One thing I've wondered about from the beginning with this build is the longevity of the intercooler pump. The motor in the Bosch pump I've used is rated for 5000 hours, which would come to about 200,000 km averaging 40 km/h. I think that's reasonable enough.
I was however thinking about getting one of the Auber gauges, using their intake air temperature probe and then having it kick the pump in whenever IAT's increased much beyond a preset value (like say 35°C or something). Turns out that's what Mercedes did with almost the same pump on some of their intercooled vehicles! Only thing is it seems that pump gets eaten big time in that application, so I did some more digging.
While I haven't found a definitive statement yet, it appears many similar pumps that have a 5000 hour rating on their motor also have a 10,000 start rating, IE the pump can be started 10,000 times. In the Mercedes application a lot of folks were having their pumps die by 50,000 km - much less than my predicted "continuous running" figure. Once you think about it a bit more and realize how often the pump would be cycling in any given drive it makes a ton of sense! Every time a Merc owner puts their foot down that would count as a pump start. How many times might someone accelerate while driving? Apparently about once every 5 km given their longevity figures, which again makes perfect sense.
So I think I'll be leaving my pump set up to run continuously... If it ever DOES die, there is a brushless version available that is rated for 20,000 hours instead of 5,000 although it flows about 10-15% less. Something to think about.
I'm still planning on going for the Auber EGT gauge, I really like the idea of a gauge that I can reconfigure to measure just about anything. I think I can fit two of them below my heater controls and still keep the rear window defog switch there, or possibly three or even four if I relocate the defog. Not sure what I want to do yet or exactly what I want to measure. I do have an existing mechanical boost gauge, but it isn't mounted anywhere, it's just loose behind the cupholders right now. I also have an oil pressure gauge that isn't installed permanently (the wiring is in place but I never found a good gauge mounting solution - I use it to check on my oil pressure once in a while).
Thinking something like:
- EGT (duh)
- Oil pressure
- Boost (maybe, I'm ok with my current boost gauge though, and it's only so relevant once you have EGT)
- Intake Air Temp - really only something I'm curious about though and not really necessary to know
There's other stuff I could measure... water temp in my AWIC for instance. Post-turbo temperature... Oil temp would probably be a good one though a bit more difficult to measure... A real engine temp gauge rather than just the factory one? Lots of possibilities. I'll be away for a week and we just started a postal strike so I'm not going to order anything now but once I get back....
