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Did some measuring and thinking and this is what I got. Design goals are the same as always: serviceable, replicable and affordable. No nuances, extra considerations or consumables like water, meth or E85.
2x 1350 CFM 6.5amp 2250RPM 7" fan
Currently wired into ignition, possibly adding an interior switch and a relay soon.
I put a pair of 5.2" SPAL fans on my old PLM H/X for those long hot staging lane delays. They helped drop my starting IAT's anywhere from 10-15 degrees on a hot summer day.
I put a pair of 5.2" SPAL fans on my old PLM H/X for those long hot staging lane delays. They helped drop my starting IAT's anywhere from 10-15 degrees on a hot summer day.
I'm expecting a lot more than that. Mostly because after putting high loads on the motor and going sideways slowly, I saw heatsoak peak at 150F. Since in my use case the ambient/IAC delta is significantly high (and I'm guessing my combined CFM is higher too), it should close that gap a lot more.
At low load and highway speeds, the passive dissipation setup hovered at 20F over ambient. The 150F spike I saw was after 2 back-to-back runs with short stages on a 60F night.
If this is what you were using, then the stated flow is 313 CFM, putting you at 650 CFM total. About a fourth of the flow I should be getting. That and the PLM unit is smaller capacity and less heat dissipation area than the VRP/Generic 2L units that are a more snug fit, right?
Friends guilt tripped me into doing it "right". So now I have a bunch more wires, connectors, a new switch and a relay. Buttoning the bumper up tonight, getting some data tomorrow.
Hill climbing. saw ambient temps of over 50 deg C while staged before a run once. 5 cyl turbo Volvo engine in a Ford Mondeo (Fusion to you guys) was a hot summers day. funnily enough it didn't seem to affect the car too greatly.
I'm stupid and have to take the bumper off for the fourth time. I was lazy and my brain was off and I simply ran a hot from the fan relay 87 to the hot on the IC pump. So now when the ECU sends current to the IC pump it pisses out the fan ground with barely either turning, haha.
Letting car manage it with a relay, from the testing i've done, even making it run full-time doesn't so much matter.
But I did just get back from heatsoaking experiments meant to simulate drift staging and drifting in general.
My procedure was:
- Run the car on highway
- Let coolant bounce off the 200F threshold
- Park car and let it idle
- Raising RPM to 2-3K rpm and keeping it there
With this method I could get IAT to reach 150F at 62F ambient.
As a reminder, I already have a 2L dualpass FMHE, 010 Bosch pump and split coolant lines.
- Left to it's own devices, the car managed to bring that temp back down to 123.8F and seemed to have leveled off there within 3-4 minutes.
- With e-fans, the car came down all the way to 100F flat over the course of 7-8 minutes and that seems to be the equilibrium point.
The initial temp drop is similar, but the longtail is where the difference is with e-fans, continued and consistent temperature drops.
Granted, if I'm running the e-fans before during and after drifting, presumably my peak heatsoak will be lower to begin with, too.
All in all, a success for my use case. Very affordable mod, glad I did it.
For posterity (hi Google, please index this for folks searching): using iCarsoft MB-II. A close-to-max good oil level is 80mm on the 'smooth engine' menus, with the engine off.
This is about 170mm from the bottom of a manual dipstick reference. Dipstick maker says the E55 W211 min level is 136mm and max is 172mm. Engine operating temp but off.
Next up is interior mirrorless camera mount and seeing if I can fix squeaky seats. Anyone with stiff suspension experiencing the leather squeaking? Some folks have mentioned seatbelt clip receivers running on leather. I have some felt tape I will try.
Have you ever found icarsoft lacking and needed star for anything?
I wanted to disable Airmatic and the infotainment systems, but both were already removed from the car when I tried, so it failed. Had my order of operations wrong, haha.
iCarsoft MBII is pretty great for normal people doing normal things to W211 (or any other '00s and '10s Merc, including Sprinters), yet I have never really used Star for anything so far, so doing alright.
Think of it as something way more advanced than a normal OBD2 reader, that has fault reading, clearing, realtime data streams and the factory diagnostics/reset procedures of star. But it cannot disable modules or re-program axle ratios or things as advanced as that.
From the Sonoma Drift Winter Jam that's happening this weekend. It got a bit compressed after my friend sent it to me. We had a ton of fun out there today and are planning on camping next year.
The car looks damn good in person.
Couple more pics, not of Denis' car though.
3 cars went into one of the spots for doing donuts a little after this pic was taken. The guy that was running that was ****ing pissed. I think my friend has video of it.
must be a good feeling to have the car pretty much where you want it to be? now you can work on improving yourself to get the absolute maximum out of it