Thermo fans and gauge senders

[byroncobra]

Fellas
Any recommendations for 16" fan to suit my new radiator?
The prices vary from $250.00 from Harrison to $40.00 on ebay. Wondering if you get better cooling with curved or straight blades with some drawing more amps than others.
Does $120.00 sound about right for a thermo switch, relay, circuit breaker and wiring?

Also I'm sorting out temp and pressure senders supplied with my VDO gauges, the Ford engine loom already has connections on it that feeds back to main loom and computer. Does the computer need this info to function or can I pick up these wires and connect to the gauges? If not I guess I'll run separate wires from sender to gauge.

Thanks for any advice.
Greg

[vettestr]

Greg,
Electrical gauges and their sender are matched to each other or at least to the brand and its temp range. The sender is just a variable resistor but if it has the wrong resistance the readings will be wrong.

Computer controlled engines use the coolant temp along with ambient air temp and others inputs to adjust the fuel injection. I think you may want to run new wires to your VDO gauges.

[sideshow]

yr ford engine is all old school

should have 1 wire for oil pressure switch for dash
and a temp sender for the temp gaiuge in the dash
just find these sensors and replace them with the vdo ones
then trace the wires back to the inside of the car
none will goto the engine ecu
just dont confuse the engine coolant temp sender witht he gauge temp sneder
the gauge is one wire
coolant temp is 2 wire

[Merv and Sharon]

Also of interest to me Greg, as that is what I have done. I used the Classic Instruments senders (for their gauges) and ran a wire for the temp gauge sender and used the Ford harness connection to the engine coolant temp sender. I got a good themofan with adjustment from Repco. Seems to work fine and it cuts in well and does its job.

Merv

[Krait]

Greg,

In regards to blade design: Advanced curved blades cleave the air to reduce noise and amps by enabling each blade to seamlessly continue working as the previous blade finishes. Effectively the leading edge of one blade starts working as the root of another blade finishes work and as a result the electrical energy used is up to 30% less, because current draw is level, without the rise and fall of the electrical surges caused by chopping the air with straight fan blades (Kenlowe website)

Cheers

[sideshow]

spal make very good fans
i run a 16in super slim
and they have a new design these days extreme air i think its called
but u have to use heavy duty relays and fuses
but they **** on davis craig fans which i rarely use these days

[byroncobra]

Thanks Fellas

Sideshow, let me clarify...the engine loom has an oil pressure switch sender and single wire connection from the ford loom located down low in the block, a single wire and sender on the lefthand side of the intake manifold for coolant temp switch and another two wire sender on the righthand side of the manifold for coolant temp gauge.

So none of these need to connect to the ECU for engine/EFI management, I can just pick up these wires (or just run new ones) straight to my VDO instruments and/or dash warning lights.

Is this correct?

Thanks

[sideshow]

just use the single wire senders
one shuld be oil and the other water temp

the 2 wire one might be for the ecu so leave that one alone

[byroncobra]

thanks sideshow

[Ron61]

Just something that I added to my Cobra for extra peace of mind. I never had the ECU unit or anything to worry about and my fan thermostat was adjustable over a fairly wide range. But just for extra peace of mind, I took a lead off the thermostat and ran it through a toggle switch on the dash and another relay so that if the fan relay or fuse for the thermostat lead blew, I could run the fan manually with the toggle switch until I got home and could fix the problem.

Ron

[Merv and Sharon]

That is a good idea Ron, I did that with my MGA and it was very useful.

Merv