Trail Armor Rhino Heating/Cooling Fan

Trail Armor Rhino Heating/Cooling Fan - PRODUCT REVIEW

TRAIL ARMOR

UTV HEATING / COOLING FAN KIT

Product Overview:

Now that winter is hear the temperature has dropped and the desire to go riding has been reduced. Most of our riding is in the mountains about 6,000 ft. elevation and it tends to get pretty cold even when there isn't snow on the ground. We did a little research for some affordable heating ideas for our Rhino. We found a couple kits, some included a full on heater core and are actually plumbed in through the radiator like a real car. There nice kits but far more expensive than I was willing to fork out for some heating solutions. We also came across this heating / cooling fan from Trail Armor. It features a 5" - 12 volt fan that mounts on the engine compartments plastic shroud area below the seats. Trail Armor utilizes the heat the engine is putting off and sends it out into the cab. In addition the fan can also be flipped, reversing the air flow which in turn acts as a cooling fan bringing fresh air into the confined engine compartment on those hot summer rides. The price for the trail armor kit is far more affordable for what we had in mind. Sure the other kits would be nice if we were riding in the snow 50% of the time. For us we just needed a little extra heat on those cold winter nights out hitting the trails. As a bonus the trail armor kit has the cooling feature as well which isn't offered by the other more expensive kits.

Installing the fan:
Trail Armor shows there fan mounted on the front of the plastic shroud just below the shifter and e-brake assembly. They recommend this location because is draws the heat from the engine compartment and distributes it evenly among the driver and passenger sides. We opted to mount our fan in the same place but later changed our minds and decided we were going to do something creative with our fan setup. We actually can't take the credit for this because I first saw this fan setup on a rhino forum. Basically the same concept but our fan will be mounted on the inside with the engine. I think it gives a cleaner more hidden look while not sacrificing any heating/cooling performance. (See pictures below)

As you can see in the pictures below we also chose to mount our fan along the passenger-side as apposed to straight forward like in the picture above. There was a lot of debate on which way would be most effective. The only downside of putting the fan in front is that it eliminates the possibilities of ever putting a center console in. With a little sketching on the removed plastic we were able to create this design as shown in the first picture. With a lot of dremeling and cutting we were able to cut this design out of the plastic.

I'll be honest at one point I actually started to regret not just mounting the fan on the outside and making it easier on us. In the end all the hard work definitely paid off. We picked up a paint roller screen from a local hardware store for a whopping $1.49. The screen worked out perfect and with a little modifying with some tin snips.

More Installation & Conclusion:

With the screen in place we went ahead and mounted the cooling/heating fan behind in the engine compartment side of the shroud. Utilizing the hardware supplied by Trail Armor we secured the fan into position. See pictures below for final product ready to go back into the Rhino.

The initial look of this cutout with the mesh looked damn cool I must say. Although I wonder if the difficulty of cutting the panel out precisely was worth it. Its certainly unique and give our rhino a factory finish while adding a fan that acts as a cooling and heating feature to our Rhino Project. I know what your thinking... Looks to me like the passenger will be enjoying most of the heating and your right. I'll probably feel less heat than the passenger but that's alright. Lets not forget this fans other purpose and that is to draw cooler air into the engine compartment on those 100+ summer days.

As for wiring the fan up, Trail Armor prefabs a wiring harness with all the connectors attached and ready to put in. They even supply you with a nice lighted rocker switch to mount on the dash. We mounted our rocker switch below the Trail Armor fuel gauge we just installed on the dash as well.

So How Does it Work?

Heating: After cruising around I can say it definitely keeps your feet more toasty when your stopped. When your riding along you don't feel much heat coming out because we don't have half doors on our rhino yet. It will thaw your hands out but with a heavy pair of pants and boots the heat unfortunately isn't felt much. The cold outside air comes into the floor compartment and blows the warmer air out before you can even notice a temperature change. It does seem to be very noticeable when you drape a blanket over the passengers legs and over the fan creating a heating blanket affect.

We'll be evaluating the overall temperature difference with the fan when we find some doors to put on this Project. Trail Armor makes some nice doors they recommend using with the heater/cooling fan setup. I can see why, with the doors and heater im sure it creates more of an oven affect. Look in upcoming features when we bring this article back for a second evaluation with doors this time.

Cooling: We honestly haven't had the chance to test the cooling performance of this fan setup. Now that winter is here I don't think we'll be testing that feature for a few months. I can only assume that the powerful 5" fan pulling in outside air to the confined engine compartment will make a difference on hot summer rides.

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Contact Information:

Trail Armor
A Rockin’A Interiors, Inc. Company
268 CR 409
Rienzi, MS 38865info@trailarmor.com

http://www.TrailArmor.com

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Trail Armor A Rockin’A Interiors, Inc. Company 268 CR 409 Rienzi, MS 38865info@trailarmor.com http://www.TrailArmor.com

Trail Armor
A Rockin’A Interiors, Inc. Company
268 CR 409
Rienzi, MS 38865info@trailarmor.com

http://www.TrailArmor.com