Engine plumbing

[Jasper Jones]

I am getting ready to start doing the plumbing on my '69 Camaro project, and was looking for some opinions. The engine block and heads are going to be painted black, the valve covers will be paint matched to the red body color, the firewall, inner fenders and subframe will be black, and the intake and radiator are natural finish aluminum. I have an electric water pump (CSR), and plan on running AN lines/fittings for all plumbing. Do you guys think it would looks better if I went the standard stainless braid/red and blue, or if I went with the black Pro-Lite braid from Earl's and Ano-tuf(black) or polished stainless steel fittings? The only problem is that if I go with Ano-tuf, I can only run -16 on the water lines, as opposed to -20 with the more traditional red and blue fittings. Thanks.
-Jason

[ProStreet R/T]

I hate the red/blue crap, looks soooo out of place on a nice clean engine bay. The black anodized fitting are nice, i'm especially fond of the nickle plated stainless but they are extremely hard to find.

-16 is fine for coolant fittings, if you want to get real trick run a dual -10 feed right to the cylinder heads.

[Matt@RFR]

Do a search!! I've suggested, several times now, that if you really want to do it right, and do it your own way, you can have anything aluminum (to include AN hose ends) anodized in any color your little heart desires.

Look in your phone book under plating, and you probably have an anodizer atleast somewhat local to you.

[ProStreet R/T]

Good point, but thats an ass load of work to strip a million little (already retartedly expensive I might add) fittings with easy off then send them out to be anodized. But I guess if thats what you really want then go big.

I just bought the black fittings with black braided hose and let it be.

[Jasper Jones]

So do you think I should run stainless line with a custom color, or black with a custom color. I guess black line with red fittings would follow the theme, or stainless and red. The stainless would sorta match the intake and radiator. I really just want to avoid having plumbing that stands out and looks bad. Thanks for the tips.

I think you can buy the fittings un-anodized.

[rocketrod]

I did mine with the common red/blue and while I like it next time I will use polished fittings. With the red/blue or black anodized fittings you will inevitable nick/scratch when fabbing/installing the hoses, while the polished ones are little more durable from what I have been told.

[Jasper Jones]

The only problem I am having with polished fittings is that I don't plan on having anything else polished under the hood. It will have sort of an "industrial" look to it, all painted or natural finish.

[yody]

get the endura finished Russel fittings, thats what i used

[Matt@RFR]

Good point, but thats an ass load of work to strip a million little (already retartedly expensive I might add) fittings with easy off then send them out to be anodized. But I guess if thats what you really want then go big.
Stripping is built into the cost of anodizing. They clean everything, no matter what it looks like, before it goes in their chemicals.


So do you think I should run stainless line with a custom color, or black with a custom color.

Do this: Write every single possible combination on a piece of paper. Read them out loud, one by one, and visualize what it would look like. Make note of the ones that give you a boner. Rinse and repeat.

[Jasper Jones]

Hahaha, thank for the idea, I'll do that. I'm starting to lean towards stainless line, and red fittings. Thanks for all the help guys.
-Jason