Started off on Sunday morning with a 85 mile trip down to Monterey to
see the Monterey Bay Aquarium with the family.  the road is pretty flat
and I was making good progress.  This was my first long trip with new
K&N filters and I did not not expect to experience any power gains on my
1.8L waterboxer.  I was quite surprised to find that I could easily go
70mph (according to the GPS) - vanagon speedometer inaccurately reading
80 to 85.   Has anyone else experienced these power gains with a simple
air-filter swap, or am I imagining things?

Also, I had recently resolved my fuel-pressure power loss problem by
changing some fuel lines.  And, thanks to everyone for helping me with
the front disk pad changes which I completed on Saturday.  So, things
were going good.

About 50 miles into the trip, the coolant LED starts blinking red.  I
pull over, fill in some water which I drained from my westy sink.  I hop
in and make it to the aquarium.  I have to admit that I was worried
about the van and could not get the full enjoyment from the fish.  Well,
I made it back home and found that one of the coolant hoses is leaking.

About a year ago, I bought every rubber part that Vanagain had for sale
as part of their kit.  So, I'm not too keen on putting in more OEM
rubber hoses.  I think that this particular hose is one that I did not
change because vanagain did not have them in stock.  This hose connects
the passenger-side cylinder head to the heater pipes running under the
van.   It looks to me like 3/4" on the cylinder head side and maybe a
3/4" connection on the heater plastic "T" joint that has a hose going up
to the rear seat heater core.

Does anyone have any experience just running standard 3/4" or other
diameter heater hose from the passenger-side cylinder head to heater
hoses under the van?  I seem to remember that one of the hoses seemed to
have different diameters at each end.   Anyway, I'm looking for a cheap,
easy fix that I don't have to mess with.   Cheap and not so easy is also
okay.  I'm willing to fabricate hoses with joiners as long as I can get
the parts from home depot, NAPA or someplace like VolksCafe, which is
pretty local for me.

Thanks.

Regards,
Craig