Vacuum Gauge

I initially got a Sunpro vacuum guage to let me know how much "balls" my engine had left in a demanding situation.  The harder your engine is working, the closer it gets to zero.  When it reaches zero, it's operating at max power.  So now after installing it, I remembered that "hey, vacuum guages are pretty useful for diagnosing problems."  Rock on.  Please be patient for that last pic, it's really useful.

It fit pretty well under the cig. lighter.  Vacuum gauges are pretty hard to come by, so I ended up having to use a Vacuum/Boost gauge.  Same thing, this just has a positive side also.  Someday I may get a multiple gauge pod so it will be up with the tachometer, but then the "oh sh*t" handle would have to come down to fit more guages.  Notice the El Kameleon CD player that is blank when turned off.  Usually you can't see the buttons in there that are pulled in, but the flash lit them up.

Here's the hookup onto the intake manifold.  You just gotta find some place to hookup on there, nothing special, but the 3.0 didn't give me any plugs to take out.  I just tee'd off of the line running to the brake booster.  Pretty easy, but I really don't like how rigid the supplied tubing is.  It's gotta resist flexing for an accurate reading, but it will snap in half like a twig if you aren't careful.  All of those connections were 1/8" NPT.

Now here's some important information to learn from what your vacuum guage is telling you.  It is a page out of the Tacoma/4Runner/T100 Haynes Manual.  At idle with A/C off the Haynes manual says that it should be
operating at -20"