ugently need expert / experienced opinion

[sunsetR33]

19 hours ago, The Bogan said:

I also think it comes down to the dollars spent for quality items, there's some cheapie versions out there, which look fine, but, there are versions of much higher quality out there, but, you obviously pay more for the quality of materials used and quality control

When I first got work done by Advan Performance on my old R33 the silicone joiners were cheapies and actually blew out on a joiner heading to the plenum, when I then took it to Unigroup they said that the silicone hoses they used and were junk, Unigroup replaced every hose on the engine with much higher quality items and from then I never had a issue with any hose

Additional cost and quality gets you quality silicone base materials and quality reinforcement fabric stuff

As for OEM rubber hoses, again, quality materials and strict quality control will give you quality hoses, but only to OEM spec, I believe using quality silicone replacements is a upgrade

I  saying this I have only dealt with vehicles I own and play with

The problem with quality is that everyone says they have it but you have to find that out yourself. Changing all hoses only for them to leak prematurely would suck.

[sunsetR33]

13 hours ago, joshuaho96 said:

Most hardlines are available new still. But unless they're rusted to the point of needing replacement you can just zinc or cadmium plate them to keep them going for decades to come. Regarding the turbo drains it really depends. Braided lines might be better if it's a straighter path than OEM but I would not assume braided teflon lines will never leak. Teflon is a very durable material but you can still abrade, erode, or otherwise compromise its integrity. The return hoses on the bright side are not that hard to access relative to a full turbo removal so if things go wrong you can always put it back to stock.

You can very easily drive yourself insane analyzing every little change, or maybe that's just me.

I am a fan of braided dash lines because they are so versatile and often better than alternative solutions. I do agree though that the OEM hardlines are not bad, but the hardline to rubber connections are the first point of failure.
Converting EVERYTHING to dash lines would probably be way more work than it's worth, but I think if my power steering ever leaks that will definitely go to dash lines. Or to a different power steering kit.

Unfortunately the turbo oil feed already is braided lines, I think the previous owner broke the original lines when they took the turbos off.

[sunsetR33]

8 minutes ago, GTSBoy said:

If it doesn't have a bunch of funky bends, then yes, you can just use straight hose.

So bending them yourself isn't feasible?

[GTSBoy]

1 minute ago, sunsetR33 said:

So bending them yourself isn't feasible?

No, you cannot perma-bend hose once it is already made.

[Duncan]

I sourced my silicone hose kits from Just Japanese. Their current link is what I posted above but supplier might have changed over the decades. 

[sunsetR33]

7 minutes ago, GTSBoy said:

No, you cannot perma-bend hose once it is already made.

Alright, fair enough. Expected as much.

Just now, Duncan said:

I sourced my silicone hose kits from Just Japanese. Their current link is what I posted above but supplier might have changed over the decades. 

Possibly, yes. However the kit is apparently not including every single hose and it is out of stock too.

[sunsetR33]

Just a follow-up on this topic.
From what I can tell so far the rusty residue on the engine block might be unrelated to a coolant leak or maybe just older than anticipated. After driving it from the winter garage to my friend's garage I could not see any new traces of coolant leaking there, but I will test this properly once I was able to fully warm up the car and drive it for a bit.
I think I can agree that the whole porous engine block stuff is kind of nonsense, but there is just a silly amount of true, false and half-true information on anything Skyline-related on the internet.

[joshuaho96]

On 4/15/2025 at 6:02 PM, sunsetR33 said:

Just a follow-up on this topic.
From what I can tell so far the rusty residue on the engine block might be unrelated to a coolant leak or maybe just older than anticipated. After driving it from the winter garage to my friend's garage I could not see any new traces of coolant leaking there, but I will test this properly once I was able to fully warm up the car and drive it for a bit.
I think I can agree that the whole porous engine block stuff is kind of nonsense, but there is just a silly amount of true, false and half-true information on anything Skyline-related on the internet.

Porous blocks are a known issue on something like a Porsche M96, it's not really something I've ever heard of on an RB26. It's possible what people thought was a "porous block" was really a cracked block that they just didn't spot the crack on.

[GTSBoy]

Semi-correction to my blanket statement that you can't bend rubber hoses. It seems that you can get most of a result, by doing as this guy does. I wouldn't promise that the bends will stay in the hose forever. I think if I found they wouldn't stay, I'd get a larger hose and cut some 90°s out to go over the bends I wanted to be in the smaller hose, as a reinforcement.

[sunsetR33]

EDIT:

PSA to whoever stumbles upon this thread. It is in fact a crack in the block that caused this concern. Just letting you know.
In my case, a few cm long hairline crack going horizontally above the turbo oil feed. Classic RB shit I guess