Hot rodders know all?

[CoreyCamaro]

I was working on my 67 lemans and my neighbor told me that mechanical fans eat up a lot of horse. He said a water pump has 5 blades and if you grind away 3 the water will still circulate but slower, as a result keeping your car cooler. Should I loose the fan or keep it?

[Ian]

lol, our water pumps have like 20 blades, and they are all small and curved, and if you grind some away, who cares.

id tell your neighbor to stick with old cars.

but yea, mechanical fans eat up some horse, but not really a lot.

[mjparme]

Well sure mechanical fans eat up horspower, the energy to turn it has to come from somewhere. The amount of hp it takes has to be very minimal though.

As far as the water pump just get an electric one instead of grinding away at the water pump (which doesn't sound like a good idea to me).

[OneQuickV6]

Grinding fins makes it cooler??? NO. It will circulate the coolant less, and things will run warmer if anything!

Is he saying grind down the blades of the fan? Because that's bad too! If you're not already running a fan clutch, look into it. It helps with the fuel economy/power side of things by allowing some slip in the process. A fan spacer works the opposite, and gives a 1:1 ratio of fan turns for each turn of the water pump. Although not as economical, it will cool better due to more rotations.

For most people, stick with whatever you have, none of this makes a big enough difference to really justify the cost.

[WickEdSix9838]

sometimes circulating the water slower will cool the car quicker because the water could be circulating too quick and not spending enough time in the radiator to cool down...but in the case of a stock pump, i highly doubt it's too much circulation....