R53 Rad Fan Resistor Surgery
Finally found some time & courage to do this. Having to put the car in service mode & to lose a bit of coolant upon dismantling held me off. My 1st stage fan had long left me, so I'd just been relying on A/C to bring in the hi-speed for engine cooling since. NOT HEALTHY. This was what I did.
1. After finally removing the fan, the bad resistor was sawed off its mount.
2. Plugged in its place & soldered, of course, were 2 wires long enough to bring it to the LH signal indicator area. Looped & taped the ends together to bring in the high when low is called & to have the option of installing an external resistor by the LH bumper area anytime I decide to.
3. Taped up the new wires w/ black electrical & ziptied it to the rad fan harness.
4. Reinstalled everything back.

Why the surgery? 02s don't have a choice when doing that resistor. Plus, results are Cooler engine, A/C compressor protection, peace of mind. I have high speed @ 1st stage now. Still observing if I'd go get that resistor to bring this back to spec. I'm liking the flexibility. Attached are some pics of the busted resistor & wiring mod.

 

Got to do this myself, I have the resistor setup I got from Detroit Tuned just need the time to do it.

 

I opted for the remote relocation of the resistor I might or might not put so in case it should blow again, it would be in an accessible area. No need to put it back in service mode. You might wanna consider that. Right now, w/o the resistor, I really don't mind the hi speed noise & am liking the better A/C & engine cooling.

 

hi minsanity sorry for the nooby question but, did you basically bridge the 2 points of the resistor prongs? but just extended the blue wires.

could i just put a small piece of wire between the 2 resistor prongs where you have plugged in the 2 blue wires? if i wanted to keep the high fan kick on stage 1?

my sotry is my coolant kept boiling over out of the expansion tank, there is no air lock the heater fans were working fine with regards to warm air, i changed the thermostat and housing and new coolant yesterday. still over bolied. tried the a/c to see if the low speed fan works but only the high speed came on then off after 2 secs.

p.s i think its perfect to keep the high fan on 24/7 when driving because cooler the engine better for the actual engine will defo last longer and for performance increase.

sorry i have a mini one 03 with lohen stage 2 and wight loss, so my fan has the normal 3 wire plug and tiny 2 wire plug bit of a bummer but thats life.

 

FYI, putting the front end in 'service mode' in order to remove the fan does not require disconnecting radiator hoses and coolant loss.

 

I don't remember the wire colors to jumper it out of the housing, but yes, you can simply remove the resistor & jumper a wire across the two connection points effectively bypassing the resistor entirely, the only thing this does is cause the fan to come on at full speed whenever either parameter point is reached.
(I just soldered a small piece of 12ga wire in between the 2 points & covered it with silicone to weather proof it.

 

cool thanks alot blwnaway

 

As what Blwn did, you surely may. I just installed a longer loop to have the option of connecting an Arcol resistor remotely should I opt to. Now, I prefer not to. A cooler engine & A/C are way better than having a silent 1st stage fan.

I actually did fan surgery twice as the tiny thermistor/diode thing under that green resistor failed on me & my fan went back to pre-bypass state. I simply removed it on the 2nd take & made sure the loop had continuity.

Jab, I couldn't seem to maneuver the fan out w/o removing the top radiator hose. Please share how you did so w/o losing a bit of coolant by keeping all hoses intact.

 

[QUOTE=minsanity;3807705]As what Blwn did, you surely may. I just installed a longer loop to have the option of connecting an Arcol resistor remotely should I opt to. Now, I prefer not to. A cooler engine & A/C are way better than having a silent 1st stage fan.

I actually did fan surgery twice as the tiny thermistor/diode thing under that green resistor failed on me & my fan went back to pre-bypass state. I simply removed it on the 2nd take & made sure the loop had continuity.

i was literally goin to ask you about the tiny diode/resistor, as i kind snapped of the bracket where the green resistor sat so was left with just the 2 red wires, so my little brother said it wasnt needed, but from what your saying this is true, so hes just going to loop/jump the 2 wires together as hes more electrically minded than me and i follow instructions haha.

but yeh what was that tiny resistor for? i guess to work in conjunction with the green one?

and 100% agree with colder engine = increased power and life. no one seems to understand the more pure oxygen cells the engine can get the better. like air filters are the most stupidest and useless things ever made unless you use them correctly. i decided to make my own a couple years back, a closed cold air intake feed and boy did i see a difference in throttle and acceleration response. i did some reading and found the reason why is the cooler the air means more oxygen then warmer the air means less oxygen cells, therefore when the engine bay is hot and sucking in the warm air there is fewer pure oxygen cells for the fuel to burn where when there is pure cold air there is more oxygen allowing fuel to burn at a faster rate.

hence why i loved the high speed fan continuum adaptation, colder engine more power

 

From electrical lessons in college, a thermistor's resistance varies significantly w/ temperature change. A diode is like a check valve, lets electricity flow one direction. I really had no idea what it was for as I had no way of checking. without it, the fan has 1 less part to fail.

You'll boil over if you run w/o 1st stage & don't turn A/C on. The A/C triggers 2nd stage or you'll have to wait for coolant temp to reach 234F. That's way over water's boiling point.

You're on point on CAIs- they're there to suck in denser O2 molecules for better.combustion.

 

wwell basically weve connect the 2 red wires together before the resistor but every time the fan comes on the 30amp fuse blows...

any ideas mate? did i connect the wrong wires together..? the 2 red wires that was connected to the green resistor is the ones ive connected directly together..

i must have done somethings wrong...

 

Check insulation on all the wires. Test your fan motor for any shortiing. If everything checks out, your case may be similar to post #411 here:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...lution-17.html

I dunno why that happens to a few.

 

well just before you replied i removed the low wire from the plug end and put a new 30 amp fuse in and ran the a/c and it kicked in at 60secs then off again which means the fan is working.

its the low wire bridge that is causing the power overload as suspected.

with regards to post #411 he does not actually say how to actually go from 30 to 50amps, can i just buy a 50 amp fuse and put it in? or is there another way?

 

I presume he just swapped in a 50. Did you use a 12ga wire?

 

Ill try that tomrrow.

And no i did not, i just connected the low speed wire and high speed red wires directly together. Im talking about the 2 red wires that is soldered onto the prongs you connected your 2 loop wires to.

And by 12ga wire do you mean the thinckness as in 12 gauge wire? Because i did not know i had to add any wires to the low and high high speed red wires, because bridging/jumping/looping them

 

I think i may have mocked up quite abit. Just read back a couple of posts and i think, the only way to bridge the 2 red wires is to solder some 12gauge wire in between, and if there is no 12 gauge wire in between the 2 red wires it will not work, am i correct in saying so....?

 

If you've the 2plug harness, you're not supposed to splice both red wires(that's for the single plug 03 up models) but solder your jumper wire loop as I did on the 2 resistor terminals. The long 12ga I did should be providing some minimal degree of resistance.

If your PS fan is still stock wired to come on w/ the 2nd stage rad fan, the dealer should be able to fix rewire it to come on w/ the 1st stage fan. Otherwise, your PS fan might never come on as bypassing the resistor may result in 2nd stage not being necessary anymore.

 

The only thing I have for reference is my '05, but these kinds of issues is why I opted & suggested jumping it inside the resistor housing itself, by essentially replacing the resistor with just a piece of wire you have the best chance of avoiding any other issues, and everything else should work normally.

Best advise I could give is try & put it back to stock & go my route, in theory by doing it the way I did, you really shouldn't even need something as thick as 12ga, since the resistor/resistance is the need for the larger wire (for heat dissapation caused by the resistor itself) I just happened to have some lying around. But yes odds are by atrempting to jumper where you did, there's something that was not taken into consideration.

 

So just solder Both red wires and the blue wire all together and it will just run on high whenever the fan is called for (both high and low). Right?

 

Replied to your PM. Cole.