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Water Plumbing Fun
How do you find a radiator hose to connect a Hayabusa engine to a Miata radiator? Be nice to the good people behind the counter at your local auto parts store, that’s how. Most auto parts stores these days keep all their hose inventory behind the counter, so you have to ask really nice to go back and rummage around through it. If they won’t let you back there, just leave and find another store. I found a local place that’s not paranoid about me going in the back and they get all my business now.
Hayabusa hoses are 1″ and everything points in the wrong direction. I have no idea what car uses these strange little 1″ U-turn hoses, but I don’t have to. Now that I’ve published a picture of this part number sticker, I’ll always know how to find one.
Miata hoses are 1-1/4″, and this random 21947 hose does a good job of pointing kinda where I need the water to go. What’s that dead sexy header in the background? Gimme a week or three to finish the exhaust and then I’ll tell you.
I haven’t found any auto parts stores cool enough to stock these steel hose menders, but I’ve got a really good industrial hardware store nerby that has them for about $1. You can try a farm supply store too, if you’re in that kind of neighborhood.
They still don’t have 1″ to 1-1/4″ adaptors, so I had to use cutting and welding technology.
With all the fancy barbed fittings, the new upper radiator hose is one of those U-turn hoses, a chunk of Hayabusa hose, and that mysterious 21947 hose.
The lower radiator hose is a piece of factory Miata hose, a chunk of Hayabusa hose, and yet another mysterious U-turn hose.
OK, that’s the update for now. Back to work on the hybrid stainless/aluminum exhaust system…
All the Miatabusa you can handle:
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