Earlier this morning when I took my turbo prelude for a drive I noticed my turbo wasn't spooling up and the boost gauge wasn't showing over 1psi on WOT. Knowing my boost was escaping somewhere, I stopped at the nearest Advance and looked under the hood...to find a blown up rubber boot that connected my turbo to the intercooler piping:





For those of you that don't know, here is where that piece normally goes:



I went into Advance after finding this out, and I found the largest rubber radiator hose they had that could fit over the 2.5" IC piping. I did a little cutting so it would fit, and I stuck it in its place with a little elbow grease (its a tight fit).

It's not something I want permanently, for as you can see in the above pic it looks like the flow will be reduced a bit. But at least the car boosts like normal now.

Now my question is, what could have caused that? Is it merely the fact the turbo kit is about a year old and that rubber piece just gets weaker from all the heat, or did the heat build up too exterme the other day and just cause the rubber to burst like that?

My other question is where can I find a suitable replacement for this, something that would be a bit stronger and larger than the Advance "radiator hose"?

 

Heat happened.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jnet &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">that rubber piece just gets weaker from all the heat,

</TD></TR></TABLE>

They make silicone 90's, but I have no experience with them. You might consider having someone weld a 90 onto that piece of pipe and running a short straight piece or transition down to the turbo. HTH.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by RacerXI &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

They make silicone 90's, but I have no experience with them. You might consider having someone weld a 90 onto that piece of pipe and running a short straight piece or transition down to the turbo. HTH.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Could you show me some examples of this?

 

http://www.atpturbo.com/Mercha...-90EL

I dont think they will be long enough for what you need. I would do as someone already mentioned and weld in a 90degree pipe.

 

looks like you need to clock the turbo a bit too

 

baker has a little longer 90 degree silicone..
http://bakerprecision.com/purosil.htm

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by DENCIO &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">baker has a little longer 90 degree silicone..
http://bakerprecision.com/purosil.htm</TD></TR></TABLE>

Thanks, thats exactly what I was looking for.