Muscle car guy might switch...

The WRX's seem like good cars. They are the only Japanese cars I would consider owning. I mean that as a compliment, because I am a die hard muscle car guy. But I didn't come here to argue, I need a commuter car with some balls so here are my questions...

Ok, I searched through the threads and none really addressed this, what specific difference is their between a regular WRX and the STI? I know the exhaust, rims and interior are different, but that doesn't add 70 horsepower. So what are the specific differences in technical terms.
I am thinking of buying an automatic WRX and doing some of the STI mods if it is possible.

I don't know any specifics about WRX's but I know a little about turbo cars. I was thinking that if I advanced the cams I could make more low end torque and spool up the turbos quicker. I don't really care if I lose a little top end, because I think the mid-range would make up for it. I'm not interested in building a race car, I just want something with V8 throttle response and torque, with the economy of a 4 cyl. Are cam timing advance gears available?
I would consider a high stall torque converter, but I assume it would hurt mileage so it wouldn't help my goal.

Does anyone make shift-kits for the automatics?

Finally, I hear you can adjust how much power goes to the front or back. I would set mine up so that it has as much power going to the back as possible because I love fishtailing (I'm a muscle car guy remember) would it shorten the life of the drivetrain if I sent most of the power to the rear wheels?

Thanks, Peace

Tom

If you want to see some behemoth muscle click here www.tomsriv.com
(Be sure to see the video)

lol, you are definetely a muscle car guy, wanting to get an auto and a high stall torque converter and shift kit for it, but I am with you, i'm a honda guy and i'm going to convert to Subbies too. I'm not completely sure on this, but I believe that the STi runs a bigger turbo and more boost than the WRX. I don't know what turbo's are on each car, but I've heard that the WRX runs about 14psi and the STi runs about 19 psi.

The main difference between the WRX and the STi is the fact that they use two entirely different engines. The WRX is a 2.0 liter, the STi is a 2.5 liter. The tranny is a 6 speed instead of a 5 speed, the brakes are ridiculous, the car handles substantially better, etc. If you were to buy a WRX, you could "safely" get it to 300awhp without destroying the tranny. However, I don't know much about the automatics, so I won't speak on this topic. Hope this helps, sorry the post is a little dry.

It's nice to see a muscle car guy who's actually open to japanese cars rather than blindly bashing them.

The STi engine is also equipped variable valve timing and it is a 2.5L instead of a 2.0L found in the WRX

Wow, all those mods are really expensive! Its to bad Chevy doesn't make a small block 4cyl with a plethora of cheap performance parts ;)

300hp out of a 2.0 would be great though. Can you do that with "free" mods like intake, exhaust and boost? Or do you need to install bigger cams and give up low end power?

Love the comment on the shift kit, lol. Do any import guys use them? Automatics work great on V8 cars with wide powerbands, but I can understand the limitations on automatic 4 cyl cars.

You can do "free" mods involving cutting off the intake snorkel and raising the boost (the latter requires a bc, of course), but you're not going to get much power, at least not safely. A friend of mine did something very stupid: He ran his otherwise stock WRX at 21psi for a single race. Detonation galore, but he beat out a BMW M5. Do NOT run 21psi on a WRX. The "free mods" won't get you much power to speak of, however. Try Vishnu's Stage II kit. That puts 256 to the wheels on their dyno... which has been registered at 297awhp on other dynos. Obviously everything is dyno-dependant. Overall, you're looking about about 350-400bhp with that kit. $4,000 bucks. www.vishnutuning.com

Again, don't know much about the autos. Expect to lose power with the auto.

The sub-zero package looks like a pretty good deal. The stage one kit is a rip-off. $1100 for a turbo back exhaust system!!! Pleeese! I could get it done at the muffler shop with larger pipe for 350 bucks. Or I could build my own in a weekend with mandrel bent pipes from JCWhitney for even less.

Their signature exhaust is the best on the market, for $1,600. It seems like a bad price until you realize the work they put into it. Divorced wastegate dump, sure, that's not that hard. They calculated the thermal expansion of exhaust gasses based on the various temperatures at various points of the exhaust; the exhaust piping constantly changes size to fit the temperature perfectly. It is the lowest possible backpressure exhaust (that's legal for street use) based upon the thermal design. In other words, you could go to a muffler shop and get a $350 exhaust, even one with a bigger pipe, but it wouldn't be nearly as efficient.

Not knocking your idea, just explaining the price.

its all about the right e-management for the right mods... which is why i also reccomend going with vishnu stages... you can install them your self and from every thing i have read they are very reliable

Finally, I hear you can adjust how much power goes to the front or back. I would set mine up so that it has as much power going to the back as possible because I love fishtailing (I'm a muscle car guy remember) would it shorten the life of the drivetrain if I sent most of the power to the rear wheels?


btw this only comes in the STi... i personally havent seen one in action but im sure the people at http://www.nasioc.com/ can hook you up with ALOT of answers...

Actually, the way the center diff works is that the setting that minimizes wear is full open, with more rear power bias. I discovered unexpectedly that it is possible to get the car to fishtail, though the car corrects itself pretty quickly. Either that, or my recations were that having the rear end step out while looking at trees out the windshield is a bad thing, and should be corrected immediately. It varies depending on weather conditions, but I usually run about 40% locked on the center diff in normal dry weather driving.

btw, I am kfoote on NASIOC as well.

Their signature exhaust is the best on the market, for $1,600. It seems like a bad price until you realize the work they put into it. Divorced wastegate dump, sure, that's not that hard. They calculated the thermal expansion of exhaust gasses based on the various temperatures at various points of the exhaust; the exhaust piping constantly changes size to fit the temperature perfectly. It is the lowest possible backpressure exhaust (that's legal for street use) based upon the thermal design. In other words, you could go to a muffler shop and get a $350 exhaust, even one with a bigger pipe, but it wouldn't be nearly as efficient.

Not knocking your idea, just explaining the price.

Thats really cool that they built a high tech exhaust system. As long as you don't change the camshafts or valve timing it will work great. I guess you don't really need to do cam changes because you can get 350hp with the stock cams.

Yeah, you seem pretty hung up on this whole cam thing. ;-) Unless you're planning on making huge power (and by huge power, i mean enough that you'll need a new tranny), you don't have to touch your cams.

dont advance timing in a turbo car and dont increase duration, those are the kinds ofthings that cause our friend detonation to pop his head up. if you really wnat to play with the cams get new ones with higher lift but the same or shorter duration, also youll need stiffer valve springs and such. if you want to get more power out of the engine ( i know this goes against the muscle car thing) drop the compression with new pistons and increase your boost on the stock turbo by using an aftermaket boost controller and waste gate.

The impreza is deffinately the import for you cause Subara is a division of GM

Sort of...GM owns a small percentage (I believe it's 10%, though I'm not entirely sure) of Fuji Heavy Industries, of which Subaru is a division of. I do not believe there is any direct ownership of Subaru by GM, though again, I could be wrong on this.