So I am trying to be "budget" and I was given half of some pieces of a hot side, and I am trying to piece/fab the rest of it together. So I searched and found where bending the AC lines is actually a "thing", but I couldn't really find anyone saying how they did it, how much they did it, or where exactly they did it.

So the turbo log manifold and downpipe I have I'm pretty sure if the Chinesium one you can buy off eBay. It doesn't actually seem like too bad of a piece and the welds look good, although the flanges on the crossover seem to be coated in basically what looks like chrome spray paint haha.

Anyway, since I have a 2011 Sierra Denali GMT-900 I think they changed some stuff and the motor is actually moved farther back towards the firewall compared to the GMT-800, and I am pretty sure the Chinesium parts I have are designed for a GMT-800. I was close to thinking of waving off and just buying a entire new high quality hotside kit, especially since the Chinesium downpipe is only 3 inches and the turbo outlet looks to be 4 in and I am trying to connect to the stock 6.2 exhaust after the y-pipe merge which seems to be 4in or maybe bigger, but hopefully the 3 in downpipe will help me with firewall clearance. However, I think I can make it work, but I am probably going to need to do some pretty serious bending of the AC line, I think I need to bend it like I drew in the blue arrows:



I just don't know how far I should try to push my luck and bend it? haha

Right now I put a 4in to 3in v-band adapter coming out of the turbo, but I may have to just cut the existing 3in v-band off the downpipe and try to weld my own on there that will attach to the 4in turbo outlet, I'm just not the best welder.

 

So looking at the joint where the AC line goes into the accumulator, it looks as though the line can swivel and the flange that holds it on with the screw maybe is completely separated from the line, so maybe it can be loosened up a little and the line could be rotated and then re-tightened? I guess there would be an o-ring behind it so if you loosened it you wouldn't leak out freon and kill penguins and whales.

 

I have a 1500HD, which has a ~3/4" factory body lift over the regular 1500, so it's a little different. My truck calls for the same AC line part number as the 1500's. You can't rotate the fitting, it's hard mounted on the dryer. I bent my AC line originally because that's what others were doing on the 1500's. However, I has never happy because with the factory body lift, the line was very close to the turbo. The bent line lasted two months or so before it burst from heat from the turbo. I ended up buying an AC line crimp tool and made my own custom line. Going on two years, no issues and would recommend.

 

Thanks for the info, it looks like I wasn't searching the right thing because now I just found like 5 threads with people commenting their AC line "blew up" haha sounds like a huge mess, and yes I agree I feel like if it ever blew up or you had to drain it and recharge you could introduce contaminates and problems.

Apparently you need about 3/4 in of clearance, and I guess you need thermal wrap on the rubber hose. However I think most of that aftermarket thermal wrap is made for ricer racer boys to look cool and isn't actually engineered to do anything. I would rather find OEM type stuff or maybe try to use a aluminum heat shield like the stock exhaust manifold does.

I know the right thing to do is to get a custom line made, but I feel I would spend $500 on parts and fittings and then paying someone up vacuum and recharge the system.

 

I remember spending $150 on the AC crimp tool and another $150 for parts to make the new AC line. I flushed, vacuumed, and filled my AC system myself.

 

So I put header wrap on the downpipe and put reflective thermal tape on the ac line and tied them down. I have been trying to get more clearance but its still probably only about a half inch or less between the downpipe and rubber part of the AC (I think this is the return line and not high pressure line?) line. I have been driving the truck around trying to work on and fix other stuff and have really only got it up to maybe a third or half throttle for only a few seconds yet, so haven't really got on it hard yet. However, I checked with a laser thermometer and I think it read about 400 F on the hose, which seems way too hot and has got me really worried. Although, I think I need to adjust the emissivity adjustment on the laser thermometer gun since I was shining it at both the reflective tape and the black hose which obviously have got to have totally opposite emissivity.

 

An option: https://huronspeed.com/product/truck...elocation-kit/

I feel like I saw that Trick had one somewhere but does not show up on his sight.

 

I would offer to vacuum and recharge it for just the cost of freezon and gasoline if you were near me, but since you won't bother to put your location into your profile, I won't bother to offer.

 

Thanks, and I swear I saw his site too when I was looking at their air filter setup a while ago but I feel like there was some other stuff on their too that's not there anymore. Anyway the air filter setup is another "simple" problem I can't seem to overcome since the inlet flange on the turbo is a weird/in-between size, 4.17 in diameter. Although it's a lot of money, I'm tempted to just go ahead and get that one and be done with it, I want to check with the Parker hydraulics place to see if they can make one for me and may even make a higher temperature one, since I want one that kind of runs the other side since I still have my battery and coolant tank in the stock location and I want to be able to run the fender liners.

 

Thanks for the offer, and When I could log into my original profile I had all that stuff but I could never recover it but I need to fix that haha. I am in Upstate South Carolina so don't think you would want to make that drive haha.

What kind of system do you have? I would love to have something I could vacuum and charge ac systems. It would make things a lot easier, I spent hours and hours trying to put the cam in my 6th gen Camaro and taking out the radiator is a huge PITA which undoing the AC lines would make it so much easier.

I feel like though to get something that would work would be a huge investment, I know you can get the cheap Chinese ones but I figure you would get what you paid for on that.