Airflow snorkel for 05+ Tacoma

Schattenjager

Expedition Leader
This has been an interesting journey. I am a believer in snorkels - my time in Alaska proved their worth in hundreds of miles of dusty road travel. They inspire a bit of peace of mind when fording water too, but we all know a petrol engine in deep water is a recipe for mayhem, snorkel or not.

I have used the excellent Safari snorkels on three rigs thus far and came to expect top shelf components in complete, well thought out kits. However, when it comes to the new Tacoma, the only option is modifying a Hilux snorkel to fit. As much as we might like to think our trucks are Hilux's in disguise, they are not. Not close in fact, and the surgery required on the Safari brand is significant and the final fit shows clearly that it is not an appropriate application. Enter Airflow.

Airflow advertises their kits as being for the Tacoma 05+ and sure enough, the snorkel body fits the body lines nicely. It is nearly a $500 kit, so my expectations were on par for that of Safari. I was woefully wrong. The kit is shipped in bags, presumably to save on shipping. (there are a lot of savings in this kit, sadly) Once the snorkel body is removed, it is immediately apparent that the manufacture uses a more primitive material in a less than detailed mold. The molded graphic was pock marked and the snorkel itself was oddly textured, but in random places vs a uniform appearance. Upon further inspection of the kit we (two other snorkel experienced installers helped) noticed that there was no sealant (can't use silicon because it kills the MAS) and we were missing all the clamps. So we made a trip to the hardware store and returned to start the project. The instructions were very poor - mine came with black and white low rez images that were really no help unless you're testing for an ink blot psych evaluation. The wording was poor as well, with harrowing vagaries such as 'cut the end off' when in fact all three of us interpreted what the 'end' was differently. The template was cut very precisely and careful attempts were made to line it up on the fender. Guess what? Yup - no dice. Either the top line worked or the door side, but not both. All of us being experienced, we soldiered on undaunted and confident we could make this work. Further examination of the kit showed a very sub par hose similar to that used on clothes dryer wall connections. The elbows were molded slightly out of round and this made using the clamps a bit trying. I made the poor choice of butyl mastic for a sealant - this is sticky, stringy and gets everywhere. Perhaps urethane mastic would've been a wiser choice. Nonetheless, the kit fit very poorly and I was unable to reconnect the air inlet pipe to the intake from the fender junction.

Frustrated, I called TRDParts4u (Toyota of Dallas) and spoke with Barbara in parts. I made it VERY clear that I was not asking for anything: no money back etc but did want to share our experience. She was surprised to learn of the issue as she had this same snorkel on her truck. She passed my information on to the Airflow distributor and his call the next day is when things became interesting.

Again, I made it VERY clear I was not asking for anything. He made it very clear that he did not want to read a negative review until he exhausted all means of making this right. After reviewing a few of my grievances, he failed to listen and only made comments such as: 'we had to stay in budget' and ' to build it better would cost a fortune.' I shared all of our shared opinion that the snorkel body should travel outside the fender a la Safari instead of the masochistic, inside the fender with crap parts kit as provided. He said that was ridiculous and it would cost too much to redesign the system, which I understand. He stated that my being nice was merely a tactic on my part - and I did not understand all the complexities of this venture. The conversation ended with him telling me he would ship a new elbow (which did help reconnect the intake tube to the filter housing) I received it yesterday and spent three hours today touching up the install.

Over all, I am very dissatisfied with this Airflow kit and would not recommend it to anyone at it's current price of near $500. Far better to go the route of modifying the Safari and having a properly made unit of high quality. If no one has ever used a Safari kit, the Airflow may seem fine since there is no benefit of comparison. However, the three of us did not suffer this lack of information. Ultimately, I do not TRUST the airflow to have a proper seal at the numerous connection inside the fender. I do not think it will keep the intake from ingesting dust filled air in the vacuum created by the engine. I sure as heck do not think it will do crap for keeping water at bay either. This should be a $200 a snorkel body with $30 worth of parts to hook it up.

Ultimately, I will buy a new fender, paint it and go the Safari snorkel route.

To be perfectly clear, I am posting this merely as an FYI for those shopping this market and to stoke the search engine a little. This is my experience and the opinion is shared by others who witnessed the carnage to my truck. Did I mention the kit's need for me to remove a bracket inside the fender???

Sorry, no install pics as we were distracted aplenty. Here is the final product:
DSC_7364.jpg
 
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cruiseroutfit

Supporting Sponsor: Cruiser Outfitters
Man that is a bummer. Obviously I'm a bit biased having sold/installed hundreds of Safari Snorkels but I can't stand the bulbous look of the airflow. While the SS isn't an exact fit, it's also not that bad of a fit either and with a little massaging it can be absolutely acceptable and of course 100% functional.
 

Sardog1

Observer
Sorry to hear of your despair with the Airflow Snorkel. I have one on my 2001 XJ and am quite pleased with it. Now I've never owned a Safari Snorkel so I have no way to compare quality, but the route that the air must take to the air box is a much more direct route on the Airflow than on the Safari. That is what sold me.

Hope you are able to get the desired outcome in the long run. Just sucks to have to start from square one with added expense.
 

Rock FJ

Observer
Sorry to hear about your bad experience with the install. Based on your feedback, the Australians are currently doing an 8D to determine what failed in the process that could have led to your missing parts. Everyone at Airflow will certainly do their best to prevent this from happening again.

For your information, Airflow is a very old and traditional small Australian company composed of mainly engineers where the airflow to your engine is their number one priority; hence their motto is "When the airflow counts". Any angle you see, height, size of air ram and such has a technical reason, “good looks” is certainly not their priority, just take a look at their line-up, especially the ones they have been selling for 20+ years. It takes many man hours to design a snorkel, do the simulation, modeling and finally field testing before it hits the market.

I would just ask you to be careful recommending other folks adapting snorkels not designed for their application. It will be hard to beat a specifically designed snorkel, not just for the fender contour, but for the engine performance and its power curves. Regardless of the brand, you can really ruin an engine adapting something designed for something else, especially if that something else has a much smaller engine. Although it really seems easy to raise the intake of a vehicle, there are a lot of engineering theories that happen with airflow and the correct application is really important. I am sure the guys at Safari would agree.

Again, thanks for your feedback, this helps us a great deal in our continuous improvement journey and will be happy to hear back after you used it for a long time.

There are already hundreds of Tacoma snorkels on the field for a couple of years now and haven’t heard complaints, so your feedback is much appreciated.

Safe travels!
 

Schattenjager

Expedition Leader
Sorry to hear about your bad experience with the install...

I would just ask you to be careful recommending other folks adapting snorkels not designed for their application. It will be hard to beat a specifically designed snorkel, not just for the fender contour, but for the engine performance and its power curves. Regardless of the brand, you can really ruin an engine adapting something designed for something else, especially if that something else has a much smaller engine. Although it really seems easy to raise the intake of a vehicle, there are a lot of engineering theories that happen with airflow and the correct application is really important. I am sure the guys at Safari would agree.

... your feedback is much appreciated.

Safe travels!

Your well wishes are appreciated. The caution regarding the recommendation of Safari products seems questionable, however. I would be very surprised if any documentation could be produced that shows this Airflow unit to be a scientifically tuned intake. Simply having a larger opening and greater inside diameter opening than stock all the way through, not to mention the gaps and poor junction seals, insures the motor gets plenty air. It is a bit disingenuous to suggest that Safari would pose a hazard of any sort.

We are in high hopes I can bolt the Safari Snorkle over the holes required by the Airflow unit so as to avoid the expense of a new fender, painting and installation. I will know shortly as I am about to order the Safari replacement.

Not to be 'that guy' but one of the friends helping is a retired aerospace theoretician and he agreed that the poor fitment, corrugated connection hose, poor instructions and missing components ********** of less than stellar thinking in regard to the asking price. While the elbow replacement solved one issue, a refund would have been more welcome. Never mind the damage to the fender.

Best of luck going forward!
 

Rock FJ

Observer
Schattenjager,

We certainly respect your opinion. If you would like to have a technical discussion with the head engineer in Australia, let us know and we can set up a conference call one of these evenings. You know Mark's contact information, just let us know and we will make it happen.

Thanks!
 

Schattenjager

Expedition Leader
I wanted to follow up on this thread after some time with the equipment.

My original opinion stands - this snorkel is mega crap!

UV has done a number on the material - looking more like poorly molded cake frosting than a spendy bit of kit. I wiped it down with a dash protectant and the cloth was black afterward. The fender flairs, rubber and plastic factory bits did not 'bleed' like this unit. Worse, the shape has deformed in the heat and now the crappy as all hell connections in the impossible to reach fender liner show signs of leakage - not something to discover on a super dusty trail - worse yet in water.

The distributor protested and wanted to make it 'right' but never did anything substantive other than complain about my unreasonable position in wanting to get my money's worth.

I called it as crap then and I am telling you it is even crappier after time.

AVOID LIKE THE PLAUGE - go Safari Snorkel like I should have.
 

superbeef

New member
I was finally getting around to writing up a thing about the Airflow snorkel as I installed one in 2015 on my '11 Tacoma and came across this thread. I have to say, I had some fitment issues. But nothing quite as grievous as what you went through by the sounds of it. Just wanted to add some balance to anyone else who might come across this thread. I'm coming up on 2 years with the Airflow snorkel and have had no deterioration in the plastic like you have. No deformation of any of the parts and everything is still connected and intact. I did, however, definitely have some problems with install as well. I too had to cut away some frame and there was much cursing getting the hose and elbows to all fit while fitting my hands in to bolt it all in. I ended up needing to get some longer bolts to finish the installation and required a little McGyvering. I have never done the Safari snorkel so I don't have a comparison but based on all the other mods I've done, everything usually takes a little McGyvering to get things to fit properly. But maybe that's just cause I suck in general and am not putting things in properly. I didn't end up using mastic but have checked the seals and have not had any leakage it seems despite some deep water crossings. I also didn't see the little 3 holes on the bottom of the airbox that might help stuff drain if it gets through. I have not noticed a change in mileage (some argue that ram air > suction with factory set up) and have noticed an increase in dust being collected in the air filter. I just wash out and change my air filters a little more often. It's fun seeing what kind of bugs get sucked into there... I saw a thread on Tacomaworld where they removed the entire panel for install. In retrospect, that would have made things MUCH easier instead of trying to reach up into the wheel well.

Overall, I think the install could have gone smoother but I was able to make due with the instructions. Modifications and some different parts were required but in retrospect, most likely due the order in which I put the pieces together. From a quality perspective, I did notice some give in the thread embedded in the snorkel itself so I would think you might torque them out if you tighten bolts too much. Biggest complaint is the bolt that holds the snorkel to the bracket that goes into the pillar of the truck is not stainless steel. Neither is the screw that holds the hose clamp and snorkel head. In Canada.... that just doesn't do. Anyways, hope to have a review and install post up at some point... 2 years later...
 

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