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Good fucking god. EGT is useless.
If you are running lean, it will be hot. If you lean it out a bit, it will cool down. Why? Because there won't be enough fuel to burn to get hot. Your engine will still knock and self-destruct, though.
If you are running rich, it will be cool. If you richen it up a bit, it will warm up even more. Why? Because you will be burning fuel well after the turbo. Is that fun?
That isn't the worst of it, though. If your engine hears knock, it will reduce timing advance (<cough> Also known as "retarding timing," if your a fuckass). What happens when you reduce timing advance? The EGTs go up. You could be running richer than do you want to be, and lean it out a bit more. BOOM!
EGTs are most strongly affected by timing. Timing has vastly more influence on an engine than does AFR. Think of it this way; a combustion chamber, during ignition, is at 2500* or so, with some (not much) variance due to compression ratio, fuel temp, intake air temp, and AFR. What happens between the spark plug firing and that cylinder's contents passing by the EGT probe determine the lion's share of what the temperature is going to look like. Ignition timing determines how much time the combustion chamber gets to dissipate heat before it hits the exhaust. Therefore, more advance will cool the exhaust temperatures.
What I would do would be to tune the AFR with a wideband, and then add timing until it starts getting pulled.
Trusting your tuning to an EGT gauge is akin to trusting your tuning to a narrowband O2 sensor. Who does that?
LASTLY, engine internals do not melt at 1600*F. Pistons would melt a lot earlier, but they use the rings (and the cylinder wall), oil being splashed up, and the connecting rod/bearing/crank to dissipate heat.
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