Help with hose physics

I hope someone here can help me.

I am trying to simulate dynamic hoses that are attached to a set of gauges. I am using Interactive Cloth with some success, but I have a few issues. I have attached an image showing the Gauges I am attempting to simulate.

4209-gauges-manifold.jpg

  1. The hose is a bit to flexible. Is there a way to stiffen up the cloth so it acts more like a rubber hose rather than a cloth hose?

  2. The end of the hose has to have a brass connector. If I attach the brass connector to the end of the hose as a ridged body, it will stretch the hose indefinitely when gravity takes over. If I make the brass connector as part of the hose mesh, it deforms as if made of cloth.

Is there a better way of going about this?
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I have been trying to figure this out on my own for some time with not much luck.

you can disable the use of gravity on a rigidbody. That solves that.

its a checkbox in rigidbody or scriptwise by

rigidbody.usegravity = false;

im confused by your question to increase bending stiffness. I mean its an option in the editor box.

http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Components/class-InteractiveCloth.html

i mean bending stiffness, stretching stiffness, thickness, friction its all there.