Fitting the Air/Water Legacy Chargecooler

Certain earlier models of Subaru Legacy turbo had a water/air chargecooler fitted to them from the factory and due to the limited amount of air flow through the standard air/air Impreza unit I thought I should do the swap. I haven't found any information of people doing this to late model Impreza engines (the intake pipework is different) so I am going it alone again! Keeping with my ethos of using standard high performance parts, it will use standard parts and I will keep the larger/later recirculating dump valve which will necessitate some new pipework.

Here it is quite obvious that the turbo outlet/intake connections are further apart on the Legacy, I have bought a length of silicone turbo hose to make up for this difference. Standard Impreza mounts have been modified to attach to the Legacy chargecooler.

Just fitted up is the Legacy chargecooler water pump. I made a closing panel for one of the chassis members with welded captive nuts and welded it into place. The pump uses a modified version of the standard fitting bracket to keep vibration noise down.

The original Legacy chargecooling radiator is fitted infront of hte main radiator. The lines run along hte driver's side sill.

Not that clear, but you can just about see the dump valve extension pipe in black, this connects the turbo outlet to the later model (larger) dump valve. Also note the silicone pipe (in red) between the chargecooler and throttle body, this is needed due to the positioning of the chargecooler. I also made up a heaat shield for the turbo from the original Subaru metalwork.

Here it is all fitted and running! It's too early to be objective of the improvements made, but it is all fitted and looking very nice...even though filling the system is a bit awkward with the filler so far back...