I've bought those before but don't remember where.. They need to be sized for the right OD of the hose, then they make a good 360* clamp. It's also possible to snag some from a junkyard if you can't find them locally..
The big reason (I think) not to use worm-gear clamps is once they go any smaller than their intended diameter (which happens 9 times out of 10) you end up with a flat spot in the clamping area since the worm part can't conform to a smaller diameter than it was intended. I hate those things.. .
I was sort-of in the same boat when I did the fuel pump on my 3800 swap. I had a new pump and an aftermarket VDO floaty sender thing, but wanted to completely get rid of the factory lines and go all braided. I made a custom fuel sender / pump holder / gas tank top with right-angle AN fittings screwed to the aluminum top. Then all braided lines up to the factory rails, which I'll replace with nice fuel logs at some point; I'll already have the AN fittings and lines to do it.
Will it "perform" any better than the stock sender / hard lines run to some braided lines? I doubt it.
Was it cheaper? Definitely not. I probably have $400 into the setup, not counting my CNC time. The fuel sender does read dead-on though, and it's about as free-flowing as you can possibly get. For a minute I thought I'd be able to make an access hatch at the top of the tunnel behind the shifter, then I could just detach my AN fittings and lift the fuel unit out of the tank. I cut some holes in my about-to-be-junked parts car and found it was totally impractical though. I could have made a hole big enough, but with having to remove the shifter cables, throttle cable and brake vacuum line it was in no way worth the effort. I did make stainless fuel tank straps and stainless T-bolts / hardware, so in theory it should be much easier to drop the tank if it's ever necessary.
In the end, I would have been better off doing what you're doing, just clamping the braided hose to the existing hard lines at the tank. If you haven't looked, there are some "cheap" AN fitting options on eBay.. Not name-brand, but I've heard from at least one person that you can't tell the difference. That said, I bought all mine from Summit so I can't really say either way. (Edit - I posted a link to some braided-to-hardline fittings, but they say 25PSI MAX... Maybe not such a good idea! I have 1 at the top of the fuel pump, but at least it's in the tank so if it leaks it's just going back into the tank..) Though the factory pulsator thing is just a rubber grommet pushed over tubing, something tells me the compression fittings can hold more pressure than that thing..
Prototype printed in ABS:
Finished sender: (minus the float - I used the Fiero one as the VDO ball was too light. I also machined my own AN fitting wrenches. LOL)
Sadly it appears I didn't take any pictures with the actual braided lines attached.. I think I was so burned out after taking the sender in and out 20 times and pumping gas in and out that I forgot about it.. Oh well. Some day I need to make a build thread to show all this stuff.
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Bob Williams
(still) working on the 3800 swap... It'll drive some day!
[This message has been edited by Riceburner98 (edited 04-01-2012).]
