Electric vs. belt driven cooling fan

[AndrzejM]

I've removed belt driven fan in Toyota Previa, and now in Berta (BMW 318 tds), and I can tell that engine response is much better. I don't see any problem with temperature and electric fan comes up rarely, even with completely blocked grill.
I don't know how many hp mechanical fan is consuming but you can feel the difference under your right foot, so it has to be more than 1hp. I haven't done any A-B-A testing to be sure about the numbers, I just think that fe gain was more than 0.5 l/100km in Previa. It's hard to say regarding Berta, because I'm still running in the engine.

[oil pan 4]

When I replaced the belt driven fan on my suburban I got a 2mpg highway boost right away.
The before and after fuel consumption numbers at highway speed tell me the fan was using about 4 horsepower. Its also important to note the fan was not engauged.

[TheEnemy]

I have seen estimates of 10-25hp when enguaged depending on fan type, how its driven, and the RPM.

[hzoltaan]

hi all,

I thought I gonna resuscitate this topic to post my question:

I got an old Suzuki carry microvan with the F8A engine. 0.8L 4 cyl.
Seems to me that the cooling fan is directly driven by the belt, sits on the waterpump bolted on. Possibly becasue the radiator is actually under the seat not facing the wind up front and the vehicle was designed to crawl under 3-400kg load in hot weathers.
I'm toying with the thought of removing this continously running fan and replacing it with an electric. Something I can get from the junkyards for chips.
What do you guys recon, how much energy this tiny fan takes, how much noise it produces and how much the actual cooling will be effected by it?

thanks