Bought an sc300 recently, missing the fan shroud. Only one I could find was on ebay that was a bit expensive. I live in texas, car has never gone above a normal temp thus far, but Im worried about this coming summer heat. I very rarely am in any stop and go traffic which might cause an issue, Should I just pay the absurd price for the piece of plastic or should I be fine? Thanks!

 

Shroud both directs the air more effectively and keeps the noise down.
If it starts to overheat in traffic just turn on the heater (ain't gonna be fun...).

 

It definitely is for the OEM mechanical cooling fan. The only other reliable alternative is an IS300 OEM dual electric fan swap with its integrated shroud but it's a lot of work and not really needed for stock SC. Also the OEM mechanical fan with its fluid clutch actually still flows the most CFM... with the factory shroud.

 

Absolutely necessary - no. Worth having on - absolutely yes.

 

You should be fine without it until you find one for a good deal, but Texas summer and stop and go traffic with the a/c on is really going to test it.
You will usually split the plastic top part of the radiator and spit coolant out before anything worse happens, but do factor the price of a new denso radiator into your decision of if it is worth it to get the shroud.

You can also ditch the factory mechanical fan and shroud and find some IS300 fans to mount up, or some aftermarket shrouded electrical fans to put on there.
The factory shroud will probably cost less in the end, you should be able to find one in a junkyard.

 

I looked for two years and only found broken ones. They seem to be built by the same dude who designed the center air vent!

 

Really? didn't realize it was that hard to find those, I guess these cars are getting harder to find parts for now.

 

I've seen plenty of SC300s, but every single one of them has had the fan shroud missing or broken. And the missing ones were probably left off because they were broken!

 

I can attest that mine may have a few zipties holding it in place lol.

 

Lol, my old one had a few zipties too. I would just find an is300 in a junkyard then and adapt the electric fans to fit the SC.
It also has a coolant reservoir built in which frees up some space for a big intercooler as you usually have to move the stock one out of the way.

You can also use aftermarket fans but I would go for one that is self shrouded, like I use a Derale 17" #18217 fan in the vette.
Its very thick and large compared to most of the off the shelf fans (cause it has a real shroud), and with my lower thermostat it holds solid at 165 degrees.
To me it feels like it moves as much air as a regular clutch fan, which I can't say for the smaller electric fans. I tried like 3 different fan setups including dual fans but settled on this.

 

^^ I've read over the years that the OEM IS300 dual electric fan with integrated shroud (and yes, also that built in coolant reservoir) is considered the most reliable of all electric fan options for the JZ engines. Mechanical still flows more CFM (with the stock shroud) but the IS300 fan system comes close.

I agree though that Derale makes very good products.

 

I doubt your car will overheat without the shroud but your ac may fail.