Re-wiring dilemma
#1
Re-wiring dilemma
Okay so I have myself a dilemma.
Here's what I have: Mishimoto double-core aluminum radiator, AEM digital water/oil/trans temp gauge, AEM EMS. Also, the car is turbocharged.
Okay so normally I'm pretty sure the gauge sensor (water temperature) would go somewhere on the block. However it didn't quite fit in anywhere that was easily accessible. So what my friend and I ended up doing was draining out all my coolant from my radiator and then seeing if it would fit in the coolant drain hole. (Silly, yes I know.)- but it didn't anyways. Then I got the bright idea of putting it where the stock sensor was (bottom corner of radiator near lower radiator hose), which it did fit with the adapter that was provided with the gauge.
So I bled air out of the cooling system following a post from Billman I previously found, and made sure that the gauge functioned properly, which it did. I let it warm up to 180 degrees, then thought to myself, hm... when are the fan's set to come on... so I let it go up to 210, and finally come to the realization that the plug I removed to install the gauge was the sensor for the fans.
Turned off the car, and spliced the wires from the sensor to the wires from the gauge. Immediately before even cranking my car the fans shot on, but my gauge stopped working, it would just show lines instead of the actual temperature.
I removed the black wire that was spliced onto one of the two wires for my gauge, and my gauge became functional again and the fans remained on. My guess is that I removed the sensor part of the wiring and just left the power wires spliced onto the positive wires of the gauge. I tried difference combinations with the wiring and none worked, except above ^ otherwise the fans would be on and the gauge wouldn't be functional. What I decided is that if I left both fan's on, the car would NEVER get to operating temperature, so I unplugged the radiator fan and left the smaller AC fan connected as it will always be running.
So my theory is that, I'm pretty sure that the sensor wire from the stock sensor I removed goes to the EMS I'm running and I'm guessing that's how it would tell it when to run richer during startup and not sure what else it may contribute to. But my fan is always on. I drove it home like that, about 3 miles, it was already warmed up previously due to testing.
I found an average temperature of about 170 while driving. 130-150 idle. Maximum I seen on the gauge is about 192. This is with the one fan constantly running. It'll go to about 190+ while I'm spooling the turbo (purposely- even just in 6th gear going 50) and then as soon as I left of the gas it'll shoot down to 170 and then lower.
Will there be adverse effects with my set up? Is the stock radiator sensor very important to how the car runs? I realize that my fan will always be on, would that be a negative with say, some spirited driving? I never use the A/C, ever, one because I enjoy top down, and two because it messes with my idle. Just wondering if anyone could tell me if my set up could have some real negative effects on my car and anything I could do to make it so that both my sensor and gauge will work.
Appreciate any help, sorry I seem to have a lot of questions and I always ask them here because there seems to be a lot of knowledgeable people here, but don't get me wrong, I do some searches before bothering to bother you guys.
-Ed.
Here's what I have: Mishimoto double-core aluminum radiator, AEM digital water/oil/trans temp gauge, AEM EMS. Also, the car is turbocharged.
Okay so normally I'm pretty sure the gauge sensor (water temperature) would go somewhere on the block. However it didn't quite fit in anywhere that was easily accessible. So what my friend and I ended up doing was draining out all my coolant from my radiator and then seeing if it would fit in the coolant drain hole. (Silly, yes I know.)- but it didn't anyways. Then I got the bright idea of putting it where the stock sensor was (bottom corner of radiator near lower radiator hose), which it did fit with the adapter that was provided with the gauge.
So I bled air out of the cooling system following a post from Billman I previously found, and made sure that the gauge functioned properly, which it did. I let it warm up to 180 degrees, then thought to myself, hm... when are the fan's set to come on... so I let it go up to 210, and finally come to the realization that the plug I removed to install the gauge was the sensor for the fans.
Turned off the car, and spliced the wires from the sensor to the wires from the gauge. Immediately before even cranking my car the fans shot on, but my gauge stopped working, it would just show lines instead of the actual temperature.
I removed the black wire that was spliced onto one of the two wires for my gauge, and my gauge became functional again and the fans remained on. My guess is that I removed the sensor part of the wiring and just left the power wires spliced onto the positive wires of the gauge. I tried difference combinations with the wiring and none worked, except above ^ otherwise the fans would be on and the gauge wouldn't be functional. What I decided is that if I left both fan's on, the car would NEVER get to operating temperature, so I unplugged the radiator fan and left the smaller AC fan connected as it will always be running.
So my theory is that, I'm pretty sure that the sensor wire from the stock sensor I removed goes to the EMS I'm running and I'm guessing that's how it would tell it when to run richer during startup and not sure what else it may contribute to. But my fan is always on. I drove it home like that, about 3 miles, it was already warmed up previously due to testing.
I found an average temperature of about 170 while driving. 130-150 idle. Maximum I seen on the gauge is about 192. This is with the one fan constantly running. It'll go to about 190+ while I'm spooling the turbo (purposely- even just in 6th gear going 50) and then as soon as I left of the gas it'll shoot down to 170 and then lower.
Will there be adverse effects with my set up? Is the stock radiator sensor very important to how the car runs? I realize that my fan will always be on, would that be a negative with say, some spirited driving? I never use the A/C, ever, one because I enjoy top down, and two because it messes with my idle. Just wondering if anyone could tell me if my set up could have some real negative effects on my car and anything I could do to make it so that both my sensor and gauge will work.
Appreciate any help, sorry I seem to have a lot of questions and I always ask them here because there seems to be a lot of knowledgeable people here, but don't get me wrong, I do some searches before bothering to bother you guys.
-Ed.
#2
I'm not big on turbo setups or aftermarket ECU's, but if the aem ems thinks it's 130, when you are actually at operating temp, you will be running rich. As you figured out, the thing on the radiator is the fan switch. Did you try splicing to the ECT (engine coolant temp sensor) located at the rear of the intake manifold?
What is your temp gauge on the dash reading when the car is warmed up?
What is your temp gauge on the dash reading when the car is warmed up?
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
Forcedbird
S2000 Forced Induction
41
08-22-2012 03:05 PM