a very big fan of land rover and their product, having had my own one since the age of ten, I dont think I would be the first one to point out that they are not perfect. Land rover manufacture their vehicles for a very general market, and not necessarily just the UK market. I have been told by land rover, as well as a number of independent dealers that the cooling in my vehicle was designed to cope with hot and arduose desert conditions, which is fair, considering the market placement of the vehicle. However, my particular vehicle will be spending 99.9999999% of its life in the UK, where it is very unlikely to ever encounter anything even vaguely resembling a desert. Therefore, the ability of the vehicle to warm up faster, as well as the reduction in engine strain caused by the removal of the fan will be far more beneficial. Should I ever venture off to morroco or some other desert like environment, and I felt for some reason that the electric fan was going to let me down, I could simply replace the viscous fan. This being said, considering the particular workings of the TD5 engine, if I was to start becoming overly concerned about electrical failures in the vehicle, I think I would be better of going for an older 300tdi!

Going back to my original question, thank you to those that responded. I had not actually noticed any reduction in performance from the inter cooler, and was just wondering if anyone had had any particular experience of this.

Robert

Yes, fans are noisy things. Typically a viscous fan will engage after starting a cold engine and for the first half mile or so before disengaging until actually needed.

as well as

I find that hard to believe considering the above and the fact that the thermostat prevents the radiator having any part in cooling a cold engine.

Also, the engine now stays at temperature.

Then perhaps you have another dodgy one. Not unknown.

No towing or hard offroad work even? OK, fair enough an electric fan will be fine but when it is needed it will switch itself on in the same way as a viscous fan does. It will also create noise when it does so and use power.

Therefore, the

I thought it already had a viscous switched fan?

Should I ever venture off to morroco or some other desert

You will not notice a reduction in power but if you were to actually use it hard at low speeds, for instance to pull a loaded sheep trailer in low ratio up a mountain, as a lot of these things do on occassion, then you will run into all kinds of problems from reduced power to overly hot combustion unless the electric fan pulls through the intercooler as well as the radiator. Remember that the original cowling will probably be removed to fit the electric fan.

Huw

I have rebulit my 300TDi on a few occassions due to overheating issues. My take on things is as follows. An ali cylinder head goes from quite happy to completely shagged within a few seconds of getting hot. A new head for a TD5 is long $$$'s. Your temp gauge is close to useless. Keep the fan.

I can assure you that most vehicle temp gauges are kak. They are designed not to move around too much so that people do not get alarmed by normal fluctuations. I have run my landy with National Instruments Datalogging equip attached with thermocouples measuring top tank and bottom tank, air intake temp, under bonnet temp and block temp.

I could show you the graphs, but rest assured the temp are all over the show and there was not a sign of movement from the temp gauge.

In summary by the time your temp gauge starts to give some indication of a problem, your engine is probably already toast. Even in England, I am sure traffic jams are not uncommon, and sitting in one for a long time will tend strain your cooling system, not to mention that fact that yoru fan will not be able to dump the underbonnet air.

Personally, I think you are nuts to run an engine as expensive to rebuild as a TD5 without the proper cooling setup.

Just my tupence worth.

Regards Stephen

PS: I am considering changing my Disco 300Tdi for either a Disco or Defeneder TD5 at some point, but have the spares for TD5's come down to sensible levels yet?

On or around Mon, 16 Jan 2006 08:28:39 +0200, fanie enlightened us thusly:

I'm inclined to agree. The 300 TDi had a minor water loss problem for a long time, but the actual failure that did the head in was a sudden one.

Mind, in temperate climates, the engine can idle all day without overheating, I suspect - these modern diesels are sufficently efficient as not to need quite so much cooling except when working hard.

especially true of the one LR don't make, the non-turbo Di. The Ford 2.5 one I have in the minibus needs the rad screening in cold weather to actually achieve a sensible running temperature in normal use, and when idling, the heater is capable of over-cooling the engine. I've noted this trait on other Di diesels. Turbo ones generate a bit more heat when running, and quite a lot more probably if working hard, but very little more at idle.