Guys,

I wanted to share some ideas for dressing up hoses and wires.

I have used a product called Techflex to dress up home audio cables in the past. I decided it would look good under the hood too.

http://www.techflex.com/land_allprods.asp

Techflex is a braided sleeve made from PET which is very chemical resistant and works up to decently high temperatures. They make tons of varieties for all kinds of applications. It is available in a variety of colors.



I test covered a bunch of vacuum hoses with the Clean Cut variety and really like the results. I plan to replace much of the crappy plastic wire loom with this stuff as well as all my hoses. Here are some pics. More pics coming after I get them installed.





$30 will get you a bunch of different sizes and the heat shrink tube to finish the ends. It can be purchased by the foot at.

www.wirecare.com

Oh that looks similar to the wrap they put on the 4thgens instead of the plastic wire loom. We have that at work on our trucks. Looks good though, I'd imagine that making the engine bay rather "clean" looking.

I'd do it on most hoses etc. minus the vac lines. You need to be able to find a leak if one occurs. Unless you have new(er) vac lines installed then go for it!
It looks dope

Nice find.

I know a few guys who compete in car audio that use this stuff.

I was planning on using this when I was re-pinning my LS1 harness, but I ended up just reusing the factory split loom (not to mention my first job was not all that clean). I will give it a shot on the next try since it does look very slick. Nice work!

Didn't like that loom when I had to cut it off of a Chrysler wiring harness, still don't. I'm going for some heat-resistant sleeve that is a metallic red (good to about 600*F, according to the advertisement). It's expensive, but I'd rather have that then that Techflex junk or the factory split loom that breaks every time you look at it.

The Techflex covering looks just like the stuff that Spectre started marketing back in the 1980's when they were first starting out.

I like that covering. If your going for a non flashy type of setup

Got a lot done today. More pics later.

Front TPI harness.

that actually looks better than i though it would. whats the deal with the zip ties? does the shrink wrap not grab well enough, or are those temporary?

I was not willing to de-pin the harness to slip the heatshrink over the bundle. So in some cases I had to cut the heatshrink, slid it over, zip tie, then heat. The heat shrink I have is adhesive lined so it actually still holds decent. For cases like the throttle cables, I then removed the zip ties and it worked fine. For cases like the bundle breaking out into separate run, the split heatshrink isn't strong enough to hold well. So I used the zip ties. They are all situated so the heads of the zip tie will not be seen when the harness is plugged in. I am ok with how they look.

I have some more sleeve on order this is more fabric like and less shiny. Techflex F6 quiet. Should look better. However the car has been down for months and I'm ready to have it back together. So I will at least cover the wires that will be hard to get to when the car is back together again.

I now have something else to add to my to-do list....haha

I would like to see an overall engine shot once its done...

it seems to fit quite nicely on the misc. lines and cables.... you had no issues getting it to fit over the connector harness ends?

Very nice. Very nice indeed.

Now I can't wait for the weather to heat up.

For some of the bundles I used a split sleeve, Techflex F6. In fact most of the pictures are of the split sleeve. The split all but disappears. Really nice product.

http://www.techflex.com/prod_F6N.asp

wow now i really like that. especially since i will be doing an lsx swap. my harnesses will have to be depinned so i might be able to do it without the tie wraps.

looks pretty good.

I wonder how it would do with heater hose? I wonder if you could still clamp over it?

looks like something you'd see in the aviation community...brings back nightmares.

I am actually planning to cover them as well. Techflex makes many different colors and make some black with colored tracers. I'm thinking about trying a green or yellow tracer for the cooling system. Red tracer for battery power cable, etc.

Blue tracer example.

I work in the aviation industry. I get some of my inspiration from it.

How do those stand up against normal weathering? I'd really like to know, I dig em.

Techflex is supposedly extremely chemical resistant, so I would guess they should hold up well. We'll see.

More pics:

Negative battery cable.




Positive battery cable.

Solid red - spark plug wires
All black - vacuum, heater hose

i was looking at the black/graphite stuff, super classy. nice going with the color coordinating, good idea especially when it comes to power

Looks great. Grainger has similar stuff locally, although I don't know how their prices compare.

ok wow!....I'm really impressed! Both with the product and esp with your install and pics. I used the old spectre version back in the day and was not impressed at all with the fit and finish. This product looks light years beyond...esp with the use of the shrink wrap. The spectre stuff was so plastic looking and frayed so bad on the ends. Heck the way you zip tied the ends even looks so clean they don't bother me. my only worry is how will they hold up to dust and dirt. How easy are they to clean?

Might fine job tho! I might be looking into using this.

A few pictures of the engine finally put together. The coverings are subtle, but I like them.

the end product really looks nice. great job. a bit off topic, but what brand strut tower brace is that?

Looking great, I used that only on my water hoses but may do what you did

Thanks. The STB is from UMI.

These clamps will work on the ends of the radiator / heater hoses. They may not seal with the loom under them, but standard heat shrink could cover them and resolve standard worm clamp problems.

http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Gates-...ign=GoogleBase

I am actually using those guys on many of my connections. See upper radiator hose here.

By the way.........Awesome work!!

Your engine bay is beautiful! The wiring looms just make the wires disappear. Very classy.

I agree! The picture itself is nicely done. Makes the TPI look sinister lol!

So im thinking of doing this to my 79 Z28. I was wondering how well this stuff has been holding up?

Nice loom but i need a damn link to buy that same camera

It has been holding up just fine. Granted the car doesn't get driven that much. There are probably 3000 miles on them. The covers over the coolant hoses have stretched slightly. So they are slightly loose when the engine is cold and become very tight when the coolant warms up.

Its just you basic 8yr old Nikon D40.

that's a great looking engine bay! Very jealous!

Thanks for the info. Any certain type that you would suggest to use? Or just the same type that you did?