I have a triple pillar with old school Banks guages (boost, pyro, trans) that are housing face illuminated. Yuck! Banks makes great stuff, but way back then, the guages on the market are not what they are today.
One of my gauges has a face whose diameter doesn't reach all the way to the inner surface of it's cylindrical housing, leaving a circumferential glare peaking around the face like a total eclipse, a blinding halo, (as opposed to back lit) that boders upon irritating to view at night. However, 12 years ago, the Isspro EV hadn't been invented yet, let alone the Isspro EV2.
If I had to redo the pillar pod again today, (they didn't have pre made kits back then), I would definitely get guages that had back lit numbers. I would pay the extra for that, now that that is a choice. It wasn't back then.
In fact, I'd probably go with either the Isspro EV2 or the newest Isspro Performax (something like that) series, which look the same as the EV2 only instead of having all the circuitry stand alone, the Performwhatevers are multiplexed over a 3 wire network to a required external brainmodule that can control and integrate and log and even download to an Excel spreadsheet all the data from up to 17 guages.
Some folks get all fancy with white faces and blue numbers and italiziced fonts, but for our era 1999-2003 dashboards, I like matching the factory look... black face, white block numbers that turn green at night and illuminate from behind, red/orange pointer that illuminates from within at night, and a bezel that can be any color but chrome. Flat black is usually best. Don't want any glinting that close to my eyes from an A pillar that is more exposed to the sun and streetlights to reflect at a 45 degree angle right at my face than most other parts of the interior.
If I had a 2002, I might consider an alternative location other than the A pillar, cause I might miss the handle that was put on the driver's side A pillar some time in the 2002 model year. I know the steering wheel is there, but for tilt wheel trucks, it isn't good on the tilt teeth to pull full hoisting weight on the wheel when the tilt gear isn't fully meshed. I don't have that driver's side handle in my Y2K, but if I did, I'd consider some of the other cool guage pod options from Autometer.
Even though I'd get Isspro guages, I'd get the pods from Autometer. There is one that surrounds the instrument cluster, with two guages... but a third and a fourth guage can be installed in the flat area on either side of the steering wheel. The left hand side must be a short depth guage on the lower flat area. This pod will block the wait to start light, but one can usually listen for the fuel pump to stop and the vacuum pump to stop... and that is about the same time it takes for the glow plugs to heat up enough to signal the wait to start light to go out.
Then there is the triple pod that mounts below the cubby hole. And the quad pod that mounts above the rear view mirror. And then there are Edge type looking screen modules that in a single pillar pod that fits below the factory handle can display multiple data points on the screen. Then there is the single pod that mounts on the steering wheel, and you can put a Hypermax combo boost / pyro gauge on... that for a 2.fraction sized small gauge is surprisingly easy to read, the way the two needles are arranged... asymetrically one above the other. Their asymmetry keeps the two values from getting confused at a glance, and they are indexed so all is good at noon, so to speak.
There are so many options out there! It is a good choice to get something to monitor boost pyro and trans, so you are on the right track. But you also talk about adding other mods and moving on from there.
The next guage I personally would like to add is a fuel pressure guage. Then, a HPOP guage. Those are the two I'd really like to have, but I've forgotten how to do many of the things I used to know how to do when I was younger and had the entire dash apart before to cleanly wire my A pillar pod... so I'm going to wait until my younger neighbor, who just bought a used 2002 PSD himself, undertakes putting his guages in. I'll help him, and in turn, I'll have someone a bit sharper around to keep me on track.
