Did the snorkel delete today, review of work

[zeusenergy]

Every VW/AoA car I have owned had intake mods done, even if that means just opening up the original airbox to let more air in, and more sound out!
For this job I wanted to remove the snorkel from the airbox into the snowbox. This is the easiest route as the front wheel doesn't need to come off, and the snowbox can just live disconnected in the fender. What does it weigh, 1-2 pounds??

So I had to take the airbox cover off to see what I was working with. The first thing you will notice is the phillips screws on top of the box, under the plastic section of the windshield where the wipers live. You need a stubby screwdriver for this. After taking both of them off, you need to use a pair of pliers and squeeze the clamp for the turbo intake hose. You can pull the hose off, and while still holding the clamp, place it on the MAF to keep it open enough so that you don't need to mess with it later in reinstallation. The smaller hose that goes to the air pump (it's unmistakable, black with corrugated cover) can be removed by squeezing the two raised portions where the hose attaches to the airbox. You can use your hands, but it may need a lot of force (squeezing, not pulling!) The connector for the MAF needs to be disconnected, a tiny screwdriver can be of use here. Now the cover of the airbox can be removed. From the rear, lift up and push to the back of the car. Your air cleaner also needs to come out, and now's a good time to change it. It's too bad I didn't take pix doing this... Sorry to all in advance!

The lower section of the airbox is attached with two 10mm bolts. There are some people in here who may have "yanked" it out, and I think this is a cop-out. It's very easy to pull them out. I used a six inch plus three inch extension put together, this make about 9" of length, perfect for this whole job. After getting both bolts out, the airbox will lift from the motor side, and pull towards the motor to get the rubber bushing on the driver's side detached. You will see the snorkel outlet clear as day now. You will most likely wonder how it will come out with the battery in the way. Well, you'll need to pull that out, too! Here's my list of tasks for that:


1) Remove cover from battery, two tabs at the backside hold it on.
2) Loosen battery cable clamps from posts. 10mm nuts, loosen only enough to get them free.
3) remove bolt and lock plate for battery (13mm and 10" extension)
4) Remove 10mm bolt for power steer tank only, 10" extension helps here, too. Tank lifts up to clear tabs on battery shroud.
5) Lift passenger side of battery to stand it up on end, and pull it out. Shroud may bend and flex, but the battery will come out if you are careful.
6) Reverse instructions to replace. When replacing the PS tank, be sure that the two different plates are lined up and the bolt passes through both of them.

When you're done, there is one bolt left (10mm) on the snorkel pipe. You can then grab the outlet end (where it used to go into the airbox) and pull towards the motor. There may be some resistance, just be careful that you didn't rip out any wires or break anything..... It would be hard to mess this up.

Once the snorkel was out, I reversed the steps to make it good again. I did take off the snorkel and bolt plus the gasket in the airbox and toss them in the dustbin, so those didn't need to get reinstalled!

The sound is more apparent from the intake now. A deep snarl along with louder whistle from the turbo, plus the sound of the Diverter valve were enhanced. Power is something I cannot really test yet, as it's snowing up here in NH right now, and the battery was disconnected long enough for the computer to have to re-learn things. In time I'll report back to let you people know how seat-of-the-pants is now.

I posted this review as another possible way to have no snowbox without having to get on the ground or need anything special to do it, and the lack of the snorkel should certainly help matters out on the volume of air into the turbo. You can keep these parts to go back, but why on earth would you do that??? As an additional step, while you have the bottom section of the airbox out, you can use a drill and hole saw to cut out some extra inlet holes and really make her shine! The top of the airbox has some fins you can "shave" but you need to be sure ALL the plastic bits are out of there before reinstallation. I'll be doing this mod later (holes, shave) and I'll take some pix then.... Later! And happy modding.

[Yurko]

there's already existing How-To's for this with pics.

[zeusenergy]

Originally Posted by Yurko

there's already existing How-To's for this with pics.

I didn't realize there was a snorkel-only write up.
Just trying to add some more input.