hi everyone can you swap out all the coolant hoses with silicone ones without dropping the engine?
No, don’t thinks so….. Also, my Ferrari dealer and the team that does all of my cars, can confirm they are a waste and while nice to service with as they don’t “adhere” to the metal as much, in their experience they leak! And I am dealing with that on a car I bought.
Really? Because I have them on other cars and on all my motorcycles that i ride on the track and I’ve never had a leak. They are supposed to be much less prone to leaking than rubber
The original hoses, are formed better and we have found the silicone hoses don’t have the exact original pattern. Of course silicone as a material has advantages and we could agree that in theory and practicality it should be an improvement. But of the cars I own, and others serviced by the team that I support and use, we have not found the best experience adapting what is available for our cars, to be superior or without issue. I am just reporting based on your inquiry and I felt you should have that info. It will probably be fine, but we have chosen to not continue their use.
Agree. Due to leakage, I just had to remove a whole assortment of these "upgraded" hoses installed by a prior owner that were branded from a vendor that sells or used to sell "upgrade/performance" kits within in this community. Swapped all back over to OEM and no longer have leakage issues. So much for the upgrade, back to happy leak free motoring. In general these types of hoses seem to need an uncomfortable amount of clamping to not leak and even then not a sure thing.
If your hoses aren't falling apart, then I'd wait until the next engine out. Much easier to access the rad hoses than trying to replace them with the engine in. the ones to the expansion tank are easily accessible, so you could do them immediately. the little S bend one from the H2O pump maybe doable from above, but its a tight squeeze (although you could drop the tank I guess to access everything easily). As to material, I've gone silicone and have no leaks I'm aware of. Whatever you choose, it'll be an upgrade to 30yo rubber...
You know what else is an upgrade to 30-year old rubber? New rubber. Every 5 years with an engine out, I make it a habit to always cut the 7 water hoses at the front of the 355 engine near the fire wall and replace them with run-of-the-mill rubber hoses I get from Oreilly's. I take the 90 degree right angle hoses, and the small S hose to the store and match up a run-of-the-mill hoses that have a section I can cut off to match those hoses. They don't cost $1,000 and in five years, I'll replace them again. By the way @Sonnythebull, you can replace all seven hoses at the front with the engine in the car. Take the lid off, sit in the engine bay, you'll have plenty of access.
I own a hose company The OEM are the best design for the 355. They are top of the line purpose made hoses.
