Feisty the "Family Car"

[Dialcaliper]

A bit of catchup. I discovered a coolant drip a little while ago, and it was driving me nuts trying to find it. It turns out that despite the fancy silicone hoses and fancy clamps, coolant was leaking at yet another plastic fitting. This time at the 3-way nylon fitting at the thermostat housing. Freaking plastic cooling system parts…

I had to buy the whole hose assembly to get the OEM fitting, and I initially assembled it again with the same hoses and clamps assuming the slightly out of round plastic was the issue. Even tightened the clamps to spec with a torquewrench. Completely reassembled and purged the system. Held perfect pressure and vacuum so I filled and started the car, and…it leaked again…😭

Coolant was very slightly weeping from the lower hose. Said hell with it, drained and broke everything down again and reassembled with the OEM rubber hoses and clamps, did the full test, purge and fill again, and finally, it’s no longer leaking.

Either the silicone hoses aren’t all they are cracked up to be, or the plastic fittings just aren’t up to the clamping pressure. Either way, it’s back to OEM rubber, at least on those two hoses. Now I just hope the other silicone hose connections aren’t going to slowly start failing as well anywhere they’re connected to plastic.

As a sidenote, the Proalloy coolant header tank with its old school metal radiator cap is a night and day improvement over the crappy plastic OEM radiator cap, especially when it comes to hooking up the vacuum fill

Bonus pic, my awesome rain gutter oil change method to clear the Swave 4-point brace that’s in the way of the oil drain

 

[M-Sport fan]

I've used some SamcoSport (supposedly high quality/'motorsport grade') silicone hoses on my old 4th gen LS1 Z28's cooling system, and although they did not leak profusely, they absolutely did 'sweat' coolant.

I will only use OEM grade EPDM hoses from now on for anything that touches coolant, but still trust silicone for boost/intake air apps.

 

[Dialcaliper]

I've used some SamcoSport (supposedly high quality/'motorsport grade') silicone hoses on my old 4th gen LS1 Z28's cooling system, and although they did not leak profusely, they absolutely did 'sweat' coolant.

I will only use OEM grade EPDM hoses from now on for anything that touches coolant, but still trust silicone for boost/intake air apps.

Yep - it kind of looked like sweating at the end of the hose, but I think it was weeping where the silicone wrap ended with a crease, wicking through the clamp area and the fabric reinforcement was collecting the coolant and make it look like “sweat”.

The “‘main” radiator hoses are Mountune made by Samco and haven’t seen any problems. Not sure who Pumaspeed had to make the “ancillary” kit with all the other hoses.

 

[Dialcaliper]

Did some spring rate adjustments to help the car settle better and adjust the F/R balance.

After experimenting with spring rubbers in Front and Rear, and the car's behavior on track, it needed a little more in the rear.

The 224/4k springs in the rear came out, and I managed to score some cheap NIB "Ridetech" 275lb 7" springs for the rear. I was going to just use them to experiment but, which when unboxed I discovered are actually made by Hyperco, so I may just keep them on. Now I've got Swift/Swift spring/tender out front, and Hyperco/Eibach in the back, since Swift doesn't make the tender in the rate and length I wanted

To add a touch more lift-off oversteer, I added a TB torsion bar - The UR 22mm front/Hotchkiss 22mm rear was behaving a little pushier than I wanted on track and the TB adds just a bit more rear stiffness to load up the inside front more on cornering. We'll see how it does on the next track day in July!

Lastly, I'm increasingly convinced that polyurethane RMM simply can't hold up to the heat from track use. I've not replaced the Whoosh RMM bushings with race-stiffness poly twice, and the latest set are already 1/8" loose/ovaled at the motor side after only 5000 miles (+5 track days). Finally splurged and got a Vibratechnics "Competition" RMM. Except for a brief rattling of the sunroof shade coming away from a stop, its actually feeling generally smoother than the Whoosh mount ever was. Eventually I'll change out the two upper mounts as well (currently Powerflex black)

 

[M-Sport fan]

I wonder how much higher durometer EPDM the 'competition' Vibra-Technics mount's bushings are than their 'fast road' offerings?

I have their fast road RMM and it is just about perfect for street use as the only time I ever notice it is when the A/C is first engaged at idle.

Eventually, I will get the other two from them as well, but I only have ~52K miles on the odometer so the factory ones are still functioning.