I am looking at putting electric fans to replace the factory clutch style fan on my 98 Ram 5.9 gas powered Ram 1500 and wondering if anyone here has done it? Can you comment on your swap, choice of fan set up and hows it working for you?
Thanks, Ken

Been watching as 32 members viewed but declined to answer this question.

I do not want to hijack the thread away from your basic question.

There is a huge thread on moparts about adapting Mercedes electric fans to non truck vehicles, with replies about Chevy HR electric fans too, and advice to use OEM fans for better fan reliabilty.

My experience is primarily on 1995 Magnam 5.9 Rams.
I have run many 1000s of miles
With No Fan,
but using Evans NPG coolant.

Many miles with both 205 degree thermostats and also 180 thermostats.

The engine with NPG coolant will idle happy and VERY smooth at 280 to 300 degrees F.
I expect that rubber hose life will be less, as will plastic parts under the hood, including vacuum lines.

The MPG gain at 70 mph is about 0.5 but I tested with a single truck
and testing two trucks “convoy style” would be more accurate and repeatable.

Most of that MPG gain is probably not the horsepower the slipping viscous fan draws from the engine,
but rather the lower aerodynamic drag of the whole truck due to less air being drawn from the front grille and then allowed to flow underneath the rough truck body.

MPG gains can be had by simply blocking off the grille opening (leave the viscous fan attached)
Notice newer Ram pickups have grille shutters.

Dodge used a special viscous clutch on 4.7 V8 Dakotas that slips even more that the 1995 spec viscous clutch on the Magnum 5.9V8

I once got stuck in Atlanta bypass traffic with no fan installed but with NPG coolant.

The engine gave no trouble
but without airflow the air conditioning performance dropped noticeably.

This worried me so after about 5 minutes of thinking about freon evaporators, compressors, and condensors
- I turned the AC off and sweated rather than worry.

The AC worked fine afterwards when the traffic jam cleared.

I wish the fan blades mounting hub was split so that mounting or removing the fan blades was a quick easy job.

If you are looking for MPG gains
the greatest bang for the buck
is low rolling resistance tires.

New design tires can make a plus or minus 3 MPG difference.

I put a set of dual electric fans out of a 98 Dodge Intrepid on my 2002 Ram van. Did the same mod on a 92 Dakota as well. Shroud and both fans fit damn near like it was made for that application. Had to change the wiring on the fan harness to get both to run at the same time but it was fairly simple. Van now runs at 180 on all but the hottest days. Was 205 or so prior to installing the electric fans.

notice the power is expressed in kilowatts, not horsepower

In the 1500 to 2000 rpm highway cruise situation, power consumed by a typical fan from the engine is very low

In the footnotes to the above graph, the author writes that he used information from SAE papers on both the Dodge 340 V8 and the Chevrolet 350 V8.

Unlocked a 1995 Ram viscous clutch is allowing the fan to run at 880 rpm when the engine is turning 1750 rpm

Automobile fan power consumption is hard to find,
but the air conditioning replacement company Lau-Conaire has horsepower consumption numbers for many, many fan designs similar to automobile fans, by rpm, and by number of blades.

I installed mine because I get stuck in traffic a lot in Atlanta and did not like the temps getting to 210 plus. Electric fans do much better job cooling in stop and go traffic, and the ac works better as well.

Thanks for the input so far, I appreciate it. Does anyone by chance have a diagram of how to wire a dual fan set up to have the fans come on independently, at different temps like a factory equipped vehicle?

You can get a duel fan set up with a variable speed controller. This way it keeps up with cooling needs with out running on high all the time.

Thanks all

I changed to duel fan with thermostat on 98 v10 was looking for better mileage by removing fan and clutch, no difference