Do this and report back. I've noticed that my NB seems to have A LOT more areas of air leakage than my NA ever did. I suspect you will find huge dividends with even half assed ducting compared to what the factory gave us.

 

Will do!

 

Cheapie fans just lost torsional rigidity. Try twisting the motor by hand...

 

These motors would have to make some measurable amount of torque for that to matter....

 

Its not the motor torque that is the problem its when you go down the road over a bump and those fan blades get pushed into the radiator.

 

uh huh.

 

Well gentlemen, I can tell you the particular fans I did this to, that's not going to be a problem. The motor on these fans is very light. Besides, I mounted then 1" away, they'll never touch. Also by design the fan blades are around 3/4" away from the shroud anyways, so even if you mounted the fan directly to the radiator, the fan blades still would never hit the radiator.

 

Can't wait for the follow up thread in 3-6 months when you being a cheap *** nukes your radiator.

 

I hope they don't nuke my radiator, we will have to see! I'm sure you guys know more about my setup than I do though, so I trust you are right!

 

If it's really a concern why not leave 4 sections untouched to keep some strength.

 

Because it's a concern that's not actually a problem.

See the two screws in the pic of the motor at 9 and 3 O'clock? That's all that hold the motor the the plastic-hub it's bolted to. If I grabbed the fan blade and started pulling/twisting, I'd break the fan where those 2 screws are. That is the weak link, not the little ribs. I compared both fans in the pic, both would break there first, it's the obvious weak point. So if I want to make it stronger, I need to improve that, not the ribs.

 

And FYI, I did it by removing 1 section (proved that removing ribs increases airflow), then 4, then 8, then 10, then all 12. Each time it showed the mounts for the motor were flexing. So I kept cutting. I'm sure it's weaker, but I doubt it will be a problem. Even if it is, so what, they were like 37 dollars shipped for the PAIR!

 

I'm totally on your side. I have those exact same fans on mine, and am needing better airflow as well with the Texas heat. I was just curious if you'd removed them in groups or all in one go. Thanks for doing the research for me!

 

If those ribs hurt airflow that much, imagine how much a radiator would!!

 

Just went out into the office parking lot and broke all but 4 of my supports out. I can also confirm that the fan motor/body is no more flexible than before I started. I'm anxious to see if it improves my overheating in traffic with the AC on.

 

What exactly is your point? Pulling air through a radiator is the point. Pushing air past extraneous plastic supports, not so much.

It is what it is, sub $40 pair of fans. If this makes them suck less and still keeps the car from overheating at idle it is a win.

 

I'll be leaving for home shortly in 93* Dallas traffic. I'll report back on if removing fins helped me.

 

Exactly, an odd post from Jason.

It has to help some, and it doesn't seem to hurt anything. Either way my goal is to make things work better, so even if the motor falls off the fan tomorrow and it becomes obvious I caused it, that's ok. Nobody knows everything, and I certainly don't.

If you look at any high quality fan, the little keep-your-finger-out-ribs are much thinner than the ebay fans. Some in this thread show that SPAL fans for example are thinner even if they have them too.

Besides I just knocked at least 10 grams off the fans, so gram strategy make me go faster!

 

In for results.

This thread made me switch out my supposed spal fans (ended up not being spal fans) to the stock units. Need to run some logs to see if there is a difference.

 

So my temp was 199-201 crusin on the highway, about 3* lower than normal, no ac. Mostlikely caused by reduced restriction for air going through the shroud. I turned my ac when traffic got to less than 10 mph on the highway, I made it about 3/4 of the way before temps got to 218* and I shut it off. Normally I make it less than halfway before temps got that high. I addition the Temps came back to 205* very quickly, before I had to turn the heater on to drop the temps.