[mjgord51]

Originally Posted by summitflier

If you have a water pump/belt driven fan blade.. the shroud does seem to channel heat better. Also, it's a safety thing. Fingers and fan blades don't mix well.
I switched to elec fans this year. No shroud at all. There are "cages" of a sort around the fan blades for safety. But the biggest thing for me was the room. I don't see a depth measurement in post #1. But I would guess the depth on my old shroud to be about 6 or 7 inches. Now I can move my engine forward if I need to. Run a long water pump if I want. Even run serpentine belt drives if I want.

The distance from radiator to the fan blade mounting point on water pump is 7 1/4" and the distance from engine to fan blade mounting point also the water pump is 7" thinking w/p is a tall one. I will be using a original 6 bladed 18" fan that is 1 3/4" tall/deep/thick.