Well after my last post I got to thinking, sure, I can’t justify a chip just yet, putting the two and half years of warranty aside, I don’t have a trailer to tow and the truck really doesn’t need more grunt, but a 3in exhaust hell.....that’s another story. There’s a number of justifiable and more importantly defendable reasons for wacking one on!
The seed had been planted a while back by Luke at Pride Auto who mentioned that with all the extra weight on the truck an EGT gauge might be a good idea especially if I was looking at doing trips where getting to the dirt meant a lot of highway to cover. He relayed the story of a mate who blew up his turbo by cooking it up a long hill on a hot day. Pride don’t supply or install exhausts/EGT gauges and I have built a high level of trust in them over the years so I felt the advice was solid. I did some research and ended up deciding that instead of putting in a gauge to admire the rising temperature , putting on a larger diameter exhaust should actually solve the potential problem, well at least until I start towing. I decided on a Beaudesert 3 inch mild steel system, their customer service is great, their supply chain is impeccable and it comes standard with a connection to plug in an EGT gauge when I need it. The installer, Ritchie at Hume Offroad said they are one of the jobs they like doing because the kit comes complete and are good system to work with. There seems to be a lot of upsides to upgrading to a 3in exhaust and only one downside being the cost but then again that’s a given for 4WD accessories :-/.
So the exhaust has been on for a month and finally I can say it was worth it. I was actually really disappointed when I drove it away from the shop. The sound as I accelerated through the gears was really rough and there was no noticeable increase in power at all. Over the month since, the sound when accelerating has mellowed and rounded out nicely and is now what I hoped it would be and I can actually feel a difference in the response of the car as I go through the gears which is a relief as it's a lot of cash to drop for no return! Even though an increase in power was only one of the motivations for upgrading I would be lying if it wasn’t the one I was most looking forward too. Now it’s a simple upgrade to the chip and with the safari snorkel and 3in exhaust bedded in its impact should be maximised. Righto..... a suitable trailer needs to be found so I can justify it ;-)
