Congratulations on your new acquisition. My temperature gauge typically runs between 180 and 190 degrees at about 70 mph on reasonably level roads. I use VMSpc to monitor the engine on my laptop computer display. That way I can see the engine temperature, oil pressure, boost, etc in a digital display rather than trying to interpret the non-linear gauges. I find that VMSpc shows I am running between 178 and 185 degrees most of the time. When the gauge shows 200, VMSpc is showing 195. That is good since Detroit Diesel considers the normal operating range to be 170-195 degrees and recommends not running the engine over 210 degrees. The hottest I have seen climbing a 6%+ grade per VMSpc was 207 degrees (which looked closer to 220 on the dash 'guess what this number is' gauge) at which point I backed out of the throttle and slowed down to let the engine temperature drop back down to 203 degrees. Detroits do NOT like to be overheated. In lieu of a Manifold Temperature Gauge, using the boost gauge to keep the boost down on long grades as Tuga suggests is the best way to protect your engine. Pulling a steep hill at 25 pounds of boost will really run the temperature up quickly.
By the way, my VDO temperature gauge is marked at 120, 180, 210, 250 and 300 with no marks in between.
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