Pyrometer EGT Temperatures whats yours

[Doug67]

Only had mine wired up since the middle of November, mine is close to the turbo in the dump pipe. The highest I've seen is about 605 degrees driving up to Barrington Tops at Christmas, 3rd gear around 2100rpm with a DP21 chip, Unifilter prefilter plus Unifilter shnozle prefilter (snorkle internal )K&N Filter, standard exaust, four people and 50kg of gear in the back, the road was very steep. I notice if your in a higher gear using the torque of the motor the tempertures are higher than reving in a lower gear. I have yet to go to the beach and see high it would go. I drove around for a few days before Christmas and the temperatures where a lot lower without the chip. Normal driving highest has been about 500 degrees under load 3rd gear 2000rpm.

[Doug67]

Macca01 don't you hassle me mate.

[Doug67]

Going to Blacksmiths beach this arvo to show my son how to catch beach worms so I'll see how the temperature goes on the EGT.

[9W6VX]

Doug,

605 Celsius is very high.

If your probe is after the turbo, then you must not exceed 500 Celsius. If your probe is before turbo then your maximum is 700 Celsius.

The highest I have ever touched was 430 Celsius on a hot humid day, going up a very steep hill on 1 st gear and loaded with I guess about 150 to 200 kgs at the back end.

My DPchip does not increase the pyrometer EGT under normal driving conditions though.

You would need to back off the go pedal there and go down to 2nd gear and let the temperatures go down.

I'm not trying to teach you to suck eggs as you seem to be an experienced off-roader. This is a phrase I borrowed from Mark (Tomuch). Do a search Doug on the internet and you will note that this maximum numbers are used by many as a yardstick.

My humble 2 cents.

Cheers

Brendon

[Macca]

Doug old mate, the increased air flow from a lower gear probably helps with the reduced temp. Hope thats not a hassle.
P.S. Im chipless and might stay that way after reading the recent posts.
Macca
P.S., P.S. how did you go with the TT?

[Doug67]

Hassle free Macca01

TT Out of Town 4wd fixed my lecking front diff yesterday (under warranty air locker) so I asked them to have a look, am I going crazy or what they said on the Toyota Hilux it does not work locking with the key whilst the Turbo timer is on, is this correct????? Hassle macca was I was expecting a speech on the benifiets of one of those Steinbuiges or what ever their called you said you where getting for yours HaHa.

Humble 9w6vx

Yes it is hot that's why I'm posting about it here, I have just remove both my prefilters and going to see if that makes any difference. I'm heading to the beach now which is probably the worst case thing I could throw at the lux.

[Macca]

Mate the stienbaueris wired in, if it throws a wobly in the trip from Alice, Mt Dare, Birdsville, Innaminka June this year, all off road I will not be happy so Im might stay standard untill Im sure, so no speeches from me.
With my TT I have to lock by key but does all doors untill it times out. Didnt you say it was only locking the drivers door?
Your hassle free mate
Macca

[Doug67]

505 degrees on the beach, 12psi tire pressures 68km/h 5th gear low range 3300rmp for about 3.5km very soft beach.

[9W6VX]

You are within the borderline of the safe range but still good.

Based on your info you can't go into 4th gear at low range (L4) as your revs would go up to the redline or very close to it.

Was this 505 Celsius consistent Doug or was it the maximum peak?

[Doug67]

consistent, with the driving conditions above.

[9W6VX]

Doug,

You are good to go mate.

As per your 605 Celsius reading, if you had gone down to 2nd gear with revs at approximately 3000rpm, you could have brought the EGT down to a tolerable level.

I remembered you had a manual. Maybe rowing the gears from 2nd to 3rd and then downshifting to 2nd again if you see the EGT go up would be better as you had mentioned earlier.

Is your pyrometer a VDO? Mine's a VDO too but bought in the USA many years ago and it's in Fafrenheit. Got to convert back to Celsius but VDO's are bloody reliable.

Brendon

[Doug67]

Yes VDO, wanted to use the torque of the dp chip which is great. I was trying different things but this road went uphill steep for a long time.

[9W6VX]

Don't lose any sleep over it.

Use the pyrometer to keep your EGT's within the range allowed and you'll keep the engine happy.

Pyrometer is very important to me as you can actually see whether you are stressing the engine................

Have a good day Doug.

Regards

[shane308]

Well i fitted a pyrogauge today and as i have been to lazy to knock up a buildup thread of my own i'll just stick it on the back of this old one, the best place i could find to put it was in front of the gear stick on the centre console, i'm of to geehi tomorrow towing the hilux trailer and a bit of gear so it'll be interesting to see what the temps do, anyway heres a couple of pics

[olcoolone]

It seems the latest craze for 4x4's is a EGT gauge, my questions are.

1) What is the normal temp.

2) What is an acceptable temp.

3) What is to higher temp.

4) What are the benefits of having the gauge.

[Drew]

I too would be interested in what the acceptable levels are as i will be installing one shortly.

The benifits are for any car really but mostly in turbo motors especially diesels. Any mods you do or tuning to the motor that adds fuel or boost affects the internals of the motor through pressure and heat... Heat being the worst, so if you are puting in more fuel and or boost than the factory settings the temps in the engine go up, which can be accuratly measured from the exhaust gas temp. So you can pretty well pump all the fuel and boost you want in aslong as you keep the exhaust temps down. If you dont pistons WILL melt etc etc etc

These temps also go up under load. On the highway they might be fine but put a boat, caravan, camper trailer etc on the back that increased load makes the turbo work harder and more fuel is going in so up go the temps. Then add a hot summers day, a hill, sand, mud, strong head wind etc etc etc then the temps just go up and up and up..... all this can be happening but the coolant temp will stay normal.

So by having the egt guage you can keep an eye on your temps, get to a big hill or soft sand with your caravan or camper etc or even just and empty hilux you can watch your guage ad as it climbs you can back off, stop and let it cool or choose a lower gear to put less strain on the motor before you reach the max temp and possible engine failure. A good dyno tune will moniter the egt while they are tuning it to ensure it is still within safe levels. And also if you are getting your car tuned in winter make sure they allow enough room for the extra heat of a summers day !!!!!!!

This hard work is also why you need to let your turbo cool before switching off the car. As you will see the temps in the turbo can be huge and if it is switched off you stop lube and cooling while the turbo is still spinning, so you need to let the engine temp normalise.

Hope this helps....

[olcoolone]

I know what a EGT gauge does from having a diesel background.

When we ask most people who have them about acceptable temp range they all come back with "when it starts to rise back off", this is incorrect and even more so in electronically controlled engines, electronically controlled engines will always operate with in a safe parameter unless you change boost pressure and fuel delivery by a fair bit.

The reason for posting my questions was to see if anyone on this forum can answer my question.

With out understanding EGT properly and knowing what is safe and what is not, the gauge becomes another piece of useless gear.

Most modern vehicles don't need turbo timers or idle down procedures and I doubt anyone really puts the Hilux's under extreme loading for extended periods.

We do a lot of remote desert trips in harsh terrain for up to 8 hours at a time, if we measured the loading we put our Hilux under we would probably find with in that 8 hours we may of only accumulated high to maximum loading for maybe 2% of the time.

EGT pyrometer were something used in heavy transport years ago to monitor heat loading, but since the introduction of electronically controlled high HP engines these gauges have disappeared because the engines don'r endure the same long periods of load.

Except in heavy haulage applications whereby the engine is running at near maximum HP for extended periods with hugh thermal loadings.

I think this is how it made it's way into the 4X4 market.

[Drew]

Yeh i totaly agree. We all love gadgets too and i personaly like to know what going on with my engine. Same reason we fit scan guage etc to keep an eye on things our self for piece of mind. And when we do get it tuned and wind up the fuel and boost we can make sure we dont go over board and can be confident with what we have done.

All of my diesel exp has been on direct injection cars and heavy mining equipment. So i too would love to know the normal and max temos for our commonrail engines. I also used egt all the time when working for subaru with their rally cars and have seen pistons melt on the dyno, but again these wer heavily modified engines.

Heat will quickly kill a diesel engine, any diesel engine. I know all the makers of these new motors say you dont have to idle down your turbo but if you fit a egt guage i think you would be supprised to see how hot things get off road and with loads. Most deffinatly with chips and stock exhausts....

My previous hilux a 99 3liter turbo diesel would run hot in sand and on the highway, which both put lost of strain on the motor and the turbo as at highway speed it was at full boost constantly and same on the sand. I tried bigger radtaitrs new thurmostats abd new fan clutches but all did nothing. After puting it on the dyno and loading it up as driving on the highway the problem was found the egt temps wer too high as i had added boost and fuel for more power. We changed the tuning and the over heating went away.

So hopefully someone can help us..... is it the general turbo rule of 700deg pre turbo and 500deg as Brendon posted the best to go off or does toyota have specific levels for our engine ?????

[shane308]

Well I'm hoping 500c post turbo is way conservative cos the trip I've just done over the last couple of days in some long steep winding roads with trailer, four people and camping gear, I was seeing 550c regularly and went slightly past 600c a couple of times, this is with the power chip on a relativly low setting and running a 3" exhaust, and iwas being mindfull and knocking it back a gear or two and taking it easy on the steeper climbs.

[tonymtber]

Guys I agree!
With the older mechanical injection diesels over fueling was a problem, hence the need for an EGT gauge.
With ECU controlled engines, the ECU should keep everything within a safe level. On my Hilux, I have to push it very hard to get it over 500oC.

The max temps will vary depending on who you talk to. I've always used 500 as a safe level with 550 as absolute max. Some people will go out to 600. Really the hotter you go, the more stress on the engine....keeping it cooler will only help engine longevity.

With a standard engine there is really no need for an EGT gauge, but if you start modifying it with chips etc then it wouldn't hurt so you have an idea of what the modified engine is doing.