I can't believe this.... I just put my engine back together as anyone who has been following my threads know.

Anyway, I put all brand new silicone hoses on my engine, and I've only driven the car maybe a total of 5 times so far. To my absolute dis-belief after pulling it apart a little bit to start the vacuum simplification job, I've already found 3 leaks from hoses splitting.


I am shocked.....I've never seen hoses go this quickly. No wonder I was getting low vacuum and had the absolute worst emissions read out I've ever seen.

Guess I'm going back to regular high temp vacuum lines for these areas and maybe more once I take the UIM off and see what kind of damage is up there.

 

Where did you buy your tubing from?

Looks like it split from something other than just air pressure.

 

Wow that is strange. It looks like you may have been rubbing on those lines in pic 2 and I have heard that silicone has a low resistance to abrasion tearing. The first and third pictures I have no idea though.

 

Silicone hoses get knicked easily. How did you cut your hoses? I bought a hose cutter from Sears and made sure before putting them on that they were free of abrasions or knicks.

 

I think zip ties around your line ends would help a lot. It seems like theyre splitting because theyre able to and if you had a zip tie on them they would not be able to split like that. And at second glance at the second picture im pretty sure it was simply rubbing on that metal piping and thats why that one split.

 

Check the HighTempSilicone site - they have really good stuff. A lot of silicone hoses are cheaply made and have very poor material specs.

www.hightempsilicone.com

Dave

 

another one for www.hightempsilicone.com you can also look at the Viton hoses if silicone is just too risky

 

I would also like to know where you got your hoses from. I am looking to upgrade mine in the near future.

 

rx7store sells them in an application specific kit for about $100.

 

I second the warning about nicking the silicone (or viton, for that matter). Each one will split easily if there is a scratch or shallow cut in them. Be careful working with them.

I used a dremel to smooth off all the edges and knurling on a pair of long needle nose pliers specifically for working with these hoses. It's a great tool.

Dave

 

All of my hoses are from hightempsilicone.... and all of the hoses down in that area are split.


They were cut with a large, very sharp wire cutting tool so they were cut clean with no nicks. Not sure why they broke, but I'm not even half way done with the car yet and I've found quite a few cracks in the vacuum lines.

I'm just going to replace these bottom lines that no one sees with thicker, stronger vacuum tubing from the auto parts store. The stuff they sell is a lot thicker and probably safer for those areas, but I just don't see how they rubbed on anything. They went on easy too, I didn't have to use needle nose pliers or anything else to slide the hose on.

On another note, I can't believe how fast I can have this car apart. It's pretty sad lol....I had all of the intake tubes, vacuum lines, and rats nest completely out the car within an hour. I've taken this stupid thing apart way too many times already and I've only had it 6 months lol

 

Hmmmmmmmmmm...

I actually used Viton on mine...

That's wierd that they cracked so badly.

Maybe you should contact HiTempSilicone and see what they think. I'll bet he will at least figure out why.

 

I'm not really upset with them, they have the best prices for silicone hose kits out there. Really I'm just trying to figure out how those areas got so messed up already. I'm just going to go back with thicker hoses in those areas, no silicone. Probably a better idea seeing as they are closer to heat and obviously the silicone in these areas wasn't the best idea lol.

I'm just glad I DID have a vacuum leak, as it explains a lot of my problems I've been having recently. I'm still going to do the vacuum simplification though, since I already have everything out I might as well. I can't to have it all cleaned up, it should be a lot easier to deal with and look much better.

 

Could they have split when you were putting those spring clamps on?

 

Of all the materials, silicone has the best heat resistance, much better than Viton, etc. However, it's not very good against gasoline or other solvents.

 

Not sure... but I'm going to replace them again, I'll give the high temp silicone stuff one more chance since it is atleast in a place that is easy to change. But if it breaks again, I'm gonig with something else.

 

xblazinlv,

Go with hoses from Baker Precision: http://bakerprecision.com/hosetech.htm

 

Sorry to hear about that. I know what you're going through since I'm in the middle of replacing all my vacuum lines. The only difference is that I'm using Viton from HTS. Hope I remember how everything goes back together since I have a track day on Thursday...

 

The stock lines that lead to/from the wastegate and precontrol actuator are actually quite tough and don't embrittle like the ones in the rats nest. If I had a problem with my Viton hoses there for any reason, I'd probably dig out the stock lines and use them instead.

Dave

 

My stock lines were tossed during the rebuild.....

I'll probably just go and pick up thicker heater style hoses from autozone.

 

u can try hoses from www.turbohoses.com or the akimoto ones...those have been in mine under high high temps and there aren't any problems. They are really durable, and don't rip easily at all.