I've gathered up most non running fiero's in my area in a 75 mile radius accumliating as many as 17. I've been selling them off and i'm down to 7 when today i went to check for rust in a '85 GT i have in "The Mall" by pulling back the carpet on the right side of the trunk bay when i found a factory looking fan device that would seem to blow on the altenator. Of all the fiero's i've owned, i've never came across this and must of missed its picture in my repair manuals.How common is this option? In my defense, i've only pulled back the trunk carpet on about 4 or 5 of the fiero's i've checked for rust by potential owners.Just when you think you know alot about fiero's........
jesse

[This message has been edited by possumlips (edited 05-14-2008).]

My 85 GT has it. Fan with a metal tube that goes over to the alt.

------------------
85 GT 2.8/Auto (daily driver)
2 x 86SE 2.8/Auto (parts cars)
79Z28 / 94Z28 / 98Z28 / 93 Suburban
1 wife who thinks I'm nuts...

i think the reason i missed seeing the fan was because most of the cars i've sold were 2.5's.guess its a 2.8 option only.
jesse

Yeah, its a V6 thing. They were placed there to try and keep the alternator and distributor cooler

while the engine temps rose. Although it was an attempt to keep the temps cooler on the two, I asked the same

question basically when I first got mine, and it seemed the popular vote was that they are useless.

So I removed the two tubes coming of the trunk leading into the engine bay. Makes things look a lot

cleaner haha.

[This message has been edited by leppy_89 (edited 05-14-2008).]

Yup. 2.8 option only. It runs through ductwork mounted behind the trunk carpet. It blows on the alternator and the coil.

i've only sold and looked under the trunk carpet of one V-6 now that i think of it. It was a '86 SE but it didn't have the fan.But now that i think even more about it, it was MstangsBware that looked the car over for the guy, not me ,so maybe it did have one.LOL.

[This message has been edited by possumlips (edited 05-14-2008).]

It is only on the 1985 thru 1987 V-6 cars. It was not used on the 1988 V-6 Fiero's.

Guess GM figured out it didn't do much as well and removed it.

quote Originally posted by Oreif: It is only on the 1985 thru 1987 V-6 cars. It was not used on the 1988 V-6 Fiero's. Guess GM figured out it didn't do much as well and removed it.

They also changed/improved heat shielding in '88 according to what I've read on the whole "fan" being deleted issue. The '88 alternator is smaller and has heat shielding, and the crossover has different shielding as well. I realize many on here know this- just throwing it out there due to the discussion at hand. ( :

a '88 v-6 is the only car i've never owned in my collection. i hope someday to own a '88 GT or formula.

quote Originally posted by FieroFanatic13: They also changed/improved heat shielding in '88 according to what I've read on the whole "fan" being deleted issue. The '88 alternator is smaller and has heat shielding, and the crossover has different shielding as well. I realize many on here know this- just throwing it out there due to the discussion at hand. ( :

That is correct. Everyone assumes because it doesnt blow an astronomical amount of air and keep the componets cool to the touch, its useless. It really does help, its not a matter of keeping the componets cool to the touch, but at a relatively lower tempature. I actually thought the ignition side pipe was blowing at the coil, maybe it does kind of hit both. I know one car I was having troubles on the highway, not to far into a 100 mile trip, the coil started overheating and would cause the car to miss and be undriveable. This is at highway speeds! Anyway, after pulling over to let it cool twice, I rewired the fan to run constantly with key on. From that point I never had another problem, on the rest of that trip, or ever again with the coil on that car. This tells me it does in fact do something.

As he said, they were removed in 88 not because they were deemed to be useless, but because there were improvements in the 88. The pre88 Y pipe heat shield was nothing more than a "umbrella" that kind of kept heat from wanting to go up. 88 received insulated fully wrapped shielding, which was an extreme improvement from before, which reduced the amount of external heat the coil recieved. The alternator was a better design and had better cooling built into it. So the fan was no longer needed.

quote Originally posted by 86GT3.4DOHC: The alternator was a better design and had better cooling built into it. So the fan was no longer needed.

The CS has an external fan that moves a lot of air. If you replace the older SI with a CS, the fan probably is no longer needed.

My 2 cents is that my 87 still has its original alternator and the 87 has the cooling fan. I've replace the alternator three times in my 88 with no cooling fan.

Helps or not, I don't know. But any air blowing in the engine bay is a good thing.
Just my .02 cents worth.
Gary

They've been on every Fiero I've owned...

i puleed mine off and put a 88' alt in and no problems lol

I seem to recall someone saying that the aux fans also had their polarity wired wrong from the factory, and reversing the wires helped improve performance of the thing.

I don't remember when or where I saw that, save that I saw it here somewhere.

FWIW--which ain't much.

Ed

wow i never would have guessed what those tubes were and i tried looking everywhere
here i just thought that they were cutoff pieces of a 4cyl and someone dropped a v6
in there. i guess ya learn something new everyday. i wonder if mine is working though