HMFIC

So. I'm having an issue at the moment with the fan drawing A LOT Of power when it kicks on. I have the Ptuning kit, and it has the SPAL fan.

My car is set to idle roughly 1000 rpms at the moment. when i come to a stop and the fan kicks on, it draws so much power that it almost wants to stall and then kicks back up. I've never had that issue before BUT everyone with the same setup doesnt have the same issue as I have. I did have 6 gauges but just took them all out minus the boost and wideband, they are still disconnected so they aren't even on at the moment.

After taking the guages out, it did improve and doesnt drop as much but still a lot.

I've had the battery, starter ,and alternator tested and the battery is new. The test came back with the alternator saying 14.X NOT under load, and under load it was like 14.4 or close to it. So the alternator appears to be fine. This was even BEFORE i took the gauges out.

I looked around and cleaned off the ground wires by the head lights on both sides and that didn't help. I have a sound system and amp but that's been turned off as well.

They installed a new Fan thinking the old one may be defected. Same thing.

Not only does it drop the rpms, the fuse has blown multiple times. They even installed a 30amp fuse.. blows right through after maybe the 3rd time the fan kicks on...They installed a completely separate relay with its own 30amp fuse. that held up perfectly until yesterday when it blew. I replaced it and it's fine...so far.

There is something seriously wrong. It shouldn't be drawing that much power and it shouldn't be blowing through fuses.

I really can't think of anything that would cause it to drop so much... I thought of maybe getting a voltage stabilizer to help out but still, i shouldn't have to do that. We checked all the wires, ground and everything is intact.

Any ideas?

Cliff notes:

Rpms drop close to 700-800 rpms before taking out gauges...now drops maybe 400 with SPAL fan.
all wires are intact and properly installed
ground wires cleaned and tight
alternator checked out as 14.4 under load
battery is new.
blowing through fuses.

james0933

Connect a multimeter to the battery to measure volts. Walmart has digital ones for $12 in the auto parts section. Have the display sit on the windshield so you can see it while in the car.

Start it up and let it idle til the fan comes on. Report your voltage readings.

james0933

Ahhh, forgot to add to check your idle controller. Has that been cleaned recently? If not, do so as it is just 4 bolts and 10 minutes of your time.

HMFIC

ah! When i went to get the alternator tested at Advanced, they hooked the machine up and gave me a print out. At idle the alternator was running 14.1 i think and when i had to rev it and hold it at 5000 rpms for a few seconds to get the alternator underload, it came back as 14.4. but i dont think the fan kicked on.

What would I be looking for? a major voltage drop? What's the lowest it's supposed to go and if it does go way low, what are your suspicions?

HMFIC

I have never cleaned it and i have over 104k miles on my car. Although a dirty IAC does funny things, i'm not sure if that's causing such a drop when the fan comes on. dually noted though, I should clean it anyways.

Any other thoughts?

HMFIC

rare case for me i suppose?

bradskee

im guessing thats your car in your pic and its boosted so running aem ems? i know a few people with ems that have the same problem when the fan kicks on, and both of those cars have stock fans

HMFIC

SERIOUS?! My tuner was telling me he honestly thinks its the AEM series 2 that I have! The ems now is having problems already with the boost solenoid acting up but it powers up and everything but when he connects to it through the ems, it acts up.

Do your friends have a fix for this? do you know if they had to send it back to AEM to get it fixed?

Thanks for the reply!

btw... i heard something about the primary battery injector offset may be incorrect...

bradskee

Im going to a meet tonight and ill ask my buddy what he thinks. ill report back

HMFIC

Think i may have found my issue.

I noticed now after taking out the gauges, *which were all connected to one source of power* it was probably too much load on the electric system. I took them out completely and wired the aem gauges directly to the fuse box. Now when the fan kicks on, you hardly even notice it! It's damn near night n day!