DasFrem
Elite Poseur
- Joined
- February 21, 2000
- Messages
- 1,015
- Reaction score
- 9
- City, State
- Portland, OR
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 2 '97 sports
So after hearing plenty of horror stories about hydolocking and having a close call myself I decided I needed a bit of protection. I looked around and the only manufacuter of snorkels was ARB, and of course they didn't make one for an Explorer. So I go and do what most of us Explorer owners do and build one myself.
The thing I really loved about the ARB models was the fact that they have these channels built into the intake scoop that would remove water, say if you're driving in the rain. I went down to a local 4x4 shop and ordered just the intake scoop. BTW, this was back in October, the part was on backorder from Australia so it didn't arrive until last week. Anyhow, since cutting into my conical airbox would be a *****, I decided to swap it out for the box type off Spas' 98 SOHC since she got a KKM (Thanks Spas!). Now of course my intake tube is too big to just fasten on to the end of the MAF, so I cut apart my old box, and fabbed up an adapter to make it all work. I drilled a 4" hole in it with a 3" PVC 90 degree piece that went into a 2.5" PVC conduit. The 2.5" conduit is 3" on the outside which matched the snorkel's diamater. I cut a hole in my fender and trimmed it a million times before it all lined up, bolted it all down with conduit hangers and then, since the 3" PVC bend didn't exactly fit the 2.5" conduit I used PVC glue and great stuff all over the place to seal it all (wear gloves when working with this crap, it doesn't like to come off your hands and it gets on everything).
So it came out looking better than I thought it would, and was cheaper than buying a whole snorkel system from ARB and hoping you could make it adapt. There's a couple of bonus advatages to having it too. First, you're getting cold air from outside, it works like a ram air, and it sounds badass having your intake right next to your window. So lets get on with the pics!:
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The thing I really loved about the ARB models was the fact that they have these channels built into the intake scoop that would remove water, say if you're driving in the rain. I went down to a local 4x4 shop and ordered just the intake scoop. BTW, this was back in October, the part was on backorder from Australia so it didn't arrive until last week. Anyhow, since cutting into my conical airbox would be a *****, I decided to swap it out for the box type off Spas' 98 SOHC since she got a KKM (Thanks Spas!). Now of course my intake tube is too big to just fasten on to the end of the MAF, so I cut apart my old box, and fabbed up an adapter to make it all work. I drilled a 4" hole in it with a 3" PVC 90 degree piece that went into a 2.5" PVC conduit. The 2.5" conduit is 3" on the outside which matched the snorkel's diamater. I cut a hole in my fender and trimmed it a million times before it all lined up, bolted it all down with conduit hangers and then, since the 3" PVC bend didn't exactly fit the 2.5" conduit I used PVC glue and great stuff all over the place to seal it all (wear gloves when working with this crap, it doesn't like to come off your hands and it gets on everything).
So it came out looking better than I thought it would, and was cheaper than buying a whole snorkel system from ARB and hoping you could make it adapt. There's a couple of bonus advatages to having it too. First, you're getting cold air from outside, it works like a ram air, and it sounds badass having your intake right next to your window. So lets get on with the pics!:
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