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I got my motor back from the rebuilder and everything is running great, but I noticed around the water pump housing??? that a lot of the ports have been capped off with hose clamps which is fine but they seem to be dripping coolant at a slow rate.
I was wondering if there was a better solution to this by either connecting these ports together with a hose are better caps?
That is a time bomb. I'm glad you caught it early.
Those are VACUUM CAPS. They can't handle heat and pressure. Top that off with using cheap worm drive clamps that bite into the rubber and those will be failing VERY shortly. On top of that some are RIGHT BY the hot side of the turbo.
You have a few options.
- Pull the water pump housing, remove the nipples, weld the holes shut. Most labor intensive but the 100% foolproof way to do it and never have to deal with it again. The nipples are steel and are pressed into the aluminum housing, they can be cut/drilled off then the hole can be TIG welded shut by a welding shop.
- Use a piece of OEM coolant hose with a plug/bolt stuffed in it with spring clamps. It looks crappy but it works. But, I would worry about the hose that's so close to the turbo, very little can tolerate that much heat for long.
- Loop coolant hose between nipples. Again, big problems with hose that close to a hot turbo.
If you just paid a shop a lot of money to build the car and that's what they used to cap those nipples, it's time to bring it back and have a talk with them. That's unacceptable.
Also, in the bottom picture you can see the white connector for the water level sensor and it looks like the spade terminal isn't totally seated, that could be a problem there.
I'm assuming you are running an oil cooled turbo that doesn't use the coolant ports. When building a motor that won't be using those ports I cut them off near flush, then drill with a reverse bit. It will grab and pull the pressed in fitting right out. Then tap for npt and plug. Another option is to weld them. While on the car your best bet is to use some reinforced silicone caps. Samco makes them.
If using the silicone caps, I would look into some spring-type clamps instead of those worm-gear clamps that use a screwdriver to tighten. The OEM-style clamps are a little tougher to remove since you need to use pliers, but the spring action should keep better pressure than a worm-gear clamp. The hoses only expand and contract slightly with heat, but slight leaks can become big problems.
Speaking of big problems, it looks like the fuel lines and pressure regulator are mere inches from the turbine and downpipe without any heat shielding. How hot does that turbine housing get, and how hot do you think would be safe if the fuel fittings leaked a little?
I'm assuming you are running an oil cooled turbo that doesn't use the coolant ports. When building a motor that won't be using those ports I cut them off near flush, then drill with a reverse bit. It will grab and pull the pressed in fitting right out. Then tap for npt and plug. Another option is to weld them. While on the car your best bet is to use some reinforced silicone caps. Samco makes them.
This is the only non temp solution imo. Drill, tap to NPT 1/8 and fit aluminium or brass plugs with some sealant. Personally I'd pull the WP housing, drilling and tapping on a work bench is much easier and you're less likely to run into any issues.
This kind of stuff is definitely worth doing correctly.
Another option is to connect the nipples together with hoses so that water can circulate. In this case you don't have to worry about pressure buildup and blown caps. Also with such a method, as a good side-effect water won't be trapped in the nipples and corrode them over the time.
Dale is 100% correct -- time bomb. Happened to me; my engine was rebuilt by a very reputable shop back in 2011, and at the same time I went single turbo (oil cooled td06); greddy included some of those extra-thick vacuum-hose-like caps in their kit, and I had no idea it was a problem until my car overheated and explosively dumped its coolant on a short drive.
They will absolutely fail.
The recommended permanent solutions are best, if you are sure you will never need that coolant loop in the future.
Someone mentioned reinforced silicon caps -- here is a link in case it is helpful to anyone for some from HPS:
