Custom H1 hummer style cowl snorkle
| Ok, lets get the important stuff out of the way first. I put “hummer” in the title of the article for search reasons, but I don’t want to taint my site too much with that brand, so I’ll refer to it from here on to a Cowl Snorkle. :) littletj on the EJC site was nice enough to let me use his cowl snorkle write-up for myjeeptj.com. So first of all, thank you very much littletj!
A cowl snorkle is just what it sounds like. It’s simply an air intake that comes up through your cowl (the spot just back from the hood) instead of sucking air from in the engine bay like a regular intake. This brings your air intake up higher allowing for deeper water crossings. There is definite advantages to this, but please remember that your air intake is not the only thing that can take on water. You also need to worry about your breather lines, etc.. but that is another write-up for another time. You also may want to consider that water splashing up the hood from entering a water hole may enter more readily with this setup, but that’s just an opinion of mine, not fact. Either way, having the air intake up higher can’t be a bad thing for sure. |
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Since I didn’t feel like shelling out big bucks for an ARB snorkel, and I wanted something a bit unique I decided to make my own Hummer H1 style snorkel. So I hit up the plumbing and vacuum cleaner section at Canadian Tire. Here is a pic of the vac hose I used: And here is the universal shop vac adapter. I ended up lopping off the top 3 tiers as I just needed the bottom one. Note: I took a lot of these pics after the fact, so some stages may show stuff completed that I haven’t talked about yet. I cut off the air intake hose, used the 2″-3″ adapter piece to go to the buick air box, then the other 2″-3″ piece to go from the air box to the vac hose. I did have to cut a piece of the stock buick air horn to go between the air box outlet and the 3″ plumbing adapter as the plumbing piece was too large. You can see it here sandwiched between the stock air box and the rubber adapter piece if you look closely. Took off the front cowl, then got out the 2.5″ hole saw and cut the firewall just to the left of the grounding strap. I cleaned up the metal edges with a die grinder and hit it with some flat black tremclad.
Then I had to tackle the intake for the heater core, since it was in the way of my planned snorkel location. I chose to totally remove it and cover it with a piece of flat sheet metal. I then cut a hole in it closer to the firewall and clued the 90 deg elbow onto it. Now I had an intake for the heater that didn’t obstruct the planned routing of my snorkel hose.
I moved onto the cowl. I took the hole saw out again an cut a 2″ hole as far over to the edge as I could while still being able to bend the hose to fit. There is no real science to this just keep trying and see how much the hose will bend. The hose I got was a good one, not one of those cheapo plastic ones, this one was rubber with a metal wire support so it didn’t collapse when bent at sharp angles. I then drilled 4 smaller holes so I could bolt the shop vac adapter piece through the hole. I used a few washers to shim it so it stuck through the cowl a little more vertical than it otherwise would have. I capped off the screws with the acorn nuts and sealed everything up with silicone. Next up was to build the snorkel cap. I left approx 1″ between the top of the 2″ ABS and the 4″ cap. I screwed the brackets to the 2″ abs and glued them to the cap. I hit it with some rocker guard to give it a bit of texture. I angled the bottom so that the top of the cap would be level once it was mounted. I also test fit it and ground the bottom down so it was sitting low enough on the cowl so I could flip the hood back against the windshield with no problems. That’s it, I put a bead of silicone around where the shop vac adapter poked through the cowl and slipped the cap on top. Other stuff: I used a piece of aluminum flat bar to brace the buick air box. I attached one end to the stock bracket on the air box, and the other end to the passenger side motor mount. I had to twist the flat bar 90deg so it would fit both mounts properly. The vacuum tubing didn’t seal tight where it went through the firewall so I sprayed some expanding foam in there and it sealed everything up nice and tight. I think that’s it, a simple and cheap way to reduce the chances of sucking a bunch of mud and water into your engine and provide a source of true cold air for combustion. Total cost for this setup was approx $80 including a new air filter. The price doesn’t include stuff like tools and supplies I already owned (silicone, glue, hole saws, etc). -littletj |
January 1st, 2009 at 10:30 pm
heey thats prity cool im thinking about doing that to how dose it work for you now that you have had it for a wiol plaese email me back thatnks little git
January 31st, 2009 at 11:23 pm
essentially thats a cold air intake. thatll definetally increase your HP and fuel economy.
February 1st, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Seems like it, yeah. From what I’ve read on jeepforum.com though, it seems as though they don’t help much if at all on the 4.0L engines though.
February 2nd, 2009 at 5:23 pm
whys that? and i also just read that although the intake may be higher, the stock airbox is not watertight. also as littletj states in this writeup there are other things like breather lines that need to be adressed
February 2nd, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Simply because the stock TJ intake system already gives the motor enough air as is. Installing most aftermarket air systems don’t increase performance much if at all. I assume the same would go for this custom set up.
Basically, if you are doing the mod for performance don’t bother. If you are doing it for the added safety for water/mud then it’s a great idea.
March 28th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
heater intake. you cut it flat and attached piece of alumium, rivet it and silcone it?
what effect does this have on the heat-ac.
March 29th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
I’m not sure what effect it would have, it’s not my jeep that this mod was done on. Maybe send a private message to littletj on jeepforum.com
Here’s a link: http://jeepspace.jeepforum.com/littleTJ