I'm kicking around the idea of ditching my belt driven fan on my 2.5 v6 tracker and replacing it with an electric unit that is 16 inches in diameter and pulls 2000 cfm from Summit Racing. where do I install the on/off switch for the fan? Also does any one make a hand held programmer for the ECU? Any overall thoughts on my project?
Have you chosen a specific fan yet?
There are a couple of different ways to handle the fan switching, depending on why you want to go electric. Check with the fan manufacturer, many also sell adjustable electronic switches with a probe that you slip under the end of a radiator hose - I'm also considering an electric fan, which I will probably switch with a thermo switch mounted in one of the radiator tanks - I have a locally built brass tanked radiator, so adding a bung to take a switch is a fairly simple task, I also plan on having a dashboard mounted over ride switch.
I had an issue with the factory thermo fan switch on one of my old Subaru's, but I think the same thing would work for this....
http://kragen.com/ProductDetail.aspx?MfrCode=HAD&MfrPartNumber=3647&PartType=843&PTSet=ABasically, a separate relay that has a thermo sensor built into it. You slip the probe into the radiator between the fins below the radiator inlet hose. You can adjust the cut-in and cut-out temp with a little varistor on the relay. Worked like a charm....
If you want to add add manual switch (for water crossings or full time running (off-road)), it wouldn't be very hard to a DPDT switch in the mix. In fact, I might have a diagram that shows something like you want... let me see if I can find it.
As for the programmer..... hopefully someone else can chime in and help out with this one.... although I've toyed with the idea of building a mega squirt unit to play with...
NV