So, I've been reading up on this a bit and wanted to see if anyone had experience with this. I'm considering upgrading my main cooling fan to a Spal 30102038 as shown below. 1640 CFM and can be had for about $150 on Amazon. I noticed that the recommended fuse size is 30 Amps which is the same size as the relay on the stock fan. I found some other threads on here where people had used the stock wiring with upgraded fans, as well as FM's Stage 1 Fan upgrade which also uses the stock wiring.

The stock fans seem to pull around 7 Amps, while the Spal should be around 3x that at 20-22 Amps from what I've seen online. I'd rather not melt my wiring, but would also like to avoid complicating things more if I can help it. Still brainstorming here as well, I haven't committed to this fan in any way. I plan to leave the stock AC fan in place for now and might upgrade that later as well if I still can't maintain temps.

 

You'll need a upgraded relay and wiring, while they're 30amps continuous, inrush is closer to 60. Use the OE fan wiring to trigger a relay, get fan power directly off the alternator, starter, or main fuse post. Downgrade OE fan fuse to 2.5amp, install a 30amp fuse close to where ever you source the fan power from.

Last FM dual fan kit I saw had a "relay kit" that did the same as I've described. And I had to do this with only a single spal, so it's not just the duals.

 

That's pretty much what I expected to hear. Just curious, you mentioned you had to do this, did you try on the OEM setup and start blowing relays?

 

Yup, melted a relay on a summer day. My commute sucks, 16 miles tapering from 70mph (so car is fully warmed up) down to bumper-to-bumper (very heat soaked), and right in the middle of the bumper-to-bumper sector, the relay melted. The CEL alerted me to temps of 220+, luckily I turned the music off, realized I couldn't hear the fan, and was able to coast down a hill with it shut off, and wait it out. It was really a torture test for the relay, but I wasn't about to risk having that experience again. In a jam, we should all have a male-male spades connected with a bit of wire to bypass any main/fan/fuel pump relays that go bad in these 21-37 year old cars, I won't forget mine again.

 

Thanks for the first hand experience. Stories like that are way more valuable to me than theorizing.