Snorkel

BobA

Adventurer
After my last water crossing I figure a snorkel is next on my "to do" list. I do have one question, When driving in the rain or when the vehicle sits outdoors for weeks at a time where does the water that gets into the snorkel's intake go?
 

CA-RJ

Expo Approved™
Can I piggyback on this and ask if anyone has ever had an issue with their snorkel at a carwash?
 

seanz0rz

Adventurer
in heavy rain i turn the head around to face the rear.

for carwashes (not that its been through one in the last 2 years...) i put a ziplock gallon bag over it with a couple of zip ties, and open up the air box under the hood. that will probably only work on the 3rd gen 4runners.
 

mountainpete

Spamicus Eliminatus
Can I piggyback on this and ask if anyone has ever had an issue with their snorkel at a carwash?

Haven't been through an automated car wash with the truck... ever...

But when I use a pressure washer and the truck is very dirty I drop a bag over top of the snorkel head. Very simple.
 

Buliwyf

Viking with a Hammer
So no water will go down the tube when driving in a hard rain?

Even if it does it'll just stick in your air filter where it'll be pulled apart into tiny droplets. Your engine can injest water that way. Water injection has been used succesfully in piston engines since WWII. It would be a great power adder for Drag Racing, because of such it's not legal in any form of drag racing. IIRC. You just need a nitrous wet fuel nossle to spray it in atomized and a window switch to allow it only to happen at high rpm under full throttle.

When a 4x4 goes under water it injests a huge amount of water too quickly. Rain can't duplicate this.

Power boats gulp a bit of water every once in a while. I've even stalled a few which is really bad, flooding the engine can hydrolock it and blow it up. That needs lower revs or huge amounts of water.

I used to try to kill old tow motor and fork lift engines with water. (I was replacing them anyways) As long as I could keep the revs up I could literally dump entire glasses of water directly into the engine without hurting anything! Darn things wouldn't die. We actually used a technique to knock carbon off the valves. Get the engine red hot from work, pull into garage,and dump water down it's throat to cool the carbon too quick and make it brittle and fall off. Actually worked. Now these engines were disposable becuase of the metal recaiming work they did ate them up in less than a year. I wouldn't do this to "nice" engines.

If you're really concerned you can just put the snorkle on backwards.

I'm more worried about a car wash ripping the snorkle off than flooding an engine. I just use the manual spray and wash places. My truck barely even fits in those! I'd be sweating bullets in an automated wash.
 
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BobA

Adventurer
Anyone have a picture of the inside So I can see what this "baffle" thing looks like? Is it like a seperate tube inside the main one?
 

FellowTraveler

Explorer
Centrifugal Pre filter snorkel device

Many aftermarket options for heavy trucks can be adapted for snorkel pre-filtering of sand, water etc. They attach to the top of snorkel and spin as air is drawn into snorkel that spinning acts like a low speed centrifuge casting almost 100% of whatever finds its way into snorkel onto the outer in-sidewall of unit where from there it gets blown out bottom of centrifugal unit at top of snorkel. A little pricey but does work.

On my 400 cid 6.5 Turbo Diesel Enhanced Navistar a five inch (5") inside diameter (ID) intake snorkel is a must to prevent loss of volumetric efficiency (VE) at speed or upper rpm's.. When using such a device always consider your VE.
 

dorton

#rockcreekoverland
Back when the "cash for clunkers" program was going on, we at my dealership tried a few experiments. One involved pouring a gallon jug full of water into an engine turning approx 2500 rpms. WE started off slow at first, picking up speed each time, until end were pouring it as fast as possible, with no immediate effects. This was performed on a dodge ram, with a 360.

My vote would be rain would be no problem.

PS. This was being poured directly into the throttle body.
 
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tacr2man

Adventurer
I n all my years involved in motor trade and 4x4 vehicle I have never heard or come across engine problems caused by rain ingestion thru a snorkel . This even includes those that have sealed off the duckbeak drain on their airfilter housings (quite common in offroad trialing fraternity) . The forward facing ram type intake is the norm now , usually see rotary precleaners only on commercial (mining) type applications or tractors . I have driven snorkel equiped 4x4 thru cyclones in Australia which has resulted in having to stop as rainfall was so heavy visibility to drive was lost, without any engine water injestion problems. HTSH
 

scrubber3

Not really here
Isn't water injestion the way that Cadillac had their mechanics clean the upper cylinders?
You can use water, but I have used transmission fluid in the past. It breaks up carbon a lot better. When the engine is at full throttle, water won't hurt it too much. So long as it doesn't happen all the time.
 

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