I sold my old trailer and am in the process of buying an 2011 Arctic Fox 27-5L. This trailer (GVWR 12000lbs) is almost 2000lbs heavier than my old one. The truck in my signature has all stock power components and no extra gauges or monitoring. With this heavier trailer, I know I need to add some gauges. I want to monitor at least EGTs and trans temp. Most gauge sets are sold in 3s, so what is the best 3rd gauge to get (boost, fuel pressure, etc.)? What brand is best? I had them on my A-pillar in my last truck. Is there a better location for them?

 

Egt and temp in the outgoing trans oil line IMHO would be most critical.

If I were to pick a 3rd gauge it would be boost.

 

I have always used the ISS EGT/Boost gauge only. On the 09 I used the srt10 pillar and it looked stock.

 

Smarty Touch, awesome gauge package and decent tuning too.

 

The Smarty Touch looks very interesting. However, I don't think it monitors transmission temps which is major to me in towing with an auto.

 

The most common gauges used are pyrometer (EGT), boost, and fuel pressure, and transmission temperature. But of those is best determined by the model truck because not all trucks need the same things monitored. For instance, a fuel pressure gauge is mandatory for the VP trucks but no so much for other injection pump type trucks. EGT's are necessary to monitor for ANY truck towing, knowing boost is a great tool for diagnostics, and transmission temperature is worth knowing if tow heavy enough.

Other than that, the highest quality gauges are ALWAYS the best choice because there's no point in not trusting what a cheap gauge is possibly telling you. Gauges are 10% aesthetics, 90% function so quality is very important.

The highest quality analog type gauges are ISSPRO, Autometer, Stewart Warner, Dakota Digital, and a few others. And there's always the digital LCD screen option which comes with some performance boxes, and I believe you can run them without the boxes and use as a consolidated gauge console.

 

IMHO in your situation, transmission temp, with the probe mounted in the line discharging from the transmission, would be the most important.

From what I've seen, with a totally stock engine, boost will never get excessively high, and you really have to hold the pedal to the floor on a long grade before EGT's get up there high enough for me to consider backing off.

I don't know much about autos, but I bet if a person wasn't paying attention and let it hunt, or repeatedly start to unlock, a stock truck could get the 48re quite hot.

I agree with the above, in that monitoring lift pump pressure is not as necessary on the 3rd gen trucks. On the VP44, apparently the engines would continue to run with no lift pump pressure, but doing so for long would trash the injection pump. When a lift pump fails on a 3rd gen, it seems to kill the engine promptly.

 

Good advice. I had boost, trans temp and pyro gauges in my Ford truck. I think I can easily get by with trans temp and pyro for this truck. Now to find a gauge pod that makes sense.

 

The Touch has trans temps for my 03 but i know the 04.5 guys are hit n miss for it showing for some reason.

 

I ended up getting an Edge Insight CTS2 gauge and a pyro sensor. It does monitor trans temp from the ODBII port - probably the same source as your Touch.

 

Edge Insight CTS2 gauge is also the best option. I have used it once and had a great experience.