I am in the middle of adding a turbo to an LS6 and if you know turbos, you know there's a bunch of things that need vacuum lines running to them. My question is, has anyone found a way to form the nylon hoses used in push-lock connections the way the factory has them? We've all seen the hard plastic lines GM likes to use that are bent around things, and that is what I am going for. In my case, I have a fuel pressure regulator mounted to my drivers inner fender and my vacuum distribution block will be located at the passenger side. To me, just running a hose around the engine compartment looks shitty. Just wondering if anyone has found a way to do this before I go looking on my own.

From what I have gathered, the production process uses a combination of heat and steam to make their parts. At this moment in time, I plan on using boiling water and a coat hanger to make the bend, along with some electrical wire inside of the hose to keep it from closing up inside. I don't know if this will work, but it's the best I have so far.

 

Haven't tried it on nylon, but i have on those black GM lines. I used a heat gun with some foam shoved inside. Biggest issue, the GM lines collapse really easy if you use too much heat or less heat for too long and by too long i mean just a few seconds, but i was able to form quite a few bends. I also swapped some quick connect fittings by heating the ends and shoving the fitting on. Example below, evap solenoid.

 

Awesome. Looks good.

Luckily, the vacuum lines that I have are nice and thin and I was able to form them just using heat. I had some mandrel bent tubing laying around, so I taped the lines to the tubing and heated them up gently. They relaxed to form the bend and then held the bend when they cooled off. I didn't need to add anything to the inside, luckily.

 

Great thinking. Wish i had a tube bender. Would love to make some new lines with one.

 

I was able to form a small section of nylon line for a motorcycle, so really small section. But held it in position and hit it with a heat gun. It's gravity feed so no pressure.

Going forward I plan to try some largeish copper wire inside, bend it to my desired shape and then hit it with a heat gun. Grounding wite for houses and stuff looks like a good fit and easy to get, different sizes as well. Seen a few youtube videos of people doing it successfully.