Two Guys Rally

How To Remove the Snorkus On a 2006 Subaru WRX [ May 19th, 2008 ] By:Charles Smith

I was reading about an intake resonator that my car has called a “Snorkus”. It is technically referred to as a Helmholtz Resonator, but Snorkus is way cooler. Just think of it as an upside down snorkel on the intake, because that is what it is. The whole point of the snorkus is to reduce intake sound (and on the naturally aspirated version there is a resonance on the intake, because of valve movement, that it works to defeat). Where’s the fun in a quiet car? I didn’t see any.

So Mark and I took a look at the intake system of my WRX. We figured that I could get away with not having a Snorkus and everything I had read about the WRX intake helped confirm that. We decided to remove it.

*DISCLAIMER* Removing your Snorkus may or may not VOID your warranty. I cannot be blamed for anything happening to you or your car related to this “mod” *DISCLAIMER*

Removing the Snorkus

Things you’ll need:

1. Jack
2. Jack Stands
3. Lugnut Wrench (19mm)
4. Small Flat-Blade Screw Driver
5. 10mm Socket w/ Ratchet
6. Foam Tape (1/4″)

We started off by removing the ram air intake portion. This requires a 10mm socket and fingers to remove the bolts. There are only two bolts holding this part on and they’re easily accessed. Mark is un-screwing the bolts in the picture below.

Next, loosen the lug nuts on your front right wheel and then jack up your car. Place the jack stand under your lift point. Go ahead and jack up the left side of the car and place it on jack stands too (safer to have both sides on jackstands). You might want to make sure your car is off, in gear and the parking brake is on. Finally once your front wheels are off the ground take the front right wheel off of the car.

Now with your jack stands safely supporting the car you have to remove three plastic pins from your front fender. This is so you can peel the wheel liner away from the fender temporarily. So using your flat-blade screw driver, pop the pins out (don’t rip them out). Here is a picture of two of the pins removed, the third one is further to the front of the fender.

Now with the pins out of your front fender, push your wheel liner toward the back of the car and peel it back and out of the way. It is pretty flexible, but your fender isn’t nearly as flexible (don’t try and bend your fender a lot). You should end up with something looking like:

The big white bulbous thing is the Snorkus. That is what we are here to remove. But there are two bolts holding it in place. One of those bolts is easy to get to, it is in the engine bay by the hole your ram air exits in to, but the other is in a not so nice place. It is on the front side of the big bulbous part inside the fender. You need a 10mm socket/wrench to loosen these bolts. Here is a picture of the bolts:

Remove the bolts, the suggested order is: remove the one in the fender first, so when you remove the last bolt, the snorkus doesn’t fall onto your face. Mark posed with the oddly shaped snorkus:

Now your car should be without a snorkus. So put the wheel liner back in its place and push the pins back into the fender (pull the center part of the pin out of the plastic housing a bit, makes it easier to push them back in). You have succesfully removed the snorkus. Put your wheel back on and tighten up the lugnuts (remember star pattern!). Take the car off the jack stands and tighten your lug nuts to the specified torque (read your owners manual).

We decided to leave the ram air on the car to push colder air into the fender, rather than the fender filling up with engine bay air (not much of a performance gain, but maybe some?). But if we left it there as it was, it would rattle against the ABS lines (you can see them above). Our solution was to use foam tape where the ram air would hit the ABS lines. It is cheap and easy (just the way we like it). So put some foam tape on the bottom of your ram air, it should look something like this:

Just reattach the ram air, make sure your car is in working order and BAM: Go drive your car and see what it feels/sounds like.

What I noticed driving around without a Snorkus is a much louder Compressor Bypass Valve. So when you come off the throttle, it sounds like you have a Blow Off Valve, but your engine is not going to be running really rich every time you shift. Low in the RPM range, when the engine is loaded, it sounds rumblier/growlier too. This ended up being a free way to make my car sound like a new machine to me.