Aftermarket gauges...........

[outlawfrog]

Ok, I've got a 2gauge pillar cluster that I'm gonna get from work. Eventually, I plan on getting two of the fancy digital gauges, that will read four different parameters, plus give 1/4 mile time, etc.
Aeroforce Interceptor Gauges - Double Gauge - Ford Mustang

But since I can't afford to drop $300+ on gauges right now, I'm thinking about temporarily installing a water temp and a oil pressure ( I figured then I could atleast see the #'s they are running at, versus a needle position). Besides, I really can't think of anything else i would need a gauge for...lol
My question is..... mechanical vs electric gauge.
I know the mechanicals, you have to run lines and fittings to "wherever", and basically have the stock gauges disconnected.
I'm assuming that the electric gauges just wire in? Like, would be spliced or tapped off of the stock gauges, or somehow to the computer, like the digital ones would?
Any knowledge, opinions, or experiances would be appreciated.

[Ken Cheema]

sorry cant help with that question but im sure spector V, pure venom or sonic pony should be able too.

good luck.

[outlawfrog]

lol....I think he by-passed me today.

[SpectorV]

You want to go electric, you do not want a feed line (with hot oil or coolant) coming into your car's cabin. Its also a fire hazard. Electric is the ONLY option is what im saying.

You wire the sender unit on the gauge, the sender unit reads the information and sends it to the gauge. I can walk you through it, the hardest part is finding where to put the sender

[Ken Cheema]

there it goes lol

[outlawfrog]

KK.....now i just gotta figure-out which ones i want, and get em ordered. The only ones we carry in stock are the damned mechanicals.

[SpectorV]

the temp sender can go in the coolant line, usually at the highest point in the cooling system there is an access point. You can remove that and put the sender somehow in there~ most cars use flare style fitment (fyi) and you can use the thread stuff that plumbers use to make it water tight.

For oil you probably have a plug on your oil filter area that you can remove and replace with the oil sender. This is how I did them on my 01 v6. Then run the sender wires (neatly) through the firewall up to the gauges.

For powering the gauges you can use your rear defroster for the lights. Open it all up and use a tester to find the wire that is ONLY hot when the parking lights/headlights are on. Thats the wire you can use to power the gauges lights.

For gauge power you can run a wire off the defroster wire that allows the defroster to turn on as it can only come on when the car is on, this should automatically turn the gauges on when the car is on. You can test to see which wire is only hot when the key is in the ignition to the on position.

I would recommend using a relay, basically a box that the power from the defroster goes to that tells the relay "its ok to turn on" then it pull power from the battery and powers the gauges. This keeps you from pulling all the power from the defroster to power the gauges and potentially overloading the defroster power line and blowing the fuse.

I can walk you through all of it in much more detail, its not hard I might not have described it to clear though.

Relay to use to power the gauges, power for lights from defroster, sender wires from sender to gauges. Thats about it... with an inline fuse of course to keep it safe.

Check out autometer lunar series, they are great (green colored so not a perfect match for your blueish color)

Here is a quick diagram~ I think its accurate but its close if not

[outlawfrog]

Sweet! Thanks again. Hopefully I'll be putting that to use soon!

[SpectorV]

Thanks (button) is always appreciated