No, they are really very easy to install. To measure boost is to measure some pretty low PSI air pressure. To install mine I installed a new plastic line from the fitting at the back end of the intake manifold.
How to Install a Boost Gauge on Vehicles by Contributing Writer; Updated June 12, 2017 Installing a boost gauge on your Vehicles Turbo allows you to more effectively monitor the turbo's running boost and keep an eye on its performance, helping you dial in the car's performance, your driving style and the precise amount of boost to run in a.
That line goes to a few other attachments, but on our vehicles it ends up at the ALDA. So with your boost guage, (I got mine from Harbor Frieght), you most likely will get some plastic line and a plastic tee which fits various sizes of plastic tubing. Pick an empty spot in the big rubber plug which is in the firewall and through which much of the vacuum and electrical wires are routed.
The big problemo is where to mount the guage. I mounted three gauges in the ash tray opening, just forward of the console.
Not the best place visually, but where else you goina go with em. The guages are 2 1/4 inch I think, maybe 2 1/8, but they mount in there very nice. If you didn't want to mount it permanently you could lay it on a seat and even in the console. I really wanted to find a purely boost gauge, mostly they come as boost and vacuum, two scales, one for boost and the other for vacuum. That works good for cars with turbo's because they still need vacuum. Diesel don't have any manifold vacuum, so that part of the system is not used. If the guage read only pressure, the scale could have been much larger and easier to read.
![Install Install](/uploads/1/2/5/4/125448556/288243560.jpg)
I installed mine on my W123. I have a 15 psi VDO gauge in my '87 300D Turbo (W124, OM603) purchased from egauges.com.
It's the right-hand gauge in the picture. Works great, looks like the factory gauges (also made by VDO). There should be an extra 10mm port in your intake manifold, next to the overboost protection switch, closed off with a plug. Get a 1/8' NPT to 1/16' tubing adapter; it will screw into the 10mm hole as the two threads are almost the same. Use Teflon® tape to prevent leaks and don't overtighten. You can get tubing kits along with the boost gauge from egauges.com.
Run the tubing through the firewall and to wherever you want the gauge. Remember that your engine will show no boost at idle and very little even if you rev up the engine.
The engine must be under load (you have to drive the car) before much of anything will show on the boost gauge. If your turbo is set up correctly, boost should top out at about 13 psi. At a steady freeway speed the boost should be about 5 psi. I have a 15 psi VDO gauge in my '87 300D Turbo (W124, OM603) purchased from egauges.com. It's the right-hand gauge in the picture. Works great, looks like the factory gauges (also made by VDO).
There should be an extra 10mm port in your intake manifold, next to the overboost protection switch, closed off with a plug. Get a 1/8' NPT to 1/16' tubing adapter; it will screw into the 10mm hole as the two threads are almost the same. Use Teflon® tape to prevent leaks and don't overtighten. You can get tubing kits along with the boost gauge from egauges.com. Run the tubing through the firewall and to wherever you want the gauge. Remember that your engine will show no boost at idle and very little even if you rev up the engine.
The engine must be under load (you have to drive the car) before much of anything will show on the boost gauge. If your turbo is set up correctly, boost should top out at about 13 psi. At a steady freeway speed the boost should be about 5 psi. Jeremy That's a pretty slick set up!
I wouldn't mind doing it that way myself. I might do that eventually. Those VDO gauges do look much better than the Glowshift gauges. I'll be able to do this more easily than i thought!
Thanks for the pictures! It'll be interesting to see how much boost the turbo has been putting out. Seems like it has been getting a little lazy, lately. I have a 15 psi VDO gauge in my '87 300D Turbo (W124, OM603) purchased from egauges.com.
It's the right-hand gauge in the picture. Works great, looks like the factory gauges (also made by VDO). There should be an extra 10mm port in your intake manifold, next to the overboost protection switch, closed off with a plug. Get a 1/8' NPT to 1/16' tubing adapter; it will screw into the 10mm hole as the two threads are almost the same. Use Teflon® tape to prevent leaks and don't overtighten. You can get tubing kits along with the boost gauge from egauges.com. Run the tubing through the firewall and to wherever you want the gauge.
Remember that your engine will show no boost at idle and very little even if you rev up the engine. The engine must be under load (you have to drive the car) before much of anything will show on the boost gauge. If your turbo is set up correctly, boost should top out at about 13 psi. At a steady freeway speed the boost should be about 5 psi.
Jeremy Jermey - you're awesome. I'm having turbo issues and have been told I need to install a gauge - this is the slickest setup I've seen yet - thanks for posting this. BTW - my name is Jeromie too!
I was asked how I had wired up my gauges in my XR6 when I realised I couldn’t find anywhere that specifically showed you, so I thought I would do a write up on it! As I had done this quite a while ago, I can’t remember where I purchased my items from, but you can get them at most auto shops, or from online stores and ebay! You will need to purchase a mount for the gauges (You can get single, double and even triple mounts for the BA-BF falcons that go above the ICC) as well as the gauges to put in them. I purchased a double gauge holder, similar to the ones that were included in the FPV range.
I also purchased a vacuum/boost gauge (This was mainly the one I wanted) as well as a voltage gauge (This was originally purchased just as an easy to install substitute to fill the second pod, but has worked out well as I’m installing the carputer) What you purchase is up to you, but to install them is all going to be different, except for the wiring of the ground, power, ignition and illumination (which I’ll show you here) The easiest and least intrusive way I found to wire my gauges up was to connect them to the plug that lies behind the fuse box located in the cabin. It was originally intended to be used for bluetooth hands-free car kits, but as I have none, it was trivial to just use that. To do this though, you will need to purchase a 4 pin auto plug to connect your wiring to. I bought mine from Jaycar Electronics, cat code:.
If you do however have a hands-free kit using it, you could splice into the wires, otherwise maybe find another source for your wiring. I also wired the illumination up to the traction control and fog light switch. First things first, when working with anything electrical in the car, it’s always wise to disconnect the battery. Now to remove the top of the ICC, you’ll just need to stick a credit card at the back of it, and pry it upwards and out, it should just clip off as you pry it.
Then, you’ll need to remove the ICC, which you can find instruction on. You might be able to do this without removing the ICC, and by just feeding the cables down, but I had no luck. Now you’ll need to get the wiring that came with your gauges, and feed the cable down the drivers side behind the dash, until you can see them coming through the foot well. Then just pull them through until you have just enough wire above the ICC to plug the gauges in. Then you’ll need to wire up your plug.
What you’ll need to do is get the power, ground and ignition wire from each gauge, strip the wires, and twist them together (i.e. Twist the each of the power wires together, each of the gorund, etc.).
Then using a lug crimper, crimp each one to their own male spade lug. Then, insert each lug into the respective spot shown in the diagram below (note, the bottom right is not used, it was originally intended to mute the audio for phone calls): Once you’ve done that, remove the fuse box cover that’s located to the right under the steering wheel. Now I removed the fuse box, to give you a better idea of what is behind it, but you can fairly easily connect it without removing it, and just by feeling it instead.
There is only one plug that will fit behind there, so you can’t plug it into anything incorrectly. To remove the fuse box, disconnect the brown plug. Then unscrew each of the 3 bolts shown below. Then the remove each of the 5 plugs that are attached to the back of the fuse box, as well as unclipping the white OBDII connector.
![Turbo boost gauge install Turbo boost gauge install](/uploads/1/2/5/4/125448556/114799245.jpg)
And finally, you can unclip the boot release as well. This is the socket we want to be plugging into, the blue one: Once you have connected your plug into the hands free socket behind the fuse box, then reattach the fuse box by just reversing the instructions. Next, you will need to connect the illumination wire. To do this, I just tapped into the illumination wire located behind the traction control and fog light switch, to the left of the steering wheel. Just unclip the whole thing (switches and plastic housing) by inserting a screwdriver on the left hand side of it, and prying outwards. Then, using a quick splice connector (such as ), use a small length (say 200mm) of wire to splice into it.
The illumination wire is shown below. On the other end of your wire, just crimp a male spade terminal. Then strip your illumination wires for each of the gauges, twist them together, and crimp a female spade terminal to the end.
Then connect these two together. And that’s all you need for the wiring! I then connected the hose for the boost gauge to the blow off valve. Here is where I put it through the firewall: Now, when re-installing the ICC, there are two things I had to do. Firstly, I had to cut a little bit out for the wires to fit through (I used a hot knife).
You also need to watch the wires near the air vents, as the wires seem to like to sit in front of them as shown. As you slowly put the ICC back in, use a screwdriver or something similar to make sure the wires aren’t pinched in the air vent.
Then screw everything back together, connect your battery, and try it out! Turn on your headlights to make sure your illumination is working and also change the colour of your gauges (if they support it). If you remove the keys and put them back in, and your colour stays the same, then everything is wired correctly! Please note, when you’re testing a boost gauge, it will sit at 0, and will not go into boost while your car is in neutral or park.