OH MY have I had a night. I started taking my truck apart to install the srt-10 pillar and westach egt/boost combo gauge. I get to the dreaded part - drilling and tapping the exhaust manifold. I decided not to remove the turbo, and to use a magnet and shop vac to get the shavings out, and for that reason, mounted on the horizontal area of the manifold instead of the vertical area right above the turbo flange. Anyway, I drill the hole which went fine, and start to use my pen magnet down inside the hole to sweep up the shavings. The first dip of the magnet got out a few sizeable shavings, and the next few passes yielded just tiny fuzz. Well as I go to make my last pass, disaster happens. My pen magnet tool broke off inside the manifold! I had to drive out to home depot, get another magnet tool and a mechanical pickup tool to try to get it. Nothing I did helped, I could get to the piece, and actually had it stuck on the underside of the drilled hole. The problem is the piece that fell in IS a magnet and is sticking to the manifold, not to mention the fact it's horizontal and too long to come up through the hole that way. I tried and tried eventually breaking my new magnet tool. I gave up and decided I'd try to enlarge the hole and use a 1/4" thermocouple instead. Back to home depot again, got a drill bit, a smaller yet magnet tool, and some seriously building frustration. I came back a few minutes ago and tried one final pass with the new smaller magnet, and miraculously with a spinning motion I hear a SNAP, and the magnet piece that fell in turned on end and came all the way out. It was an inch and a half long! Amazing. I am just coming down from being so po'd that I thought I'd post. Now I just have to tap and make electrical connections. I'm going to be very hesitant to magnet out the shavings after tapping

How tight did you guys torque the thermocouple down into the manifold? I know the boost bolt was a meager 12 ft. lbs... Thank god that went in without a hitch

 

Bummer but congrats on getting it done. I am waiting for the SRT 10 pillar and will take the turbo off to install the probe. Don't want to run into anything like you did!

 

Oh man, that sounds like the gauge install from hell! I'm glad I drilled mine while I had the turbo off, that's something that would happen to me.

 

If I had to do it again, I still would not take the turbo off. I was being **** about sweeping with the magnet for shavings, and it was and old magnet. I had a shop vac next to the bit the whole time I drilled and aside from the very first pass which picked up a few decent shavings, the rest resulted in minute fuzz, nothing that would damage the turbo. It was just incredibly bad luck that my magnet tool broke!! Oh well, I'm on my way down right now to tap and see if I can finish it up.

 

Dang!
Guess I took the easy way. Just tape off the tailpipe, start the engine and start drilling.
I torqued down the pyro fitting till it was snug. Also, don't forget the anti seize.

MikeyB

 

OK guys, I have made progress. The thermocouple is tapped and installed! Yay. Now I've fished the wires for the egt probe and the boost hose through the firewall and up so they are coming out by the a-pillar. Now I'm pretty comfortable hooking up the power to the gauge, but not the light bulb.

Can anyone with the Westach comment on the bulb wiring? I have located the correct wire, the orange with brown stripe (04+) for the dimmer switch, but how do you get the little wires that come off the bulb to reach? They are only a couple inches long, way too short to get from the gauges mounted location to the wire behind the headlight switch. What am I missing here?? Thanks!

 

You're going to have to extend the wires. Gauges always come with like 3" of wire on the bulbs, giving you the 3 feet of wire you need would cost them another quarter.

 

Lightman,
You will need some extra wire to get the reach. I used 16 gauge wire from another project for my wiring. Dual stranded speaker wire (small) will work also.

MikeyB

 

Thanks MikeyB, I was wondering if that was the case. Thats really strange that geno's doesn't include it as part of the kit. Oh well, I guess I only have a few steps left, but it doesn't look like I"m going to finish tonight, seeing as most of the stores where I could get some wire would be closed. I may have to try to dig up my old car stereo equipment and look to scavenge some wire. I hate leaving a project that I'm so close to finishing!

 

FWIW, a few little iron chips aren't going to hurt anything... they're going to blow right past the turbine on startup...

Forrest

 

Just make sure you add enough extra wire in case the pillar has to come off again to work behind it. One thing they don't tell you is that the two plastic tie-wraps are to hold the tubing in place without it popping off. My first run with mine popped the hose off at the engine. Then I had a hissing noise at the guage too! I put 1 tie wrap on the engine side and I made sure I pushed the hose all the way up to the back of the guage and installed the other tie-wrap without pulling so tight that I broke the nipple off. I would recommend the green cover for the bulb as it looks most like stock..
I had to grind my magnet down just to get it through the hole for the EGT but it worked fine..

Good Luck..

 

before i installed mine, i spoke with mark at tst (he was a cummins engineer for over 20 years i believe). i raised my concerns to him about shavings and strands in the manifold after i drill and possible damage and he said that since its on the exhaust side, you have no worries. he said when they used to design and test the engines and turbos, they would drop small pieces of steel and nuts and bolts down into the turbo while running to see the damage and they survived through alot of this heavy abuse. but, if i were you, i would have probably took the same precautions and im glad to hear that you got them out.

 

Ok guys, I"m having some problems still, which at this point are electrical I believe. The egt portion of the gauge is working well. No apparent exhaust leaking around the probe, and the gauge responds quickly and well.

I am having problems with the wiring of the boost gauge and the light. I can't get the light to work under any circumstances. I tapped into the orange wire with the brown stripe per the instructions, the only one on the bottom row. I attached a wire from that wire up to the light bulb, the other half of the wire I attached to a ground. WHen I turn on the ignition and lights, the factory gauges light and dim properly, however I can' t get the westach bulb to light up at all. What am I missing here?

Second problem - I hooked up the boost portion of the gauge properly I believe - the hose from the back of the gauge to the boost bolt, positive to a hot power source, and grounded to some metal and a screw. The problem is that as soon as I hook up the ground wire, the boost gauge goes up to 6psi and will not drop below. Now I started the engine and made a little boost, and the gauge did respond, although slowly. I took off around my circular driveway and the boost got up above the 10psi marker. If I disconnect the ground wire to the boost portion of the gauge, the boost needle instantly drops to 0 and the gauge doesn't work.

I'm pretty inexperienced with electrical hookups, please help!

 

OK guys I got the light working, but still have the issue with the boost gauge.

The boost always settles down to 5psi at idle or even when the truck is off. Under WOT I was able to get up to 26psi (not sure what I'm supposed to make on a stock 305/555. At 70mph I had 650 EGT and 16psi boost. What do you guys think about the boost portion of the gauge?

 

I'm not familiar with the Westach boost gauge, but it sounds to me like something is wrong with it internally. If you've got it hooked to power and ground and it's showing boost, it's screwed up inside. Is there a way to zero it?

Have you checked for power and ground at the light bulb? Is it possible your ground is not a good ground? Does the wire you tapped for power actually have power? How did you tap into it? Scotchlocks don't always work well, I prefer to strip and solder where possible.