3D printed snorkel
 

So with hks thread going below. This snorkel business got me thinking.... When I installed my intake I removed the own snorkel since it was recommended. A buddy of mine was helping me remove the snorkel and I was disappointed when he pulled it out and broke one of the resonators.

I thought the idea of pulling the cold air in was a brilliant idea, and with a broken snorkel I have no chance of popping it back in. So back to my thinking...

What about a custom designed snorkel that can be printed out using a 3D printer. I figure the design would be simple and would most likely not hurt an aspect of the intakes. What we want to do is capture a lot of cold air and send it in.

I can easily mock up a design and utilize my schools 3D printer (helps to be a physics teacher with access to fun toys) . I would love to know the masses thinking for the best way to design this.

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot...02384424_n.jpg

This is the one I see most often. Personally I wish I could find a thermal graph of the car (in a wind tunnel, or wherever) so we could actually see the coldest pressure pockets. With the above design though, that looks to be right in the mouth of the grill so that's easy enough. All the products I've seen like this have been cubic dollars and well outside of my price range for the benefit.

If you could whip up something affordable out of reasonable material, I'd guarantee people would be interested.

Something to also consider would be a box for directing/scooping air for those of us with a perrin or FA20Club cone filter sitting behind the front bumper. Similiar to this only up above encasing our filter and angled downward towards the grill. Would probably be a negligible difference, just thinking out loud.

Love when people get creative/innovative though, so keep going on the thought process :)

Right now all the intake tube options are either too expensive or too hard to get...

There really needs to be an inexpensive, simple just ABS plastic or something option for under $100.

Thats why I was thinking 3d printing one.

On your last idea were you thinking up by where the existing airbox is?

On the second idea, I was just thinking a heavily angled box pointed towards the grill. Try to bare with the amazing rendering here:

Attachment 50026

No idea if that'd even be useful. Just trying to think up something for the perrin/FA20Club intakes, but most likely they've already got plenty of cold air. The stock airbox snorkel idea though, made affordably, would sell like hotcakes I'd think. :) Would mate to stock, TRD, AFE, etc. Healthy share of the market that could benefit from it.

3D printers that can do something of this size are limited to high end commercial ones at this point and your going to pay an arm and a leg to get something like this printed. Of course if you have access to one for free I think it's a great idea.

Consumer grade 3D printer has limited size in printed product. DX.com has one for ~$700.

For NA I think the stock snorkel flows well enough. Perrin's official dynos for their CAI are almost identical to their drop in filter. Now, if your goal is changing sound, then that's always justifiable, sound is a big part of the experience. "course... I recently removed my Perrin CAI because it seemed to pick up an ugly sounding resonance from my P&L header, and for point of reference, the CAI was louder than my exhaust, full headerback and header.

You may be looking for a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist. Here's an interesting article by AEM about the development of their intake system for these cars.
http://www.aemintakes.com/dynocharts...-1408-AITS.pdf
I posted this in another discussion a while back, and I've never seen another flow test of any intake system, stock or otherwise.
This is the only place I've actually seen a flow test on the stock intake system. Notice they just left the inlet tube on because it didn't have any effect on horsepower(their words, not mine). They also got their system(with the inlet tube) to flow around 500 CFM, which should support a bit more horsepower than these car make. I know as a physics teacher you probably appreciate data more than "butt dyno estimations", or "it looks cool so it must make power" declarations.
Anyway, just food for thought. I'm not saying don't make it, I'm sure you could sell a few to some of the forum members.

Good read thanks. But that actually reaffirms the snorkel for me. My buddy broke my snorkel, so maybe I can create one that narrows down the chaotic airflow, and brings in cold air.

As for making money. If it requires too much work, I probably won't sell them, but I would make a few at cost to help forum members out. I earn enough money as a teacher (ironic I know) and just want to help out this community.

I think Im going to try to keep this simple. I want something that will snag the cold air and focus it into any airbox.

My idea right now is designing one like the old plastic ball scoop game.

Heres a reference except solid: http://www.dollartree.com/assets/pro...rge/144793.jpg
@Mobius357 Im guessing thats why there are so many resonators on the stock snorkel?

It would cost more to 3d print something this big than it would to protomold 10-100 of them. Fdm is the only thing that can lay abs right now, and any other rapid prototyping material wouldn't like the heat.

So yeah you could print one prototype using fdm in abs and test it on the car. To make them in volume it'd cost a fortune in time. Better off using a cheap injection molding process like protomold.