So, Im currently at 56k on my turbo and been going back and forth on doing the coolant hoses.... car is tuned and has been since 18k, i am also still on the stock and ORIGINAL Clutch (yep, pretty proud of that one)... so, here's my question.

What would you do?

coolant hoses, clutch, upgrade clutch/flywheel (always wanted lwfw)

coolant hoses, clutch

coolant hoses only (cause damn dude with that skilled shifting you can go another 100k on the OG clutch )

leave it alone, if it aint broken dont fix it.


FYI i own repair shops so doing it is not a matter of cost but rather a pita... plus i always feel awful watching my techs working on my cars.

Thoughts?

also, for anyone who had the coolant hoses fail at approx what mileage did it happen? were you using the car or was it mostly garaged?

 

are you wanting to pin the lines or weld them? pinning can be done with the motor in the car , welding requires a drop

if you drop it i would suggest new clutch , replace every rubber hose you can find, every vacuum line and tie wrap every single line you can find. inspect the fule lines for age and wear and replace them if you need to. get the sharkwerks billet coolant pieces and replace them. also at 56 k miles it wouldnt hurt to replace the water pump and thermostat.

its simply maintenece that is near impossible to do with the engine in and since the car is boderline 10 yrs old rubber ages and under boost fails. none of it is high dollar just a high pia!!

heres a tip. remove the power staeering pump and reservoir and the a/c compressor from the motor. leave the lines attached. bungee cord them to the back of the car and drop the motor without them. now theres no need to recharge the a/c or rebleed the p/s pump.

 

thanks for the experienced response!

I did the water pump and t stat a few months ago when I replaced an idle pulley and belt

excellent advice on the p/s and ac stuff...

which is the better route to go, welding or pinning? Any examples of either? I see the 3 pcs that sharkwerks sells and they look solid. What else gets replaced with the coolant fix?

 

Clutch, flywheel, clutch slave, coolant elbows sharkwerks, aux turbo water pump,plugs,coils, transmission mounts, clean engine compartment and little things.

 

Your clutch surviving has nothing to do with your shifting skills and everything to do with the fact that your tune is not very aggressive. Shifting doesn't ruin clutches torque does.

I would drop it and just do everything (Weld the hoses). I don't buy the pinning thing, if the glue fails, having them pinned wont keep it from leaking. Pinning them only keeps the glue from failing imo.

Plus as said above, never a better time to do a good cleaning, coils and plugs!

 

Pinning keeps the fitting from bursting out but not leaking if the glue fails. If you weld then a full install of the parts and pressure testing is needed to insure no pinhole leaks. I have done both. On the 997 i think 7 fittings and the sharkwerks fix

 

FWIW, the coolant hoses of my 2002 Boxster are original and have not needed replacement. The car now has over 302K miles on it.

My 2003 Turbo with over 145K miles has its original hoses, too.

I've found replacing the coolant every 4 years or so helps prolong hose life and water pump life.

Given your car is a 2007 and has less miles on it I have to believe the hoses are fine.

I have spoken with my Porsche techs and they advise me Porsche hoses are long lived and have talked me out of premature replacement. There is considerable parts cost involved and the labor is not inconsequential either. If it is deemed time to replace the hoses due to concern about age/etc., then every hose must be replaced just not the easy to get to hoses.

As for the clutch my Boxster's clutch and my Turbo's clutch are orignal too. Just because you have 56K miles on your clutch doesn't mean it is toast.

'course, an inspection of the clutch hardware is on order once the hardware is exposed. Provided a visual inspection doesn't turn up any reason to replace the clutch hardware, then a check of the friction disc's wear would be advisable.

My info is clutch disc wear is not linear. That is if the disc is half worn this doesn't mean the disc is halfway through its life. It is probably less than halfway through its life but I do not know the formula.

I'ver never had the transmission out of my Boxster but the transmission has been out of my Turbo twice now and the last time for an RMS leak it was at around 120K miles. At that time the disc had no measurable wear.

I guess if it were my car and without better advice if the disc were half worn or more I'd replace the clutch. If the disc was less than half worn and otherwise looked fine, no signs of overheating, etc., I'd probably leave it in service. My expectation would be I'd at least get another 56K or so miles of trouble free service from the clutch.

Regarding clutch upgrade that's up to you. Even if the stock clutch is ok if the engine is modified for more power or you intend to modify it for more power or just want a higher performance clutch for extra margin -- and can live with possibly higher pedal effort or more senstive engagement -- that's your decision.

It is my belief and I'm not alone in this that a LWFW is not a good modification. The DMF acts as a vibration dampener and this works to reduce the stresses the crank and all rotating/reciprocating parts are subjected to and that's a good thing. Thus I would not fit a LWFW.

 

Unless you see or smell any coolant I would leave it alone. If you do pull it I would replace as much as possible. I recently did mine you can look thru my thread and see what I found. I welded my coolant pipes because I am very comfortable welding cast aluminum. Just to double check I even pressure tested the pipes before installing. I highly recommend looking at the 3 plastic elbows underneath the oil cooler manifold. Plenty of opinions on here obviously do what you are comfortable with. Good luck

 

Yup if you dont track the car or anything and they are not crusty or leaking, just leave it alone until you need to do something with the engine out, etc. You can check out my post if you want an idea of what's involved. Just pulled mine at 40k miles and my clutch literally has no wear on it, just under the factory thickness. Amazing. But I was doing some mods and also have a shop so when I do stuff I just do it all as time to work on my own stuff is limited. Hopefully Ill get back together this week and post some updated pics.

 

I would not leave it alone tbh, my engine was out for let pipes and a clutch/flywheel swap ... The most prone fitting to leak is difficult to see even with the engine out, and even if the glue is gone It might be held in place by the hoses and leaking small amounts.

My car is a 2009 with only 30k-km, kept smelling very feint smell of burning coolant but nothing under the car, only dripped slowly once oil is uo to temp ... Moral is just do thne while you can cuz they will fail ..

Things I did with engine out:
- clutch flywheel, if you have a tune it will slip, matter of time or better fuel
- Inlet pipes
- plugs, coils, fuel filter
- welded coolant fittings and changed coolant hoses and pump/ thermo
- injectors (+\-)
- changed the open diff to torque biased unit
- new slave accumulator

 

Thanks so much for everyone's input....I guess I'm still on the fence about it

For those of you who have dropped the engine and installed the sharkwerks kit, what's the approx labor time?

 

I am in the same boat as you (kinda).

My car has 35K on the clock, and I've decided not to do the coolant lines until I need to pull the engine and gearbox due to a chatter I have.

I'd also strongly suggest you do some research on LWFW pro's/cons before doing so.

If you do decide to pull the motor, then you should do all of the above plus:

coil packs
water pump
T-stat
check RMS
and a thorough inspection of all other plumbing and hardware.

and if you plan on turning up the boost, that stock clutch typically doesnt hold out too long.

Best of luck and keep us posted on your decision

 

My car leaked around 60k miles. I dropped the motor and fixed whatever I saw was leaking. Some coolant fittings had already been repaired previous to my ownership. I didn't replace anything else as "preventative maintenance" there wasn't much else in there I saw that could potentially fail, really. I figured if something else leaked in the future (or my repairs didn't work) I'd just drop the motor again.

You don't have to to do the clutch while the motor is out, but it would probably be worth the trouble. You could pull the trans off and inspect the clutch disc material (not sure if there's an access hole to scope it)

 

Disagree. If someone excessively slips the clutch during engagement (like if they can't drive stick well) it'll prematurely wear the clutch material.

Too much torque certainly will cause a clutch to slip, though.