Blew an outlet off/apart

[Narcosis]

I've got RB turbos (next gen plus, 27-28 psi on a Wedge E85 tune), RB silicone inlets and outlets on my car. A week ago I was showing a young man the capabilities which lie under the hood of my '10 E92, as he was very interested in, and ended up buying, my '07 E92 project car. The first pull was through 2nd, 3rd and part of 4th, car was strong. Turned around and was going to do the same pull again, full boost in 2nd provided the too familiar sound (I used to drive a well boosted DSM - happened often) of some piece of intercooler plumbing blowing off.

Got the car home fine, staying out of boost, and it sat in the garage until last Saturday. The outlet on the rear turbo had come apart - the flange adapter was still in the v-band clamp, but the silicone hose had come off the adapter. Rob Beck is very quick to answer emails, even on the weekend. We exchanged a couple of notes, and he let me know that I have one of the early models of outlet which used a shorter adapter. A picture is worth many words - in the first attachment what I've got is on the right, the upgraded adapter on the left. The 2nd attachment shows the failure, which was resolved with a worm gear hose clamp.

Not a bad way to spend a couple hours on a Saturday, but what a PITA. I was able to do some of the work from the top, but getting the outlet and hose clamp a) into the correct position(s), and b) snugged up properly (from under the car) had me inventing new cuss words.

And a hearty thumbs up to Rob, who produces some very good products and has always been on top of customer service.

 

[NoGuru]

Nice to know you got things resolved.

 

[Rob@RBTurbo]

OP reached out the other day and it does appear he had the old style v-band adapter, don't think we'd shipped one since around 3/2017. This was after a point we revised product to use a longer adapter due to a few complaints with the shorter one popping off in the ~5 months prior since product introduction. Interesting enough and despite some pretty intense usage, this customer was still able to make it over 2 years without a problem.

Regarding the silicone outlets in general (at least with the longer adapter) we have had pretty good luck with them. Now nearly 3 years of using them problems are cropping up here and there, surely less than 10 reported cases to date in total. Ironically a couple have been after next to no claimed usage, some with a lot of usage, while many others are several years old and never heard a peep. All in all still feel our design has weathered the storm very well with very little fallout, but not certainly not perfect over this much time and we don't expect it to get better with more usage either.

Fortunately in the last year some solid and affordable aluminum outlet options came about for all models (aside RHD), so last year we began to simply pass along the business to the applicable vendors (unless RHD). There is no doubt a quality aluminum outlet is going to be more stable over years of usage, so that is the route one would want to go if they have the choice.

Thanks,
Rob