"Internal" snorkel?

[RoundOut]

A buddy of mine recently suggested an "internal" snorkel as a possible solution. He is a very handy fabricator and has tons of experience in off-roading. His fondness of snorkels is limited because of their inherent "external-ness" and therefore are subject to being knocked off or broken by a tree limb or similar.

He suggested an internal design which he describes as follows:

At the base of the windshield, there is usually a vented area where water runs through en route to the wheel-wells. This space also houses the mechanism for the windshield wipers, save the motor, which is usually just inside the engine compartment mounted on this wall. He suggested cuting a hole high in the firewall near this area and run tubing from the intake to the hole. He said that the rainwater will continue to drain past the intake hole as it presently does, but there will be no external parts to break off.

Obviously this is not as high as the well-known ARB "safety snorkel" as coined here on ExPo, but it would extend the intake up another six inches or so in my Tundra. The Safari Snorkels are clearly at least a foot or 18 inches higher. It would be a source of colder air, as the present location of my K&N is still in the hotter space near the radiator on the right side.

While this is an interesting solution, I don't think it is something I want to do. Anyone else ever done this kind of modification?


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[madizell]

I can't see a benefit to such an arrangement, or at least the benefit to hassle ratio doesn't seem all that good. Certainly, if you pick up air at the base of the windshield, don't expect your snorkel to protect you from deep water crossings. The base of the windshield is the first place water goes when it cascades over the hood.

If you really want to get the most protection while still remaining under the hood line, run the air pickup toward the rear corner of the engine bay or at least point the pickup away from the front of the engine to avoid both splash (which gets forcibly redirected by any fan or belt) and intruding deep water. I used to do this with the CJ before it was fitted with a snorkel. The original air intake on the 2.5 was a flex hose running from the air filter to the grill where it picked up cold air. I disconnected the hose from the grill and flexed it back toward the firewall, and zip tied it to the grill brace rod so that it pointed backward, away from the front of the engine bay. Never had water sucked in the intake with crossings up to around 3 feet.

 

[Grim Reaper]

That’s actually how hummers are done. They have a low pick up for normal driving and you can swap out to a roof high snorkel.

Is your Taco like my older 4Runner where it has the inlet next to the radiator poking through the core support?

I went on a little romp a while back and really didn’t get into anything deep but still managed to soak the filter with muddy water. I know to expect that sort of thing and pull the grill snorkel out and turn it up in the engine bay but I was no where near as deep as I initially thought I needed to worry about it.

I have looked at doing what you friend has suggested and I have seen it done by somebody on Pirate. The cowl in the Toyota’s is rather small. The passenger side has the wiper motor to contend with. The driver side is an option but you are dealing with the Booster and master for the clutch if you have a manual. Because of this the one I saw done was routed by taking off the fender and running outside the compartment.

The cowl does offer a high pressure area and it will force the air into the intake for a ram air effect. I am not convinced that if you had water wash over the hood that you wouldn’t have the potential of the water getting into the inlet tube.

With that In mind I thought about the Hummer set up with the top hat that could be changed sticking up through the cowl but because of the wiper motor and linkages as well as the fresh air inlet being on that side for the HVAC that stack would have to be on the driver side. Then I realized just how over the cowl the hood goes when open and how small the top hat would have to be.

 

[RoundOut]

Thanks for the input, guys.

I can't see a benefit to such an arrangement, or at least the benefit to hassle ratio doesn't seem all that good. Certainly, if you pick up air at the base of the windshield, don't expect your snorkel to protect you from deep water crossings. The base of the windshield is the first place water goes when it cascades over the hood....

That is the direction my thought process was headed, too. Not enough height to make the effort worth it. :snorkel:

Is your Taco like my older 4Runner where it has the inlet next to the radiator poking through the core support?

Mine is a Tundra, or I would just buy the ARB offering and cut a hole in my fender :yikes: .

The cowl does offer a high pressure area and it will force the air into the intake for a ram air effect. I am not convinced that if you had water wash over the hood that you wouldn’t have the potential of the water getting into the inlet tube.

He suggested that because rainwater goes down to the wheelwell here, that it would not get in my intake. I postulate, however, that if one is fording deep enough water to splash over the hood, the wheelwells would be under water, leaving any incremental water splashing over the hood nowhere to drain.

Then there is the other reason (read: used to justify the "safety snorkel" to our hand-brakes), raising the intake to reduce dust ingestion. I doubt that this location would be any less dusty than its existing location, and may even be be more dusty.

At the end of the day, any submariner voyages would have other sets of issues and in no way would I deliberately set out to ford water over the hood. However, the hidden hole is always a threat, and backing out is not always an option. The cost-benefit anaylsis always leads me down the path of caution. Like I said, if ARB or any other manufacturer offered one for the Tundra, I'd be all over it like flies on stink.



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[Clay]

I think that this one is about the best option I have seen so far:

http://expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8486&highlight=snorkle

Mine will get one of these.

 

[ThinkTrout]

What about venting into the cab?

Hi all,

This is my first post here, but I have been stopping by periodically to enjoy the amazing knowledge base of members here.

Anyway, on another forum (YT), somebody had the excellent idea of running a vent tube into the cab behind the glove box. This way unless your cab is flooded, you will have unrestricted, dry air flow to your engine.

This person has also done the "deck plate mod", so for normal driving he leaves the deckplate off and stuffs a rag in the intake to the cab to eliminate any noise. He said the noise when the deckplate is closed (and rag removed!) is not bad.

I haven't done it yet (99 4Runner), but it's on the short list...

-Clark

 

[BigAl]

Hi all,

Anyway, on another forum (YT), somebody had the excellent idea of running a vent tube into the cab behind the glove box. This way unless your cab is flooded, you will have unrestricted, dry air flow to your engine.

I set up a mazda 323 that way for the local mud races, we didn't get any fumes b/c this was an fi motor but some cars with carbs had fume issues

 

[mog]

What about venting into the cab?

Anyway, on another forum (YT), somebody had the excellent idea of running a vent tube into the cab behind the glove box. This way unless your cab is flooded, you will have unrestricted, dry air flow to your engine.....

Just a heads-up, there is a good chance of LOTS of extra noise from the airflow caused by the 'in the cab' setup.

 

[chet]

ya I had a mudtruck with a snorkle in the cab. loud as hell! Thwe sucking sound from the intake was very annoying.

 

[ntsqd]

Yep, carb engines would definitely have fume issues, but I doubt that applies to many here.

MISF's Scout is set up this way, intake air drawn from the cowl area. Note that a fair number of vehicles draw their HVAC fresh air from this region. It has increased his in-cab noise. Which resulted in a higher output stereo amp....

IF the water can free drop below the level of the intake's lower ledge then water ingestion would mostly be incidental. About like driving in the rain with any sort of cold air induction system. Assuming that there's room in the cowl area a baffle could be set up to prevent much of this.

I remember someone on the ages old ORC yota list doing the "In-Fender" snorkle plumbing. His goal was not deep water crossings, but rather less dust and a reasonable fording depth gain.

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

It would take a hell of a lot of brush to knock off an external.. I have driven mine through hell and even put it over on that side and it held up fine.. I don't think crazy fab required for an internal snorkel of some sort would be worth it, if you ask me...

 

[RobinP]

Just a heads-up, there is a good chance of LOTS of extra noise from the airflow caused by the 'in the cab' setup.

On the New Cruiser, we ran an integrated snorkel up the passenger a-arm. Passenger gets a nice deep rumbling sound as we accelerate. Can get annoying on a long trip.

Also consider the placement of the air intake. There's a region usually about 3 inches above the roof and 3-4 inches to the side of the vehicle where the air pressure is highest when driving. Putting the intake into this stream can help "ram" air into the engine (great for diesels).

 

[cruiseroutfit]

It would take a hell of a lot of brush to knock off an external.. I have driven mine through hell and even put it over on that side and it held up fine.. I don't think crazy fab required for an internal snorkel of some sort would be worth it, if you ask me...

Agreed, they take alot more abuse than most think...

This one popped right back to normal afterwards...


Re: in-cab or cowl snorkel. I guess on a ground up build it could be easily incorporated with little work. But given the work to make it happen on a Tundra and the small gains... I wouldn't consider it a worthwhile setup.

 

[PhulesAU]

Ok , I'm a bad search funtion guy. if you try some of the Jeep forums, YOU might be able to find a popular mod of moving the intak to the cabin air intake area. it's located in/under the vent cowl area right in front/ under the winshield. I've yet to read of a flood out, but that doesn't mean " can't be done". most are running a K&N cone with very little cutting , other than the hole for the intake hose access. Downside.... I have no idea if your cab air system is even remotely close.

 

[RoundOut]

.... if you try some of the Jeep forums, YOU might be able to find a popular mod of moving the intak to the cabin air intake area.
...

My friend that suggested this is a big Jeep guy. He's forgotten more than I'll ever learn about them, even if I owned one. Maybe that is why he suggested trying it.

GREAT discussion, guys!

After contemplating this discourse, it makes more sense to fab one in the traditional sense, rather than trying to make an "internal" one.


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