Replacing Vacuum hoses

[russellbosier]

I am condisering replacing all the vacuum hoses. Having seen how brittle they can become having removed the ebpv line, I thought this may be a worthwhile thing to do. Anybody know what length and diameters would be required for an SE. Also, is this any easy job, or are they routed through nasty places (I havent had time to check out the routing yet).

Thanks

[Jonathan]

Done most of mine with silicon 3mm ID tube. I think there is some 5mm ID stuff in there somewhere but the silicon works well and is dead cheap off of eBay.

[russellbosier]

Hi Jon,

I've seen all the silicone on ebay and that is what I am considering using. Any idea how much is required - dont want to start ripping stuff out and not have enough to put back in so just wandering to the nearest few meters. Is it doable without taking half the car apart?

Thanks

[Vulcan Grey]

Done most of mine with silicon 3mm ID tube. I think there is some 5mm ID stuff in there somewhere but the silicon works well and is dead cheap off of eBay.

Um stay away from the cheap silicone, only get the stuff that is high temp rated. I blew a hole clean through one on my wastegate, while on the dyno. Now I use nylon reinforced rubber hose for the wastegate control line.

[Jonathan]

Most of it is rated, temperature and pressure - I was going to go samco stuff but tbh the stuff people make on ebay is just as good at less than 1/2 the price - a lot of the time you're just paying for the name with this stuff.

I don't know the exact lengths but I think I bought a 3metre length and have stuff left...it's really not that expensive and it always comes in handy (brake bleeding etc).

[Artie]

Most of it is rated, temperature and pressure - I was going to go samco stuff but tbh the stuff people make on ebay is just as good at less than 1/2 the price - a lot of the time you're just paying for the name with this stuff.

I don't know the exact lengths but I think I bought a 3metre length and have stuff left...it's really not that expensive and it always comes in handy (brake bleeding etc).

I've used silicone in my RX7 for years and the engine bay gets WAY hotter than my Esprit, plus most of the hoses run under the manifold and near the exhaust manifolds on both turbos and no failures to date! I use thick walled silicone hoses in 4mm diameter from Hosetechniques.com. I would concur that 3meters should be more than enough....

Artie

[Vulcan Grey]

I've used silicone in my RX7 for years and the engine bay gets WAY hotter than my Esprit, plus most of the hoses run under the manifold and near the exhaust manifolds on both turbos and no failures to date! I use thick walled silicone hoses in 4mm diameter from Hosetechniques.com. I would concur that 3meters should be more than enough....

Artie

The Hosetechniques stuff is much better than the stuff you might get at an autoparts store chain, or on ebay.

There's thick walled high temp silicone, and then there's crap. Lots of different kinds of silicone out there, I deal with medical grades of silicone.

One of my hoses actually ruptured, as if it had been shot with a 22cal bullet from inside the hose. It didn't split or crack or crumble like most silicone, it actually puckered out a new hole. Cause massive overboost on the dyno run, I told the guy to shut it down, quickly found and fixed the problem, and then posted the 2nd highest dyno run of the day (behind a modded Viper), even beat an X180-R, and a bunch of modified Porsches... And my car was stock SE.

[russellbosier]

3meters of 3mm ID thick wall high temp silicone it is then.

Thanks.

[Artie]

The Hosetechniques stuff is much better than the stuff you might get at an autoparts store chain, or on ebay.

There's thick walled high temp silicone, and then there's crap. Lots of different kinds of silicone out there, I deal with medical grades of silicone.

One of my hoses actually ruptured, as if it had been shot with a 22cal bullet from inside the hose. It didn't split or crack or crumble like most silicone, it actually puckered out a new hole. Cause massive overboost on the dyno run, I told the guy to shut it down, quickly found and fixed the problem, and then posted the 2nd highest dyno run of the day (behind a modded Viper), even beat an X180-R, and a bunch of modified Porsches... And my car was stock SE.

I hear you Travis, I have come across some really crap silicone hose on RX7's that I have worked on, not quality stuff at all. What were your numbers on the Dyno Travis? I'm hoping to dyno when I get the car back from paint someday soon! I'm interested to see the graph and curves as I have never seen one on these cars.

Artie

[Vulcan Grey]

I hear you Travis, I have come across some really crap silicone hose on RX7's that I have worked on, not quality stuff at all. What were your numbers on the Dyno Travis? I'm hoping to dyno when I get the car back from paint someday soon! I'm interested to see the graph and curves as I have never seen one on these cars.

Artie

It was a "Mustang Brake Dyno" at a shop in Evergreen CO (8300ft).

The guys with the Dyno had taken a Shelby GT350 Mustang, dynoed it at sea level, brought it up to their shop and re dynoed it. From this they got their baseline #'s and correction factors... So a little unscientific..

The results for the day were

Viper 250

my Esprit 190

modded Porsche 928 GT 190

Esprit X180-R 172 (owner claims bad chargecooler pump, but has several other mods including chip and big turbo...)

Porsche 944 turbo 172 (modded quite a bit)

all the rest of the 928's and a Lotus Elan M100 were lower.

So the dyno guys were pretty impressed by my stock 2.2L 4cyl, compared to their vintage racing Shelby Mustang GT350's, and they gave me a "correction factor" for my rear wheel drive, mid engined, turbo car, of .6... so divide 190/.6 = 317hp... so not really valid for a stock Esprit at 8300ft, so I never quote the #.

I only say that I beat the modified X180-R and my co-worker's modded 944T, and made 76% of a modded Viper... although the NA Viper was at 8300ft, and lost probably 19% right there, where my turbo Esprit probably lost less than 5%.

[Artie]

It was a "Mustang Brake Dyno" at a shop in Evergreen CO (8300ft).

The guys with the Dyno had taken a Shelby GT350 Mustang, dynoed it at sea level, brought it up to their shop and re dynoed it. From this they got their baseline #'s and correction factors... So a little unscientific..

The results for the day were

Viper 250

my Esprit 190

modded Porsche 928 GT 190

Esprit X180-R 172 (owner claims bad chargecooler pump, but has several other mods including chip and big turbo...)

Porsche 944 turbo 172 (modded quite a bit)

all the rest of the 928's and a Lotus Elan M100 were lower.

So the dyno guys were pretty impressed by my stock 2.2L 4cyl, compared to their vintage racing Shelby Mustang GT350's, and they gave me a "correction factor" for my rear wheel drive, mid engined, turbo car, of .6... so divide 190/.6 = 317hp... so not really valid for a stock Esprit at 8300ft, so I never quote the #.

I only say that I beat the modified X180-R and my co-worker's modded 944T, and made 76% of a modded Viper... although the NA Viper was at 8300ft, and lost probably 19% right there, where my turbo Esprit probably lost less than 5%.

Yeah, I can see your point, 8300ft is thin air! Your turbo had to be absolutely gasping to make boost! I dyno'd my car on a dyno jet at Bandimere which I think is about 6400 ft iirc, I made 303 rwp in my RX7 at 15psi, where I made 367 at 14psi at 125ft above sea level here in KC. Mustang dyno's also put different load on the cars they have a huge electromagnetic generator that is used to initiate load. I've seen several cars blow engines while dynoing on the mustang dyno.

Mustang dyno's typically are about 20% lower than a dynojet.

Artie