chilicoke's homemade intake snorkel.
04-26-2009, 11:38 AM
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chilicoke's homemade intake snorkel.
Those of you who saw my GT5 cockpit thread probably had already figured out that I like building things. It's a hobby I enjoy greatly for as long as I can remember, especially to escape the boredom of repetitive and uncreative school work.
The S2k is my first car. As much as I love the way it came out of the factory, I had countless ideas to do minor changes to it, so it was only a matter of time before I move away from building often times useless things to making something for it.
Prior to this project I had no experience and understood little about composites. After months of research, I realized the possibilities were limitless, a far cry from the cut, bend, glue method I was limited to in my earlier projects. So I decided create my own and build an intake snorkel from scratch.
Before anyone says anything, I just want to make it clear that my goal for this project was not simply to have a low-cost snorkel but to create something I want. In fact, the amount of money (not to mention time) I've spent on trial and error to make it this far could have bought myself a few very nice snorkel/intakes. So if you are hoping for a cheap DIY alternative to what's already available, this is probably not it.
This is where I'm at many months and decent amount of failed attempts later:
Sorry for the quality of pictures, it was pretty dark in my garage.
Both the snorkel and radiator air guide (didn't want to cut my OEM) are made out of fiberglass. The snorkel weights around 2 pounds and is approximately 1/16" thick evenly throughout.
Haven't exactly reached my initial goal (maybe it was too ambitious) yet, but the key requirements (must fit under uncut OEM hood, clears AP2's horizontal support beam behind the front bumper, look OEM, etc) had been accomplished.
I had been driving around with this thing on for a few weeks now. It's tightly secured to the car therefore no unwanted rattles/squeaks etc. Heat soaking is non-existent and throttle feels slightly more responsive at speed. Still unsure if it was placebo effect or not, but I am averaging slightly higher miles per gallon and my OEM intake filter got super dirty.
What I started off with: cardboard temple. Don't laugh
All comments welcome.
The S2k is my first car. As much as I love the way it came out of the factory, I had countless ideas to do minor changes to it, so it was only a matter of time before I move away from building often times useless things to making something for it.
Prior to this project I had no experience and understood little about composites. After months of research, I realized the possibilities were limitless, a far cry from the cut, bend, glue method I was limited to in my earlier projects. So I decided create my own and build an intake snorkel from scratch.
Before anyone says anything, I just want to make it clear that my goal for this project was not simply to have a low-cost snorkel but to create something I want. In fact, the amount of money (not to mention time) I've spent on trial and error to make it this far could have bought myself a few very nice snorkel/intakes. So if you are hoping for a cheap DIY alternative to what's already available, this is probably not it.
This is where I'm at many months and decent amount of failed attempts later:
Sorry for the quality of pictures, it was pretty dark in my garage.
Both the snorkel and radiator air guide (didn't want to cut my OEM) are made out of fiberglass. The snorkel weights around 2 pounds and is approximately 1/16" thick evenly throughout.
Haven't exactly reached my initial goal (maybe it was too ambitious) yet, but the key requirements (must fit under uncut OEM hood, clears AP2's horizontal support beam behind the front bumper, look OEM, etc) had been accomplished.
I had been driving around with this thing on for a few weeks now. It's tightly secured to the car therefore no unwanted rattles/squeaks etc. Heat soaking is non-existent and throttle feels slightly more responsive at speed. Still unsure if it was placebo effect or not, but I am averaging slightly higher miles per gallon and my OEM intake filter got super dirty.
What I started off with: cardboard temple. Don't laugh
All comments welcome.
