cheap/chinese EGT + boost gauges good or a waste of time?

I like numbers and I like gauges. id like to have an EGT + boost gauge in the car. preferably on the steering wheel column.

are these $20 gauges worth it or are they complete garbage like most chinese parts? if I can get one done for sure cheap, id do it. but if itll cost $200 range then im not interested.


https://www.ebay.com/itm/2-52mm-Car...=item56bad585b7:g:8fgAAOSwb8Vb6~lC:rk:14:pf:0


with this cheap pillar mount:


https://www.ebay.com/itm/GlowShift-...=item5649df6aeb:g:H88AAOSwR8haZqTz:rk:26:pf:0




I like this mount but not the gauges:


https://www.ebay.com/itm/PYRO-EGT-E...=item2a89d77dcf:g:JWAAAOSw2GlXHBZb:rk:32:pf:0




I saw this guys gauge on a buy and sell and kinda liked the gauge, as well as its mounting point (steering wheel).


can these be done for cheap or is it not worth it? it itll be hundreds of dollars to do then ill just put that money into well needed maintenance instead.

Before you do any of this are you prepared to drill and tap a hole in the exhaust manifold pre-turbo (lots of threads with pictures on the right spot to drill)?

I'd not do it personally without removing the turbo and manifold (which means the intake manifold has to come off as well) but some have managed in place, although metal chips from drilling getting into the turbo are a concern.

Not the most fun... but that's where the EGT sensor needs to go to be of any use. Those that cheat and put the sensor somewhere easy to drill downstream after the turbo are pretty much throwing their gauge money down the drain... how ever much they spend.

Ahh that’s what it requires eh. I’ve heard of that before back when I was in the Cummins world. Drilling with a vacuum and or magnet. Too scary for me. Not worth it. never mind then. Cancel that. Thanks for the info!

I have a New South Engineering dual steering column pod with VDO 35 psi boost and EGT guage. I drilled the intake manifold and had a mycruiseagent no drill egt that you can buy at Idparts now. Send me a PM

Gauges are only useful if they actually do more than just show you whats going on when your looking.
For the most part, if your going wild with mods, the gauges will help you dial in a system. but if you can get higher than reasonable EGT's your gauge is just for looking at. I have a water injection system for my higher than normal EGT's for example. All my gauges have relays in them so you can set parameters to alarm at so you can keep your eye on the track. I have a auto defuel if anything gets to hot. that way i can focus on the road or track and just wait for an alarm to go off.

Really though, once you dial in a system, gauges are worthless if all they do is display. Oil PSI i have on a cut off, if i loss oil pressure the engine will turn off but only when i make it so by a switch.
AUBER gauges are sweet, some dont like the look of them but its all about function, if you buy a gauge because it looks cool and gives you street cred, DONT

^^ Another utterly false statement by the above poster, please ignore.
No different than stating that the speedo and tach are useless if all they do is display data.
The goal is to inform the driver of conditions that are not otherwise obvious,
allowing a corrective action before harm occurs.

If you have put in larger injectors and have a tune like RC 4.5 you need the EGT and a boost gauge is a great diagnostic tool.

flee said:

^^ Another utterly false statement by the above poster, please ignore.
No different than stating that the speedo and tach are useless if all they do is display data.
The goal is to inform the driver of conditions that are not otherwise obvious,
allowing a corrective action before harm occurs.

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You have never done any racing off the streets, obviously. You never, ever have the chance of watching the tach or speedo or anything when your doing autocross or on a close circuit track. Ask any pro, they all say the same thing. But it's a great tool to have when your on the highway etc.

No problem. The sooner we can off load any kind of manufacturing capability we have to the Chinese the better. It is just so old school retarded that America should have any kind of manufacturing base in anything.
In America, there will always be minimum wage jobs in food service, right? With my Aerospace job that I held for many years, it would have been so awesome if I could have worked for minimum wage in food service were I could have been able to support my family with a poverty wage in a job I was able to be allowed to hold.

It is just so frigging sad that most Americans don't even understand how hard we are being railed by what is become the status quo. The Chinese do not care about intellectual properties or copyrights. To the Chinese, railing us really hard and completely ignoring any sort of intellectual property or copy rights is on us moronic Americans. I cannot believe that anyone would assume that the Chinese would ever agree to actually respecting another countries intellectual property.

Ol'Rattler
Chill out dude, German cars made in Mexico from steel purchased from china that was sold to them from the USA. If you dont like it, do something, otherwise dont say nothing. I dont see you starting a manufacturing business in the usa!

I picked up a simple "off shore" volt meter gauge off Amazon for cheap. It worked great for a week and then the LED brightness dropped to about 30% of original. Pretty cool looking but rather junky in the end. Best to stick with known brands in my opinion.

Can the EGT probe be installed in the EGR block off plate and using the longer probe, get it close to registering meaningful info? The IDparts block off plate has a hole in it and looks like the probe gets installed there but the length is longer to get further into the manifold.

I am looking at an Autometer Cobalt Digital to match my other gauges and was hoping not to drill into the manifold.

PB_NB said:

Can the EGT probe be installed in the EGR block off plate and using the longer probe, get it close to registering meaningful info? The IDparts block off plate has a hole in it and looks like the probe gets installed there but the length is longer to get further into the manifold.

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Yup, but the cost of the probe is beyond the OP's budget it seems, and of course if one deletes the EGR to make room for the sensor there's additional funds needed for an EGR tune.

My experience with the "down the EGR hole" location is that it was damped in comparison to the usual turbo manifold location, but of course that may have been more about the response curve of different K thermocouples and less about the exact location.

PB_NB said:

I picked up a simple "off shore" volt meter gauge off Amazon for cheap. It worked great for a week and then the LED brightness dropped to about 30% of original. Pretty cool looking but rather junky in the end. Best to stick with known brands in my opinion.

Can the EGT probe be installed in the EGR block off plate and using the longer probe, get it close to registering meaningful info? The IDparts block off plate has a hole in it and looks like the probe gets installed there but the length is longer to get further into the manifold.

I am looking at an Autometer Cobalt Digital to match my other gauges and was hoping not to drill into the manifold.

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you can try, but an EGT probe that is not right next to the input of the turbo is just guess work and you have no way to calibrate or anything. Putting a probe in the manifold is actually really easy.
Do as i did, buy a few ring magnets, tap and drill bit, take the intake off, put the ring magnets over the place you will drill and tap, idle the car and go slow with the drill and tap, the magnet will catch anything before it goes into the intake. works perfect for me.

I have a McNally EGT/Coolant Temp combo...... about $275.00



Below, is a look at the many gauges I have in my ALH Vanagon (plus Scan Gauge, not in photo), This is an old pic and some things have been updated/moved.

Top, left-right, EGT/Coolant Combo, Turbo/Vac, Volt (now coolant temp)
Bottom, left-right, Coolant pressure, Vacuum, Volts, Oil pressure)



The more I've paid, the better the gauges have been. The original Volt Gauge (top left) was a VDO made in India.. never lasted long at all. The two bottom right gauges, although still in service, have burned out indicators (VOLTS no longer identified & OIL no longer identified).

https://www.mcnallyelectronics.com/

awesome. good info guys.


I for some reason thought the EGTs could be pulled digitally.. like via the obd port because I downloaded a phone app with gauges and it showed EGT so I thought maybe the ECM might have it somewhere like it does the boost.



but like mentioned, I have important repairs that the car needs first. gotta place the needs before the wants. I figured if I could simply get a set of gauges for $50, simply plug them into a connector somewhere or a pre threaded exhaust port it would be done. but it seems a lot more complicated and expensive than that, for something I dont even need. if its gonna cost me $200+ then I may as well just order the timing belt kit that my car desperately needs first. priorities. ugh.



I do pull a trailer 50% of the time with a dirtbike, or 450lb sled AND do about 80 mph AND try to maintain that speed uphills too (im hard on the ol girl) so would just be interesting to see if the max boost level ever starts to drop over time, or the EGTs ever start to skyrocket, but only if it can be done cheap and easy. which it can not. oh well, now I know!

You can get that info from the ECU if that's your reasoning for this thread. Cheapest solution would be to get a cheap bluetooth OBD2 reader and the Torque app on android. I don't use it, I don't know anything about it, so maybe it will maybe it won't work for your application but that's what I've seen on the boards. There is also a hardware module called POLAR FIS+ that I believe does the same thing but outputs it to your MFD.

Scan gauge II will do that trick. I love mine but he MK3 does not have that ability to show EGT's as its not monitored. If you car has this, scangaugeII will show it and you can program it to show whatever the car has for sensors. But according to your sig, your MK4 does NOT have an EGT monitor. there is not any way for your ECU to get that data, and to be able to monitor it, and log it, (as far as i know) the only gauge that has any ability to do so is an AUBER gauge with the alarm connected to a raspberry Pi with some trick programming though some logic board to send the 5v signal from the gauge to the PI as an input. These AUBER gauges are designed for food prepossessing and other types of prepossessing machines, i don't know everything about Auber but it would seem logical that they would have some standalone logging for there gauges.

Yes the ECM will tell you boost but if you want EGT you need to buy what I have which is a dual pod with EGT gauge. No it was not cheap but I can compete with any scan guage price and then buy the no drill EGT from idpart. This setup is on the shelf in my garage and I am moving towards single pod with boost. .

Curious Chris said:

Yes the ECM will tell you boost but if you want EGT you need to buy what I have which is a dual pod with EGT gauge. No it was not cheap but I can compete with any scan guage price and then buy the no drill EGT from idpart. This setup is on the shelf in my garage and I am moving towards single pod with boost. .

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The OP has an '04 with the BEW PD engine so, IIRC, EGT should be able to be read from the ECU on a ScanGauge or one of the OBD II apps.

1854sailer, that's interesting to know. I've done maintenance on only one BEW, including VCDS scan. I never saw anything about EGTs, but I wasn't looking for it either.

Thanks for sharing...

1854sailor said:

The OP has an '04 with the BEW PD engine so, IIRC, EGT should be able to be read from the ECU on a ScanGauge or one of the OBD II apps.

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The only sensors in the exhaust on the BEW engine are an oxygen sensor before the catalytic converter.

I've never seen EGT with VCDS on my car. I don't think that's available. Would be happy if someone says I'm wrong and it does.

Hey, Mike, I'm only saying this because the PD BHW in our old B5.5 Passat had an EGT probe. Are the PD BEW and BRM's different? Edit: I meant other than being 1.9L instead of 2.0L of course.

Mike_04GolfTDI said:

The only sensors in the exhaust on the BEW engine are an oxygen sensor before the catalytic converter.
I've never seen EGT with VCDS on my car. I don't think that's available. Would be happy if someone says I'm wrong and it does.

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