I tried that. The gauges would dim slightly, but not much. Even when the dash lights went completely dark, the gauges were still too bright.

The gauges are nice - just that the LED is too bright.

 

Try putting a fixed resistor inline with the power that provides the back-light to the gauges. It'll take a bit of guesswork, or a little math if you know the wattage of the LED(s) in the gauges. Either way, it'll work--ohm's law is your friend
EDIT: I did some fast research and came up with this... Your gauges have either 2 watt or 3 watt LED's. To reduce the output by ~25% on a 2 watt LED, start with 50 ohm's of inline resistance. If that's not enough try 100 ohm's...
Check out this site: LED Dimmer

 

I don't post very often, but I do love this forum. This has been most helpful. I read the URL about dimming and noted that blue and white LEDs seem to use more power. Mine are blue so I think I will start out with 100 ohms and see what happens.

Thanks a bunch and I'll be at Radio Shack in the morning.

 

Jim,
when you go to Radio shack, pick up the following:
(these will be around a buck for a pack of 5)
a small pack of 1/4 watt 680 ohm
and a pack of 1k ohm resistors (or thereabouts)
and the same at 1.2 ohms (or thereabouts) and a pack of the next higher value they have in the 1/4 watt selection which would be about 1.4k (or thereabouts)

these are about the values you will need for your gauge install.
use one resistor for each gauge. You will find that each gauge may require a slightly different value. If you're lucky they will be the same but that is rare.

When I installed my gauges, I couldn't tell any difference untill I tried a 680 ohm resistor, however I ended up installing mainly 1k ohms and a 1.2k ohm for my L.E.D. autometer gauges. Now my gauges dim nicely with the dashboard.
Good luck

 

I did tie mine in to the dash dimmer. When I talked to Dennis at ITP(after two of the Autometer LED dimmer controls didn't work out) about the gages being brighter than the dash we came to the conclusion that it was due to the gages being LED and the dash being incandescent bulbs. Since mine are mounted under the dash it's not a big problem though I may end up trying the resistors or a rheostat for gage illumination control. I just have not done it yet, maybe I will get pics when I have it apart for that install...

 

Get a moniter like a Bully-Dog etc. I moniter 2 egt's, pre and post turbo, volts, and true boost. It has a lot of options including true mph by factoring in exact tire diameter...........Good Luck

 

Two problems that I have had with digital monitors that use the OBD-II connection.

1. They rely on the Ford gauges and I have noticed(particularly with the tranny) that some of those gauges give off a cooler reading then what I get with the analog gauges. Which isn't a good thing, because their are parts of what you are monitoring that are hotten then what you are reading so therefore, you run the risk of burning something up despite the fact that your monitoring the gauges. Now you can compensate for that if you know the difference between the two readings and set your warnings accordingly.

2. Monitors that come from companies that also due tuners typically only allow you to use their programms with their monitors. That makes it limited for you if you wanted someone else's tuner but wanted a different monitor. If you want a monitor despite reason 1 above then you want to get something like the dashhawk or dashdaq or something that does not have built in tunes(like the bully dog PMT or even the outlook as it doesn't have an option for "outlook w/other" for the 6.0ls anymore).

 

Tex, mines is an 04 so I have no boost guage to worry about. The trans temp gauge took the volt meter out which is important to me. I monitor 2 EGTs which have nothing to do with the OB.

I have no intent to ever add a power adder of any kind. Ford added power to the real stock 6.0's before putting it in the pickups to be on a par with GM. I wish I could detune mine to the original levels which I believe was 265 HP from the 325 HP. Everyone has there own agenda with their personal vehicles and that's how a lot of aftermarket folks make there $$'s.

Since my truck has done everything I have ever wanted with only some very minor changes I chose to do and I may be one of the lucky ones who has never had any problems; I'll just do what I do and read about the rest.....Good Luck

 

Great point, jimmy-six. I forgot how much I used to monitor the volt gauge on previous trucks.

 

I would actually worry about not having a boost gauge as there are alot of problems with the turbo that can happen even with stock trucks and you won't know about it as easily without one.

Tranny gauge has to go thru the OBD-II and when I had the outlook it read 30 degrees cooler then it did when I added the analog gauge. Your right about the egt's but not about the other two that you monitor. Also how did you lose the volt gauge, I didn't lose mine when I upgraded to the tranny temp software on mine? Speaking of volt gauge, the outlook is also off by .6 compared to analog, due to the resistance that the reading has before it gets to the computer that the outlook derives it's info from.

What selection did you use for the main menu, as I don't recall that they have an "outlook but stock" option on the main menu, so as far as the outlook "knows" you have some power adder on there. Unless I'm remembering wrong which is possible. I do remember for the 6.0 they did away with the option "outlook w/other" when they added the tranny temp software, which means your stuck with their stuff. Also you can detune your truck by means of custom tuning, but your outlook will not work with that unless you have it believe that your running one of their program adders which I was advised against by a bullydog rep when I first made the convert to SCT.

 

That's correct. I believe the reason is that the factory gauges are regular incandescent lamps whereas the autometer gauges are LED. This is the reason for the discrepancy between the brightness of a set of after market gauges and the factory cluster.
The way to balance this out is to install a resistor between each gauge. I've found that each gauge brightness is slightly to significantly different in brightness from one another. The use of a 1k ohm resistor is a good value to start with when balancing factory to after market LED gauges. Some will require maybe 900 ohms, some up to 1.4k ohms.
The gauges I used (autometer) have 4 different values to balance each one to the others and I have them set slightly brighter than Ford's factory instrument cluster.
Hope this helps your needs as it did mine.

 

Anyone know if the DiProcol Guages with the Blue pointer and white face with chrome bezzel has the same problem? Anyone here runnin em? Good or Bad.I had the regular black on black in my 04 with no issues. These ones seem to match the Lariat guages the best.

Sarge