Budget Snorkel Review

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To distill some of the above information.

Buy Safari/Airtec if:

-You are planning a 2 year romp across 5 continents and do not have a support team in vehicles behind you.
-You would like as many pieces on your rig as possible to be TJM or ARB (brand affinity).
-You like knowing that you paid for the highest "class" option.

*Remember ARB did not invent this tech as Toyota has been outfitting vehicles with snorkels for quite some time.

Buy China clone if:

-Your primary intent for getting a snorkel was to move the intake up to cleaner/cooler air. (more power and less air filter replacements).
-You will not be rendered DIW if a crack appears on the air tube.
-You appreciate a good value proposition.
-You are on a budget

Remember, the weak point with these systems in NA spec 100s is at the OEM air box. There is no one-way valve at the bottom.. Just a flimsy floating cap with a hole in it. That must be modified in order to allow the snorkel to be the next potential weak link.

Secondly, many who do this mod, skip the ARB/TJM directions all together and run PVC tubing with high-quality rubber couplers and stainless steel hose clamps for the run from the snorkel elbow to the air box. This eliminates an 8-14 year old OEM component that may have deteriorated. This leaves the elbow and the outside main tube as the only "snorkel company" working components.
 
stinkyfj60 said:
and let's be honest here: there are a ton of homemade snorkels running around made out of PVC, exhaust tubing, and other materials. they havent undergone extensive "tests" by ARB engineers or anybody else and they have performed just fine in many situations on a plethora of vehicles.
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Very good point...

~Daniel

Sent from deep in the mountains of Honduras using only sticks and rocks.
 
pfran42 said:
To distill some of the above information.
Buy China clone if:

-Your primary intent for getting a snorkel was to move the intake up to cleaner/cooler air. (more power and less air filter replacements).
-You will not be rendered DIW if a cracks appear on the air tube.
-Y.
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unless it is made on the same line and with the same materials; then you make the mods that Safari Snorkel suggests, run the clone, and are smarter and better off...
 
stinkyfj60 said:
unless it is made on the same line and with the same materials; then you make the mods that Safari Snorkel suggests, runner the clone, and are smarter and better off...
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Agreed, but we don't know this as fact. We also don't know exactly which knock-offs come from which plants and which knock-offs are indeed off of the same production line as the the Airtec/Safari-branded models. Until that point, we have to take a lowest common denominator approach. A credible source would go a long way in unraveling the "my plastic tube is better than your plastic tube" rhetoric that is being fed to us through various marketing channels.
 
pfran42 said:
Agreed, but we don't know this as fact. We also don't know exactly which knock-offs come from which plants and which knock-offs are indeed off of the same production line as the the Airtec/Safari-branded models. Until that point, we have to take a lowest common denominator approach. A credible source would go a long way in unraveling the "my plastic tube is better than your plastic tube" rhetoric that is being fed to us through various marketing channels.
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as close as the two designs look... right down to the drainage grooves, i think it's pretty damning. if that one posters information about plastics is correct, then the are probably the same material too. that is the only think i would research before i bought one. i lived in Colorado, i have seen what the sun can do to cheap plastics...
 
if i could find out that the ARB version is made from start to finish in Australia, then i will go with that one... on principal. Same with TJM. if they are made in China, then the clone seems to be a better buy.
 
stinkyfj60 said:
as close as the two designs look... right down to the drainage grooves, i think it's pretty damning. if that one posters information about plastics is correct, then the are probably the same material too. that is the only think i would research before i bought one. i lived in Colorado, i have seen what the sun can do to cheap plastics...
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As it relates to the 100 snorkel, the contours on the Safari are more defined than Nick's version. This tells me that (at least with the air intake component) the knock-off version was fabricated using a different mold and therefore not from the same line. If the rumors are true, then someone needs to find the source for the knock-offs made from the same molds. Once this source is verified, it would then become my 1st choice when considering a Chinese snorkel.
 
pfran42 said:
Once this source is verified, it would then become my 1st choice when considering a Chinese snorkel.
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Sources for this kind of stuff can hardly ever be verified unless you have boots on the ground visiting a factory. It's a black market over there and counterfeit parts are rampant everywhere.

It sounds awkward to put anything made in china on a cruiser, but it seems even Toyota is caving in to the monetary gains with cheap chinese labor. I think they started sourcing oil filters and other misc stuff over there now.
 
pfran42 said:
As it relates to the 100 snorkel, the contours on the Safari are more defined than Nick's version.
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Huh?

They look way to similar to me to not be based off of the same mold. Changing from the Safari logo to land cruiser would not require a whole new mold

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I don't think Nick is going for the "artistic" build. My inability to get my 5 continent Land Cruiser trip planned leads me to think I may go for the Chinese dorkel.
 
Cost on the Chinese snorkel is $38 with a MOQ of 5 units, shipping is about $550. I was going to bring in 5 and sell them but there wasn't enough room for profit IMHO to make it worth my trouble. I'm guessing the guy in Malaysia brought in a container of snorkels and other items to get the shipping costs down.

Company that makes them is TELAWEI 4x4 OFF-ROAD ACCESSORIES FACTORY

Video of the factory: http://vod.alibaba.com/50/03/19/50031918_56.asf

There was another video that I can't find right now, but it was a Pajero driving over a snorkel and them showing it didn't break.
 
2000UZJ said:
The seller also claimed the package was 36lbs. I came to found out it was 11lbs. I think he is doing this to up the shipping costs. Not a fan of his method, but oh well.
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Been thinking about this - it's dimensional weight. That's why you paid for more than it weighed.
 
I would be more interested in comparing how the studs are mounted in both,the safari and the cheap copy. Do the clones have the studs mounted as securely? Or when driving washboard roads will the copy become loose? Its fine to buy 4 for the price of 1 but when your out 6-7 hours from house or garage,and it fails, the other 3 are of no help.
 
FMKV said:
I would be more interested in comparing how the studs are mounted in both,the safari and the cheap copy. Do the clones have the studs mounted as securely? Or when driving washboard roads will the copy become loose? Its fine to buy 4 for the price of 1 but when your out 6-7 hours from house or garage,and it fails, the other 3 are of no help.
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They are the same as the Ssafari. Stainless steel studs, Nylon locking nuts, powdercoated black hose clamps. There is more than enough reinforcement inside the snorkel for these studs, I put my hand inside of it it, curious to see, and found some rather beefy supports/molds back there.
 
Ok, so my curiosity got the best of me and I decided to do more research on polymers, cause I go to Georgia Tech and they ruin you as a person when you go there. Also, Im sure someone will find it interesting and helpful....maybe.

First off, I am not a Polymer Engineer. I know the basics of materials engineering and the basic chemistry behind polymers, so I can at least be of some, albeit very little help on this. The info below is what I gathered from a few hours of research, I have listed the link below each section that contains information from that site. What I have posted below is my best attempt to be purely factual and shed more light on engineering behind this stuff.

Basically, UV8, UV20, or UVX, where X is any number, means that the plastic can withstand X*1000 hrs of UV exposure in normal conditions, i.e. being outside. So UV8 is good for 8000hrs of UV exposure, UV20 is for 20,000 hrs of exposure. How do they determine what rating to give? Well they basically find out how many hours of UV exposure the polymer can handle before it loses more than 50% of its original tensile elongation value. So as an example, LLDPE is supposed to have a max tensile elongation value of 500-900%, after 8000 or whatever hours of UV exposure (Im not entirely sure of its UV rating) it will only have a max tensile elongation of 250-450%. The references for this info are below:

Tensile Property Testing of Plastics
Material Properties of LLDPE, Commodity Polymers | Polymers Data Sheets
http://www.polyprocessing.com/pdf/technical/CarbonBlackandPlastics.pdf

Safari seems to think that 20,000hrs is good for 20 years of life, so 1000 hours=1 year of normal usage on a car. By that standard and the info they give on their don't get burned site, the chinese knockoffs from 5 years ago were still good for 8 years of use before degrading. Source link is below

Don't Get Burnt - Low Quality Snorkel Copies



From here it gets more interesting,

The test that ARB had the lab perform is a modified version of AS4766, as stated in the copy of the report they posted, here is the link:

Don't Get Burnt - Low Quality Snorkel Copies


If your wondering WTF AS4766 is, don't worry I got it covered. AS4766 is a test that is applied to Polyethylene chemical/water tanks. The test normally involves dropping a "9kg dart" on the plastic at -40 degrees Celsius. ARB modified this to a 4.5kg dart and did it at -18 degrees celsius. The info on AS4766 testing is in the link below.

ISO9001:2008 and AS4766:2006



I'll refrain from posting my conclusion/opinion so that you can all come to your own, unless y'all want to hear mine.


Hope this helps...
 
I'd love to hear your opinion as well. That was all very informative by the way, so thank you for that!

~Daniel

Sent from deep in the mountains of Honduras using only sticks and rocks.
 
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