Maybe i can bring some first hand knowledge to this discussion.

When installing my probe, I drilled and tapped the manifold and forgot to vacuum out the shavings. Upon start-up, the turbo immediately made a blood curdling shreek as if Michael Myers were driving a ratchet coldly into its driving fins. It started to glow deep orange and smoke severely. The time it took me to run from the front of the truck to the cab to shut Betsy down seemed like an eternity of sand washing into the ocean. In the short period of time that my turbo had sucked in the brutal metal shavings and coughed it out the other side, it had almost died a violent death. The smoke continued to bellow out of the turbine wheel as it was microseconds from becoming a towering inferno in the engine bay of my PSD. Only the actions of my always calm wrenching buddy saved our lives as he poured his just opened ice cold Bud Light (10oz) onto the smoldering turbo casing saving it from a horrific death, and who knows what other tragedies.

[/sarcasm]

 

It's not a bandwagon that I started. It's standard practice by all the top Powerstroke diesel performance shops in the country to install pyro probe's either in the driver's side manifold or in the up-pipes, as long as it's installed pre-turbo. This is a standard recommendation, and most diesel shops won't recommend post turbo pyro's. Even Gale Banks recommends a pre-turbo pyro probe.

Ford doesn't install a pyro at all on these trucks. If these engines are bone stock and in proper working condition, you don't need a pyro. But even a pyro on a stock truck can come in handy for when you develop a boost leak or an exhaust leak.... both of which are extremely common and can drive EGT's past the point of melting pistons. So a pyro gauge is not just for performance only, it's to monitor engine health and find potential problems before they cause more damage even on a stock motor.

You still haven't answered my other two questions from my earlier post. How do you know it will work fine?

How would looking at the turbine housing of the turbo have any indication of internal combustion chamber temps, or even any indication of AFR. After all, diesels do not run on a set AFR like a gas engine does.

I'm not sure what your point was here. Can you elaborate?

Head gaskets are more prone to boost issues, not EGT's. Manifolds can handle temps over 1600 degres, same goes with the turbo. The single weak point with temperatures is the pistons, which are aluminum, and melt way before anything else is in danger.

If pieces of your piston are flying off, the damage has already been done and the EGT's were already high to begin with. It's not causing higher EGT's because your engine has already popped at this point.

If you had a pre-turbo pyro probe, you would find out in a hurry that your statement is wrong. Taking your foot out and upshifting to reduce RPM's is the wrong approach to reducing EGT's. That will actually have the opposite effect and increase EGT's. You can run lower EGT's at 3000 RPM's than you will at 1500 RPM's and lugging the engine. On top of that, if you have a problem with a stock engine, you won't know you are doing engine damage unless you have a pre-turbo pyro.

 

Curtis said more then I would in response to this... I will just add...

HUH?