So I
finally got my Moonlight Snorkel installed, and I bet it was the most fun anyone had at installing a snorkel in the history of snorkels. But only after a second attempt. Before I get in a long story, I chose the Moonlight 4 inch forward facing snorkel. I picked this one because a) its 4 inch, b) its supposed to seamless fit with a PDI Airbox, and c) after a bit of research and a tad of common sense I think a forward facing snorkel works better for airflow. My research is based on perusing Australian LC addicts youtubers who always seem to have the coolest parts/builds. Although for the life of me I don't understand the down under fascination with dropping Cummins diesels in LCs or Patrols when you have access to great inline 6 diesels already
with parts and availability being easy to access.
I found two really good videos with some real world testing that was well thought out and grounded. I think both are work a watch if your looking at a new snorkel. Skip ahead to the second video for the testing of forward vs backward.
Ram Head Snorkel Forward or Backwards?
Forward vs Backward Performance
Maybe I put more thought into this than necessary but I have been focused on incremental performance gains throughout the build, not just turbo, injection pump and the bigger parts. My belief is if you can improve each part by 5 to 10% by the end of the build you are going to have much more progress than just slapping on a few standard bolt ons.
Most of the newer backward facing one most of them now wrap around the A pillar. With an upright snorkel I could still utilize the birds nest intake or even reverse the ram head. Ultimately I went with forward facing. The common sense aspect was thinking about airflow; jet engines aren't facing backwards so why should my snorkel? Intercoolers are forward facing for a reason as well. And I don't weight the dust issue that highly because that's what the main filter is for Plus I am running a 200 series filter which is better than OEM anyway.
So why was this the most fun had by anyone that installed a snorkel? Well at first I tried to install in myself. I went to Kinko's and had them print out one copy of the three seperate sheets that are used to trace the cutout on the fender. I wanted one piece because it lessened the chance that the pages would move while marking up the fender and me making a permanent mistake.
The cut went well. I started on the inside of the template and used a thin piece of plastic to use as a feeler gauge between the snorkel and panel. Think the plastic packaging that comes around tools or clamps, thin and strong its useful for seeing where you have contact and where you don't.
This is where I started not having fun. Moonlight had sent me the wrong snorkel. Where it entered the engine bay was too long by 2 inches or so. This meant the metal end of the tube was coming in contact with and overlapping the PDI intake. It was obviously too long. I pulled the air box and got the snorkel mounted then traced the spots to install the rivnuts on the A Pillar.
This was a mistake. I should have gotten someones help to line up the snorkel to the air box first, then marked off the holes on the A pillar for the rivnuts. But I was eager to get this done and wanted to do it by myself. The holes ended up not aligning correctly. So I had a local welder tack weld them back up.
Finally got smart and asked a buddy for help,
@SerbCruiser. Thought it would only take us a few hours but I can be wildly optimistic at mods sometimes. I knew my cut out was pretty good, it was just trimming the end and rotating the snorkel to sit more on top of the A Pillar. This is a minimum two person job. One to hold it in place, and another to measure how much to cut. There just isn't an easy way to strap or clamp the snorkel down to the body so you can take accurate measurements in the fender. If it was the correct snorkel, I think one person could do it.
For our project, I brought over all the tools, drill bits, grinder, two different type of discs, and whiskey.
@SerbCruiser has been spending a bit more time learning about higher quality liquors and I brought over Michters Sour Mash and James Oliver Rye, both excellent representations of the genre.
Then his neighbor, Aaron came over and he is a huge bourbon guy and he brought over some real interesting libations that included High West Midwinter Night's Dream (incredibly smooth) and Shenks Sour Mash which was my favorite of the night. We performed step six several times and had a Dark and Stormy which is dark rum with ginger beer. We'd make some progress on fit and then pause for a bit and debate whiskey tasting, then admire our handiwork, and sip on more whiskey. Measure, remeasure, cut, trim and fast forward six hours, we had a great fitting snorkel, a lot of jokes and laughs. Probably some of the most fun I have had for quite awhile. Each said the next day that it was one of the best nights they've had for awhile.
Great controller with a nice machine finish: Grimm Speed Boost Controller. Boost is now set at 30 PSI, we'll see how this goes for a bit before moving up to the 32 PSI that G Turbo recommended.
Thats a lot of cash to be able to put to work elsewhere.
