Who make the best fuel lines these days?

[Tom]

Because this happened today.....

[ROB III]

Holy Smokes!
Mine are from L'art. No issues but have been on for less than a year.

[Tom]

Yeah, I just ordered new factory lines from Porsche Marin -- from what I can tell the originals are still available. They include the rubber part under the hood which is attached the hard lines that go to a coupler under the car. Or at least that's how they look in PET and what I hope I just ordered. Seeing this hose burst made me worry that the hose ratings and overall quality probably vary a lot from one seller to another, and I have no real way to tell the good ones from the bad. The ones that were in there "I think" were about as good as they get, so I'm thinking it was a fluke, but I figure if I go with the factory ones and they end up leaking, at least I won't be kicking myself for buying low quality fuel lines...

[Hawk]

Holy crap! Good thing you just didn't drive off before you discovered.

[Tom]

Holy crap! Good thing you just didn't drive off before you discovered.

Had a little Porsche angel on my shoulder today. I was working on rattles and squeaks (Krytox is simply amazing stuff) and went for a test drive. I have a little 2 mile loop that goes up into the hills to test for rattles, since the road is terrible up there. I started smelling gas after the half way point and by the time I got it in the garage, there was a gas trial all the way down the street and into my garage. If the leak were on the other side of that fender wall, where the headers are, it could have been a disaster. I already ordered factory replacement lines that go from the engine to the couplers under the car. No more messing around with aftermarket fuel lines unless I have to....

[Fast951]

Tom, someone is watching out for you!

Look into using "fire sleeve" over the fuel hoses. It helps, especially over headers.

[chris white]

lots of Chinese junk out there...looks good but not really made that well.

[Tom]

And the Oscar goes to.... the hose itself. See picture below. Maybe it wasn't made for e85? I got it from a very reputable grassroots 944 seller many years ago, and the overall quality seemed top notch. My first suspicion was that something rubbed at it and wore away a spot, but I was pretty careful about that and you see if failed on the inside -- the braiding on the outside was perfect and untouched. And re fire sleeve, I did have a metal heat sleeve over the hose from the rail to fender. I figured it would keep heat off the rubber and fuel, but also serve to drain the fuel into the wheel well should there be a leak on the engine-side of the fender wall.

failed-hose.jpg (976.25 KiB) Viewed 1235 times

hose-sleeve.jpg (888.92 KiB) Viewed 1235 times

[Zirconocene]

I ended up making my own for my 928 S4, as well as the little hose between the rail and the damper on my 944 S2. I used the PTFE hoses but it required AN fitting adapters, similar to what Lindsey does.

Glad you caught it!

[Tom]

@Rennbay to the rescue! Travis sent me a set of lines asap and I was able to replace the bad hose today. Just got back from a test drive and everything is bone dry so far. I'm a real fan of these hoses because they have all the fittings built in from the start, so there are no adapters on top of adapters. I still need to replace the other lines for completeness, but at least the car is operational again. I'll post more pictures when I'm done. I couldn't get the old compression fitting off, so ended up cutting another inch off the pipe, which unfortunately puts it right where the little hold-down stud is on the fender. I may see about getting one with a longer hose from Travis so I can cut the pipe below that stud, but super happy to have the car back in one piece!