Vacuum Hose Sizes, Total Lengths, and Sources?

[jblackburn]

The "real" benefit of silicone is that they'll last forever! So, when your car is dead and gone years from now and there's a zombie apocalypse and Will Smith is the only living man left on the face of the Earth, your vacuum lines will still be in good shape.

The IC hoses I can see buying silicone ones for, but they would just stand up to high boost levels better and resist collapsing.

As I recall, there were only 4-5 vacuum elbows on my car. 2 at the ends of the PCV vacuum hose, one at the evap canister, and 2 on the SAS valve hose. Most of them, though, can be done with just straight shots of hose. Buy a package or two of small screw clamps.

[C@lvin]

OK....so I am trying to avoid:
1. Doing the replacment in the Advance Auto parking lot so i can go in and out, matching hoses and elbows as I come to them.
2. Doing it at home but driving back and forth to the Advance Auto figuring out which hose and elbow sizes I need.
3. Doing it over several weeks one hose at a time.

I called two AutoZones and they won't even tell me what sizes of hose they carry. They say, "just bring it in and we'll match it. And I've called all over town and nobody has hoses with metric IDs. I went to Ace hardware as suggested above, but my Ace only had two sizes and neither was close to the required sizes. Advance Auto has a good selection of SAE ID hoses and they are all around $.79 to $.89.

So it would be great if there was a list of the hose lengths, hose sizes, and elbow sizes needed to replace all the vacuum hoses at once (even the $60 stylinmotors kit comes sans elbows).

It doesn't sound like such a resource is available , so as I attempt to do this job I will try to compile the information and post it back in case it might help others .

[thecheat]

Mcmaster Carr to the reeeesssscuuuuuueee!!!!!! Here is their tubing page:

http://www.mcmaster.com/#tubing/=92qge1

You can buy rubber or silicone (or neoprene, or latex, nitrile, etc) hose... by the foot... with precise metric diameters.

I looked up 2mm ID (6mm OD) silicone tube and it is a buck a foot, 4mm ID is a little more per foot, etc..

So if someone could say you need "X feet of Y ID tube" then we could just buy it by the foot from a company that doesn't screw around with questionable materials and do it all right the first time.

[C@lvin]

thanks for the contribution!

[thecheat]

upon closer review, mcmaster has 4 and 6 mm ID silicone but no 3.5 or 8 mm. The closest to those are 3 and 7mm. I would bet that you could just push a little harder and make them fit.

The only issue is that apparently the minimum size is 10' so you would be spending $35.90 plus shipping and have a ton left over.

I attached the catalog page - look in the top section under "SOFT"

0121.pdf

(143.81 KiB) Downloaded 1719 times

[t5ftw]

Their page is still under construction but they seem to have 3.5mm and 8mm as well
http://www.lextreme.com/htsbuy.html
http://www.boostcontroller.com/index.php?category=8

[thecheat]

Their page is still under construction but they seem to have 3.5mm and 8mm as well
http://www.lextreme.com/htsbuy.html
http://www.boostcontroller.com/index.php?category=8

Ok, those are good prices and the minimum is only 5 feet. Now... 5 feet of each size then?

[rrochell8]

Okay. Make it easy on yourself and buy the kit from stylin'. Gives you the sizes you need and some extra...They last forever. It's $60! I'm a cheap bastard and that's not too much to pay for just what I need so that I don't have to piece together or run back and forth to Autozone.

[t5ftw]

After reading this http://www.turborx7.com/Media/hosedebate.pdf, I am not certain if I can use silicone hose for the vacuum line from the purge valve by the radiator, that connects to a tee, where it joins another hose and goes to the middle of intake manifold. Hoses around the tee are in worse condition than the rest. I am not sure if it is because of fuel vapor or the proximity to the heat of the engine. The original hose seems to me just rubber. Someone on this board mentioned fuel hose for the application. Is it good for vacuum? Any thoughts? In addition, the input line to the purge valve has some kind of rubber connector with larger diameter at the end. Can I just pull it off and replace it with something else? Is it glued inside?

[thecheat]

I think when I redo my hoses I'm just going to buy rubber. If the original ones lasted for over 15 years, surely the new ones will last as long - which is plenty. It is cheaper and more available.