Snorkels

[TRD Burglar]

My buddy hydrolocked his 4Runner in 6" of water by blasting through the stream too fast. It cost him $8k and he had to leave his truck in Colorado for a couple of weeks for repairs. He now has a snorkel.

 

[indycole]

I think it hurts resale and looks stupid. 99% of people don't need it. That said, I did a long drive in waist deep water during the last hurricane, and a snorkel would have made me feel 100% better. cheap mod that is 100% effective when you need it.

PS- where is the thread on Cole's water adventure?

Builds - indycole's 2016 200 Series Build and Retrospective

Indycole, I just wanted to thank you for sharing your LC journey on here. I don't normally read entire 40 page threads! Your on board water was what landed me here and is what I personally think about most. I found it interesting how you built up the truck and then scaled back the truck...

forum.ih8mud.com

Look for posts in the May/June timeframe. The short version is that we, along with like 10+ other trucks, crossed an innocuous creek without much drama on the way to Chicken Corners during Cruise Moab. My wife navigated it on the way out and then I crossed it on the way back. I didn't pay too much attention to the line as it didn't really register as an obstacle at all to me. We hit a hole on the passenger side and the front end dipped down to a point where water came up to the hood. We had enough momentum to get out of the crossing but then I got Christmas lights on the other side. I got out to check the filter box and then my wife pointed toward a stream of oil gushing out of from somewhere above the skids. Enough water and mud had gotten into the engine to cause it to throw a rod through the oil pan.

Luckily, we had friends on the trail willing to spend a couple hours towing us back to Moab where we were able to get a lot of good advice at the Cruise Moab HQ. The engine was replaced with a lower-miles but slightly worse condition (i.e. a bit of exterior rust) but overall still a great engine. We ran the numbers on doing a brand new engine and decided against it.

 

[tacoduck]

Eeek!! sounds like a 1 in a million accident.

 

[bloc]

Serious water fording would require a lot more protection to keep water out of engine bay and cabin. However, I had it on my 80 cause i thought it looked cool. Positive outcome was better mpg gains from the snorkel. Pulls in cleaner air, and potentially better airflow as well.
Definitely doing it again on the 200 for the cleaner air

Stock 80-series intake effectively pulls hot air from the engine bay, which is the main reason going to a snorkel improves milage on those models. A 200 wouldn’t have the same benefit in terms of temps.. the main reasons would be clean and dry air.

 

[KLF]

People put bull bars on and I fancy most of us will encounter water crossings before we smack a deer.

I hit a deer in my Miata back in October. I had 2 close calls last week in the Cruiser. One was so close that the PCS engaged before I was able to hit the brakes, it was pretty amazing. The seat belt yanked me back in the seat too. That stuff works when you need it!

 

[Scubadriverfjc]

If you live in coastal Florida and have experienced hurricanes like I, you would understand why a snorkel and breather lines are good to have...

 

[ToraTora]

I installed one on my 100 series after my mechanic pulled more than a handful of perfect sandy powder out of my intake housing , past my filter. All the dusty trails out here have dust so fine that it goes right past the filters, and the intake being where the wheel is it gets a crazy amount of exposure. I am willing to bet all of my cylinders look very smooth and probably have s*** for tolerances now

 

[OregonLC]

I installed one on my 100 series after my mechanic pulled more than a handful of perfect sandy powder out of my intake housing , past my filter. All the dusty trails out here have dust so fine that it goes right past the filters, and the intake being where the wheel is it gets a crazy amount of exposure. I am willing to bet all of my cylinders look very smooth and probably have s*** for tolerances now

I'm guessing your mechanic was looking at the wrong side of the filter. I traveled a lot of silty/sandy/duty roads (sans snorkle) in the 100 that I had and my intake was clean, save for a bit of grime from the pcv gasses. Or maybe you have a loose hose connection allowing air to bypass the filter? Same with my 200. OEM filter element does a great job. And per this thread, you can block off 75% of the filter surface area and have zero change in CFM at the TB. So it can become really clogged before it becomes the restriction.

Not saying that snorkles don't provide a benefit to a reduction in filter contamination, but you can change out a lot of paper and save cutting your fender...

 

[silverhorse]

don't be haters! I have them on all my rigs, except the Sequoia! wife probably wouldn't go for that one...

Snorkels for life!