I freely admit that I am bordering on stupid when it comes to electronics but I have a pretty robust ability to listen to a conversation/read responses and be able to tell who knows what they are talking about and who does not. Looks like I will be buying from DeltaPAG soon.

 

That's what you took away from all of that?? You didn't pay much attention then but Lol okay see ya back here when Delta tells you the same thing they told Trendsetter. Everybody will be ready to give you a big fat "I told you so"

 

It's OK. This whole thread is a mini reading comprehension/intelligence test.

 

Lol According to you??

 

Whew! Thanks for responding. I was afraid I was being too subtle and that last shot I took at you would go right over your head.

 

they’re nice fans but make sure you use their controller (I guess) and order some spare ECMs.

 

Oh **** you're one of those guys huh??

 

yea, they even recommend you to keep a spare ecm(s) in your glove box. For $150 each, you might as well keep 2 or 3. (Rolleyes).

 

Good luck! Be sure to let us know how it goes.

 

Fans show to be out for delivery today. A day early. Yaay. I'm pretty sure I'll install them tonight and see how they do. Stay tuned....

 

Just playing devil's advocate, I think when Delta Pag recommended spare ECM's, he was referring to a race car application where the car is constantly being worked on in the pits when time is a factor, and you can't unhook all the grounds to weld etc.
At least that's kind of what it sounded like to me.

 

maybe. But I don’t see any other manufacturers recommending keeping a spare “whatever” in your glove box. Honestly threw up a red flag to me before trendsetter had his go out. Sounds like a problem part if they recommend keeping a spare. To me that yells stay away.

does holly say keep a spare ecm in your glove box? I could go on, but you get my point lol. Just doesn’t sound reliable if you have to keep spare parts on hand like that. Then when Trend had a problem, ole boy told him it was his fault and he could kick rocks.

 

I don’t have time to put them in the car tonight. I installed them on the shroud and have been playing with the pwm controller. So far I’ve found 100hz to 120hz is where they like to be. I’m not sure if my test battery (rc car 3s lipo) is run down to far once I got to the 12” fan because the 16” would smoothly ramp down to 20% and each few percent change was audibly noticeable. However the 12” would ramp up from 60% to 100% smoothly but there was no change from 100% down to 75%. It was like it was a dead band right there but I think my battery was getting low. It’s being charged up right now to test the 12” again. But I will say, at 100%, it’s almost unnerving the amount of air they move and the noise. It’s sucking stuff from all over to the front of the radiator they are test mounted to.

edit: dead band is from 100% down to 80%. When it gets to 80% it starts coming down. Honestly don’t see it as a problem because I likely won’t run stage 1 any higher than 80%.

edit 2: it doesn’t matter in my case, if I set it at 80-85-90 in the dead band when coming down, it fires back up after being off, at that duty cycle. I won’t be varying it except when dialing it in do this will be a non issue. I went up to 130hz and it still worked. It is a positive pwm signal needed btw.

plans are to run them in two speed mode. Judging by the amount of air being moved, I’m thinking the first stage would be good around 60%. Nice balance of good flow and a lower amp draw. I’m just making guesses at this point. Once they are on the car I’ll fine tune the first stage. And of course if things get a little toasty it’ll have the second stage.

 

Wow this thread got a bit lively huh lol. If based on what delta is saying about the ECMs they are considered a wear part but 10,000 hour lifespan is like 100 years for guys like us. To me it sounds like they can be problematic but maybe your better safe than sorry to keep one in your glove box (a tow is worth as much as an ECM plus some). Still seems odd to me.

I also got my 16” proform today as well as a SPAL 16” blade 500w brushless for a steal. I jury rigged a test setup to get some baselines. The data is interesting.

each fan was tested with the same radiator (Howe dual 1” core) suspended over the air on two 5 gal buckets. Two lifepo4 batteries equally 8Ah (I run these in my cars) so they have plenty of juice hooked up to a lifepo4 20amp charger. A 150amp watt meter supplies power to the fans and a PWM generator to turn the fans on.

Flexalite flex wave 16” puller directly on radiator no shroud and no controller (full speed only).

14.9 amps
194.7watts on the motor
1594ft/min
18.1mph

proform 16” brushless puller. I was told minimum hz is 128 so that’s what I set it to. The fan starts at 10% and ramps to 90% full speed but will go to 100% and still run at full speed. Something weird with the fan was that after 47% if you turn off the PWM generator the fan will go to 100% and stay there. So 48% and turn it off it ramps to 100% and then if I set it to 47 and turn it on it will drop, shut down the signal and it shuts the fan down. This is because my generator has a on/off button so I can leave it on but kill the signal/output. I’m not physically separating the PWM fan connection and that shuts the fan down bc I panicked when the fan went to 100%. This fan is actually pretty sweet. Has great range from 10% it’s just barely doing much and by 50% is moving and 70-90% just sounds scary. I wish I had a rpm tool to get some speed readings of that thing.

10% = .25amps/3.3w and 196ft/min
20% = .5amps/7.6w and 413ft/min
50% = 3.97amps/52w and 964ft/min
70% = 10.68amps/137w and 1416ft/min
90% = 21.47amps/271.8w and 1849ft/min 22.1mph

picked up 300ft/min roughly and 4mph at 6amps more over the flexalite. I did a free air test of this just to see and the motor pulled the same amps and watts but lots
of air it’s like it didn’t care there was a restriction as it didn’t affect the performance really. It did confirm my suspicion given the rated amps that it’s a 300w motor basically.

spal 16” 500w on shroud that it came with. This thing is clearly the winner but by how much. I set this to 100hz and since it’s a newer plus version it’s the same + PWM as the proform So low speed is low percentage.

15% = 1.67amps/22.5w and 846ft/min
30% = 3.72amps/48.8w and 1259ft/min
50% = 9.21amps/119.4w and 1771ft/min more air than flexalite and almost as much as procomp at 50%. Look at the wattage 194w brushed for 119w brushless and about 5amps less
70% = 19amps/242w and 2302ft/min
90% = 34.2amps/425w and 3109ft/min 35.1mph

its not a full comparison as the spal had a shroud and was spaced off the rad. The flexalite picked up when going to a shroud and I would expect the proform to as well. Flexalite jumped from 1594ft/min and 18.1mpg to 1692ft/min and 19.2mph. So I can guesstimate the proform would go from 1849ft/min and 22.1mph to 1949ft/min and 23.1mph. Long story short is the proform is better than the flexalite. Now I have to figure out do I swap the proform on the vette and replace the flexalite quick and easy. Then pull the derale dual 12”
spal fan combo off the turbo firebird and swap this 16” spal brushless in? I know the derale dual 12”
spals are rated for 4000cfm which this single 16”
won’t put out. I could get a better shroud increasing from 26” to 27.5” and gain the 100% core coverage. I just don’t know if it will be enough for that car. The derales Are keeping up pretty good but if has a term x and it would be super easy and clean to swap that on. The spals brushed 12”‘don’t love the startup on the Flexalite variable speed controller.

 

what spal fan do you have?

 

VA117-ABL506P-103A

16" blade tip to tip, 500w motor. Requires a 16.5-17" hole and is inset into the shroud about 2.25" and sticks out about 3/4". I would have preferred a surface mount but it is what it is.

 

So I uploaded some videos of the Proform and Spal showing how I did the tests to get my numbers. The Proform would have performed slightly better with a shroud as the Flexalite did. The Proform for the price seem like a decent entry level brushless setup without the hassle of the trying to figure out the oem stuff. They are very low profile and sticking a few of these together could be gangbusters. One thing to note is the Proform is much faster at ramp up like 7s to full speed where the Spal is something like 17s. Given the $170 price point you can hook this up to a standard fan controller (relay with set on and off) and supply 12v right to the PWM wire. This would give you soft start, ramp to full speed and then off. This fan seems to shine (performance wise) between 70-90%. I feel like the lower 10-40% would be almost unusable unless your cruising at that perfect speed of needing just a tad of air help to pull through the rad. I also checked the motor temp while running for a min or two at full speed and it was 94*F barely warm to the touch.

Here is a short of the procomp off to full start ramp up (much faster than the SPAL)
Here is a video of the procomp going through the test of airflow and amps.
Video of the SPAL 16" doing some work

 

I’d really be interested in seeing if the flex a lite blade fits the proform and if it’s quieter. Dew it!

 

Yup, that's exactly right. In racing and extreme hotrod world where people are always working on something, welding oops is a factor. Also, after +10k hours, if the fan fails, you could be up and running in no time, anywhere. Btw in 3k hours (avg life of a conventional fan), when another manufacturers fan fails, what do you do if you're on the road? $h!t out of luck. Or do you carry a spare fan and get it replaced on the side of the road.

The motors on the Delta PAG fans last for 50,000hours, longer than most cars. A spare ECM gives you peace of mind.

 

if i had a dollar for ever time I've welded on a vehicle building exhausts, turbo kits, mounts, suspension, brackets, frame connectors..... I'd be able to buy a set of those fans. In all those instances i've never unhooked anything, factory ecm or aftermarket ecms and never once had an issue. But I'm a professional jerryrigger though who likes to live on the edge I guess. In all seriousness, if I need at keep a spare $150 ecm for a $500 fan because its a common failure.... I'd have to say that I'll take a hard pass on that. I'd rather get something else that isn't so problematic that I gotta keep expensive spare modules on hand. Yikes!