Crashunit

Seeing as how the sequntial nightmare of all FDs come from the poor design of the vacume hoses. Can steel braided lines be used to keep all of them in check and from poping off? I've tried all types of vacume hoses before and they never seem to last longer then 2 years or 20-30,000 miles. Then I had a conversation with a friend of mine and the use of steel braided lines come up. There flexible, strong, durable and most importantly hold very tight. The only down side I can think of is that they are more expensive. But I think the benefit would probably be worth it. Any thoughts or feedback?

pedalpusher

iTrader: (1)

I think silicone is probably the best bet. I don't know if the fittings for steel braided hose would work in some of the tighter areas of the rat's nest. Maybe flared brake type fittings and hard line? On a related note -- I wonder if chrome plating the rat's nest/solenoid rack would be a worthwhile detail...

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pedalpusher

jr

Gordon has done something like that, talk to him.

BicuspiD

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/showth...d+steel+vacuum




-Richard-

Eva Unit 00

Useing hard lines is an interesting idea... Another option would be to use high quality silicone hose then cover it with hose covering from vitek. I remember SCC doing a writeup on them a few years ago and if I remember correctly the sleveing was good to something rediculous like 1200 deg's. Dont quote me on that though!

here's the site

http://www.vitekperformance.com/Product/

GoRacer

iTrader: (2)

I wish I had used the Hose Techniques instead of just a thin diameter, thin walled roll. I found out afterwards there is different sized hoses in their kit.

Anyhow, I thought of something similar but different: Viton hoses covered with Vitek sleeving.

duboisr

I would think viton would be easy to use , Garfinkle used steel braided on his oil metering pump lines but there was an issue with the correct size but he made it work ,It looked high tech .

Crashunit

Thanks Richard, laziness and boredom got the best of me

duchi

the problem with using steel braided lines such as earl's, goodridge, aeroquip, etc. is that the bend radius of the hose is limited by its size. the rat's nest contains many hoses whose bend radius is about 1". even teflon steel braided line wouldn't make that. also the hose ends themselves take up a good deal of the total length of the hose, so one must acct. for that as well. additionally, there is not a reliable way to mate an AN fitting to small vacuum size tubing, let alone the plastic nipples on the solenoids. if you are not willing to get rid of the rat's nest in its entirety, then i would suggest sticking to thick walled silicone tubing with tie wraps and make nice sweeping bends (no possibility of kinking). on my own vehicle, i have eliminated ALL vacuum lines/tubing/solenoids and have drilled and tapped the intake manifold in a few areas and used AN adapters (eg. 1/8"npt x -3 AN) to utilize teflon steel braided line all from earl's. i pulled out ALL the small vacuum nipples (ALL of them do come out) and plugged them with 1/4" long stainless internally wrenched hex machine screws(NO rubber vacuum caps and stainless so the heads won't break off when you run them into the thick aluminum). so there is litterally NO rubber/silicone tubing on the engine to pop off or fail due to kinks or breakage. it's great and reusable/easy to take apart!! the kicker is that you probably can't run the stock ecu any longer since it won't have any solenoids to control and will produce error codes. i'm running a haltech. i do have a short length of earl's -4 SYNTHETIC rubber hose going to the GM map sensor but it's AN at the manifold side. i know i only have a few posts under my belt since i love the reading and really don't like responding, but i've been watching for a long time and have been an FD owner for a long time as well and i hope you guyz don't think i'm talking through my ***. i feel i wanna contribute some of my own positive/negative experiences if someone can benefit. if anyone has any questions regarding this post or anything else, please ask. thanx for the space.

Crashunit

well for your second post that was pretty informative and not a typical "Hey why do FDs have 4 lug nuts and blow up alot?" So nice to hear from you, and Welcome to the board !

jspecracer7

You have a lot more than I do!

I have OMP, MAP, Boost Gauge, Wastegate, fuel pressure regulator, BOV...that should be it!

jspecracer7

Also, I will be doing a -4 braided hose line(with the proper AN fittings) from my turbine to my boost controller, then from my boost controller to the wastegate when I go single. Kind of expensive, but at least my hose won't pop off!