low boost psi

[snowman4evr]

Hey guys, ok I have a stupid question. I have a 96k3500 that I installed a new glow soft boost/egt gauge on. I tapped the center of the upper manifold for the boost. Iam only getting 3psi and that takes a few seconds for that to come up.
new k&N air filter, no smoke, new upper silicone coupler. I can hear the turbo spooling up. It actually sounds wicked but i am getting hardly any boost psi. Now one thing I did do was I had the entire intake off when I was putting in new injectors and fixing an exhaust leak. Well it looked like the old gaskets was leaking but all I had handy was some egr gaskets. (no plate in the middle of gasket) My thinking was since there wasn't a hole in the manifold should seal anyway. So my question is do you think these gaskets might be where I am loosing my psi at?

[DmaxMaverick]

Boost is a product of drive pressure (exhaust gas driving the turbine). If you were not loaded or accelerating hard up a hill, there will be very little boost with a stock setup. If your boost (intake air) is too little for the fuel, it will smoke. If you aren't seeing any black/gray smoke, then you aren't loaded enough (the engine), and there is not enough fuel to drive up the boost pressure. 3 PSI while unloaded on flat ground is about normal, and it may take some time/distance to build even that. I'm not familiar with that gage, so this is not taking into account the delay that may be caused by the gage and/or plumbing. Leaking intake/exhaust is usually fairly noisy if it's losing enough to noticeably degrade turbo performance. More (boost) is not, necessarily, better. Get it under a good load and report your results.