I think this is my last boost related question. Stainless braid is expensive. I am looking for a less costly alternative, such as stainless tubing. I am working with 1/8th NPT from my feed to my turbo and am curious what is a good ID tubing to use. Also, which fitting would be best, flare or crush?

 

A lot of factory-turbo cars run hard oil/water lines, but they will always incorporate a bellowed or other form of flex section to absorb vibrations. I don't know of an easy way to replicate this if you're planning on doing it yourself. That said, I believe 3/16" hardline is roughly equivalent to -3 AN if I remember correctly. I have seen homemade setups where people have used rubber hose or nylon oil pressure gauge hoses, but I personally would not recommend either of those for longevity and reliability. Oil is the lifeblood of your turbo as well as the engine, and -3 AN feed lines aren't that expensive, so perhaps you could consider saving up some money to pay for the proper parts.

 

I have always believed that a hard feed line would be a clean and very reliable way to plumb a turbo. Hardlines work well enough for brakes that they are used for virtually every braking application. That's a pretty strong statement of reliability.

Routing the line should be well thought out, with the proper clamping and stress reliefs, and staying away from any potential rubbing or vibration. I think the end result would be well worth the effort.

As far as cost, you'll need to own or rent a bender, and a flaring tool, but everthing else should be common fittings available at your local autoparts, speed, or farm implement store.

-3AN or 3/16" sounds fine as turbo oil flow is not that high.

To create a stress relief, just follow what the car manufacturers do and make a couple of loops in the line. I'd do this behind the block, just to keep them out of sight.

I'd use flare fittings for reusablilty and just because, but you can probably get away with single flared as the pressure in the lines will probably never exceed 100psi.

Also consider using the rubberized clamps to keep the line from moving to much, which can fatigue the metal.

And post pics!

Hope that helps,

Craig

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the gn's and turbo t's are prime examples of cars that used hard lines.

i believe they were 1/4 but it has been a while. post up pics......

 

good idea, I think I will do that to for cleaner engine bay look

 

you could always do a hard line up to a closer point to the turbo, then get a fitting and use maybe 1' of braided line just to allow for movement/vibration.

I personally think braided lines look sweet, but the hard line idea has crossed my mind a few times. The bending/flaring tools are cheap and the line is available at Napa (hard line for brakes) along with numerous fittings.

 

Just for innovation, and to put some tech out there, I think I will do a hardline, even though someone just gave me a flexible feed line. I will definitely post some pics and see where it goes from there. The stress relief idea is a good one and likely will be what I will do.

 

I have a ss hardline feeding my turbo. Its all swagelok stuff. I'll see if i can round up a pic for you. It works fine. It is 1/4" od (1/8" id) ss hardline that I got from work. I love working @ a power plant.

Actually my return line is ss hardline as well. But its 1/2". That **** is a PITA to bend correctly!

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by chimmike &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">you could always do a hard line up to a closer point to the turbo, then get a fitting and use maybe 1' of braided line just to allow for movement/vibration.

I personally think braided lines look sweet, but the hard line idea has crossed my mind a few times. The bending/flaring tools are cheap and the line is available at Napa (hard line for brakes) along with numerous fittings.</TD></TR></TABLE>

You can't flare ss tubing like you do regular copper or brass lines. It is to brittle and will tear. If you wanted to use something other than ss (and flare it) it would likely work fine.

 

I used to work in a machine shop at a semiconductor plant. I know all about the perks of wasted material.... Copper will be easy to find, as will aluminum.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by shaggyeg6si &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I used to work in a machine shop at a semiconductor plant. I know all about the perks of wasted material.... Copper will be easy to find, as will aluminum. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Screw the scrap! I'm talkin brand spankin new man!

I don't know if I would use Al, I think it wouldn't spring back like copper or ss would.......

 

what ever you do just mount it with a bracket so it cant vibrate too much

 

Well both types of metal are commonly available. Aluminum I can get as a hard replacement brake line, and copper, well they make copper tubing kits to replace your thin wimpy clear oil feed line that comes with a oil pressure gauge.

 

I'm personally just going to use the materials they sell at my local performance shop, probably I'm not sure if it's aluminum or steel, but looks like aluminum as there are colors available LOL

 

Here ya go.....don't mind the dirty bay. This was a while back when I was gettin everything together and I had it stored in my friends shop. The bay looks like **** but you get the point...........

 

It looks like you have crush fittings. Is this true? I like how it looks, very clean. Don't get me wrong, I like the stainless mesh as much as everyone else, but this looks pretty damn clean.

 

how is it expensive. I go to a local shop to get my stuff and its about 25$ plus tax for the line and 2 fittings. hard line is nice in some situations.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by shaggyeg6si &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">It looks like you have crush fittings. Is this true? I like how it looks, very clean. Don't get me wrong, I like the stainless mesh as much as everyone else, but this looks pretty damn clean.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Thanks.

Yea the fittings are compression fittings, these ones in particular use a double ferrell system. When used correctly they rarely leak. It should actually look cleaner than this but when I did it we didn't have a peice long eough so I used two peices. I meant to go back and re-do it but never got around to it.

 

Haha, I am just as lazy. Well it looks good. And the local shops around here want $45 for this ****. InlinePro wants an arm and a leg, and I have already pawned those for gas money.

 

on my last setup i just went to the local auto parts store and bought hard brake line in 3/16". it was like $2.99 for like 2.5' or something like that. then i bought a cheap harbor freight bender and flare tool. took a little bit of practice to get right but it looked good in the end.