Well I purchased a new hose and spliced before the check valve. To my surprise the gauge reads "0" at idle. Oh my god, I'm super frustrated.

So I splice the other booster hose in the middle and now no matter how I put on the hose from the vac manifold it ends up with kinks in it. The new hose I purchased flattens out when I turned my car on, wtf lol.

The moral of this story is that I suck.

Was I suppose to somehow seal the nylon hose behind the gauge and on the brass fitting of the vac manifold? I just lightly tightened the fitting behind the gauge then slipped the nylon tubing in. Man when I first installed it, it was working fine.