Hey Wild, Nice to see you back on the forum. I didn't know your turbo setup was running in front of an auto trans, me too. I'm curious if your running any kind of bypass valve in the charge air lines. I'm redesigning my manifold, and simplifying to eliminate as many bends as possible. I'm makin my new manifold out of 304 stainless sched 40, it should be quite a bit stronger, and i'm making it as compact as possible, a modified log style, with smoother integration of the header tubes, into a stepped central tube. No more equal length, I want it short as poss. I experienced some issues with the connections in my charge air tubing where it ran through the bodywork to the bumper where my intercooler was mounted. It didn't like being submerged too much! The connections were also too hard to service so I'm moving the intercooler under the hood,  raising it as high as possible, and eliminating as much tubing and as many clamps as possible. At this point I want to integrate a bypass valve into the charge air lines to prevent over pressurizing the turbo center section when I shut the throttle after a full boost run. I've heard The Volvo Bosch oem valve's are cheap salvadge yard items that are readily available. Have you used one, are you using any type of bypass ? I'm also thinking of of including a vacume storage tank ( the same kind used for some types of cruise controls) inline with the trans shift modulator, to soften the shifts when manifold vacume is low. Right now I have to feather the throttle so it doesn't keep building rpm before it shifts, it really wants to run to redline all the time!

Bentparts, you may want to look at how Subaru has mounted the intercoolers on the WRX and turbo Legacy and Forester models.  They are very high in the engine bay and have the hoodscoops to direct air over them.  Not sure if there's a lot of room towards the rear of the engine (I haven't been under the hood for a while), but this would certainly keep water out.

I'd love to see your turbo setup sometime.  I'm waiting for some decent weather here to install my OME lift and get some bigger tires on my 4 door so we can go do some wheeling down in Wharton.

Later,
Jeff

You can check out the 1st gen turbo setup at www.flickr.com/photos/bentparts.  Look under Turbo Build.  The 2nd gen setup is going to be quite a bit different though. I'll follow up with a new photo stream when finished.

OH, BTW, my intercooler is air to water, so it only needs air for the heat exchanger ( looks like an oil cooler) and only coolant lines run to that. That I can mount in the front bumper.