Overheating Issues, Perplexed

[undy]

Originally Posted by elmariachi

From what I can tell, there are three fans from 1991-1999, the high output Taurus SHO fan, the high output Lincoln fan and the standard V-6 Taurus/Sable fan. You can tell the two high outputs fans from the standard fan as the standard has one corner of the shroud cut at an angle. The other two have the same rectangular shroud, but the SHO fan has small swept blades like a SPAL fan and the Lincoln monster fan has large chopper blades. Do some searching on eBay and you can find Ford and Dorman numbers. I don't know if the aftermarket fans deliver the same cfm so I would be careful there (which is why I bought a used Ford instead.) Guys that are selling these know a lot about them so you can educate yourself pretty well by perusing the auctions. I am also a member of the Pirate 4x4 forum and there are dozens of threads about installing and using these fans there. You have to sign up to search but if you are thinking of doing this, its well worth it. And do a Yahoo search on "Taurus fan install" and you'll see how widely used this fan is.

I did some research on this myself on several 4WD boards along with a muscle car and Fox body forum. It appears that the 90 thru 95 3.8 liter Taurus fan is the one to have. In fact, it looks just like the one you're buying? Doing some checking, the V6 SHOs ran a smaller 16" shrouded fan, the same fan as the other lesser output 3.0s. I believe that's the same fan you'd mentioned with the corner cut off. I guess it's a smaller cube, smaller heat load way of thinking. The 3.4L V8 SHO's fan and the 96 up Taurus/Sable was of a different configuration, not a tidy fan/shroud package and not usable in our application. The Lincoln runs a larger 18" shrouded fan. The larger shroud size and the 6 1/2" stand off distance make it unusable, at least for my application. Geez, that 5500 CFM rating would have been the shiz-nit though..

I went and Epay'd a new Taurus 3.8L unit for 80 bucks. For that money it's worth doing some testing/trimming for adaptability and just to see how much air this puppy'll move. I've got an HVAC flow hood at work we use for TAB evaluations. I might just see ho much air it does actually move.

Dave