Another cruiser gets a vortec

[iaintscared1969]

OK all input is accepted and welcomed. As you said the harness catches fire. I do not use the harness at all I make my own harness and run direct to the fan motors. From your experience have you heard of a problem with the electrical motors? I use them because of size and dimension. They are a perfect fit for the radiator. I could go a Mark but that is alot of fan I use them primarily for the A/C and back up for the mechanical. I may dig a little deeper into this one now that you have me scratching my head. Thanks for the input

 

[rover67]

Yeah, the contour fans may not be the best option, but they are easy. I also made my own wiring harness for mine.

As far as the codes go, don't worry about them. It actually makes your life easier... no guessing as to what's going on with your motor

I filled up today for the third time since putting th emotor in and it looks like i am getting about 16mpg. Out of a 300 or so mile tank, that was about 200 miles on the hwy going 75 and 100 or so in the city driving along kinda quick with the occasional "yes my cruiser is faster than your diesel" drag race.

Gonna drive this tank slow and see what i can eek out of it.

 

[Dirty Toad]

OK all input is accepted and welcomed. As you said the harness catches fire. I do not use the harness at all I make my own harness and run direct to the fan motors. From your experience have you heard of a problem with the electrical motors? I use them because of size and dimension. They are a perfect fit for the radiator. I could go a Mark but that is alot of fan I use them primarily for the A/C and back up for the mechanical. I may dig a little deeper into this one now that you have me scratching my head. Thanks for the input

Just talked with my old tech and this is what he said.

"The resistor fails and the fans run all the time, getting the whole thing too hot. Then the heat from the motors will cook the harness making it unusable, but it will still allow current to flow to the fan motors which will then die because they are always on."

So my take is that the resistor is the weak point here. Maybe if you remove that from the equation (sp?) and just use a toggle switch for the electrical fan, you would not have this problem. I see that you are using the stock fan blade so this may be a good way to go.

 

[rover67]

i saw that there was a resiston or some sort on the fan shorud that looked like it was for the original setup, i just bypassed it and wired my fans straight to the relays. that little thing looked kinda crappy to me too.

 

[iaintscared1969]

Exactly what I do and bump up the wire size. Haven't had a problem yet. Of course we are talking about a ford part

 

[Dirty Toad]

Good to know. You just got me nervous when I heard the word Contour.

 

[MrZero]

I filled up today for the third time since putting th emotor in and it looks like i am getting about 16mpg. Out of a 300 or so mile tank, that was about 200 miles on the hwy going 75 and 100 or so in the city driving along kinda quick with the occasional "yes my cruiser is faster than your diesel" drag race.

Gonna drive this tank slow and see what i can eek out of it.

I'm into my second tank with the gray plug sensors back in.....I believe I will end up at around 15 or 16. With the other sensors, my driving style made little to no difference in mileage but ymmv (pun intended). I'm interested in the weight difference between the Tahoes, 1500's and an FJ60 with the 5.3L in it.......I'm guessing there's alot more weight with the 60......

 

[iaintscared1969]

Well, it's about time you should em how it's done Glad to hear the mileage is up. Still get the heater fault? The tahoe and 1500 series all average 5500 lbs. If you use the the 1500 series engine you can pick up some extra horse power over the Tahoe

 

[rover67]

which were the "other" sensors? did they prompt codes as well?

can you provide a part number?

 

[iaintscared1969]

We switched to an alternate GM 02 sensor (black ones) of which they didn't have any better result other than no codes being set.

 

[gswest]

Glad the fuel lines showed up Randy.
I'm curious if the reason you fit the electric fans (along with the factory fan) is because the factory belt-briven fan ends up being located to far aft of the radiator and without fabing a large custom shroud you lose effectiveness of the belt-driven fan. I say this because I noticed on "Zero's" rig that the radiator was not real close to the belt-driven fan.
Of course, I say this knowing I haven't a clue what the cooling requirements are for this motor.

 

[iaintscared1969]

The ECU will control the fan for the motor. When a demand on the cooling system such as A/C occurs the mechanical fan does not allow for this. Also you will have a tranny cooler on the front side of the radiator also increasing the need for flow. With a shroud you would get more pull from the mechanical fan but in traffic with little cross flow the temps would run hot. As I have seen on MrZero's truck it will run no hotter than 190 in any condition. This is a great benifit for the engine. Also if you are wheeling you will get times that you will have near zero cross flow for extended periods with high RPM and low momentum. Yes a mechanical fan and shroud can work and does work on mine but I like the back up of having the electrical/mechanical. Call it overkill but I guess I am getting know for that. Sorry I haven't got pic's up, I am trying to get the lines and harness all nice and neat before the next post. I just recieved the ECU back from FIS so I will be mounting that up. Should be ready for a test fire before FridayI know I need to get a MAF sensor and MAP sensor but I will go and dig one up from the yard or GM before I try to fire her up. Radiator man says, Thur and the drivelines should be done Monday. Sweet how well these guys all get it together. Post up some pics tomorrow of the new fuel lines and the ECU location and harness.

 

[gswest]

The more I look at his site, the more I realize I wasn't crazy to drive to Texas!

 

[iaintscared1969]

I want to make sure you get the warm fuzzy when it comes to your new ride. I am glad you like the work and I know here very shortly you will be coming to get her. What did the guys at the station say about her? Maybe we can get MrZero to come up so we could tear some mud up and eat some brisket. I know his wife could use some more Banana nut bread

 

[gswest]

I think my guys at work were a little in shock. One day I came in and said I was taking my truck to Dallas for a transplant. They thought their Captain had lost his #@%$. Maybe I did.... But , we all have to be involved with our hobbies. It's obsession, that's not even debatable. If you love these trucks; it's going to be obsessive, if not, you're the odd one. I'm loving the fact that I can see what's happening to my beast. The fact that other cruiser-heads can see it too, makes it even better. And I know when Randy does what he does, he looks at it like a piece of art. It's like a song or a painting he created (I'm a guitar-guy too). I know of no other that has that mentality. It's a moving, living extension of his passion that happens to be documented on this web-site. Life forms could be looking at this millions of years from now. I know how they'll feel ..........envy!

 

[iaintscared1969]

X2 and thanks a bunch that is exactly why I love working on these trucks. Most people wouldn't appreciate the work as much as a cruiser head!

 

[rover67]

so.... whats the part number for th e"black " o2 sensors?

 

[iaintscared1969]

Hey Rover- I blieve we were using the Bosch 13474 and for the rears 234-4018. He picked them up at Auto Zone in Austin so I can't be 100% that's what we got or if he ran 4 of the 13474. And that was for the 2002 5.3L. Hope it helps.

 

[rover67]

cool, i just talked to willie at FIS, he was talking about redoing the MAS stuff on the ecu he sent ya after he got done with mine and realized yours needed the switch. Guess it was good luck we got that figured out in time!

He's gonna check on what the deal with the heater codes may be and get back to me. i'll keep ya'll up to date! thanks for the pn's!

-Marco

 

[iaintscared1969]

Yeah they just got me mine yesterday. I know when I talked with Jeff he said they would get it figured out our deprogram it so they wouldn't set a code. I do know that the gray plugs got better performance this run.