Snorkel intake - which way round is best?

Which way round is best for the snorkel intake? i.e.: the top bit that let's in the air. Mine faces forwards, but I've seen others that face to the rear. Just wondered if it made a difference.

Cheers
Pete

On the road, forward, acts slightly as a ram intake, feeding more cool air into the motor. Off road, or in dusty environments, backwards, minimising particulate entering the intake during forward travel.

Remember, a snorkel isn't really for wading through water up to its roof, it's purpose is to find clean, mud/sand/water free air to intake. With this in mind you should be able to make your own decision as to where to turn it in what situation.

Edit: snow can also collect within forward facing snorkels.

The ram air thing may in theory sound like something awesome. But in reality, it doesn't matter at all which way it points.

The thing about having the snorkel not for wading deep water, but for clean air, doesn't make much sense. Remember the air filter

Oh yeah, I should mention I am being 99% anal. :side: The vast majority of the time there will be nil effect from it pointing in either direction.

However the air ram intake effect is there from forward facing is there, even if it is a fraction of a bar of inlet pressure, and there is reported incidents of forward facing intakes taking in, snow, leaves, sand, mud etc and causing clogging, either at the filter or within the snorkel pipe itself. However for the most part it is one of those situations, that, unless you are being REALLY anal, you just set it up the way you want it too look.

And no, a snorkel along really doesn't increase your wading depth, and the primary purpose of it for most offroaders isn't to dramatically increase wading depths. If you are under water over the bonnet, where the limit of most factory intakes is, then you are still likely to clog/break/short something, particularly on a petrol 4x4. If you truely want to wade up to the top of the windscreen then you need to do a LOT of work. However it minimises the dirt particules, water & other 'stuff' from clogging the filter, which is good, as it is a massive cause of breakdowns if you are driving anywhere sandy.

You're very wrong. Sorry to say.
But the Jimny is actually a very well built car, also when it comes to wading.

Last year at the WBVC in Croatia we drove in pretty deep water on more than one occasion, with water over the bonnet. Of course with windows closed Water is not what kills the electric parts. It's that slurry mud that get in to everything. This can easily kill an alternator.
This years WBVC didnt see a lot of rain, so only up to 30-40 cm's of water

But wading with water over the bonnet. No problem, with a snorkel.

Also seen more than one pretty standard Jimny with snorkel on this Jimny with water over the bonnet.

Hm, could be different with the Jims then, I know the old Landy V8s used to throw a fit if you put them anywhere near water, regardless of whether they hydrolock, I know the Jeep petrols aren't too fond of wading either.

Also with deep water submersion you do need to worry about water getting into places it shouldn't be and staying there, you see it a lot, the absolute worst culprit is in 4x4s used to launch boats, particularly into salt water, water enters the rear chassis rails and sits there for ages, causing all sorts of corrosion, there is also other components which require breathers, they can survive light submersion, but deep water will cause water to force its way past the seals, diffs are particularly bad for this. Water won't kill an alternator immediately, but will reduce it's life. And the obvious minor point is that you will never get that 'musky' smell out of any sound proofing you have below the carpets unless you rip them out :side:

Point I'm trying to make is there is more to factory wading depths than just the air intake, whilst a raised air intake combats against immediate hydrolock failure, It far from covers all the potential issue caused by water getting where it shouldn't. The primary advantage of a snorkal is that it is able to get a clean source of air in environments with a lot of particulates flying about.