legacycentral bbs

I was lucky enough to come across another elbow the other day (you know the one), and this one ISN'T CRACKED AT ALL. Now, before I go and install this again and risk it going the same route as my old one, would anyone have an opinion on me coating the entire piece in plasti-dip/rhino-liner/some other material to reinforce it? I was planning on literally just submerging the damn thing in coating material. Thoughts?

if you did any sort of coating i would stick with just doing the out side of it and not the inside. it could potentially come apart and feed into your turbo.

Coating it I. Plastidip won't reinforce it but it may keep the outside from weathering anymore.

Any thoughts as to what might prevent it from cracking? I was talking to a friend of mine that owns a shop up here and he said that the biggest culprit of the elbow being brittle is from the constant heat and oil saturation.

That is true. Basically buy a new one and it'll last 20 years or make your own from steel.

I did quite a bit more forum trolling, and I think your right. I'm going to use this one and hopefully it holds up for a while. I was looking at fabbing one up though, and most of the materials can be ordered through ebay (90 degree aluminum piping, sillicone tubing), and fabbing something up wouldn't be too difficult. Your only dealing with three ports.

A new one should last for a long time, remember these are 20 year old cars, rubber tends to wear out after that long, it's not gonna get brittle after just a few years.

It should last me at least a year or so until I finally pony up the money for some 20g heads and I can just use a totally different setup.

There is a samco hose kit for the first generation sti that replaces both plastic 90 degree elbows early sti and BC Turbo engine setups. I've wanted to get it but couldn't justify the price. It is rather spendy. I have a site bookmarked at work where you can buy it, but I'm not finding it right now. You need to order it from the UK or another country mainly.

Here is one. This link will probably only work for a short time as it is an auction site.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Samco-Silicon ... 1018234706

Plastidip seems like a waste of time (that stuff is way over rated, and doesnt hold up as well as people make it seem IMHO) but you might be onto something with rhino lining it. that will definitely keep the outside together and sealed even if/when it decides to crack years from now.