Taipo

Looks like the rotor is loose on the shaft and moving forward and back relative to the shaft causing the wires to fatigue and break off.

Just my 2c worth

Keith
90 S4
NZ

outbackgeorgia

Keith,
I agree, no evidence of overheating on the armature, seems like mechanical breakage of the wires. My stock S4 fans work fine, but I did have to re-wire the connectors at the shroud. I suggest investigating an all aluminum radiator, worked for me.
The reversed wiring is an interesting possibility, easy to miss.
Dave

FredR

Phil,

I read your posts again and noted:

1. You have an aftermarket radiator fitted- I have seen this done by Serck services locally. It was a well made item but weighted a ton and I doubt it's thermal performance is up to that of the stock radiator that [IMHO] is margnal in our environment. If this is what you have I recommend you ditch it.
2. The photo you posted appears to suggest the outside of the rotor winding yoke has been in contact with the stator. If so that will generate a lot of heat.
3. Again, if you are running hot do you use Redline water wetter? I dilute the coolant mix to 25% glycol and throw a bottle of water wetter in the mix. The Redline stuff also has a anti corrosion chemical package in it.

I took a look at my fan kit a few minutes ago and it seems just fine- no signs of any heat distress. One thing that troubled me about this unit was the motors looked "flimsy" compared to the stock motors. More air flow requires more power, so if these unit smove more air and th emotor do not look as big one wonders what the payback is?

If you do get a quote for a replacement motor[s] perhaps you can share this with the list.

Kindly update the list if/when you have some feedback.

PHIL928

Hey guys,
As many of you pointed out, and to my disbelief, it seems as if the rotor is loose and I was able to move it up and down the shaft quite easily through tapping it with a hammer (lightly).

But I don't think that this would be enough to cause the copper wires to break off like that, I think that heat played a big role in causing the damage.

Another observation and something that the Spal guy pointed out was that there are 2 different types of motors. One is a sealed motor, and the other has a holes in it. I have no idea why they'd do this, but it's the way it is. The motor with the holes in it, is the one that packed up for me. So I think that the fine desert dust may have gotten in there and added friction to the bearings. This is what then may have caused the heat.

I found a replacement motor off fleabay for $40, you cannot actually buy the motor as a spare from Spal, you are only able to buy a single fan with the same motor, and then they suggest (spal) that you switch them out.
The part# that the Spal guy gave me is: 30102038

Fred,
I just spoke to a guy from Serck, and convinced him to start making all aluminium radiators specifically for the 928s which would have enough cooling capacity to allow the Middle East 928s to run at 85C. I'm not sure what the policy is on posting things like this on rennlist without being a sponsor, but it's purely to help the guys in these hotter climates.
These rads would be a bit thicker, around 80mm, but it would work great with these Spal fans as they are a bit slimmer.
So I'm quite excited about that. I should have a prototype for testing next week, and if I am allowed I'll make a thread here on rennlist about it.

I'll keep you posted!

FredR

Phil,

My radiator is all aluminium item made for me by Mac's radiators in Oregon. The core is deeper than stock [I have a number of 85mm in my head] and the core to tank is an all welded construction [most important].
I presume that when Nabooda delivered this car they disconnected the flap motor and wired the slats open? If you remove the slats altogether it improves air flow through the system at a very slight dissadvantage to over drag coefficient [Cd].

You should be able to get Water wetter in Sharjah- the agents run under the name of Mogroup- I think you can easily find their website.

With respect to the fans, I suspect the rotor is an interference fit on the shaft and if the rotor came into contact with the stator perhaps it simply slipped and ground out the interference. Overheating would not help the interference fit either.

To my knowledge, SPAL do make fans with different rating options but I thought one was a long life variant [stock being 10,000 run hours] but both being rated IP68 ingress protection. "6" means they are dust proof and "8" means they can be immersed in water. If they have holes in the casing your fans are not IP68- is the other one the same? If they are different this is a QC issue and DR should be concerned about that. Think I will cross check mine but to my knowledge they are both sealed.

I am not sure what temperature they are rated for but it does not take a genius to understand they need to withstand pretty warm temperatures. If the coolsant mix operates at 100 C the fans are going to be hit with air at roughly 90C and the fan makers know this if it is an induced draft design.

Regards

Fred

PHIL928

Fred,
I do run water wetter in my car, it helps to bring the temp down by about 2-3C. Serck sell them.
The radiator I am getting made has all welded tanks, so that shouldn't be a problem. The radiator that Serck made for you, was it all aluminium as well?

My slats are removed. My car isn't GCC spec as it's a Jap import, so no Nabooda :P

Here's an extract from the email the Spal guy sent me:

"This is an unusual problem. The only explanation I have is on the 30102130 there are two different fan models being used. One has a sealed motor, the other does not. You can identify the difference as the unsealed one has a small hole on the motor. Check to see if this is the one that is making the noise. The unsealed motor could have some dirt or sand entering the motor creating the rattling noise."

One of the fans is water and dust proof the other is neither water nor dust proof.

It's stated on their website aswell:
http://www.spalusa.com/store/main.as...&item=30102130

What temperature does your car run at the moment?

Cheers!

FredR

Phil,

My 928 runs below the last white line. If worked hard during hot weather it will rise to just beyond the last whte line. A stock S4 in summer will sit on the red line [everything working OK]. When pushed hard in our summer temps you can trip the alarm setting even though nothing is wrong.

My radiator was not made by Serck, it is all alloy, fully welded and made to my order by Mac's Radiators in Oregon.

If you have two different fans and one of them is not sealed then that should be of concern to both DR and yourself- it screams quality control issue to me. As I said, to date I am well satisfied with my kit.

An interesting point would be whether the failure of the non sealed item is commensurate with the running time it has been on your motor.

Regards

Fred

FredR

Phil,

Now I'm completely gobsmacked! I did a search on google using the part number you quoted and it led to a Spal website item describing the twin 12 inch fan setup. It opens as a PDF and on this sheet it states quote: "one fan is sealed, one is not- not suitable for dusty climates"

What is going on here? If you are still in dialogue with SPAL perhaps you can ask them for some clarification. Why on earth would anyone build a unit like this? DR feel free to chime in if you happen to see this.

Regards

Fred

jon928se

Depending upon wether you are a glass half full or a glass half empty kind of person it's

a) partially suitable for both dusty and non dusty climates

b) not suitable for any climate at all.

DR

Hi Fred,

Those are "new" specs to me, and quite alarming. There was no mention of this back years ago when we started using those.

Of course, the sales pitch back then was these are the stock OEM fans used on the new (at that time) 2007 Maserati Quatraporte's and they were the best of the best.

Ironically, in the beginning I used these on a very dusty dirty gravel road multiple times a day during SC testing and never had any issues. Heck, IIRC they were even marketed for the Off Road Truck crowd too..pretty strange for a fan not rated for dust or water.

The fact that they told Phil they haven't head of any issues is obviously BS, if that is true why the big disclaimers?

Regardless, I will no longer be offering those until I get to the bottom of this. It is a darn shame, it was a great setup for a 928 and it worked very well from all the feedback we received.

My apologies to anyone having issues with the ones that came from us and I will see what can be done about it.

I am also shocked that they say you can't get replacements either...was told differently in the beginning.

Cheers,

Dave

DR

Ironically on the PDF Sheet linked to from their own product page(posted by Phil above)..

It says "High Output" "Long Life" "Low Fan Noise"...I don't see any mention about dust or water there, or any other warning.

http://www.spalusa.com/pdf/30102130_SPEC.PDF

*%*#&@&^$*

FredR

Dave,

If you go to the SPAL website and see their individual fan units they only talk about IP68 rated units [nothing less than that] and they also offer extended life units. They rate their base unit for 10,000 hrs operation but they do not state what operating temp it is rated for.

On the data sheet for the twin fan unit [I presume it is a currently valid spec???] I also noted that they show two variant numbers- one for induced draft [what we use] and one for forced induction- have they ever sent you the wrong model by mistake? When I received my stock unit I never thought to check the part numbers to ensure they were induced draft units. But as I had to custom fit my off the shelf unit, I had to check that I connected it such that the air flow moved in the correct direction- on the positive side I seem to remember arrows indicating direction of rotation and air flow aligned with it.

Appreciate if you or Phil can advise if can you see any physical differences in the two motors supplied on your kits and if so, where/what do you see that is different ? The fan blade itself effectively covers one side of the motor so presumably that alone gives de-facto protection against direct impingement.,

I will have a closer look at my fans tomorrow to see if I can see any differences on mine but to date they have performed flawlessly. Either way, if they do fit different fan motors surely it cannot be too difficult to have similarly rated items fitted as a special order for you? It is not as though they have to make one off specially handed motors- they are identical surely?

What a mind numingly stupid thing for SPAL to do if you ask me! I just cannot believe this is what they did.

Regards

Fred

DR

Fred,

We always ordered the same part number, if we got any different ones I never caught it. Since I built/modified each one we sold personally I never saw any differences.

We knew all along they used different fan part numbers in the assembly, but was told it was due to the design spec for the Maserati (via Ferrari since it was using their engines). Never could have imagined one fan would not be rated for a higher "high dust or moisture" environment than the other in one packaged system. As already said, makes no sense at all.

Heck there couldn't have been that much of a cost difference at their level, AND they were charging enough for them already..so why one "good" fan and one "cheap" one...again, I am astounded.

Instead of using the "legendary" Spal fans, thinking I was getting the best quality for everyone, it seems I should have looked at "lesser" brands. Go figure!

Dave

PHIL928

Yeh, it's really weird!

Fred,
If you take the blades off you would be able to clearly see the difference.
One has round holes in the front, and the other doesn't.

It would be interesting to know if yours is different.

Cheers

P.S. I could post some pictures tomorrow of the differences if you want me to

FredR

Dave,

I looked under the hood this evening and can see absolutely no difference between the motors on my unit- they both look to be sealed units. I have a feeling the data sheet we saw we may be outdated but if so, how far back does it go? Could it be that Phil's unit had different motor modules as per that sheet? If so, why would my unit [4 year old] be different?

I do not know how many of these units you have supplied but I rather suspect that with your attention to detail, you would not have missed spotting motors if they were obviously different, especially if you were making the fitment modifications for the kit yourself.

Indeed my only area of concern was that the Porsche wiring was about twice the cross secitonal area of the SPAL wiring thus more current losses [heating] than stock.

I wrote to SPAL yesterday and they promptly replied that spare motor units are not available as separate items but perhaps can be purchased as a 12 inch fan/motor unit.. Maybe they feel spares are not necessary?

I remain convinced this kit is good but it would be useful to understand the root cause of Phil's motor failure.

Regards

Fred