Z32 Ford Electric Engine Fan Install

Z32 Ford Electric Engine Fan Install
Hey guys, this installation of my “efan” is based around the Ford Taurus/Mercury Sable from 1990-1995 with the 3.8L V6
engines.
I decided to install the fan because my OEM set up with the engine fan and clutch were in need of replacement and also
because when the fan clutch locks up it can sound like a diesel truck!
The route I took was not easy but I wanted to know more on wire size, routing on the OEM side of things. I decided to
fully tear out the OEM wires that feed power to the relays (High speed and Low speed). I have to admit that the way I did
my wiring would be easier if you already have the engine out!
There have been rumors that the fans pull 100+ amps, also that it needs a flux capacitor and 88 mph to work on this car.
Well it doesn’t need much to work with the OEM ECU and the OEM signal for the condenser fan and you do not need an
upgraded alternator.
My set up consists of:
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Depo 330-55001-000 Fan - $75 Amazon
10 AWG Gauge Primary Wire Car / Boat Marine Grade Tinned Copper (Blue – 12ft) - $8.94 Ebay
10 AWG Gauge Primary Wire Car / Boat Marine Grade Tinned Copper (Green – 12ft) - $8.94 Ebay
10 AWG Gauge Primary Wire Car / Boat Marine Grade Tinned Copper (Purple – 12ft) - $8.94 Ebay
10 AWG Gauge Primary Wire (Black 2ft) – I had this laying around the house $Free
8 AWG Gauge Power Wire, Soundquest SQVLP8BK (Black – 100ft) I had this laying around the house
$Free
Absolute USA GRT08-50 8-Gauge Gold Ring Terminal – I had these from audio installations $Free
Battery Terminal with 1/0 gauge and 8 gauge connections.
Metripak 630 set – Cycle Terminal $6.35 + $3.75 shipping
Relay upgrade for High Speed circuit, 70A Relay 12V SPST HELLA 87432B - $7.44 Waytek Inc.
.375 Terminal Large Wire 6-10 gauge - $ .75 each x4 Davebarton.com
.250 Relay Socket Terminal 14-16 gauge- $ .40 each x2 Davebarton.com
Relay Plug Socket for High Current Relay - $2.50 x1 Davebarton.com
Adhesive lined heat shrink tubing for seal tight protection
Aluminum radiator, says 2 row but got an actual 3 row radiator. Core Size: 19-5/8" x 18" x 2-1/4", Overall
Size: 23-1/2" x 18-1/4" x 2-3/4" - $130 on Ebay JRScooling
I started out by unbolting the fusible link box and taking the fusible links out.
Next I took the fender off (front bumper cover was off already so you may want to take it off at this time
too)
I did end up taking the head lights off (4 12mm bolts and 4 nuts in total)
This is the RH side fender; you can see the wire harness going in through the hole and above the air
bag harness (yellow). We will be working with that thick black harness.
You can see how I started undoing the harness from the frame, we are taking the harness out because
inside it the purple wire from the fusible link (Red one 45 amp) is what feeds the relays and it is a fairly
long run.
This picture shows you the under side of the fusible link box, the purple wire is what we will be taking
out and replacing with the 8 gauge wire.
You can see the wire and the terminal out of the fusible link box.
And it is out! That is the terminal which I reused, you will need either a heat gun or good soldering iron
to melt the OEM solder then pry the connector open.
The wire is out and I have pulled it out from the hole on the fender/frame.
I have undone the harness and pulled the wire out further.
Here is how Nissan ran the wire through the harness.
The factory wire vs 10 gauge wire. See the difference?
Here is the bundle where the wire ends at, this is the relay box.
Relay location:
The wires under the relay box are where we will be digging into. You need to take the bolts holding it to
the chassis out.
This is what the under side of the relay box looks like.
We will be working with these 2 relays, green and purple relay is for the high speed, blue and purple is
for the low speed.
Here are the small wires the OEM fan uses. No wonder people have burned up circuits etc.
This is from the harness at the radiator support. This is where multiple grounds connect to including
the one for the OEM connector to the auxiliary fan.
This is the laughable part, a little higher on the connector harness the wires are much larger. You may
have noticed the 3 purple wires. This is where the single purple wire from the fusible link box splits off.
Another shot showing the ground for the connector and the auxiliary fan harness.
And here is the power feed from the fusible link box to the relays. They go to the high speed relay, low
speed relay and the 3rd one goes to the 20 amp fuse “Stop Lamp”.
Wires all cut up, basically at the Tri-junction I cut out the 3 purple wires, pulled the purple power feed
wire that went to the fusible link box completely out.
This is what the harness looks like after it has been split and opened. Just behind the LH side
headlight.
The purple wire that goes to the 20 amp fuse at the relay box “Stop Lamp”. This wire was part of the
Tri-junction purple wires and got power from the 45 amp fusible link.
The low speed relay, looking at it from the under side of the relay box. The white wire is the ground
signal from the ECU pin 6.
The high speed relay, looking at it from the under side of the relay box. The blue wire is the ground
signal from the ECU pin 19.
Next we are going to take out the low speed relay socket so we can get to the wires easier. Undo the
tabs holding it in the push it down and out.
Now you can see the OEM relay socket and its wiring.
Next we need to take out the light blue wire retainer. There is a little tab on the side.
All I did was that I used a small flat screwdriver and popped the retainer.
Retainer is out and now we have access to the terminals.
Wires are out! Notice the little tabs inside the relay holder. It is self explanatory to remove the wires
once you see it.
My point for doing this was to upgrade the single purple wire to the relay by doubling up using the
existing wires we took out. I spread the OEM terminal that holds the purple wire and added the second
wire piggybacked, soldered it and done.
As you can see the low speed relay socket is back in place with an extra purple wire. This is so the
original single run purple wire does not get hot from the demand of the higher current drawing Ford
electric fan. It is pretty much precautionary and over building. I also upgraded the blue wire to a true 10
gauge seen in the picture. I also used the existing terminal and soldered the new blue wire.
The blue wire added to the relay socket. Look at how much larger it is then the factory wires!
At this point the wires are not yet terminated on the other end. Shortly after finishing the low speed
relay socket work I started setting up the new high speed relay socket.
This is the new set up for the high speed portion of the wiring schematic. This will allow for the higher
current draw of the Ford electric fan that occurs during high speed. The Hella relay does have a
suppression resistor between pins 85 and 86. I doubled up on the 10 new green 10 gauge wire which
goes from the relay socket to the Metripak 630 connector for the fan (engine harness side). Pin 30 has
the 8 gauge wire while pin 87 has the double green 10 gauge wires. I used the .375 large terminals for
both the double green wires and the 8 gauge wire.
This is using the following:
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Relay upgrade for High Speed circuit, 70A Relay 12V SPST HELLA 87432B - $7.44 Waytek Inc.
.375 Terminal Large Wire 6-10 gauge - $ .75 each x4 Davebarton.com
.250 Relay Socket Terminal 14-16 gauge- $ .40 each x2 Davebarton.com
Relay Plug Socket for High Current Relay - $2.50 x1 Davebarton.com
In the back ground you can see the original high speed relay set up vs the new set up.
Now we need to put the ECU signal wires into the new relay socket! You can take the wire retainer out
just like the low speed relay then push the tab and pull the blue wire out.
Use one .250 relay socket terminal and crimp then solder on to the blue wire. This wire will then go into
the relay socket into the pin 85 position. This is the wire that goes into the pin 19 of the ECU. Do the
same for the green/white wire then it will go into the pin 86 position.
Now in order for the pin to lock into the relay socket you must bend it back like shown below:
Here is the new high speed relay socket with wires all done:
I then terminated the other end of the 8 gauge wire after I sized it up all the way to the fusible link box.
I made sure to solder it to the terminal like OEM.
I ran the wire so it is easier to access, I did use black wire loom and dressed it in areas with good
electrical tape to cover and protect the wire. The brown line represents the route I made with the wire.
This is a way shorter run then the OEM run. I ran a purple line through the harness from the fusible link
box to the relay box so you can see how Nissan ran the power to the relays.
The wire loom to protect the 8 gauge wire:
I plugged it back into the fusible link box like so:
And the OEM terminal is locked into place.
This will feed the relays the power necessary for the new Ford electric fan!
You can see the size of the 8 gauge wire here:
It is known that the OEM Ford electric fan connector’s burn up over time and it is somewhat hard to
find so we want to replace it with a nice high current Metripak 630 kit. Here is the OEM connector that
you usually get with the Ford fan like the Taurus/Sable 3.8L versions.
All I did was cut the wires out, used the Metripak 630 wire terminals and soldered the wires to the
terminals then inserted the wires into the connectors. Make sure that when you put the wires in the
brown/orange (low speed) is on the left, black (ground) in the middle and brown/yellow (high speed) on
the right.
The seals are a tight fit but work.
I squeezed in 2 green 10 gauge wires into the relay socket; well this is the other side. It was a very tight
fit and I used clear silicone as a seal because the Metripak 630 seals do not work on the double wires.
Well this is the other side:
I proceeded to make the wiring harness to the fan from the relay box really nice with wire look and
electrical tape. I then made 2 small holes on the Taurus fan shroud to hold the wire harness in place.
Here is what the fan looks like installed and the harness connected.
This is the wiring schematic for all of this work:
We just hacked up our Z32 and have the OEM schematic/ECU running the engine fan. But we have
one problem! The OEM ECU fan characteristics do not work as a stand alone engine fan since it is
originally the OEM Auxiliary fan wiring circuit. It was only meant to help the AC system keep its cooling
efficiency. So basically the fan turns on only if:
1. The EPROM fails
2. The engine temp sensor fails
And the following conditions must be met:
Luckily if you have Nistune we can adjust it to work with the AC and without the
AC, just as many newer cars do. I looked thoroughly to see if this would work as
I did not want to have extra fan relays or controllers. Plus looking at the Z32 bin
you can see that there are options to run the Auxiliary fan without having the AC
on. Below you will learn how!
Open your Nistune software and go down and scroll on the bottom left hand menu until you see Fan
Control section:
On Fan Activate Speed I set it to 160MPH without AC on:
On Fan Activate Speed I left it at 160MPH with AC on:
Fan Speed Switch 1 (AC):
Fan Speed Switch 2 (AC):
Fan Speed Switch 3 (AC):
Now on to the important settings so the fan can turn on and off when at idle and low speed (MPH).
Fan Speed Switch 1 (AC Off):
Fan Speed Switch 2 (AC Off):
Fan Speed Switch 3 (AC Off):
Fan Activate Temp (AC Off)/ Fan Activate Temp (AC On):
This constant controls the Global temperatures of the Fan Speed Switches.
Usually set to 90ºC (194ºF). To lower the activation of the switches you can set this to 80ºC (176ºF) or
85ºC (185ºF). This way Half Blow 90-94C activates earlier and where it needs to be. Mine is set to 180°F.
When the engine temp reaches 174°F the slow speed fan shuts off. You can set this to your liking up to
194ºF.
Fan Temp Threshold 1&2:
There is a 35ºC Offset in the look up routine. Base activation Temperature is 140ºC (284ºF), Offset is
35ºC. 140ºC-35ºC=105ºC (221ºF), this is when the fan turns on if there are faults like bad EPROM or high
temps. I wanted my car to turn on sooner than 221°F, I made so it turns on at 206.6°F or set it to 132 on
Nistune on both Thresholds 1 and 2.
Fan Activate/Deactivate Temp Delay:
This is the hysteresis between the fans turning on then off again. There is an activate/deactivate delay
value.
We believe this to be value in the constant scalar, in many bin cases it is set to "50".
Then there is the 35ºC offset. So 50 - 35= 15ºC. The value can be changed to fit your needs. My car is
set to 40, but my temperature between activate and deactivate is 5ºF so 40 - 35=5° degrees. My temps
are 180°F activate and shuts down at 174°F. So in my case since I have my temps displaying in
Fahrenheit it works out to be 5°F. You can play around with this to get the fan on/off time to your liking.
Rev 1.6
Nivo