Thread: Intake piping and turbo hose question?

yep, time to replace them..

the benefit of the silicone ones is they last a hell of a lot longer than the traditional rubber ones before doing that.

What effect does this have on performance? Im guessing not much other than delaminating hoses? I will be replacing them soon regardless, but can performance suffer for it?

Go for the silicon hoses.
I've got a few sets for club local members, plus fitted some to my Tdi. The first rubber hose (like your first picture) was very soft, and I put some masking tape around it, went for a drive, the masking tape was torn, indicating the hose expansion. So the turbo was pumping up the hose instead of applying pressure to the incoming air, thus wasted effort. When I changed to silicon, I think there was a difference, maybe the acceleration/Tdi power was coming in a little earlier. TD5 owners have raved about the improvement, but maybe their old hoses were really shagged.
One thing about silicon hoses ... you really need to clean the metal fittings well (I cleaned well then wiped over with acetone, and got heaps more off) before installing the silicon hose, and use good hose clamps.

And you can also get black silicon ones to reduce the urge to wear your jeans lower than your underwear wasteband

Steve

providing your existing hoses are not leaking or internally delaminated there is no difference in performance of ratty old rubber and new silicone hoses.

The difference is primarily in the amount of oily crud they dump out and how long they last between failures.