A high temperature dilatometer attached to a graphite furnace is built and used to study the sintering behavior of $B_4C$. Pristine and carbon doped $B_4C$ compacts are sintered at various soaking temperatures and their shrinkage profiles are detected simultaneously using the dilatometer. Carbon additions enhance the sinterability of $B_4C$ with sintering to more than 97% of the theoretical density, while pristine $B_4C$ compacts could not be sintered above 91% due to particle coarsening. The shrinkage profiles of $B_4C$ reveal that the effect of carbon on the sinterability of $B_4C$ can be seen mostly below $1950^{circ}C$. The high temperature dilatometer delivers very useful information which is impossible to obtain with conventional furnaces.