Has anyone here had any experiences with them?

 

I run AN flex hose from my tank to the hard line and from the rails to the hard line.

 

Would you recommend a flex braid hose kit?

 

Depends on the application I guess. There aren't really a lot of options for fluid connections that are flexible. The options are reduced even more by A) things you can make with hand tools at home B) when connecting critical to function & flammable fluids.

Certainly rubber hose and a spring clamp is fine for something like windshield washer sprayers, but you wouldnt use that to install your new external oil cooler. So that's what I mean by application dependent.

The upside is that properly done AN connections are very robust. They're pretty standard fare on legitimate race cars for that reason.

The downside is a small learning curve to get them right and very high prices. The hose itself isnt super crazy, but the AN fittings at the ends add up quick.


On my car, I had to run new fuel lines as my factory ones were rusting heavily at the bends (I had previously had a similar brake line failure years before, and didnt want to wait until this failed also and potentially left me stranded somewhere). I had also recently upgraded my fuel system with dual 320 E85 pumps in the tank.

To save a bit of money, I ran fresh hard line along the entire length of the body - 2 feeds, 1 larger return. But up at the engine, I needed to connect the hard lines to each fuel rail with something flexible to allow engine movement. Also at the back, I cut a hole in my trunk floor to allow pulling the pumps without dropping the tank, but I couldn't get hard lines to work out in making the bends up along the top of the tank while still being able to be moved out of the way far enough to get the pumps/hat out. As such, I stopped the 3 hard lines at the base of the tank and ran flexible AN up to the hat. Makes it much easier to snake them out of the way for pump removal.

I'm very happy with them. It's probably been on 5 years at this point with E85 and zero leaks / issues. I'm also not worried about one popping off and spraying the engine down as they're very solid connections. As noted though, it's not cheap - I bet I've got at least $300 just in fittings for that project. Depending on what lines you're looking to redo / add, it can get extremely expensive.

 

I believe the kit is for vacuum, fuel, and something else. Gonna give it a try myself.

 

I guess I'm not following. I've never seen a multi use kit for legitimate braided hose/ AN fittings. You have to buy the components to match what you're trying to replace/ install as theres no way they could predict what size hoses and such you need and what fluids they need to be rated to handle. Youd also have to buy the fittings to match for whatever you're connecting it to (oil cooler, fuel rails, etc). Theres also not much reason for AN braided vacuum lines either besides maybe WG control on a high boost turbo setup or something.


You're not talking about those Autozone Fast and Furious special 'dress up kits' that just have a loose sleeve over the stock hose with the fake fittings / clamp covers are you?

 

No. I saw those too, but they didn't look trustworthy.

 

Can you post a link to what you're looking at? I've honestly just never heard of a multi hose kit for these, so it would help clarify what you're looking at for people to provide input on.


In terms of the pic above, those kind of kits dont really have to be trustworthy as it's a non functional dress up kit. Literally just covers the stock hose and doesnt actually do anything - kinda like carbon fiber stickers. All of those dress up kits look equally cheap - any closer than 30 feet away and its obviously fake garbage, just like carbon fiber stickers, lol.

 

Not sure if this is the same exact thing, but the connectors looked much more assuring than the previous photo.

 

That's certainly a higher quality (and way more expensive) dress up kit made to look more realistic with tighter fitting end caps and a bonded sleeve (vs the typical loose pull over sleeve). But at the end of the day, that's all it is - a knockoff dress up kit. Its still just regular rubber hose and clamps with some pretty stuff on the outside and is nowhere near the quality / function of legitimate flexible braided hose / AN fittings.

Personally I wouldnt buy it for a few reasons:
-First because I generally dislike fake stuff. IMO it's like installing a fake intercooler or some carbon fiber stickers. Nobody is really going to believe that you really spent $1k++ to actually convert all this stuff to legitimate hose / AN.

-What makes it 100x worse is that its obviously fake to anyone that knows cars that gets within 30 feet. The radiator is the most obvious one - it only comes with 1 hose (the upper - clearly no one doing it for real would only change 1 of the 2 hoses), and clearly it's not possible to screw AN to a stock style plastic radiator. Same goes for the other fittings as its obvious they're just butted up against whatever they're connecting to rather than actually screwing into a mating AN fitting. IMO it's like putting a hollow supercharger over the stock intake but not even hooking the belt up - it's not going to fool anyone except for little kids and non-car people.

-It's a universal fit kit meaning it universally wont fit anything well. The radiator hose is the obvious challenge as it looks to be a straight hose. I'd be very skeptical about collapsing part of it trying to bend it to replace a factory molded bend hose.

-It's worse than stock in some cases - the fuel line being the obvious one. Per the OEM website, the hose is rated to 30 psi. Replace your stock nylon line with that and you're going to hose the engine down with fuel the first time you crank it up as the hose blows out. No clue what spec the others are made to, and theres really no way to verify as the rubber is covered up. I imagine it's probably the cheapest stuff they can find as it's only a 90 day warranty.