My XJ Cowl intake

[dubbleJs]

Hey guys and gals, figured I would share the cowl intake I just finished. I made it on a budget, the only thing that cost me $$ was the K&N filter ($45) and the flexy pipe ($7)


I used 2 pieces of 3" plumbing pipe (actually 3.5" OD) and painted it silver to look fancy.

I bought the flexy pipe from Greenline hose in Calgary, 12" cost me about $7. I only needed 8" for the intake.

-Cut a hole in the firewall for the 3" pipe to slide through, this took me some trial and error to get a good fit. With the pipe coming in at an angle you need an oblong hole. I used a die grinder and angle grinder.  It didn't end up looking the prettiest so I used a piece of rubber from a plumbing stack roof vent and cut it to get a nice seal around the pipe and keep the hot air away from the filter as well.

-Disconnect the intake arm to the factory airbox and flip it around facing over the motor. Remove airbox and give it away, now you have room for some sweet air horns or something of the like 

-Connect the 3" pipe to the factory arm, the, the flex pipe to the 3" and then another piece of 3" to go through the firewall into the cone filter.

-Cut a hole in the cowl from above so you can squeeze the cone filter into the cowl and also have access to tighten the hose clamp.

-Drill a hole in the 3" pipe near the factory intake arm for the PCV vent hard line, drill this as small as possible so it is a nice and tight seal... Or get creative and glue a fitting of some sort on there. I tried JB welding it to the intake arm but it was too rigid and cracked.


Here it is finished, minus the rubber seal at the firewall


And a shot of the filter through the hole I cut in the cowl. The filter is old and took a bit of abuse being jammed in and out of the cowl...I may get a new one at some point. It is about 7" long and just fits in the cowl.


And the finished product.



Overall I think this will perform much better than my previous setup which had the cone filter clamped to the silver pipe. It was safe from water there but was taking in hot engine bay air. The only downside I see to my new cowl setup is if the vented side of the cowl grill cakes with mud or ice....I will just have to keep an eye on it. The cowl has drains on both sides to get any water out that finds its way in.

[raf2379]

looks like a good mod, I don't see any issue with mud or water in that spot, unless you plan on driving it through a deep river nice mod, simple.

[bRIBEGuy]

Looks good.  I have the Spectre cowl intake in my XJ, and it has been great......though it did give the Jeep an odd Darth Vader-ish breathing sound at cold idle.....lol.  Watch your filter though, I find mine gets WAY dirtier now then the stocker  ever did.

[dubbleJs]

looks like a good mod, I don't see any issue with mud or water in that spot, unless you plan on driving it through a deep river nice mod, simple.

You never know where the Heep will end up!! 

Looks good.  I have the Spectre cowl intake in my XJ, and it has been great......though it did give the Jeep an odd Darth Vader-ish breathing sound at cold idle.....lol.  Watch your filter though, I find mine gets WAY dirtier now then the stocker  ever did.

Haha forsure, the intake is definitely louder now... I kinda like it.