SS braided lines for intercooler???
 

I was looking through a book of one of our suppliers here at work and they have SS braided lines up to 4" in diamiter. my idea is to get pipes made that are threaded on one side and straight on the other and use couplers to the turbo and the the FMIC and SS lines with threaded fittings for the IC pipes.
What do you guys think?
I think it would look kinda cool and it should be pretty easy. not sure on price though.

Man, SS braided lines.....with the SS on teh outside is $$$$$

Be intresting to see what you come up with in prices.....

yeah and SS loves to heat soak

Hmm I didnt think it would get any more heat soaked then exhaust pipe that alot of people use.

yeah thats why you should use aluminum to get rid of that florida heat. leave the exhaust pipes and SS for your down pipe and exhaust.

First of all, stainless steel AN braided lines are rubber hoses wrapped with a SS braided sleeve.
The whole hose is not made of SS.
Even if the SS braid heatsoaks, it still needs to go through the rubber hose cross-section.

Second, I would worry about the flexing of the hose.
There's a reason why you use "hard" pipe for most of the intercooler piping.
Hard pipes don't flex and balloon - this minimizes turbo lag.
SS braided hose would start flexing all over the place, and the stainless steel braid tends to *eat* into a lot of other things, like plastic, rubber, and even steel parts of the car!


-Ted

Then what exactly can/should you use SS braided lines for? Just fuel?

Fuel, oil, clutch, and brakes. That's about all I can think of.

Zach

well the ss lines that they have say there rated for 400 deg. inside temp. dont know if that makes a diference.

It's about the pressure expanding the rubber inside of the SS braids. Aluminum pipes are used so frequently for a reason.

Zach