so now ya got me thinking. I have a pyro, boost and fuel pressure gauge. And with a 5 speed im not to worried bout the trans temp right now. So what would be the next gauge (dont want to repeat whats already on the dash at this point) Oh and what is a drive pressure gauge?

Thanks,
Josh

and yes the drive pressure gauge might be a dumb question but...

 

im with josh what is drive pressure? and what the crap is the guage in the bottom left right corner on the 12v's i really thought that was engine oil temp?

 

oil pressure is whats in the stock cluster, the reason you want to watch your oil pressure is because you can tell alot about the motor from it. you can tell if the oil has thined out and is at operating temp as the pressure will decrease as the oil thins(so long as your running a multi weight oil like you should), you can tell if a shop put the wrong weight oil in if you had a shop change your oil, you can tell if your oil pump is failing, ect.

drive pressure is the measure of exhaust drive pressure on the exhaust turbine. you want to tune your turbo in to where its most efficient, if your drive pressure is higher then the boost your putting out your turbo is no longer effiecient, its obvious at this point that you are really working the turbo to hard. i think its more important on a 12v cummins because the intake track is such a bottle neck compared to a modern higher performance diesel(a turbo that makes 50pound on our truck would make 20 on a duramax for example), i would think this puts alot of strain on the turbo making it really easy to be running the turbo past where its efficient. iv never monitored the drive pressure on my truck so i cant say for sure but i want to for this reason.

another thing to keep in mind for any guages in general is that everything can be tuned in and operating right where you want it to but once you hook up to a trailer everything is going to change and you need to watch everything again, no state of tune is perfect for every situation.

 

do you know how to dienos and fix the temp gage on 98 dodge diesel

 

on the 2nd gen 12 valves are there any good aftermarket intakes, ones that dont bottle neck? if so whats a really good one that you guys would suggest?

 

if you have the three main gauges, (pyro, boost, and tranny if its an auto) i would suggest possibly a fuel pressure gauge or a good after market oil pressure gauge. I understand that fuel pressure isnt nearly an issue with our P7100 pumps, but its still handy for trouble shooting purposes. and for the after market oil pressure gauge, well i know my gauge in my cluster geeks out and drops below the range and almost to zero once and awhile when there is a drop in rpm's, like when it shifts from 1 to 2 or when the TC locks is when it really does it, but from what I have read our stock gauge isnt of the greatest quality so it would be nice to have a good mechanical oil pressure gauge you can rely on. Just my 2 cents.