john banks

T-uk and I went today to test drive a MY06 STI and an Evo VIII MR FQ340 (they didn't have a IX).

Two very impressive cars indeed and there is little to choose between them in many ways.

The STI interior looks very similar to last year. The extra spoiler looks fine in the flesh, the rear lights do look a little like the bottoms of jam jars. The test car was on 18s with normal tyres rather than RE040 Bridgestones, but the tyre noise seemed similar. The car had 1600 miles on it. It pulled well and the turbo spool up was very smooth and it almost didn't feel turbocharged, but it did have a nice midrange. The new gearbox has nicer ratios and the gearchange is much improved. Suspension was very well judged and reasonably comfortable. Top end performance was nothing special but with only 280 BHP you don't expect that. Exceptionally composed and even with freezing temperatures it put its power down exceptionally well.

The FQ340... it felt like it was an already modified car which of course it is. Exhaust note was quite loud, but I could live with it. Suspension felt similar to the Subaru, perhaps slightly firmer. Interior was a few steps down, but the seats were much grippier than the Subaru. Gearchange was notchier than the Subaru, especially from cold. It was wearing its Yokohama tyres unlike the Subaru, but in freezing conditions this was no impediment and it was very planted. Again quite a lot of tyre noise. We should have tested an FQ300 to compare with the Scooby as it was easy to be hoodwinked by the extra power. Of course, despite it having 60 BHP more than the Subaru, both cars could probably have a further 60 BHP added on their original turbos. So the Subaru would need a bigger turbo fitted to match, but we suspect the Evo would need an uprated clutch and some work on the brakes that the Subaru wouldn't. I was astonished by how well the car spooled up for a warrantied car with a cat on a 2.0 litre engine without MIVEC on a turbo that could still do 400 BHP. The Evo's steering was very quick indeed and full of feel.

Overall, the Subaru edges it for comfort/interior and the 2.5 with a single scroll turbo would probably be of similar competence when modified to the 2.0 with short twin scroll setup, although we know the Subaru's map is a bit soft for spool up the Evo certainly wore its turbocharged nature on its sleeve.

So close in many ways. I'm not planning on changing yet, but both were so much more involving to drive than the M3 and gave tremendous confidence in these conditions. FQ340 feels quick. Subaru with choice mods would be right there.

Following on from the other thread on evoness/evo car of the year, I can't imagine more fun cars than these two, but it is how you define your fun. Image can suck, but these AWD rally replicas still hold my interest.

Either one with a few grand spent could be at 400 BHP and 400 lbft approx and they are just so damn competent they are incredible.

Deep Singh

JB, why don't you drive a 996tt to compare? That comes with 400BHp out of the box, imagine what you could modify that to!!!!

Bubba po

Ooh, yes! A 996 is right in most people's price range.

john banks

I should do that Deep. Modifying one and killing the warranty is a problem though.

scoobydooooo

why the hell buy a car with 400bhp just to modify it , bleedin hell !! i'm sorry but i just do not get it at all

FASTER MIKE!!

996 turbos are that fast, compaired to a 400bhp scoob/evo

Gav

996TT's are different gravy IMO

john banks

Are we saying that a 996TT is much quicker than a well set up 400 BHP Scooby or Evo? Do we see that they are quicker in acceleration times or lap times? If so why?

Steve vRS

Porsche 996's may not be faster (I bet they are ) but I know which I'd rather have!

Steve

john banks

If you were paying with your own cash would you feel differently? How would you feel about the depreciation on the Porsche (percentage wise it is good, but the amounts are still high), paying for the servicing, brakes, tyres and worrying about parking it anywhere? Unless you are absolutely minted and simply wouldn't notice the costs, if you can afford to buy and run one, would you? Would have to be really good to convince me to shell out given what the cheap chavmobiles will do, and I suspect it would be another expensive car bubble to burst... if any dealer will let me try one!

Rabid

Oh they'll let you test drive one allright. OPC might be a bit snotty but if you are prepared to travel and seem semi serious these folk let me have a go in their 996 Turbo no questions asked. When the day comes they'll be getting my custom.

http://www.autobahn.co.uk/

ozzy

I would only run a Porker if I was minted. My m8's brother bought one new and drove it like he stole it, but he never had to worry about the running costs. He's got a yacht in Monaco, so a £70K car was nothing to him in the grand scheme of things. Lucky beggar

In the my real world then there's no other car I've seen that really gets my blood boiling more than a thrash around the country roads in a nice setup Impreza or Evo. Unfortunately their image is getting worse and that's put me off splashing out another £25-30K on a new one.

Deep Singh

Hold on a minute!! A new Evo is £30k for 300BHP, a second hand 996tt is now £46k as private sale. Not a million miles away. Not to forget the thousands people then spend to modify their Scoob/Evo, the difference is not as vast as you make out. I accept though its a 4 year old vs a brand new Scoob. But thats just like I would rather run a second hand Scoob for £15k rather than a brand new Micra!!

Also take into account £1.5k buys you a remap on a 996tt to 450BHP and about £3.5k to 500BHP.

As for a 400BHP tt vs a 400 BHP Scoob, the difference is that the tt was designed to put out 400BHP not modified to do so. It will do it everyday forever with no fuss. No stupid comedy exhaust, watching knocklinks/AFR monitors/exhaust gas temps etc etc

john banks

All quite convincing but the big worry for me would be running a modified 996 TT without warranty. Blow a Scooby up and it costs little to fix. Blow up a Porsche engine... but a standard one would probably be fine (except I would need to pretend it wasn't mine ), at least it would be an easy way of offloading the M3. Need to sort some more test drives

Deep Singh

A Scoob engine is hardly peanuts!! Also Porsche will warranty cars bought outside of their network for £750 after an inspection to make sure all is well. Remap is meant to be undetectable/reversible but that is not for sure.
The 996 tt GT1 based engine is 'bulletproof' according to most. I've looked at about 75 996 and 993 tts on the internet and not one is advertised as having a new engine. Look at the classifieds for 75 STis and at least 10 will have new engines.

A new engine for the Scoob would cost say ?£4k. A tt engine costs circa £9k. Its twice as much but if you can risk £4k you can probably risk £9k

Kael

Remap undetectable is utter b*llocks.

If a dealer suspects it is been played with which is quite obvious by the extra oooomph then they plug in their Porsche/Subaru etc diagnostic tool and check what timing is being pulled, boost level etc.

My brother works in an Audi dealership and many TT's/A3's etc. come in and are noticeably quicker than standard. Any warranty work is refused. And many of these have the supposedly undetectable maps.

The only ones that genuinely are undetectable are the Bluefin Superchips type devices where they upload the required setting. Or a plug in device for the diesel engines that you physically remove before dropping in adealer.

john banks

Subaru short motor is about £1200, yes heads and turbo on top would load it a lot more. I presumed the TT engine would be a lot more than £9k.

Kael

P.S Good review John

Kael

Can get a used engine for around £4k from Douglas Valley Breakers...

Deep Singh

Maybe you misunderstood me. The mappers reckon that if you have a problem they 'replace' the original map, so no extra oomph to detect, timing and boost put back to standard. Question is can Porsche tell it has been tampered with at some point? No consensus on that.

Only an idiot would think a remap that is 'live' is undetectable.

Deep Singh

John, then why do most people tend to spend circa £3.5-£5k for a standard rebuild( according to stuff I read here)

john banks

Perhaps a bit of inside knowledge and a few good friends helps. As well as usually spotting the signs of component failure before it is mullered. My old Scooby never left me at the roadside, but the engine was out many times. Part luck, part good management?

Nevetas

Where did all this talk about 996tt come from!

46k is a great private sale price Deep. However, personally I would go to an OPC for this sort of vehicle though, It was lucky I did as my first one blew up! I know you could buy it then get it warranted at an OPC but if it fails the inspection for any reason could get costly.

I'd say for a really nice TT from an OPC you are looking allot more than 46k, cheapest TT on the approved Porsche website is £57k and that's for an 02 car with 40,000 miles.

I started off with a classic at 17, and have since had another STi, M3, M3 CSL, 911 TT Tip and onto my current 911 TT Manual. Comparing it to my modded 02' STi is tricky.

Obviously most noticeable difference, top end. I drive allot in Germany, my STi (decat remap) struggled with the straight line speeds, but I expected this. After 120 the STi needle becomes painfully slow, in the TT I'm still in 4th The TT will easily do 200mph on the speedo, in reality 190mph. So this will obviously outpace most Scooby's unless your name is Andy F or Pavlo

However for me it's more complex than that, my Scooby cost 16k, the porker 71k. I had to work hard to buy both, but I would maybe push the Scooby more knowing that at the very worst I'd wrap a 16k car. In the porker it's always in your mind that you don't want to see 71,000 of your hard earned pound notes in a ditch. And for that reason I always have a level of respect for the beast. I'm sure if you are very wealthy you simply wouldn't care, but for me that's not the case.

As for running costs I have noticed no difference, my car is fully warranted, the mpg is the same as the STi, and general servicing is cheaper than my BMW!

So the TT is a perfect car then? Well No, firstly noise, or should that be, lack of it. From inside the cabin it's basically silent, although from high revs with the windows down you can hear loads of turbo spin, but compared to my CSL it's not good enough. This is easily cured my sticking on a Tubi exhaust, but then warranty implications rear it's ugly head! The 4wd sytem is good, feeding power to the fronts if the rear's slip. Interior had a quality feel, although the sat nav is sometimes abit dodgy! But, apart from that all things are well.

So how about modding? Well exhaust and dms remap will see you straight at 550bhp. Then you can spend more and see 700bhp. However it's that word again warranty, do you really want to risk it?

My TT has been tucked up in the garage for over a week, and I've been in my Landrover Defender. I got the TT out tonight to get some charge into the battery, lovely slow paced drive through traffic, very relaxing, heated leather seat on, climate control, and my favourite CD Came to a clear section of road, into 2nd, foot down. Good Lord above us, my head nearly detached from my neck. Completely forgot how powerful it was and put a huge smile on my face

Out the box these cars have 420bhp, 420ft/lb tourque (give or take). They do however weigh about 1.6 tonnes though. They probably don't make the best track day cars, but if that's what you want buy a spec c, csl, or gt3. The TT is a super car for all seasons, I use mine as a GT car and for a few laps of the ring, for which it's perfect.

So all in all you can't really compare, I could of got 4 02' STi's for what I paid for the TT, so that would mean the TT is 4 times better? Well probably not, but then if we applied that logic super cars would go out the window for good!

FOR ME the TT is a quicker car than my STi, but I can drive my STi quicker than the TT I'll leave you with that thought

Pics of all cars mentioned:- http://www.nevetas.com/modules.php?s...view_album.php

T-uk

UK v UK car , the fq340 wins every time for me. not just for the extra power it had but the steering and feel of the car , it felt much smaller than any of the new age scoobs , more like a very hot 4x4 hatch. I think the spec-c will be the closest scoob to the fq with it's twin scroll , sharper steering and lighter shell.

I think with the similar power , both will cover the ground as quick and both really dig in when pushed.

I would say for weekend warrior driven like a hooligan-evo
for daily driver that is a bit easier on the eye-scoob

screw the image if they make you happy.

my auld man has had jags,mercs and bmw's all his life. this week he did just under 1000miles in a MY05 scoob and could not fault it , other than thirst

Nevetas

I'd go for the Spec C over the Evo myself. Been in a spec C and was very impressed, and the new 06 model is supposed to be amazing on track.

Floyd

iTrader: (9)

Steve, I didn't really get to appreciate the TT on the Ring because I felt I was shouting at you too much but when you did put your foot down there was certainly some punch

F

kwispel

I have been trying to localise a dealer who's got a 2006 STi I can try. My 2003 is soon end of lease and so far, the only two alternatives I have is the FQ340 (which I though was fantastic engine-wise) and the 911 C4S.

I am surprised you mention about the interior of the FQ340. One of the biggest drawbacks of the Impreza is that it is only available with the blue seats and at the back, the seats are not alcantara but some cheap imitation cloth. On the FQ340, at least everything was alcantara.
Only scoob so far I liked inside was the WR1. Which came out a month or two after we got ours

john banks

Eden Subaru, Fife.

Thanks for the input Steve.

I would like to try a Spec C or Type 25 and a 996TT I think.

Deep Singh

Hi Steve, not so in terms of prices. There is a 00 996 tt, 18k miles with Satnav and heated seats for £52k on Autotrader with an independant. Nice black/black colour combo. This car has already had the Porsche inspection,arranged by the independant and so comes with a Porsche warranty.

Floyd

iTrader: (9)

John, are you serious about giving up the M3 already after such a short time or is are you contemplating the next step in the medium term? It seems like only yesterday that you were discussing the pros and cons of the M3 for ages...

F