1055604
For a 4 cyl, the electric fan alone with out the shroud may be ok. If you had the 6er, I'd say use the electric as a secondary. The fan shroud is an integral part of the cooling system. It's needed to force the fan to pull fresh cool air from in front of the radiator thru the radiator, and prevent the fan from pulling warm air from the engin compartment.
Removing the shroud does indeed open up some room, but it has a purpose. The electric fan can be wired to be on all the time, (waste of time) but, thermostast are available, that have a sensor that is mounted either in the fins of the radiator, or in the upper radiator hose.
Along with the fan shroud, the fan clutch, is also a key component of the cooling system. As warm air is pulled thru the radiator, it warms the bi-metal clutch on the fan clutch. When it warms enough, it engages and forces the fan to spin, which, pulls more air thru the radiator, cooling it, until the fan clutch's bi-metal material cools enough to slow the fan back down. This whole process of heating up and cooling is on going. The theromstat, also plays into this game as well.
By removing the fan shroud, your actually hurting the performance of the cooling system. If your having heating up issues, simply getting rid of the stock fan for an electric might not fix the problem.
I tried runniing just an electric fan on my jeep (6cyl) and it was totally insufficent for cooling! It started to over heat almost immediatly! (3 core radiator brand new!) So, I reinstalled the fan shroud, and installed a flex-lite fan, ( no fan clutch this time, no room for it) No heating up issues now!.
Good luck with your decission.
edited by: jprtroy, Feb 18, 2003 - 09:10 AM[addsig]