I was taking a look at some posts and robinette's site and it seems to be the consensus that many of the reliablility mods (downpipe excluded, due to HP gains) are implemented in a "just in time" fasion rather than preventetively. Is there any reason for this? I understand getting the most out of stock parts is a factor, but with so many close calls I would think that people would do the reliability mods BEFORE these pieces become an issue.

Currently my car has 45k very clean miles. I show no signs of cracking or bulging on my vacuum lines or wear on my radiator. The only wear so far was that on the lower IC baffle causing a boost leak, so that got replaced.

I've already purchaced a koyo alumnium radiator, aluminum AST and plan on installing them shortly.

If the time and money aren't an issue is there any reason to wait on the other reliablitly modificaitons? for example a hose job,disabling the recirc valve, and modding the airbox?

thanks in advance, greg

 

no, no reason to wait. you should get a boost gauge too if you don't have that already.

 

Greg, have Ivan zip tie your rats nest under your intake manifold. With the sequential twin turbo system, there are over 200 vaccuum hoses and if even one of them blows off then your turbo systems are prone to failure. by zip tying them, you can make sure that they stay in place longer.

 

Already have a greddy boost gauge installed.

that's my plan victor. should I spend the money on new hoses if he's alredy going to be in there zip tieing the old ones anyways?

 

greg, since your car only has about 40k on it, you probably don't have to worry about your vacuum hoses being too rigid yet. At any rate, when ivan does your car he will throughougly inspect that area and if anything needs replacing he will tell you

 

Go for the downpipe first after boost guage. It'll reduce underhood heat and extend the life of your vacuum hoses. I've got 41k on mine and my hoses are rock-hard.

 

The only reason to wait on some mods is that it would be cheaper to perform them when something else breaks. For example I had a leaky LIM gasket so I had that replaced with the newer metal LIM gasket, at then at the same time had the vacuum hoses done since the UIM had to come off anyway, ie it saves labor. Other mods that go together: clutch/flywheel/rear main seal, IC/radiator. Probably some other ones I can't think of right now. Modding the airbox and disabling the EGR valve don't really help reliability. One of the next ones on my list is dual oil coolers, you might want to consider that.

 

Just get new vacuum and intercooler hoses. The old ones go out so easily.

 

Ivan sold me the car and went through it when I bought it to check/fix anything that needed to be fixed. the only thing that needed to be done was to replace the o-ring gasket between the engine and the transmision, someone fucked it up when they installed a new clutch, causing it to leak. other than that (and the corrected boost leak) the car had (and still has) no problems.

I'm not concerned about the order on which to do the mods, or any issues like that (downpipe is being installed on sunday BTW) it was more of a mentality question. why do most people wait until something breaks or is about to break to get it fixed? It kinda nullifies calling these reliability mods if that's the case.

What I'm asking is, should I even wait that long? If I can do it before it gets to that point?

Nathan pretty much expressed what I was thinking. FYI nathan, I've got an R1. I don't need to worry about more oil coolers (anyone wanna try the quad oil cooler setup? )

also the EGR and airbox mod were on robinnette's site as reliability mods. but I was mostly using them as examples.

 

His intercooler hoses and vacuum hoses are fine, he has only 40k on his car. The reason yours is messed up is because you have over 140k of wear and tear

 

and he's mah mah mah mightyslash!!!! just messin with ya dude.

 

144k now.