Thread: Fan Controller

Has anyone used either of these?

SPAL USA

DIF 10085 Thermostatic Dual Electronic Fan Controller Ver. C

Looking for feedback on both of them. Undecided on which to select yet.

I used the SPAL on my BMW. It is excellent, and easy to install/wire.
PWM operation makes it pretty quiet.

Also, pretty nice unit overall. Has status lights and everything, but there is one quirk. To program it, you have to measure the temperatures elsewhere. Unlike the DIF where you can just set the low/max temperatures with knobs.

What do you mean by measure temps elsewhere?

For the SPAL unit, there are only two buttons on it. When programming the 'low' and 'high' temp settings, you have to know what temperature the car is actually at, because you have to press the program button once at low, and again at high temperature.

So you can't rely on what the water temperature readout says on the dash. It is not accurate at all. It could be off +/- 30 degrees ( and often is on many cars ).. and you don't want your car potentially overheating by 30 degrees

I used my scangauge to connect to the OBD2 computer to read the coolant temperature sensor's output, straight from the ECU. You could probably read the voltage of the coolant temp sensor with a voltmeter though, if you don't have a similar tool.

Anyways, that's the downside to the SPAL. Then again.... i'm not sure how well the DIF unit measures temperatures. I think it assumes certain voltages from the stock temperature sensor = certain temperatures, which probably vary from car to car.

... if this sounds a little obsessive, it's for a reason. I used the SPAL setup on my BMW because the cooling system on that car was very, very bad. There wasn't any room for error, otherwise poof, there goes the head-gasket and aluminum head.. O_O

Good to know thats how you set it. Thanks!

Wow, nice parts. I have never looked at those units before. The spal unit controls one fan it seems and the DIF controls two. I would go with versatility and try the DIF. You may be able to find reviews on amazon.

I have used an autozone fan control unit, it was around $30. Simple to install, I had installed 2 B13 se-r fans in a S13 and it worked great.

What are you looking to do?(besides the obvious, control fans) I guess im asking what brought you to look at $150 fan controls. Is this a dd or track car?

My B13, I installed a interior fan switch so I can turn the fans on at idle without having to have the a/c on. It was a $20 project, 1 relay, 1 switch, 1 20 amp fuse line, and fresh 10, 12 & 16 gauge wire. It works on my terms, LOL. I like it.

I can't seem to find out why my fans don't come on automatically, so I need some kind of solution and I want one that will also stand up to my abuse. Its going to be a daily driver with some track time and I want to be able to tweak the settings as needed without having to dive into the ecu parameters to tweak it (i dont have a laptop yet and dont want to continuously borrow a friends).

Right now I have the fans set on a single switch inside the cabin, but I would like to have the ability to "forget about it" if you know what I mean and not constantly have to think about turning on the fans.

Actually, if you wire your fans in parallel, the SPAL can control those. It can handle a lot of amperage.
It also has a seperate output for the AC fan, but i never used that so i can't explain how it works.

I could have gone cheaper for my fan controls, but i liked the PWM ( variable speed ) action because it made the car very quiet.

Blairellis, as for your problem.. my recommendation to you is to use the stock fan controls, with a switch. On the track, you just want to run the fan 100% all the time!
Have you tried to fix the stock system? there are only a handful of things that can go wrong..

Bump for moar feedback!

Bumping this thread now that I am back from California and ready to look into purchasing something.