Exhaust Gas Temperature and chip upgrades

I have a VDO EGT in a dashpod, with Temp and Boost guage's my car.

I reckon your nuts not to if you have an aftermarket turbo, or start tinkering with yours.

Cheap insurance for sure.

Phil,

Unless you change air/gas flow as well as adding a chip, ie: exhaust and air inlet, turbo... then you are injecting more fuel and /or at different timings, therefore EGT would also be different (please note the word "different")....

All diesel tuning should be done with an EGT... weather you choose to install one permanently or not is up to you....

I fitted a pyrometer to my GU 4.2TD. Would not be with out it. Since turbo and exhaust tmods, MTQ and 3", I am running significantly lower egt for a lot more power. Also run a boost gauge, pays to keep an eye on every thing. Pyrometer is Isspro, colour coded one, VDO boost gauge. Hope this helps.

Exhaust gas temperature is the only real time indication available for engine load. The inlet temperature to the turbo is the primary factor involved in turbocharger life. It follows that at prolonged elevated combustion temperatures all other components of the engine are affected. On larger installations seperate pyrometers are used for each cylinder, and in some engines each exhaust valve outlet, and are invaluable for engine condition and performance monitoring.
It is a bit of a mystery why manufacturers of small high speed diesels as fitted to vehicles do not monitor exhaust gas temperature. In the case of those with an ECU it would be a simple matter to cut back the fuel before damage occurs, in conventional engines a guage or idiot light would give some warning. It would certainly stop people lugging in fifth gear. Having read of the failures in Nissan 3 litre engines on this forum most of them seem to involve a holed piston, this is a classic failure due to prolonged combustion temperature problems and I would say that an EGT guage would be cheap insurance for these units, even if it is not the only cause. If it does not get hot enough it cant melt, simple as that. I would not be without an EGT and boost guage in that order and it will almost certainly change some of your driving habits to the advantage of engine life if you fit one for the first time.

Tuning Chips
There is an exellent paper on how chips work or should work.
Any body considering buying a cheap performance boosting chip should read this.

Soooooo..... on my venerable 1KZ-TE in the Prado, being a small block turbo unit, do I have anything to worry about? Should I be fitting a guage?

Or being a factory unit is it a case of "In Toyota we trust?"

Is this post purely for those who add aftermarket turbos and/or tuning chips?

Muddy 'doe

No Steven,
You don't need to worry about it on yours as it is all standard. If you want a chip then go Dtronic becaus eof that units in built safety as go_off road alludes to0.

I'd have to agree with GUPatrol - if a chip increases fuelling while the air flow remains the same, it must cause increased EGT.
While my vested interest is obvious, I would think very wise to measure EGT on any turbo-diesel engine that's had [i]any[/i] performance enhancement - either 'chipping' an electronicly-controlled engine or injection pump 'tuning' on mechanically-injected engines.
Even 'standard' engines which are used for heavy work or towing can be damaged by excessive EGT if there's an air flow restriction [clogged filter, collapsing air hoses/ducts, low (yes, low!) boost pressure]. And, IMHO, there's several engines around that should never have been let out of the factory without an EGT gauge - see the notes earlier in the thread about the Patrol 3.0