Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill_C
Here is a question for people towing with trucks with diesel engines. Has anyone installed after market gauges? Pyrometer, Boost or transmission temperature gauges. Has anyone actually saved their engine or tranny because they had these gauges installed?
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This depends on what year of truck you are towing with. Also do you have emission controls on your engine or not. On newer trucks the ECM will shut down and place the engine in LIMP mode to prevent any damage to the engine or transmission. Older tucks may require gauges such as trucks built before 2007, since most of these are not computer controlled such as the new trucks are.
Now if you are towing with a truck that has a programmer installed than gauges or a monitoring device is mandatory. Why, the software that has been installed will over ride the code written by the manufacture. The safety features may have been eliminated from the vendor's program that was installed with the new tuner.
I have gauges on my truck and I have had them installed since Aug 09. I constantly monitor my EGT's, Boost and Transmission temps when towing. In the mountains I will down shift my automatic transmission to 5th gear to keep the EGT's under 1450F but watching the Boost pressure to ensure that that stays under 35PSI. Transmission temps usually stay around 200F max.
Why do I keep the Boost pressure under 35PSI? I can't prove my theory but the higher Boost pressures can cause the head gaskets to fail since they can double the drive pressure to the turbo. I don't have the monitoring capability and the turbo air map for my turbo and engine.
just my $0.02