Cheap snorkel ideas?

First of all, that safari snorkel is way too expensive for some plastic. So I'm wonderin if anyone made a snorkel for an XJ? Any other ideas or cheaper snorkels?
Thanks...

Give the search button a try:

http://www.naxja.org/forum/search.php?searchid=646750

Brandon

Konrad said:

First of all, that safari snorkel is way too expensive for some plastic. So I'm wonderin if anyone made a snorkel for an XJ? Any other ideas or cheaper snorkels?
Thanks...

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How much should it be?
Molds to make something like that cost $70,000 and more plus it takes three or more of them. So your paying for much more than just the plastic.

It should be a lot less. They're charging these ridiculous prices because they're pretty much the only ones that make it. If they had competition they'd reduce it at least a 1/3 and still make it good - price inelasticity, goes right along with monopoly.
Who are you, the safari president?

Actually he is.

Konrad said:

It should be a lot less. They're charging these ridiculous prices because they're pretty much the only ones that make it.

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Actually IIRC there are two manufacturers: ARB and AirFlow. Also, what everyone else said is pretty much right: making the molds is not cheap. To the cost of the actual mold add the R&D that goes into making one (primarily getting it to kind of fit right).
Lastly, the search suggestion is a great one as there are many threads showing many different approaches (from Mercedes Benz air conduits to black toilet pipe) that have worked out for people.
Oh yeah... and how is that oem?

Konrad said:

It should be a lot less. They're charging these ridiculous prices because they're pretty much the only ones that make it. If they had competition they'd reduce it at least a 1/3 and still make it good - price inelasticity, goes right along with monopoly.
Who are you, the safari president?

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Wouldn't you think there is a reason that there aren't more people making them... it's not because there isn't a market.
Billy

looking for cheap? how about $0? how about stay out of the swamps?

Not sure if this helps, but I had been looking into the same question and after a week of searching I came across a different approach that some people had taken. After looking into it further, I decided to go for it. What I did was to start by removing the washer fluid bottle( I plan to re mount it but haven't had the need yet) and pull out the stock air box. One thing I would do while you have the air box out is remove the silencer at the beginning of the air tube. It doesn't really do much silencing but a lot of restriction there. Anyway's, back to the subject. Now that the air box is out, I cut a 3" hole in the back of the bottom piece and made a block off plate for the original front opening so that the rear hole is the only one breathing. Now I work at a race shop so I went to looking and found a piece of 3" brake ducting that we use. Perfect! It is a rubber pipe that has kevlar reinforcements and a spiral wound wire inside of it. Very waterproof, very flexible and VERY strong. So now that I have the hole in the back of the air box and my pipe to it I need to get to the firewall where I am going to pull the air from. It is going to come from the driver side cowl panel and if you look at the top side where the wipers are, you can see that the driver side louvers are vented. Since I don't plan to have this thing in water deeper than my head let alone deeper than my hood, it will work perfect for me. I drilled a hole in the firewall right on the sticker there and put the pipe through the hole. Because it is a reinforced piece of pipe, it just kinda threaded in there. I reinstalled the air box and went to give it a test. Before when I would go through a hole it would start to bog down and you could tell something wasn't working right, but now it just goes right on through. Hope this helps some and I will try to get some pics.

I'm sure glad you guys aren't the plastic drinking cup president b/c id be a little up set paying a couple hundred dollars for a drinking glass. Also if you can by an electronic device which does something amazing, such as dvd player which reads information from a itty bitty DIGITAL disc. For only 70 bucks, watertight pipe should be 150 MAX

conway4x4 said:

I'm sure glad you guys aren't the plastic drinking cup president b/c id be a little up set paying a couple hundred dollars for a drinking glass. Also if you can by an electronic device which does something amazing, such as dvd player which reads information from a itty bitty DIGITAL disc. For only 70 bucks, watertight pipe should be 150 MAX

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The inventors of such electronic goods usually cover their research and development costs by selling the idea to huge companies like Sony. Sony can then afford to loose money for a little while until enough units are sold. And there's a lot bigger market for dvd players then there is for each individual snorkle.
Billy

Konrad said:

It should be a lot less. They're charging these ridiculous prices because they're pretty much the only ones that make it. If they had competition they'd reduce it at least a 1/3 and still make it good - price inelasticity, goes right along with monopoly.
Who are you, the safari president?

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There the only ones making them and very few people need them also.

I took and sealed off my airbox. Cut a (I think) a 3 inch hole in the side of it. I went to Walmart and went to the camping area and bought a coupler for sewer pipe. I epoxied that in the box and ran the sewer pipe to PVC out of the jeep. I do not think that I will use PVC pipe again,as it looked cheap. I want to come up with something better next time. But the sewer pipe works great. it is wire reinforced and REALLY cheap. On the top, I used a 3" cone K&N. That worked well also.

Well, for those who replied with some pretty good ideas- thanks alot, ill definitely try something like it. For the other couple of people who just have nothing better to do but tell me how much the mold is, take the d*** out of you ear and stick it up your ass.
Anyway, thanks again.

Konrad said:

Well, for those who replied with some pretty good ideas- thanks alot, ill definitely try something like it. For the other couple of people who just have nothing better to do but tell me how much the mold is, take the d*** out of you ear and stick it up your ass.
Anyway, thanks again.

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Dude, in all honesty how much searching have you done for an idea and how much bitching have you done about the cost of the snorkel unit? If you dedicated even half the bitching effort to the search you'd find MANY custom solutions that have been implemented. Oh..... and take that attitude someplace else cause it ain't gonna do you a lot of good here.

JeepFreak21 said:

Wouldn't you think there is a reason that there aren't more people making them... it's not because there isn't a market.
Billy

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Off Road Wannabe's agree:
Snorkles rule! :kissyou:

I bought a section of three inch hose from home depot for 4 dollars cut a hole in the back of my air box and one into the cowl area. then sealed it with some white caulking that I had laying around. left the front of the box open until I need to seal it. actually helps with power.

I did do some searching, found some stuff, but nothing too elaborated. thats why i put out the post and gotten some great replies while at the same time prices on molds, dude.

I've also heard that adding a hose like that from the air box causes some noticable loss of power, could any one confirm that? Would it be better to just take the air box out and go straight from the intake?

Konrad said:

I've also heard that adding a hose like that from the air box causes some noticable loss of power, could any one confirm that? Would it be better to just take the air box out and go straight from the intake?

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When you restrict the airflow enough you will end up with some loss of power. On the other hand though if you do it right your snorkel might end up working kind of like a ram at high speeds counteracting the bends. In any case, I don't think that anyone did any dyno testing though to determine how much and where.

Oh yeah and on prices of the molds.... you got that cause you complained that a somewhat custom and unique product is expensive.....