Low profile snorkel

[Erich]

Does anyone have experience with these? I'm thinking about installing one. I understand that a hole must be cut in the driver's side, just behind the door, and a hose is routed through to the air cleaner. Are any issues? I don't plan on doing any deep fording, but I understand the engine breathes a bit better taking air from outside, rather than in the relatively confined space under the driver's seat. I also have an L 300 oil separator installed and hope there are not any clearance issues.

Erich

[Lapprentis]

Erich, any link for the model you are talking about ? Is it this one ?
http://www.delicashop.com/p/260/L300-snorkel-.html
Cannot be more lower profile than this one, I would like to get one like these
Lapprentis

[philmeup1]

I've seen this snorkel on that exact site. I would love to add one of these to my rig. The problem is the price. That's waaayyy to frikken expensive!!! I wonder if we could get a deal of we purchased a few of them???

I've got a little rust spot right where the hole would need to be cut to install this snorkel. Problem solved..... :)

Phil

[FalcoColumbarius]

I have always thought that the stock snorkel is pretty low profile, in fact I'd call it pretty stealth. Here's an interesting thread to read: http://www.delica.ca/forum/mystery-mach ... -1859.html

I've been through three feet of water and had no issues. Take a close look at your stock air filter system: First you have the spill-off, where the pipes do not connect; then the air passage travels down to the dust trap that is equipped with a one way valve, before it goes up through the filter element.

Falco.

[Lapprentis]

Falco, we have to say that Mystery machine was definitly acting mysteriously by driving underwater; maybe Angels were preventing water to get inside the engine due to the helping nature of the action being taken
The lift and bigger tires are for sure raising its drawn level higher than for most L300. Glad to lear that the -not to go more deep than- level line is that side marker all around the Delica, right ?
Thanks
Lapprentis

[Mr. Flibble]

My understanding is that the non-low-profile snorkels give a bit more oomph to the L300 due to an air-ram effect.

Though, I can't confirm that as I have a 400.

[bosc]

Glad to lear that the -not to go more deep than- level line is that side marker all around the Delica, right ?
Lapprentis

I've found that is a good reference point, although if you drive through backwards you get a bit more.

[FalcoColumbarius]

My understanding is that the non-low-profile snorkels give a bit more oomph to the L300 due to an air-ram effect.

Though, I can't confirm that as I have a 400.

I've heard the same. Fexlboi made that observation about his set up on the DinoEvo.

Falco, we have to say that Mystery machine was definitly acting mysteriously by driving underwater; maybe Angels were preventing water to get inside the engine due to the helping nature of the action being taken
The lift and bigger tires are for sure raising its drawn level higher than for most L300. Glad to lear that the -not to go more deep than- level line is that side marker all around the Delica, right ?
Thanks
Lapprentis

It took us 10 mins to cover the 1.5 miles to the pub. The whole time I was wrestling with the steering to try and keep the Delica from being bucked all over the road. Water was nearly up to my knees inside the cab and the rear of the car was filling with water!

Most of the way there, the water was just below the windshield on the car. Sometimes it was lapping over the windshield!!! (just to put it into perspective - the bottom of the windshiled of the Mystery Machine is exactly 5' 4" from the ground! (1.62m!!)

To get some perspective on this matter: The air intake system is in a compartment that is located just below your derriere as you sit in the driver's seat. From what I've observed this compartment works like an inverted glass being pushed into water, keeping the air inside the glass. I'm not sure how long this bubble will last but evidently it lasted for over a mile for the Mystery Machine.

Many Delicas have snorkels but I'm not so sure how necessary they are.

• Here are a couple of vids showing Delicas without snorkels going through fairly deep water:
  
  
  And then we have the Ruskis who truly set the example:
  
  I would think that this feature is has a limited use and as we just saw, after backing back into the river a few times, trying to find his purchase, we see a cloud of steam. I think this is from river water being processed through the motor, which can't be very good for the injectors as the expansion value of steam is far greater than that of diesel oil, which the injectors are meant to process.
  
  In this next vid the Gen II Starwagon does have a snorkel but the reason I'm showing it is because the driver manages to make her float by rolling up the windows, ergo using the whole vehicle to create the air pocket:
  

I wouldn't recommend trying to drive across an inlet, I'm sure the wagon would sink after a certain period of time. I guess that these vehicles are designed to go beyond their call of duty for limited periods of time.

These are pretty capable vehicles in my experience. I think many people don't consider them as such because of their cute Japanimation style faces on the front. A lot of people that I've talked with seem to think that unless it has the hallmarks of a "big rig", with massive steel across the grille, balloon tyres, smoke stacks and phrases written on the body like "Power Wagon" or "Built Tough" or the classic ~ "Like A Rock" ~ then it can't be any good off the road.

I tend to view these machines in a "Zen balance" light. When you think that two long tonnes of steel, glass, rubber, vinyl and textile can be powered by a little 2.5 litre motor, generating ninety Shetland ponies at forty-two hundred RPM just blows my mind!

Falco.

[Big-Bird]

Jimny Bits out of Staffordshire England has the same snorkel for £249.00
http://www.jimnybits.co.uk/shop/other-4 ... d_607.html

DELICA L300 snorkel 3.JPG (72.63 KiB) Viewed 8097 times

Then there's this model from a Taiwan distributor...price unknown.
(This shop also carries the unit shown above, no price is shown though.)
http://www.fts4x4.com/en/products/?method=detail&aid=65

de5.jpg (42.17 KiB) Viewed 8096 times

[philmeup1]

That's still quite pricey once you do the conversion to Canadian dollars. I wonder why they're so expensive?? There can't be that much to them.

Still, I want one......

Phil

[Big-Bird]

The webisie Alibaba (China's answer to Ebay) has many distributors that sell various Mitsu parts..
The issue here is not the cost per unit its the shipping! Alibaba shows at least 4 snorkel manufacturers who sell Delica snorkels at a cost of around $60 USD per unit. The minimum quantities of 10 per order and the shipping costs crank that to over $1500.00 USD

So doing the math: $150.00 per unit from an unknown supplier, with a 'not that well known' website and very little verbiage of purchaser protection leaves me with chills.....A person could be out a sizable chunk of change if the stuff is just cheap crap or worse you don't get what you ordered!

A little searching this morning did uncover a method to make a snorkel using foam board (the pink/blue stuff from home depot) , adhesive files/sandpaper, fiberglass and resins, bondo and paint and a proper snorkel intake goose neck. Could inspire someone to be creative for not a lot of money!

Working with foam to make a plug mold is easy and cheap. Ever put papermache' over a balloon? Similar principle. A chemical is used to dissolve the foam once the fiberglass/carbon fiber work is done.
A link on the IH8MUD site shows the how-to in a fair amount of detail. All a person needs is time and a few basic tools and about $60-70 worth of raw materials. The site is being upgraded on March 18th so there are no guarantees this info will be available when the site resets a few days later. Suggest you save the webpage on your own system so you know what this guy did to make a snorkel.

http://forum.ih8mud.com/60-series-wagon ... orkel.html

I am inspired to make a low profile unit for my L400 similar to the one made for Nissan's late 80's through mid 90's Hardbody Pickup.

5433140059_large.jpg (127.65 KiB) Viewed 8069 times

[philmeup1]

Yeah, I hear ya. I would go in on a group buy for one of these low profile snorkels if there was enough interest. (And the seller was verifiably legit & honest). I think it's a subtle yet cool look. And if you do in fact get a little more umph outta the motor,,, well that's a bonus

[thedjjack]

you will get exactly zero more power out of the 2.5L....

I had a large snorkel (aka: toilet pipe) and turned around the intake into the stock airbox... much more direct flow...

maybe ran a little cooler... but power is a dream... I also had 2.5" exhaust with side dump with and without muffler.

The turbo makes the ram air kind of a dream.....

but the toilet pipe looks cool live on ghetto snorkel...live on... (ghetto snorkels in stock today for $<40 at a Rona near you, no wait, no shipping).... I am sure you could use used toilet pipe and save even more!!!

[Erich]

As I understand it from talking to several folks, you do get more power from the snorkel, but there are caveats. First, it is only an improvement when dealing with denser air which equals more oxygen. It is however correct that the turbo is the crux here. The exhaust mod has to include a larger pipe at the turbo as the stock one is too small. A larger or shorter exhaust won't do any anything if there is still a constriction at the turbo. All that said, power increase will be marginal. As I used to tune and race, the rule we used was that each mod needed to work in concert with the others. A longer duration cam did nothing and would actually reduce power if there wasn't more mixture getting down the intake(learned that when prepping my MGB). Still, if enough folks want the low profile, I could find out from Mark in Australia what a discount might be with multiple orders. My issue is how the piping inside the car reaches the air cleaner. I have an oil separator mounted in from the ECU, etc. on the rear engine bulkhead which necessitated removing the first pipe to the air cleaner, leaving only the 90 degree entering the air cleaner.

[vstrom]

The webisie Alibaba (China's answer to Ebay) has many distributors that sell various Mitsu parts..
The issue here is not the cost per unit its the shipping! Alibaba shows at least 4 snorkel manufacturers who sell Delica snorkels at a cost of around $60 USD per unit. The minimum quantities of 10 per order and the shipping costs crank that to over $1500.00 USD

So doing the math: $150.00 per unit from an unknown supplier, with a 'not that well known' website and very little verbiage of purchaser protection leaves me with chills.....A person could be out a sizable chunk of change if the stuff is just cheap crap or worse you don't get what you ordered!

A little searching this morning did uncover a method to make a snorkel using foam board (the pink/blue stuff from home depot) , adhesive files/sandpaper, fiberglass and resins, bondo and paint and a proper snorkel intake goose neck. Could inspire someone to be creative for not a lot of money!

Working with foam to make a plug mold is easy and cheap. Ever put papermache' over a balloon? Similar principle. A chemical is used to dissolve the foam once the fiberglass/carbon fiber work is done.
A link on the IH8MUD site shows the how-to in a fair amount of detail. All a person needs is time and a few basic tools and about $60-70 worth of raw materials. The site is being upgraded on March 18th so there are no guarantees this info will be available when the site resets a few days later. Suggest you save the webpage on your own system so you know what this guy did to make a snorkel.

http://forum.ih8mud.com/60-series-wagon ... orkel.html

I am inspired to make a low profile unit for my L400 similar to the one made for Nissan's late 80's through mid 90's Hardbody Pickup.

5433140059_large.jpg

And this just made my list of Things To Do To My Van! Might even try this summer..