Vacuum Routing Preview

I've been sitting on a lot of things here and there, waiting for accompanying bits and pieces to arrive in the mail.

One of these items is the vacuum block pictured here. I sought out an over-the-top piece from Full-Race. Then I turned around and disassembled the hardware it came with. For my routing I wanted something a little nicer than running hose between hose barbs but wasn't quite willing to drop coin on AN fittings and lines. Some while back I stumbled upon a great compromise while perusing a build thread on a different forum; push-to-connect fittings. Mine all came from McMaster-Carr. As an added bonus the brass comes nickel plated! You'll see why thats important a little later. Toward the left of the shot is my solution for the vacuum feed. When I refurbished the intake manifold (some time ago) I removed the steel barbs and replaced them with some brass barbs I had a friend machine up. Later when I decided to go with the push-to-connect fittings I discovered that I had used a really strange thread that couldn't be found. So I cobbled together an alternative. After some digging through the endless parts bin of McMaster I found a barbed push-to-connect and ordered it with a 10 mm diameter stem. To make the right angle off of the intake manifold I pillaged an old PCV line for a rubber elbow. After shortening the fitting to fit the end I wanted I pressed it together; 10 mm is hair large so the assembly won't be coming apart any time soon. Floating around in the foreground of the photo are some additional fittings for the compressor housing on the turbocharger, and the wastegate housing. I don't have the actual vacuum line yet. I wanted to get everything else set up so I could order appropriate lenghts. The feed off of the manifold will be 6 mm while the plumbing off the vaccum block will be all 4 mm.