<VV> Air vs Water HP

[JVHRoberts at aol.com]

As I recall, the Austin fan is good for cooling down between runs, but is  
WHOLLY inadequate for much of anything else. The racers use it because it  
doesn't suck so much power DURING the run, but has JUST enough to cool it down  
while idling. 
 
 
In a message dated 7/8/2005 5:07:16 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
Corvair at fnader.com writes:

I've  pretty much bought into this reasoning...until recently.

Rich and I  assembled the bits to put together a vertical fan for my track 
car (using  items similar to how other Corvair racers do it).

The fan that's most  often used in this application is the 11-blade plastic 
Austin America  fan.  Now this appears to me to be a pretty standard fan and 
not 
one  particularly suited to building up a head pressure to push air through 
the  engine. (And it's not even particularly powerful.... and is often replaced 
 with a 
metal fan with fewer blades for "tropical" applications despite the  greater 
noise.)

And beyond that,  in it's original Mini/America  application (where it pushes 
air through a sideways radiator) it is very often  replaced with a standard 
1000-
1100cfm electric fan which is seen as a  performance upgrade since it pulls 
less HP.

So my question is... what  makes the vertical fan assembly as used by Corvair 
racers cool the engine when  it uses a fan most often replaced with electric 
in 
its original  application, yet the same electric fans can't directly replace 
the Corvair  fan?

I'll admit I haven't sat down and thought this carefully through,  but at 
first blush it doesn't make much sense. What am I  missing?

Bill