Converting to metal vacuum lines

[lglracer]

Hey everyone,
Ive been running the idea in my head to convert as much of the soft vacuum line to hard line. I was looking on the forums and couldn't find much on the topic. The goal is to have a cleaner look and have as little soft line as possible. I know this would affect tuning in that you have better pressure reading. Any issues with the idea. I would most likely use small aluminum line so I could braise on mounting tabs. Looking forward to hearing your guys ideas.

 

[pauleyman]

It would not affect tuning. Its serious overkill. Sometimes you need flexibility. If you want a cleaner look why not eliminate what you can?
You could run hard line around things and then make the last foot or less soft line in some places if that's what you want to do.

 

[rabenne]

I agree with pauleyman... There should be essentially zero difference in the tune. Anything that goes from engine to body needs a length of rubber hose between them to account for motion of one relative to the other. Like he said, run them close to the destination and then use rubber on the last foot/or 6 inches.

Which vac lines are you trying to replace with tubing? If this is for aesthetics then you would need to do a pretty nice job to improve appearance. I will follow this thread to see what you come up with.

 

[lglracer]

The goal would be to run hard line to the BOV, EBC from and to turbo, and a few other little lines. I would run soft line where needed. My setup is basically almost everything eliminated. My goal would be more for aesthetics to do something a little different.

 

[Vegas Smith]

Maybe your best bet would be to go ss flexible AN lines. It would look great.

 

[Mello]

Running hard lines with flexible sections on the end plus areas where you need flexibility will increase the number of places you could develope boost leaks. I would try to design the vacuum lines for least number of connections and or splices. The steel braided AN lines have bling but for most of us would be overkill pending our max boost pressure.

 

[steve]

Plus steel braided lines are basically files when coupled with vibration.

 

[Mello]

Yeah. You don't want them rubbing on anything & their bend radius is slightly larger making them a little hard to route around things.

 

[rabenne]

Running hard lines with flexible sections on the end plus areas where you need flexibility will increase the number of places you could develop boost leaks. I would try to design the vacuum lines for least number of connections and or splices. The steel braided AN lines have bling but for most of us would be overkill pending our max boost pressure.

Good call mello! I didn't even consider how many new potential leak points it would create...

SS braided lines would look nice but the cost to benefit ratio is undefined (bc benefit is = zero, and zero is not allowed in the denominator)

Either way I am still curious to see what you come up with...

 

[ThunderChild]

I've thought about doing this as well, at least for heat sensitive lines around the exhaust manifold and wg. It would be alot of work to make look good, and be completely impractical price-wise, but it does have a good image in my head.

If it's a show thing, I say go for it, but if it's your everyday car or an occasional street thing, meh.

 

[motomattx]

I personally hate the look of braided steel lines under the hood.