Slimline Electric Fan Suggestions

I'm looking for a suitable fan for my V8 Capri. I have 3" clearance from the radiator to the water pump pulley. The radiator core is 15" tall by 26" wide. Would prefer an OE fan if possible, any suggestions?

Thanks

Basically, you want as much torque as you can get from the fan motor, especially if you're pulling through multiple heat exchangers. And high torque motors are fat. Slimline fans tend to be poor fans overall. You'll find that most OE fans are pretty fat on deep shrouds. 
 

What if you ran two 13" fans? Would that move the motors away from the water pump and allow you to use stronger motors?

I went through this exercise on my Volvo Amazon build. Ended up using two small fans, so the water pump sits between them. The fans were 7" or 8" or so, and very inexpensive from Summit Racing. They've been on there for 2 years so far, and work great. The car will idle indefinitely and sit right at 185 degrees, which is the kick on point for the temp switch I have controlling them. 

I also did this on Plymford, which has a Ford 460 cooling through the biggest aluminum radiator Summit sells. Iirc I got a dual fan out of some Nissan, possibly a Maxima. 

EDIT: so, basically what he said. Run 2 fans.

Yeah, I think dual fans is probably going to be the way to go. I'll take a look at Nissan ones as a start

Definitely want dual fans or maybe even a pusher.  Ideally, the fan will be as far away from the radiator as possible.  The closer the fans are, the less of the radiator it pulls from.

A rule of thumb I heard somewhere is that the fan should be at least as far away from the radiator as the diameter of the center hub, and the shroud should also be as far away as possible, so the blades pull from the whole radiator, and the shroud is not actively blocking airflow.

A pusher would be pretty tricky to fit but might be possible. Don't think I can meet that rule of thumb with the space I've got.

Yeah, you definitely want as deep a shroud as you can manage. But I'd probably take a high torque fan over a deep shroud if i had to choose.

There's a popular inexpensive fan setup for the Miata (rhymes with Yamamoto) that combines weak "slim" fans with a shroud that's right up against the rad. Anytime a car shows up with a cooling problem and those fans, the first thing to do is revert to stock :)

I've made very good use of a randomly placed 16" electric fan (from eBay) without shroud or distance.  Stick it (as a puller) wherever it fits, right on the core; provide electricity.  Don't worry about the core space you don't cover.  That or two 12" fans should do the trick.  OE fans usually seem to be huge and weird . . .

Here's my setup in the Volvo leMons car.

Old Taurus 2spd fan. They were hugely popular on V8 converted Jeeps. High will blow a baseball cap off of your head.

Think I'll probably end up with something like volvoclearinghouse's Amazon set up but the Taurus fan is cheap enough to try first and see if it will fit.

V8 Lincoln fans were the go to for Fox chassis cars.  V70 Volvo fans also fit nice and have built in relays on the shroud.  I have one of those fancy aluminum duel fan setups from my 92 Mustang is didn't suck or blow or even keep my engine cool.  It needed flaps in the shroud, worked great idling in traffic with the AC on, the shroud blocked too much air at speed.  My kids BMW X5 has a nice pusher fan, slim and front mount.

In reply to akylekoz :

Is the X5 fan for the radiator or something else? My E39 has both an engine-driven fan for the radiator and a pusher for - AC condenser, maybe?

Pushers are inherently less efficient than pullers. And yes, you should should bypass flaps in your shroud especially if it's too close to the radiator and paired with a weak pair of fans.