Can you bend rubber hoses with a heat gun?

FastKat · Mar 5, 2012

I am trying to piece together an intake setup for my hotrod using large rubber hose. When I say intake, I mean everything between the throttle body and the air cleaner. I have used large rubber intake hose (4" ID) in the past and it worked well. With my new setup, I need some weird bends, which would require modifying a couple rubber pieces.

Has anyone ever successfully used a heat gun (or any other method) to permanently bend a rubber intake hose? Here is the kind of thing I am talking about:

I would start with this 90 degree bend and add about 20 degrees to it (flatten the bend by 20 degrees so it is a little straighter.) Also, I want to flatten the big end out to more of an oval shape, too.

Is this something you can do with rubber hose? Or will the heat ruin the hose and make it unusable?

dadsEH · Mar 5, 2012

Rubber hose is a thermal cure process... once its cooked and taken a formed shape thats it brother.

bmxr4life87 · Mar 5, 2012

What about using some exhaust tube for the straight runs?

dadsEH · Mar 5, 2012

" I am trying to piece together an intake setup for my hotrod using large rubber hose.I mean everything between the throttle body and the air cleaner"

Hotrods dont have no throttle bodies!

nso123 · Mar 5, 2012

If you are just needing a slight bend, you could use a section of silicon hose between the tb and the plastic hose.

ford.crazy · Mar 5, 2012

You could use a unicoil from gates. Not sure what sizes they have, but I used it on a few heater hoses and it worked to keep the shape I wanted under the hood. You can almost make any shape you need. http://www.gates-unicoil.com/gallery_eng.cfm

FastKat · Mar 5, 2012

dadsEH said:
Rubber hose is a thermal cure process... once its cooked and taken a formed shape thats it brother.

Ahh, yea, that's what I was afraid of!

bmxr4life87 said:
What about using some exhaust tube for the straight runs?

I was thinking about that, but I have to make two sharp bends in a pretty short amount of space. I don't know if I'll be able to get any straight runs in at all!

dadsEH said:
Hotrods dont have no throttle bodies!

Haha yea, I guess it would be more of an "E-rod" then!

nso123 said:
If you are just needing a slight bend, you could use a section of silicon hose between the tb and the plastic hose.

Does silicon hose bend easier than rubber? Can it be manipulated with heat?

ford.crazy said:
You could use a unicoil from gates. Not sure what sizes they have, but I used it on a few heater hoses and it worked to keep the shape I wanted under the hood. You can almost make any shape you need. http://www.gates-unicoil.com/gallery_eng.cfm

I just don't think I have enough room to put one of those in, even if I can find it in a 4" ID. I will keep that in mind for my heater hoses... they're coming up on the list!

I am going to have to take another good look at this and reevaluate. I might have enough room to use a 45* bend and a 22* bend, or if I want to go the other direction, and 90* bend and a 22* bend. It's no ideal, but it might be necessary to make it work.

NUTTSGT · Mar 5, 2012

When I worked at Dayco Swan, we made radiator hose (my job) and other formed rubber hose. It was cured in a vulcanizer at 90 psi/ 330° for about 20 minutes. I doubt you can duplicate that at home. They always told us that hose has a memory, once it's cured a certain way, it wants to go back to that position.

RPH · Mar 5, 2012

Cut miter joints and glue it together.

raley · Mar 5, 2012

I can't remember the same of the "tape" but you can basicly wrap something (paper wadded up) and then tape it, heat gun it, and you have a tube, its some sort of rubber tape.

Frank The Plumber · Mar 5, 2012

dadsEH said:
" I am trying to piece together an intake setup for my hotrod using large rubber hose.I mean everything between the throttle body and the air cleaner"

Hotrods dont have no throttle bodies!

True Hotrods don't have hoses that are bent either.

jweller · Mar 5, 2012

raley said:
I can't remember the same of the "tape" but you can basicly wrap something (paper wadded up) and then tape it, heat gun it, and you have a tube, its some sort of rubber tape.

silicone tape. pretty cool stuff.

OP - sounds like you are going to have pretty serious bend in your intake track. Have you considered another option for routing? that is not optimal for flow.

FastKat · Mar 5, 2012

Thanks again for the info.

Lots of hotrod hate! Maybe it's not a true hotrod...whatever... check out my website and call it what you want! http://www.buyrcars.com/jag.htm

Here is a picture of my current intake setup:

I have one of these:

The new throttle body is offset to one side and turned away from center about 30 degrees.

I really have two options: A) Use my current intake, which pulls cool dense air from a positive-pressure location outside the engine bay, or B) Pull hot air from a negative-pressure location inside the engine bay. Option B will allow me straight short air intake path, and option A will required a couple bends. Neither solution is ideal.

Also, somewhere in between the throttle body and air filter, I need to put the mass air flow sensor.

So tell me more about this silicone tape! EDIT: Oh wait, I get it now, it's silicone tape and you're making your own silicone elbow.

nso123 · Mar 6, 2012

They make silicone tubing. We have used it on turbo installs when using v-bands and aluminum tubing was not convenient. The silicone is very soft and easy to manipulate. They also make different bends, reducers, etc.

FastKat · Mar 6, 2012

That sounds really great! I am having trouble finding 6" ID silicone tubing though - that's the size I need for that air cleaner. Does anybody make really big ones? I was looking at siliconeintakes.com - they have a really good selection, but nothing that big.

nso123 said:
They make silicone tubing. We have used it on turbo installs when using v-bands and aluminum tubing was not convenient. The silicone is very soft and easy to manipulate. They also make different bends, reducers, etc.

JamieK · Mar 6, 2012

Found this after a little help from Google. I know nothing about the company, except they have what you want. And its $$$!

http://www.hiprospeed.com/HPS-6-Silicone-Hoses-Silicon-Hose-s/85.htm

Another thought is that it looks like the boot you already have on the car would flex enough to hook up to the angled throttle body. You'll just have to move the air filter off center.

Crusty Nut · Mar 6, 2012

Lots of good stuff here. They had what I needed for my hot rod.
http://www.intakehoses.com/

nso123 · Mar 6, 2012

Here is an example. The stuff is pricey, but you can buy it by the foot. We have it available at a local hydraulic supply store.

Deception · Mar 7, 2012

doesnt answer your question, but I fabbed my supercharger intake with couplers & pipes from http://siliconeintakes.com/

jweller · Mar 7, 2012

You know the other thing I've seen done is to use regular straight couplers and fab a bend up out of tube using pie cuts. It is a LOT of work, but looks very impressive when done well. I don't know if you weld or not, that might be the deciding factor.

Thats fabrication **** to me.

NUTTSGT · Mar 7, 2012

jweller said:
You know the other thing I've seen done is to use regular straight couplers and fab a bend up out of tube using pie cuts. It is a LOT of work, but looks very impressive when done well. I don't know if you weld or not, that might be the deciding factor.

Thats fabrication **** to me.

That is some serious fabwork there. I wonder how many hours went into that ? :drool:

FastKat · Mar 13, 2012

jweller said:

Wow, that is really really nice. I can weld, but not that well! Maybe I could do something similar, but a little less intense.

91bronc300 · Mar 15, 2012

That........is..........awesome! Wow. That's a real craftsman whoever did that.

Can you bend rubber hoses with a heat gun?

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