Overheating TT: Electric fan or headgasket?
 

Ok my stock fan clutch went out on my manual 93TT (64K miles), A few weeks before I had the 60K mile service done by the local dealership. Well I knew something was wrong when my car lost a lot of power and sounded like a jet when I let off the gas. I was at my parents for the weekend and had a friend who is a mechanic (whom I trust a lot) look at it and said, replace OEM fan clutch, or convert to an electric. Well I went back to school/my home and thought about it. I went the electric route (bad idea….). had the local performance shop put in an electric fan. Well I got my car back and I drove it like a grandma for a bit. Then when I did not see it overheating I got on it, and well the temp started to come up. Well Now I have a car that is fine when driving normal but will begin to overheat under load. I checked the coolant it was a little low (halfway down the stick). I checked the oil, seems to be OVERFULL!!. I looked at the dip stick for signs of fouling. Did not see any. BUT THE DAMN THING IS OVER FULL. So here is what I am thinking. I got ripped off by local shop, should always stick with doing work yourself, or by people you have known for a long time. They might have just put in a fan that is just to small. I was told by a very nice and helpful guy at Z1 that this is not uncommon. Props go out to them for helping me even though I am in CO and they are in GA. I should go put the stock one back on and replace the fan clutch with OEM (have been told that aftermarket ones don’t work properly). I might have a weeping headgasket. I dread this like none other but the oil is overfull, and when I change it I am sure that with my luck I will see coolant mixed in with my mobil 1. Anyways could anyone who has done either an electric fan conversion or replaced a head gasket on TT please respond to me and give me ideas.

The only thing faster than my car seems to be it’s ability to deplete my bank account.

I'm currently considering installing an electric fan on my 93 na right now. I talked to a few people about it and the general feeling seems to be if you choose the right size and type of a good quality electric fan it should work just fine. On the other hand if its a cheap fan and/or not properly installed you will have nothing but problems with it. I also talked to Z1 about it, they said they use a dual fan with a good thermatic switch on the NA's. I feel safer buying one from someone who's already done a bunch of successful instalations on Z's of the fan I'm going to buy. I'd also like to here some opinions from others who have experience with electric fan conversions.

Well you could go either way with this one. If you go with the proper sized electric fan, you free up hp by getting rid of the rotational mass that is the stock fan. But most electric fans (unless you use two) won't measure up to the stock one. You're going to want to get close to the stock cfm output which is about 3700 or so. If you can fit two electric fans in there that can combine to close to that number you should be fine.
Or go back to the stock fan by fixing the fan clutch and keep the car cool.

If you have coolant leaking into the oil, then your oil should have a milky consistency to it and it should froth up (kind of like milk). Check your compression. Are you getting any white smoke out of the exhaust, or does the exhaust smell sweet? Those Z dipsticks are useless. It's almost impossible to read them accurately.