River Raider Snrokel

[LPM606]

As many know, I am drawn to water like a moth to flame so I have been eyeing various snorkel kits for the last couple years.  Various other upgrades and repairs have pushed back the purchase, but i finally pulled the trigger on the River Raider JK Expedition Snorkel.  I settled on this one for a few reasons... #1 Most snorkels run along to the top of the A Pillar and, while I like water crossing, I don't really plan to actually submerge the Jeep up to my head in water and I would like to keep the A pillars free for lights and other accessoires that tend to use the various spots on the A pillar for mounting.  Plus, I consider the tube running along the pillar to be just a big item to snag on branches and such and get torn off.  The river raider snorkel is is a cowl version similar to a hummer.  #2  - most kits use the factory air box intake point so its still not getting more air like a cold air intake. The river Raider kit modifies the factory air box to allow a full 3"diameter tube for the air - seems to me that has got to be a bit better. 

So, I have read and re-read the instructions for months as I planned the purchase and yesterday had the Jeep over at Mark's to do the install.  Overall it took about 7 hours, but that included almost an hour to get the battery re-installed.  We keep talking about making an install video on one of these projects but we always get started and think of it an hour in... so, no video, but here are a few pics of the process.


They have you seal off the factory intake and drill a new new hole in the air box.  This new hole actually becomes the output and you use the original output spot that went to the throttle body as the new input.  Problem with the river raider kit: template for the hole cut was printed in the wrong orientation and had no center point marked, causing us to have to spend a little time getting it right.


For everyone that got a chuckle out of the pic a while back of Mark with the giant adjustable wrench, we thought this one was a pretty funny counterpart.


After modifying the air box, the next step was to relocate the battery, they provide a new tray to turn it sideways allowing room for the snorkel hose.  The instructions don't mention it, but to get the nuts on the new bolts for the battery tray, we wound up having to remove the liner from the front fender so we could reach.


Next we had to pull down the wiring loom, cut out the insulation and place and install a provided metal template for the hole in the firewall.  Turns out the template is needed as the was no metal for the center bit of the hole saw to bite into - there was a hole covered with some kind of film... The template should have been thick enough to seat the hole saw, but was not even as thick as the teeth, making this step the worst part of the job.


Thankfully the hole in the cowl was much easier and as a result, much cleaner.   


90 degree elbow connected between the two flanges and hose clamped together... Starting to look like we may be on to something here!


Factory air box reinstalled and snorkel all hooked up!  Funny how its the only clean thing under my hood. One side-track that lost a lot of time had nothing to do with their kit, but in turning the battery and moving the wire looms, it was a bit of a project to get all the wiring reconnected to the batter - winch leads, CB, Tans Guage, E-Locker, etc. made for quite a jumble and with the new position some stuff was too long and had to be re-routed and other were a bit short.  probably lost an hour messing with this.  Didn't help that I dropped one of the nuts from the terminal and we had to pull the battery out to retrieve it and start over!


River Raider logo even matched my paint! 

I purchased separately their Breather tube extension kit, but we ran out of time.  This kit will run all the breather tubes form the diffs, trans and transfer case up to this closed system - a real nice insurance policy considering how much I love to take the Jeep out for a swim!

[Yellow TJ]

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