Maradyne High Performance Fans started as an air movement manufacturing company serving heavier industrial and agricultural machinery, but it also has a solid and ever-growing reputation in the race and performance industry for high powered fans that serve the automotive aftermarket in everything from race to street to vintage automobiles. RacingJunk’s Scott Stetz recently had the chance to interview Jim Kahl, a product manager at Maradyne, at the High Performance Expo in Charlotte, North Carolina to gain some insight into the business, and how it became an essential part of the enthusiast aftermarket space.
Scott Stetz (SS): So, can you just tell me a little bit about the history of Maradyne? How it got started, etc.
Jim Kahl (JK): Well, we have been in business for just over 20 years now, as Maradyne High Performance Fans. We evolved from our parent company DCM • FAZ (formerly DCM Manufacturing). DCM • FAZ specializes in air movement products for off-road, agriculture, construction, military. So, back about 20 years ago, we decided hey— we can handle earth movers and mining equipment and military vehicles; to place our product in classic cars, street cars, muscle cars, and race cars was a no brainer. And so that’s where Maradyne High Performance Fans evolved – we brought our product over to the automotive aftermarket, and high performance automotive industry.
SS: Most people understand the basics of what a fan does — cooling, air flow, movement etc. Which means despite how necessary they are, it can be hard to get people excited about fans and hard to explain innovation in the market. So, in that vein, is there a current product that you’re excited about? Something new or something getting a new application?
JK: Well, one of our recent products that I’m most excited about, because it’s proprietary to us and different than any product anybody else has at this point, is our Smart Start product. It’s a standard brushed [high-performance] fan, but with our Smart Start cap on the fan that reduces the amp spike when the fans fire – it starts smart.
A standard fan goes from zero to 60 in a split second [causing a hard amp spike on the vehicles electrical system], while the Smart Start fan takes about three to five seconds to wind up, [significantly] reducing the amp spike, limiting transient voltage and amp draw putting less stress on the electrical system – all while allowing the fan to have a longer life.
SS: And so that’s the biggest problem that it solves, then, right?
JK: Yes, the biggest problem it solves is the amp spike and transient voltage you get from brushed fans. It does have a couple other features, like our Long Life motor, which further extends the life of the fan; the blade on the 12” single and dual shrouded version of our Smart Start also has our proprietary sickle blade design. With that sickle blade design, the fan is slightly quieter than your traditional straight or curve blade fans, which is important to a lot of people. Our 16 inch Smart Start low profile fan has the S blade (curved blade) since the additional length of the blade requires extended stabilization and balance.
SS: What have been some of your favorite projects to work on or applications to work on in your time with the company? Or type of projects you enjoy working on?
JK: The projects I enjoy working on most are getting involved with the different genres of racing, from NASCAR to drag, off-road and rock crawling to drift. Working with those different genres and seeing how our fans operate and hold up within different environments and different applications is what I really love.
SS: Yeah, there’s not really an aspect of motorsports that you don’t connect with, right? From classic cars to every kind of racing?
JK: Every kind of racing, you know, and one I didn’t mention previously is dirt track, so we do everything from dirt track to, you know, oval track, to the straight drag strips. Really, the only thing I can think of from racing that we don’t do, at least at this point, is like nitro funny car and stuff like that, but that’s it. Other than that, we’re involved.
SS: So, last question: what do you guys have coming down the pipe? What are you excited about?
JK: Well, one of the most exciting things we have coming down the pipe is we are in development of our brushless line. We’re a little bit, call it, ‘late to the party’ with the brushless line, as the brushless technology has been out for a long time. But you know, truth be told, in 99% of applications, the standard brushed fans are plenty for what, you know, the driver/the racer needs in their car. But brushless is the new technology/top of the line fan, and so now we’re getting involved and getting into adding a brushless line of fans to be competitive.
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