wwmost

does anyone know where a easy to get to 12 volt wire is soo i can tap it and get it to hook up to my radar detector. a wire that goes on and off with the car. im gonna tap my raptor shift light when it comes in the mail in a wire in my kick panel but i dont know if i should tap the same wire twice. any body have any ideas?

jmmorgan82

if your car is a coupe, you can run it to where the convertible switch is supposed to be. At least with my 97 thats the source I tapped in to for my fog-light re-wire. For some reason which I do not understand that plug is Hot when it has no function?

HaV

Fog light or your stereo. Either are pretty simple to get to. Cig lighter is by far the easiest (just pull the outer shifter boot and your there). You could wire in button switch as well so it wasnt on all the time.. Would only take 10 or so min to do.

wwmost

well the only reason i want to wire it to my car is soo it will goin on when i turn my car on and go off when i turn my carr off. the valentine one came with a think soo you can just pop it over the wire and it will runn off of there. i dont watn to use the ciggarrette lighter because that stays on even when the car iss off.

IWinULose

You can't use the fog light switch either unless you run with parking lights on. Power is only distributed to that switch when p-lights are on. Cig lighter is indeed on all the time as well. I have used the accessory lead on the back of my stereo/cd player before. You could also use this wire to flip a relay, and then run a hard wire from your battery in to the radar detector or whatever, with the relay being in the middle of the wire, and the when your accessories come on, it flips the relay allowing the hard wired power to come from the battery. I would persoanlly just use the accessory wire on the back of the radio, as the radar detector doesn't draw very much.

Voodoo

stick the wire in with a fuse (kidna crude but it works) or buy a fuse tap from the auto store.

2000GT4.6

I used this thing called a "tappafuse" from my local parts store for my gauges. It slips over one leg of your fuse, and has a male connector sticking out. Nice clean install.

Make sure you use the fused side so there are no problems though.

BBond007

Yeah,

I was going to suggest that same device.

The best ones allow for an additional fuse for whatever you are powering.

I used one of them to power my XM Roady radio.

Those things get HOT and you don't want them running all the time.

Anyway, you don't want to have any cheapo cig-lighter converters/adapters running 24/7.

I have seen those things catch on fire...

wwmost

where can i get a tapafuse that you guys are talking about? im not really the best electricion guy soo is there any pointers. and also is the fuse box located on the drivers side? what fuse do i tap?

MTShambles

Radio hotwire is where i did my valentine hardwire install.

Now, as far as that little ditty about the foglights, you CAN do it with just the fogs, but you have to do some extra splicing to get the fogs to run independantly of the headlight switch. Yes it is possible, and its not too hard to do, but you have to have your fogs on all the time.

Best thing to do is to run it off of the radio hotwire behind the deck. To pull that radio out just get a coathanger and bend the sucker, run it in the holes and pull out. Fairly simple. Look for the 12V wire ( I dont remember if on the stock radio its marked). Its best to do it from there because its easy to run the wire underneath your dash and up the A-Pillar, then across your headliner to the radar detector.

Just my .02