After my buddy sucked some sand, ruined an impeller and overheated his motor(no damage) I have been thinking about adding a water pressure gauge. I know a lot of outboards use them, but do they make them for sterndrives? If they do, how and where do you plumb the sender?

mine was plumbed in the starbord side of my 454 mag bock. It would get plugged at times too, even though there was water presure (temp stayed constant)

i have faria water pressure gauges plumbed in where block petcock is. they work well if you watch them

SABER28, a Faria was actually what I was looking at. So the sender that comes with the gauge can replace your petcock in the block?

What gauge do you have, 30# or 60#?

I'm running Gaffrig 30# gauges. Plumbed in the starboard side of the blocks. The Gaffrigs came with all the plumbing hardware to install them - lines, fittings, everything. I love them - extra insurance especially running in a river with a lot of weeds. I run 10-15 lbs of pressure at cruising speed with alpha 1 drives and 454's. I think the Gaffrigs were about $50 each.

Blackhawk,
My Fountain came with Gaffrig mechanical gauges. The line or the sender, if you are using an electrical gauge, taps into the drain plug in the side of the block. You'll know if you have an obstruction in water flow before you overheat the engine. They also point out problems with excessive water pressure. I would never own a boat without them.
Dan

Bh, I have a water pressure guage. WP guages are mechanical in that they work like a speedo or boost guage. The don't use a sender. A small tube runs from the water port on the block to the guage and the presssure through the tube activates the guage. It can be mounted on either side of the engine block. You just need the right brass fitting with a compression nut. It has also plugged up before as the i.d. of the tube is only about 1mm.
You should only need a 30# guage. My max WP is about 18lbs at WOT and over about 25lbs can cause problems.

I knew it was a mech gauge. I figured it was similar to a mech oil pressure gauge with the small tube. I guess "fitting" would have been a better word.

Glad to hear that they work on sterndrives. I am always paranoid about that damn impeller. That $10 part can lead to very expensive problems! I check to see that I am "pumping water" out my exhaust several times a day. My passengers think I am nuts!!!

30# is plenty, i run 20#max. at 4600 rpm, gauges come with everything i needed. i also installed strainers, waste of money, they do not stop sand. have 50 hours with them and i have yet to see anything in them.spent $800 on two strainers

Your right ,sand goes right through the strainers ! Thats how I blew my motor . Intercooler plugged up with sand and stopped water flow through motor and BOOM !