I want to go with the braided look on all of my engine bay hoses, etc and I've looked at these kits they sell at Pep Boys, etc that have the stuff you slide over the hoses with some kind of fakey-seeming plastic ends that clip together...

I guess my question is whether this is generally frowned upon by judges and show veterans or if it's an acceptable substitute for actually replacing all of the hoses with genuine stainless steel braided parts. I don't wanna do anything cheesy or anything and I have no experience in this area.

Any advice on this or getting the real stainless is appreciated. Does anyone make a kit for J's that has most of the sizes we would use (actual steel lines) or do you have to measure everything one hose at a time and order them like that?

Thanks!

I am interested in this too...

Here are few pic's of mine. I used a combination of kits. The Sleeve over kit for the preshaped (large) radiator hoses. And the rubber inner/braided outer , with the hose clamp style fittings. On the smaller diameter vacuum hoses the fittings just slip over with no clamps. Took a whole Sat. to do it but I think it pretty good.







"The FACTS are always subject to CHANGE once the TRUTH is applied"
"In the entire history of man the only stupid questions are the ones that don't get asked"

its like anything else when done right (john317 is a great example) it will help you. if done poorly it could hurt you.


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Last summer I installed a Mr. Gasket stainless braided hose cover kit on my car. I liked it at first but after driving the car a few times over the winter, the covers got all nasty looking mainly due to the dish soap they recommend you use to get the covers on. I tried cleaning them and nothing worked.

At the beginning of this year I decided to take the covers off and just leave the ends on. The ends that came in the Mr. Gasket kit are real metal and they come in a variety of colors, including blue . I have actually gotten more compliments on the hoses with just the ends on them than I did when I had the covers installed too.

To me the covers end up looking cheap because most of them don't fit tight enough over the hoses or they get loosened up during installation. I would suggest maybe just getting some of the ends to put on. They will dress the hoses up without being too much work and if you don't like how they look they're easy to take off. The only thing you need to put the end covers on is a different style clamp that goes on underneath the covers.

Just my .02 though.

I had a braided kit at one point that I bought from a motorsports store only due to it's cheap price. I put it on and it turned out being exactly what I paid for, cheap. Maybe if you get a nice name-brand kit, you could get nice results like John317, however, they do gather a lot of grime and dirt and require a bit of elbow grease to clean. If you're gonna get a kit, make sure you get the metal endings. That plastic wont last a week.


Woooo bubbies.

check into the kit Jegs sells. I bought it for my truck. Looks nice and has good hose ends(metal) chrome or anodized. and its the actual hose not just sleeves. you just measure your upper rad hose and order by that measurement. comes w upper rad, heater hoses, fuel line, and vacuum lines. and all are long enough, just cut to length you need. and its only like 90 bucks. thought it was a good deal. hope this helps. oh yeah and the sleeves i've also done......a BIG pain and they dont look all that great unless you really take your time.