Silicon hoses are a bad idea for anything other than a dedicated track car. It's only advantage is higher pressure and temperature resistance, and not by much. Silicone is five times more water permeable than rubber. The reason you're getting temp creep is that you're actively loosing coolant, and when you lose coolant pressure the liquid turns to steam and holds less heat. It's a common mistake in the import tune scene. There have been countless owners of s**tbox civics who've switched to silicone for the pretty colors, then experienced overheating and coolant loss.
Now about the lower spring, I know that it was common to have one from the factory. I don't know if I read it here or elsewhere but there were two interesting points raised. The claim was that the spring was there for the factory fill. Burping the cooling system was impractical for an assembly line so a vacuum was applied(I don't remember where) and coolant was drawn in and and the air was purged. The spring was there to keep the lower hose from collapsing, and I guess the upper one wasn't a problem. As well, a properly functioning cooling system is operating at 15-16psi. That amount of pressure would more than overcome any suction the water pump is exerting on the lower hose. Food for thought.
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1979 Esprit, Starting the Resto-Mod Process with a 350 and a TKO 600.
"And the one thing you can say about Capitalism is that, although it produces inequality-which it absolutely does-it also produces wealth, and all the other systems DON’T. They just produce inequality." Dr. Jordan Peterson
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