E-Fans and a Gauge?

[pacotaco345]

So I'm getting ready to drive my car out to Texas (from So-Cal) and among many things I'd like to do to prepare for the trip is the issue of cooling and monitoring my temps. Right now I have altima fans wired on low with power coming from the switched ignition source where the a/c relay used to plug into (they are wired directly to a switch, no relay at all). I'm about to go buy a relay and a thermostatic switch to do the job right which leads to my first question: I really don't like the idea of running a wire straight off the battery for power, I think it looks like crap, since I'm planning on putting a/c back in the car where would be a good place to draw switched ignition power from in the engine bay? Another question I have: I plan on running both a temp gauge and a themostatic switch, is there any way I can do this with either a) one sensor, or kinda the same idea b) only one temp-source hole in the cooling system. In other words is there some two in one switch/temp sensor anyone knows of? I don't really wanna have to drill and tap two holes in my intake for two separate sensors. If anyone has any links to products or threads they could post up that'd be great, I searched already but "thermostatic switch and temperature gauge" didn't bring anything useful up... Thanks for any input!

[prowess]

you can get a digital water temperature gauge from auber instruments.

it is programmable to trigger a relay at a specified temperature.

so you could hook up the relay to turn on the fans at say 180F...

[pacotaco345]

Originally Posted by prowess

you can get a digital water temperature gauge from auber instruments.

it is programmable to trigger a relay at a specified temperature.

so you could hook up the relay to turn on the fans at say 180F...

Thanks! I just looked up their website, it seems like their gauges are either used in cooking, or for measuring egt. Are you running this setup on your car? And if so what gauge are you using?

Edit.. Haha nvm just figured out that the gauges work for both..

[z32boy]

You need to have the power to those fans coming straight from the battery, they draw a lot of amps. You can use the switched power source to energize a relay to turn the power to the fans on and off.

[pacotaco345]

Originally Posted by z32boy

You need to have the power to those fans coming straight from the battery, they draw a lot of amps. You can use the switched power source to energize a relay to turn the power to the fans on and off.

At one point in time I had the fans running off of the fog light wiring (since I don't have fog lights) but they wouldn't turn off with the car and had no problems. Sorry for my erradic train of thought but here's what I'm thinking right now: Have a relay with the constant power input coming from the fog light wiring (where the fans were previously wired to), have the ground from the relay go to.. a ground lol, get one of the previously mentioned gauge/switches and wire it to the ignition, and run the switched power from that to the relay, then the output of the relay would go to the fans. By doing this the relay would always have power, even when the car is off, but it won't actually close until the car is on AND the gauge/switch sends power to the relay... Correct?

[pacotaco345]

Here's my fancy diagram that I came up with in my head.. Anyone's input is welcome, hopefully this helps someone in the future too if it ends up working.