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A snorkel is fitted to a 4×4 vehicle for various reasons. Here are a few reasons and a few other snorkel related points.

Cooler Air to the Engine:

Many vehicles have their air intakes located in the engine bay and suck in the hot air from under the bonnet. This isn’t an ideal situation as an engine likes to run on cool air to perform at its best. With the intake away from the engine bay, it gets cool ambient air. Tests have been done to prove that this cool clean air does increase performance slightly and improve fuel consumption slightly. There have also been claims that the intake that points into the oncoming air creates a ram air effect, but no one has been able to positively prove this as it’s very difficult to simulate the airflow into the snorkel on a dyno.

Cleaner air to the Engine:

The intake of the vehicle, situated under the bonnet, or sometimes under the front fenders, will more than likely sit in a very dusty position while driving on gravel roads. The Snorkel sucks air from high up and thus it cannot suck up the dust in the engine bay or under the fender. This only works well when there is no dust in the air, because in dusty situations you are effectively ramming clouds of dust into the snorkel. When driving in an area with dust in the air or behind other vehicles in convoy, it is highly recommended that you turn around the snorkel intake to point backwards.

Prevent Water Ingestion:

This is a controversial point, because many people think once they have a snorkel, they now have a submarine. Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that and there are many things that can go wrong on a vehicle if submerged under water, especially expensive electronics. Please avoid water if you can! The snorkel however does give you very valuable protection against water being sucked into the engine and destroying it, but you must also make sure all the joints along the pipes are air tight and that any drainage holes in the airbox have been blanked off. A snorkel cost about R3000-R4000, and an engine can cost you up to R450 000, if you drive something like a V10 diesel Touareg, and yes, there are 2 known cases of V10 Touaregs suffering this very expensive fate. Water ingestion is such a common problem on 4×4’s that specialist 4×4 insurance companies slap you with a R10 000 excess amount should you suck water into the engine. These very expensive consequences make the cost of the snorkel cheap insurance. On my vehicle it was the second modification I did after the bash plate as I did not want to risk expensive damage to my engine.

For those that don’t know what the big problem is, this is what happens to your conrods when your engine sucks in water.

Driving in the Rain:

People usually ask the question of what happens to the rain water. The snorkel intake has been designed in such a way that the diffuser breaks up the water droplets and they get thrown against the back on the snorkel. Then there are drainage slots where the water can run out. If you’re going through heavy rain or an area with puddles of water that could splash up into the intake, it’s again a good idea to turn the head around.

Here’s a diagram of how the water dispersion works:

Which Brand:

The two leading brands are the Safari Snorkel and the TJM Airtec Snorkels. Choosing between them is basically down to personal choice. Also look at how the pipes are routed to the airbox and if there are any airflow restrictions along the way. The one brand might offer better airflow than the other on certain models. Then there are also the cheaper versions like Airflow and some Chinese imports. Safari has sent out a memo that one must be aware of the Chinese copies as they use inferior materials.

Why so expensive:

I often see people comment on forums that they cannot understand why a Snorkel is so expensive and it should only cost a few hundred rand. The Chinese had the same though and even their copies don’t come out much cheaper that the real thing. I dare anyone that knows better, to design a snorkel for 50 different vehicles, have 50 sets of tooling made, buy injection moulding machines, set up a factory, distribute the products around the world and then only charge a few hundred rand. Yes, the importers do nail us a bit, but it really isn’t as easy as everyone might think.

It’s Permanent:

To fit a Snorkel to a vehicle, quite a few holes will be drilled into the fender and the A-pillar, so once it’s on, it’s on for the life of the vehicle.

Snorkels on my Vehicles:

The first time I fitted a snorkel to one of my vehicles was in 2003 on my 2.8D hilux. I fitted it after a deep water crossing where I sucked muddy water into the airbox but fortunately it did not go into my engine. Since then it’s been a while since I fitted a Snorkel to one of my vehicles. When I bought my Triton I fitted a Snorkel within a few days of taking delivery of the vehicle. Now I don’t have to worry about expensive engine damage should I accidentally dip slightly deeper than expected during a water crossing. I also mounted my GPS antenna on top of the snorkel intake and it’s not attached to the body where it can damage the paint and cause rust.

Here are some Snorkel related video clips.

This was a test by Safari Snorkels themselves:

An informative clip by ARB 4WD:

Going through a deep pool with my Triton where I could have sucked in water if it was not for the Snorkel. A crossing like this should be ok without a snorkel, but it’s not worth taking a chance.

Here I’m going through a pool of water. The way I do it in the video it was fine, but when I went down, about a third of the bonnet dipped under water and some of the muddy water went into the air box, but fortunately not into the engine. After this I fitted a Snorkel.

Extreme water crossings(NOT RECOMMENDED)

Watch half way through this video as vehicles get towed through a deep river, completely submerging the vehicle for a moment. This is a common practice in the South American Funrace events.