Haha yup... Same here brand new Autometer pro comp and same b/s had me foiled for a while... Tried everything too. Called Autometer tech support and verified my wiring was okay and would have sent it back too if it wasn't such a pain to do so from Canada. After endless searches I found an answer.
Solution was to boost the signal from the PCM to the tach. It seems the output is not strong enough to power many aftermarket tachs so I put a 10K resistor to 12V+ ign and spilced that into the tach signal feed from the PCM to the tach and bingo shes alive.
I bought a pack of five resistors from Circuit city for five bucks.