I have these ideas..

'01 Forester, rear strut towers rusted out so I'm chopping most of the unnecessary weight, adding enough cage to keep it from (hopefully) folding in half, a bit of boost and some form of paddles to jump it off sand dunes until it truly dies..

In the interest of science this seems like the perfect time to try some new things, so I'm thinking of mounting the radiator on the back of the cage to improve approach angle, make room for a proper skid plate, etc.. I am also moving the battery out back and anything else I can to balance the remaining weight as well as possible.. Since I will already have the radiator back there and it is an Auto so that includes the trans cooler, it occurred to me I will have coolant and some form of pressurized "oil" which along with the exhaust naturally headed that way seems to mean a remote mount turbo would be an easy option, keeping to the theme of all possible weight out back.. To avoid the cost/complexity of a scavenge pump to return the ATF from the turbo I'm thinkin if I mount it high enough on the cage I should be able to gravity feed the return to the trans, either back over the windshield and right down the dipstick (no hood) or down through the tunnel to a fitting on the pan..?

I have a few useable(ish) TD-04's on the shelf left-over from my Saabaru, an RRFPR to compensate fuel, misc cheap headers, turbo flanges, etc to fab the hot side and am leaning towards PVC for cheap charge piping..

I have no idea how to add pics, hence all the words..

Questions, Comments, Concerns..?

 

I wouldn't use the trans oil to lube the turbo. Main reason being ATF and auto trans aren't meant to deal with the carbon you would introduce from the turbo. I'd either keep turbo up front or decide now if youwant to scavenge and send back to engine or make a closed loop stand alone oil system out back. Personally, i'd go easy and keep turbo up front.

 

Don’t bother with using pvc pipe, it will fail from the heat. It will collapse at the joints and not worth wasting your time on. Just find some aluminum or stainless pipe and make your own. If you need to get it welded, you can make all your cuts and tape it together for final welding. You can pick up cold side piping dirt cheap on eBay, you won’t save enough money on the pvc to make it worthwhile.

 

I built this for running the gambler500 two years ago with a friend of mine. We since sold it and the guy still rocks it. It started as a stock NA impreza. I built the roof rack and mounted the turbo on it. It ran stock wrx inj. and a open ecu tune.
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I love it..!

Any particular issues you ran into..?

What did you do for oil supply/return up there..? Did U run coolant to it as well..?

I have found some Al tubing for the cold side.. What type of intercooler is that..?

 

No real issues. It ran great once finished. Some would even call it boring.
Oil feed was -4 off of the oil pressure port.
Oil drain I ran into the pass side valve cover if I remember right. I used -8 fittings off the bottom of the turbo and then bent a hard line out of 1/2 tube for the drain down the windshield then a short piece of rubber to the VC. I used aluminum stand offs and metal zip ties to mount the drain and feed to the up pipe.
Turbo was some e-bay thing I traded for a sixer of cheap beer. No idea of specs. I assume it was a strait t3, what ebay calls the super 60, but who really knows. Intercooler was a cheap IC kit with 2" plumbing. We painted it black and then stenciled Yakima onto it as a joke.
The rack was built out of 1/2 emt conduit with a standard electricians conduit bender and some expanded metal. I think it was 18 gauge.
I used a tactrix cable for the flash. I had very little experience doing subby stuff so I found a tuner guy back east and he sent me a file that was setup for the NA motor running boost with the inj. I think he got me for like 50 bucks and it was so worth it as a place to start. Saved me a lot of time I'm sure.

The suspension was stock forester suspension, and some cheap 30 inch mud terrains. We hacked the fenders for clearance and beat the inner fender well back to give room at lock. I built the front bumper and the rock sliders out of 1 3/4 erw that was 3/16 wall I think. The rock rails also had some little dimple died runners I built that spread the load out on the body.
The turbo really made the rig. We ran it once NA with the big tires and you had to beat the hell out of it in first to make it do anything. Especially once you got muddy. After turbo it was second gear and you just half throttled it everywhere. If the tires got packed, you gave it wot, they spun, and cleaned out really well.

In all it was a blast. The whole dumb idea started when were contemplating putting a snorkel on it and after about 3 bloody marries it dawned on all of us that just putting the thing on the roof solved that issue and made power.
Lag was totally livable, especially with the big tires. If I had anything to bitch about it was that it was pretty loud with no muffler and the strait pipe out the back of the rack. Also there is alot of burnt finger prints under the exhaust wrapping. The up pipe ended up right where the passenger put his hand out the window. Once we wrapped it, it was fine.

 

I found a few more. These are when we first got it together before the new doors. This is also with the offroad wheels and tires which #ad
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i think looked better, but whatever.