I don’t see why not.

I had a “quick disconnect” engine block fitting for a heater hose in my ’98 GMC pickup. This heater hose fitting eventually begins to leak and is notorious for, basically, dissolving over time; it’s made of a weak pot metal casting. The fitting had a threaded NPT-type nipple and fit into the intake manifold …which is cast aluminum.

Rather than replace the fitting with a like type, I used a threaded brass pipe fitting along with a brass barbed hose connection. I used brass because iron/steel don’t get along well with aluminum in the long run (probably why the pot metal was used to begin with as brass would be way too expensive for production purposes). I didn’t want to run the risk of galling the threads in the aluminum manifold by using a steel or iron fitting, so I used brass fittings. That repair has been in place now for about 3 or 4 years and it is working great.

So yeah, brass works quite well.