Can anyone school me on hoses?
Turbo Mini Forums

Over the last few days ive been looking at plumbing fittings for my mini and my universities formula student team and ive learnt a lot, im just hoping someone will be able to fill in the blanks.

I know theres a shit load of different manufacturers, Earls, aeroquip, speedflow and more i cant think of.
Are they much of the same for the expensive ones? With the quality dropping off the less you pay?
I know that they are non-interchangeable with hoses and fittings, so logically i should only aim to use one type of fitting on a car?

And can anyone reccomend what manufacturer they would use? I'm trying to narrow the choices down to a simple choice.
Cheers,
Joe

In boost we trust

What sort of hoses? oil feed hose, break line hose, fuel hose, vac hose, etc etc

For silicone hoses you can mix and match hoses as much as you like, they are totally interchangeable as they are all standard sizes.

made to fit rad hoses for the mini are quite limited to manufacturers, generic hoses are available in their droves.

I just bought a load of hosing from this guy on ebay, the absolute cheapest new pipes on ebay and they are just as good as any Samco stuff I have used before http://stores.ebay.co.uk/dphsiliconehose

Edited by Simon on 18th Jul, 2010.

http://turbominis.co.uk/forums/index.php?p=vt&tid=170151

whats commonly known as aeroquip is basically interchangable with all the other brands, I've used cheap (still not actually that cheap!) aeroquip style stuff on mine for the brakes, oil lines and fuel lines,

the hoses are sized in the same way (dash and then the bore in mm) and the fittings are usually JIC fittings which have a UNF thread.

on the whole a pretty easy system to deal with.

generally dash 2 or 3 is brake hoses, dash 3 or 4 for turbo feeds, dash 6 for fuel, and dash 10 for oil (on a mini at least).

oh and the presure rating for this stuf is upwards of 1500psi (for the big stuff) upto about 3000psi plus for the smaller brake sized stuff.

http://www.apmotorstore.co.uk/

these are who i will be using to get my hoses. they were pretty cheap to and seriously fast delivery....and helpful also massive plus.

From my experience It depends on where you buy your pars from. From the sounds of it your looking to use braided hose and bolted anodised aeroquipe type fittings. I have found for the same part a price gap of over £20! So find exactly what you need and get on that phone.

Own the day

He's right!

Thanks for everyones help.
Its just a long process going through everything on the formula student car, deciding on plumbing routes and all the rubbish that goes with it. And all ive got to play with is a half finished 3d model, as we wont have the car built for a few months.

I think ill just go for earls fittings as i have a printed catalogue in front of me and dont have to screw around with loads of different pdfs and web pages.

In boost we trust

You must have a big budget if going with Earls. I've bought a bit of their stuff - quality, but price is over the top!

The bill is paid by the university, and im going to order extra as 'spares' that will appear on my starlet mini shortly after.

Im paying enough hecs that i may as well get my moneys worth out of it.

In boost we trust

9.85 @ 145mph
202mph standing mile
speed didn't kill me, but taxation probably will

I can't comment on Earls, but Speedflow have always been very helpful when I have bought stuff from them.

I'd second speedflow, very helpfull, especially as I fucked up the order in the first place!

Fastest 998 mini in the world? 13.05 1/4 mile 106mph