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is it hard to install and electric fan on the 1.8L engine and does it perform better

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of course it hurts you are being screwed by an elephant

well, in theory it should depending on how much air it actually moves. installing an electric fan also reduces a bit of load on the engine itself.

i remember doing that on my grandfather's C10, and it was relatively simple.

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To the Oquirr hills for awesome thrills! Go-go 4wd, Activate!

It helped my motor perform a lot better along with a pulley kit from,
http://www.tweakit.net/shop/advanced_se ... &Submit=GO
I also had to upgrade my alternator.

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I have installed several electic fans on stock luvs and had excellent results. Here are the positives:
Less Fan Noise
Better Cooling
Noticeable power increase, especially when accelerating and passing.
Easily installed IF you wire it correctly!
Better fuel mileage.
Very Reliable

Now the negatives:
The stock alternator will proably not keep the battery fully charged if the fan is used without the engine running above idle speed. So around town driving might be a problem. The only way to fix this problem is to upgrade your alternator, and I suggest you change over to a one wire Delco alternator. The stock alternators are known to be pretty weak and eventually have to be replaced anyway.
Be sure to use the same guage wires as the two coming from the electric fan motor, usually 12-14 guage, mount a HD relay close to the fan, and run the same guage or thicker wire from the battery to this relay which will power the fan motor. It is a good idea to wire the fan so that it is only on when the engine is running, especially with the stock alternator and battery size. Otherwise the stock battery will probably go dead within a few moments if the fan is running and the engine isn't.
There are several informative entries regarding upgrading alternators and wiring in the "Driveline Modification" section.
Good luck,
scjconv-duaty

Sorry to disagree SC. However I would like for anyone to show me any power difference on a 4cyl with and without the stock clutch fan. Been there with V8's. Particularily with a clutch fan. No power change till in excess of 350 HP.
Engine driven fans are good to about 35 - 40 mph. Then the vehicle speed puts more air thru. I once knew a guy who drove his truck 30+ miles to and from work. He had no fan. No problem as he lived approx 1/4 mile from freeway and work was just as close. He didn't drive to work during rush hour though. In fact he worked wierd hours.
An electric fan actually starts to impede air flow at speed. Make a small wind tunnel and you'll see. Be sure the electric fan freewheels when turned off. Thats one advantage of a clutch fan.
Advantage of electric is control, particularily at idle and low speeds, when the stock fan is inadequate. Like air conditioning.
Unless you have air con or live in excessively hot climate, then additional fan is not needed. They did make a fan clutch eliminator for the LUV years ago. Also be sure the fan is put on the correct way. Yes I've seen some put on backwards. Didn't work too well.
One problem that people have with engine swaps can be getting the air out of the engine compartment, not so much getting it into and thru the radiator.

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The light at the end of the tunnel, may just be a train coming!

Hello Rob,
In regards to electric fans, virtually every automobile made today is using electric fans for cooling. The reason is because they are much more efficient and therefore save fuel. A regualar fan will use from 10-20 % of the available horsepower developed by todays engines, I have ran dyno tests on small engines as well as V8s and there is a noticeable loss of hp with the fan engaged. On some cars you can actually feel the loss of power when the mechanical fan is engaged by the thermal mechanism built into the fan itself.
You are right about the amount of air going through the fan being very important. There are two factors to be considered when cooling an engine, one is water flow, the other is air flow. The larger the area of the radiator the more efficient it is, I have seen some radiators specially built that have a small surface area like on the Luv,s and had 4-5 thick cores! This is why I always use the Mustang radiators I have mentioned in several posts before, lots of area, + thinner cores means more heat is absorbed into the air going through the radiator. If you try to cool a very large engine or are in hot climate areas, you are not going to have very good results with the small area provided by a stock Luv radiator.
You have to have a much larger area than is provided, now I know there are going to be some who disagree with this by saying that aluminum radiators of this size will cool suffieciantly (sic) , but I haven't found that to be true in the So Ca and the Las Vegas areas.
Anyway thanks for the input, always glad to hear from you.
scjconv