Beware of Summit Branded braided hose!!!

[Kevin Panzino]

Ken, if this belongs in the tech section feel free to move it. But I wanted to get this issue out to as large an audience as possible.

Last year when pulling my car out from the garage for the first time in the spring, I noticed a bit of an odd haze coming up from the engine compartment (thankfully I still had the hood off and saw it quickly). Turns out a -8 braided fuel line was spraying fuel out of the sheath at 60 psi. No abrasion or distress seen on the braid, just the rubber under it had failed. Was concerned but just figured it was an odd ball.

Well yesterday the same thing happened on my dyno just before a pull on a friends engine. Started the fuel pump to check for fuel rail leaks before starting the engine and a huge mist and cloud of fuel was flying out of one of the -8 lines, right near the headers. Had that happened during the pull, I would have had one hell of a dyno room fire on my hands.

In both cases the hoses were the summit branded hoses, and no damage at all to the braid, just a failure of the rubber inside.

I’m changing everything out to name brand hoses once I figure out who doesn’t have them made in China.
I also plan on getting the black “sleeve” stuff to put over the new hoses so at least it won’t spray out if they fail.

Understand all the talk of lithium battery fires, but this is an item which puts way more of us at risk in my opinion.

Kp