The pyrometer in your diesel truck measures the temperature of the exhaust. Because running at 1350 degrees Fahrenheit or over for an extended period of time can cause damage to the pistons, you want to make sure you have a system in place that always provides you with an accurate reading. Installing a good pyrometer will help with that.
- Start by drilling the smallest hole possible on a flat spot on the driver’s side exhaust manifold. Then slowly move up in drill bit sizes until you get to size “R”. Doing this with the engine running helps to blow the shavings away.
- Use a lubed 1/8” NPT Tap to thread the hole. (The lube will help capture any possible leftover shavings).
- Install the pyro probe and tighten to fit.
- Run the wires to the top of the engine bay.
- Wires hook up to the sending unit.
As a side note: don’t splice or cut the wires that hook up to the sending unit as the pyrometer might not work properly if you do.
Installing the gauge
Hooking up and powering the gauge can be a fun task for some and the most annoying part of the process for others. Because there are so many mounting options for gauges, we’re going to focus on just one: the A-pillar mount.
- Pull down the weather door seal from around the door frame.
- Gently pry off the A-pillar cover.
- Look inside the engine compartment under the master brake cylinder for a diamond-shaped piece of plastic (only on automatic transmissions) and pull off the plastic.
- On the inside, near where the computer is mounted there is a foam piece you’ll need to remove.
- Drill a hole in the plastic piece big enough for the wires to be fed through.
- Feed your gauge wires through the drilled hole and into the cab of the truck.
- Find a grounding location for the gauge set.
- Run your wires (power supply wire, dash wire and ground wire) and check the lighting and backlighting of the gauge. Make sure the light is on with the key and not at all times.
- Drill holes for the side plastic pins and in the factory pillar cover for the wires to run through.
- Hook up your wires from step 8 to the gauge wires.
- Feed the gauge wiring harness ends through the holes you drilled in the A-pillar cover and mount the gauge pod to the cover using the supplied plastic pins.
- Attach the gauge to the wiring harness and gently push the gauge into the gauge hole.
- Put the door weather stripping back and you’re done.
All you need to do now is test your finished product. Turn on your truck and let it idle a few minutes to ensure that the pyrometer is working properly.
If you put probe in one side you are only getting readings from that side .now you have gauge installed and reading one side and the other side is running lean or dumping fuel you won’t know of problem because you are reading from the side you have probe. I am know expert but it makes sense to get readings from both sides. Put in down pipe adjust for being cooler or top of why pipe connector. Diesels need heat and compression to run just remember that when it comes up on compression stroke fuel deliverd explosion happens at what temps ????