Radiator fan delete 92 Festiva
 

These things don't really warm up, even on hot days, yet the fan still kicks on.

If you drive in such manner that you don't leave the engine idle for more than a minute or so, and don't drive in traffic, you may be a candidate for radiator fan removal.

In addition, I swapped radiators for one from a manual car and added a trans cooler made from the oil cooler of a 2001 Katana 600, which holds an additional pint of fluid and adds huge cooling capacity over the stock setup, which is a tube through the lower tank of the radiator.

I didn't take many pics, but I'll try to explain what I did to install the cooler.

Pics:

http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-...01218087_n.jpg

Bad pic of the Katana's oil cooler removed and hoses cut. There was grease on my phone's camera lens. The banjo hose on the right, I used. The way the cooler is installed, is exactly flipped top to bottom from how it's pictured. I put the banjo fitting in a vise and bent the tube so that it came out next to the cooler at a downward attitude. On the left (pictured), I used one of the hoses from the engine side (of the Katana), heated it up with MAPP, bent it down toward the cooler, and bent it in so it goes around the engine side of the radiator and the hose goes across there, under the trans pan to the hook up. I can take a pic of that routing if anyone can't picture it.

http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-...18314585_n.jpg

That's where it ends up, with the "nubs" on the bottom of the cooler resting in the "rim" of the bottom of the radiator. The bolt locations on the cooler, I stuck a ziptie through them, through the fins of the radiator, back through about an inch higher, and zipped it together so each zip tie is holding on about 15 fins.

I ended up taking the banjo fittings from both the motor and the cooler, bending two of them, and running new fluid rubber lines down to the trans lines under the pan. If I were going to leave it like that (not swap to manual) I'd switch to large brake line and get the proper fittings instead of using the banjos.

With the radiator installed, there's just enough clearance on the driver's side for the hose to fit through the gap without rubbing anywhere, and with the grille reinstalled, you can't even tell there's a cooler there.

I'm not putting the fan back in, either.

The cooler added 1pt capacity.

The location will not work if you have AC installed. You'll have to mount it either in front of the AC condenser, or behind the radiator. The hose routing should remain basically the same, but I didn't want the hot air from the radiator trying to cool the trans fluid, which is why I chose to mount it where I did.

I still need to make the block panel for the huge gap on the passenger side of the radiator where there's nothing installed. I'll have to be mindful, because the turbo is supposed to sit somewhere in that area, too.

temperature switch
 

Done this to three vehicles now, never had an overheat situation because of it. I will install a spray bar and use washer fluid if the temps get too high as a precautionary measure.

Drove through construction traffic on I-83S the other day for about 20 minutes, stopped/crawling. Not a terribly hot day, but she never even started to heat up without the fan installed. The transmission also seems to be shifting more firmly after the engine is warmed up, but there's no way to quantify that with the other changes I've made to the car.

Also, when left idling from cold for 20 minutes or so, no sign of heating up beyond normal readings.

Eventually, I'll be installing an aftermarket temp and oil pressure gauge, so that will give me a better idea of the actual temps the coolant is seeing.