Ok so this past weekend I had my downpipe modified for more clearance, put on my new (to me) Visteon aluminum radiator, OBX silicon radiator hoses, and 2 slimlines-- 14" on the driver's side and 12" on the passenger's side. These things move MASSIVE amounts of air and I was extremely pleased with the entire setup.

I drove it to & from work yesterday, to work today, and on the way home after about 20 mins of driving the car just cut off and wouldn't start back up. Finally found that the ignition & radiator fan fuses under the hood had popped. I was only a few minutes from home so I did something stupid but seemingly necessary-- bought 60A fuses to replace the 30A's, popped em in, drove straight home and cut it off.

Once it cooled off for a couple hours, I went out to inspect the car and realized the wiring to the passenger-side fan is fried.. the insulation around both wires that came on the fan as well as the insulation surrounding both copper wires themselves were completely melted off, and they had fused together and fried the radiator fan harness all the way up to the joint where the wiring for both fans meet and head over to the stock rad fan plug. Yes, I'm running them both off the driver's side plug and the relay is jumpered so they're always on when the car is on.

So I cut into the harness I just made this weekend and realized the wires seem to be intact and fine before the union where the wires split off to the fans and the wires running to the big 14" fan on the driver's side seem to be fine (the insulation had just barely started to melt near the union so I taped them up) and the outer wrapping that came on them is fine too, not even shrunk up from heat. I cut the fried wires off from the soldered unions with the feed & the other fan and was starting to tape them up to test the 14" fan and it just started pouring outside.. shit.

So here's my thinking.. the T3/T4 turbo is about 3" from the wiring to the passenger-side fan. I believe the heat from the turbo melted the insulation off them, they shorted out and popped the fuse, then when I tried another 30A it popped that one too. The 60A was just enough to hold it while I drove a few mins to the house. I'm gonna try a new 30A in the radiator fan socket and see if it holds up now.. once the rain stops (I hate Florida..).

Has ANYONE heard of this happening before? Is there any way around this? I have another 10" fan that I can replace the 12" with since the motor is undoubtedly burned out (new $80 fan, too..) but I don't wanna throw it on there just to have this happen again. I'm also puzzled that both the radiator fan fuse AND the ignition fuse popped. Any significance to this? Or is it just designed that way to keep people from causing additional harm?