Has anyone tried to install an electric cooling fan (16"-2700cfm=$60.00, not too bad!) in place of the stock belt-driven unit? It occured to me that by eliminating the stock unit you could free up some space in the front of the engine for an A/C comp., and still have space left over for a small SuperCharger (which everyone knows is impossible to do [hmmmm, maybe that was the TurboCharger that couldn't be done on a Type IV
]). Anyway, if one could design a shroud similar to the horizontal Riechert tuning unit
http://www.ismi.net/riecherttuning/type4.htm
,but with an electric fan instead of the Rube Goldberg belt assy you could achieve a couple of things:
Good cooling even at idle when engine rpm is low. Quicker warm up of the engine by using a T-stat to signal the fan operation. And maybe a small gain in hp from not having to spin the relatively heavy fan. Sure you'd have to fab some new engine tin up front, and over the cylinders. And do some math to get the pulley ratios for the Alt./ A/C comp./ and SuperCharger
, but the benefits might be worth it in the long run.
I don't know, just a thought......What do you guys think... Am I missing something obvious here?