DIY vaccum leak machine

[SBJ]

This is actually something I've wanted to make for a while. I idle a bit high and am beginning to suspect I have a vacuum leak somewhere. I'm not dropping $500+ on an automotive smoke machine and I figured this would be kind of a cool thing to have around.

I went to the Halloween store and picked up a fog machine:



Then I went to the hardware store and picked up a pipe coupler, a reducer and a barbed fitting. Total cost for everything >$50. The pipe coupler is for a 1 1/4" ID pipe. I was lucky and it got a nice press fit over the outlet on the smoke machine, but on some of them you might have to sand/dremel it to make it fit. I'm trying not to epoxy anything if I don't have to lol.



I imagine I will probably have to put a pressure reducer or regulator on it with a gauge to avoid damaging things like EVAP systems, but that's easy enough to do later on.

The finished product: