Dave,
I do not want to worry you but check the amount of boost you are now running.
My car was spiking to 1.65 bar and holding 1.4.This was with a full de-cat system inc up pipe, with K&N panel filter.
Have changed the restrictor to a larger than standard (1.00mm) and the car is now fine.
Have covered 3,500 miles so far and still can't quite believe how well it goes.Just love the noise when it reaches 4000rpm and the VVT comes in,and then let the scenery behind you disapear.

I can though see where Andrew is comming from.Drove my MY00 car today (not sold yet)and it does subjectively feel quicker from lower down the rev range.

There is however no way that it can match the STi7 and the old car had 276bhp and 250lbft so it was and is by no means slow.

You can read a report on my STi7 on March 12 in Autocar.

[Edited by GRANT - 3/2/2002 7:51:14 PM]

 

Hi,

I sold my scooby today, and managed to talk the dealer into letting me have a drive of the STi demonstrator on the way to the train station (big thanks to Alan at T&C Aberdeen )

I was quite suprised by the amount of turbo lag.

Every time I had to accelerate from a standing start, I found myself totally bogged down, and felt like I needed heaps of revs to get a proper launch (which I did not feel comfortable doing in a demonstrator).

I've never experienced lag like this before, my MY99 was brilliant, plant your foot at just about any revs and off you go. The STi could not have been any more different.

I thought that maybe this was just me not being used to the car, or a bad driving style, until I came across the following article.

WRX STI unleashes a Jekyl & Hyde personality hard to live with.

And I quote ...

See, somehow Subaru's managed to go back into the vaults, back to the supercars of the eighties, and grab that big black box called turbo lag, and dump a healthy dose of it right square in the STi's engine bay. Man, is it bad! Horrendous is a better phrase

At anything below 4000rpm the STi would be lucky keep ahead of a Zimmer-framed pensioner. Once you get near that magic figure, and the turbo starts to add, rather than subtract, to the engine equation, the car lunges foward with neck-snapping aggression.

Remember the STi's Jeckyl and Hyde personality when you're turning across traffic, or emerging from a T-intersection, because waiting for the turbo to spool will seem like an eternity with an 18 wheeler bearing down on you. This kind of on/off power delivery borders on the dangerous, and we'd seriously recommend taking your nice new STi back to Subaru, or to an aftermarket tuner to breath some life into the lower half of the rev range - the same part of the tacho you'll use most in daily driving.


Any current STi owners like to comment. Does the lag get easier to live with ? Do you start to compensate with higher revs so that it does not become as noticeable ?

I'm not trying to pick a fight or anything, I was just genuinely suprised at the way the car drove, and I would not have been putting down a deposit if it had been an actual test drive.

Thanks,

Andrew.

 

Sounds like it's in need of a catless exhaust; that'll get the turbo spinning up earlier

I'm test driving one tomorrow; it'll be interesting to see how it compares to my catless MY00.

 

What lag?

Got Carolyn's STi UK yesterday, and took it straight to ScoobySport for a full decat.

When we picked up our previous WRX's, they were as sluggish as hell. No bottom end pull at all. With a few thousand miles and a full ScoobySport system on they were better but not as good as our old MY00's.

The STi has gone well from zero miles (allowing for running it in and having set the rev limit buzzer to 4500rpm) but have put 200 miles on it since yesterday, and since the decat it is absolutely flying. It is 4500rpm, change gear, repeat four times and all of a sudden you are going VERY quickly. When it has a few thousand miles on it is going to be seriously quick. There was no lag that I noticed either before or after the decat.

 

Andrew, My STI has just notched up 2K and I can start to unleash the beast a bit. Even with a couple of hundred on the clock it bogged far less from a standing start than my previous MY00 with PPP. It is even better now with no bogging to speak of

Go and have a proper test drive when the demonstrator has clocked up a few more miles, you won't be disappointed.

Ken

 

Hey guys,

Please don't take offence at my comments. That was not the intention.

I would not have even posted this thread if I hadn't found the above article that backed up my experience.

Maybe I just needed to give it a bit few more revs away from the line. It certainly went quick enough once the turbo kicked in

By the way, the demonstrator had 2,500 miles on it, so should have been fairly 'loose'.

Thanks,

Andrew.

 

I test drove an STi yesterday over about 15 miles. I would tend to agree that there was more lag then in my MY98. There seemed to be little power below 4000 revs and unlike my own car, the power delivery did seem more off/on. The car that I drove had done only 320 miles and did feel very tight. I suspect that after a few thousand miles the lag would lessen. I also think that a full decat would release alot of power.

Apart from the lag, the car felt fabulous. Harder suspension but in return less floaty over fast A roads. Steering hard to fault. Brakes superb. Compared with my present car, the improvement in interior quality was quite obvious.

I had already ordered one before the test drive but certainly did not change my mind after.

D.

 

Grant
I'd heard about your boost - remember Carolyn's is a UK car and the ECU is different.

 

Dave,
So is mine!

Grant

 

I'm with Dave on this one.

I drove a UK STI7 today, 64 miles on the clock, and I was amazed at the lack of lag. I know the gear ratios were different on the six speed box but I mostly used 4th gear on the country lanes and sometimes I thought I was in second (I kid you not).

Mind you, 3rd seemed somewhat unuseable for overtaking.

The power was very smoothly delivered and generally the whole car felt grown up - the best of both worlds I suppose.

BUT, in the end I still thought the car should be quicker overall - damn you John Felstead and Mike Rainbird, I wished I'd never ridden in your curse'd cars! I'll always be dissapointed now....

F

 

Grant
Oops - sorry, for some reason, I thought yours was an import

 

I test drove the STi at Listers today, it had 1100 miles on the clock and i nailed it. Brilliant car!

This is my review.

Well it started with

SM "so you have an Impreza sport, these are a bit quicker you know! Have you ever driver an Impreza turbo before?"

JF "ermmmm, just a few, the last one was a 22B Type-UK. I drove a 22B round the Nurburgring too. Driven the odd Sti and UK turbo too"

SM "You aren't going to kill me are you??"

hahahahaha

Was i good or bad. Neither really. I did give it plenty of stick and the salesman's voice went from a calm banter to a nervous odd word but being on the public road i was not a hooligan.

There is a shift light in the rev counter, they set it at 5000rpm. It was on most of the time. I used the full 7500rpm on every shift but also tried it in the low rev band too, just to get a feel for the bottom end torque and pickup. The engine is brilliant, no lag worth talking about and it pulls very strongly all the way to the red line with no noticable drop off in boost. Very impresive. Masively better than an MY02 UK spec car, which quite frankly feels slow.

Gearbox. The 6 speed isnt needed, it's basically a 5 speed with an overdrive for motorway cruising. I personally would never use 6th on a normal road but i would use it on a dual carriageway or motorway. I found the gearchange a bit fidly on going from 4th to 2nd when i wanted to overtake a slow car, but thats not the box, that was just me not being used to the shift spacing. The box felt very nice.

As to the handling. It's definately a drivers car. If you're very smooth and progresive then it's a lovely cross country machine, you can be very lazy and stay below 90% of the handling ability and keep it smooth and you'll be flying. Once you start to really wind it up it definately becomes alive and very responsive. It's very easy to induce oversteer. On one corner i tried to see how it reacts to lift off oversteer and so went storming in and violently backed off the power to get the rear coming out and then i floored it and it was just fantastic, it felt almost RWD the way it reacted. The SM **** himself i think but the chassis was just rock solid predicatable, a tiny bit of a wallow but thats really getting picky in a heavy saloon car. Very nice indeed. It actually felt like rsquires 22B after it had the powerstation bump steer mod done, you can drive that almost like a RWD car if your agresive. I really liked it. I would think the average guy who isnt used to a car that does oversteer if you provoke it is going to crap their pants though. I can see quite a few of these going backwards through the hedges! It's definately more of a challenge to drive properly once you start to fully exploit the chassis. My kind of car. Below 40MPH you get the overdamped jiggy, jiggy type ride but once you start to build the speed it's perfect damping, you dont feel any of the ridges in the road that you tend to do in something with very stiff, not properly damped suspension. They have done a great job of getting the compromise right.

The brakes were very nice. They must be using something like DS2500 pads though because they need warming up. There is a bit of lag in the retardation rate at first but after a second the friction rate of the pad rises exponentially. After a couple of seconds from fairly cold they are really working well. I never really hammered them but compared to a normal turbo they are a big improvement.

Overall a brilliant car, well worth the money. If i was going to buy a new WRX i would make the effort to buy the STi version, it's much better than the standard car.

Would i have one, damn right i would, it's the best off the shelf UK car i have driven. I havent driven a P1 so cant compare it to that but i actually prefer the look of the STi type UK over the P1, i never liked the fat look the P1 has.

I would love to take the car to bruntingthorpe and really get to know it, i think for the money it's the dogs bollox.

 

Nice piece John.


Don't panic mate, I'll give you the nod when my car is with me (tail end of next week hopefully) and we'll sort something out before it starts getting "altered"

Mike.

 

You are a hooligan JF. I did an enthusiastic test drive in an Evo a while back and I think I am now banned from the dealership. Our sympathies to the salesman, and may I suggest you pop by and drop off some Valium for him.

Final drive in 6th comes out the same as 5th as my previous MY00 standard box, but for some reason it 'feels' higher (probably just me) and I agree it is a motorway gear. I find less need to skip a cog on downshift to overtake, unlike the 5spd where it would sometimes bog if you didn't. I have not had to shout "come on you #$#%#$&" waiting for pickup, as I did in my MY00 with PPP or my MY98 before that.

Ken


[Edited by KenG - 3/3/2002 9:37:30 AM]

 

John Felstead
wrote:

JF, I was driving Carolyn's back from a 50 mile round trip to buy an aerosol paint yesterday ( , it's a long story ), and was thinking exactly the same thing. It's a totally different car to the UK turbo/WRX and pushed near the limit IS going to catch some people out.

Other than that, agree with most of your comments except the six speed box - all the ratios are different and third, fourth and fifth are somewhere between the old cars' second, third and fourth.

 

John

The dealer let me out in the car on my own

You obviously don't have the trusting look that I have

I agree with the oversteer bit, it was strange to feel it on a **+ mph right hander, but I liked it alot.

I must have one now.

F

 

I drove the Listers STi on Saturday, and felt like I was driving a caged beast. The thing was straining at the leash the entire test drive. Then again, I didn't get out of 4th (80mph ?) and never let the revs below 4000 :-) hehehe

At low revs (i.e. pulling out of Listers), you'd never know the turbo was there (drove like my Sport) - I did try 6th at 60 - zero acceleration cos the turbo wasn't up.

That blue-black mica is so much more *the* colour. With some Morettes (and some foglights where those covers are). It might be worth considering, but it's never as attractive as the old model.

PS did anyone else notice that the Prodrive zaust was a bit quiet - give me SS anyday.

 

Also drove Listers demo STi today - have to admit that the de-cat make so much difference. The car also seemed very quiet!!! infact the only noise seemed to be induction roar from the front - lovely car to drive though

Dave

 

Well, I had my test drive today - courtesy of those nice people at Tileys
I was out my own for about 45mins to an hour. The car had only done a total 450m so I wasn't caning it and was very "tight".

I'd like to say, first off, that I am just an ordinary bloke who likes driving performance cars. I have never been on a track or done any additional driving instruction courses. I drive up to my own capability which is well below the capability of my car (MY00 turbo, decatted, eibachs, ALK, solid links etc). My car takes me to work and back again and sometimes to Sainsburys It handles very well (for me) and goes well.

Anyway, I drove the STi today in Bristol's (appalling) Sunday traffic and then out along the A37 towards Shepton Mallett. I had a few chances to "open it up" along there.

Thoughts?

Handling wise - very nice. I like the steering (I believe it has a quick rack?) and the suspension setup is excellent. That said it handled in a very similar fashion to my slightly modded MY00.

Performance - yes it's quick but I didn't find it "thrilling" (for want of a better word). I found it took ages to get "going" (laggy).

Brakes - maybe they need a bit more bedding in or something but they weren't the neck snapping experience I was expecting (P1 with Alcons).

The interior is a big improvement over my car although I wasn't
particularly impressed with the seats. Rather unsupportive in my opinion.
I thought the rear wing was going to fly off at one point - it wobbles quite spectacularly above about 60 - 70 mph. The intercooler scoop also seems to get a vibration going as well at speed.

Three weeks ago I had a long test drive in a P1. I got out of that thinking "I must have this car".
Today, I got out of the STi thinking "I wonder what's for dinner?"

Before I get flamed by all the resident motoring gurus on here, I would like to reiterate that all the above is my "uneducated" opinion.
I have to justify spending that sort of money on a car. Whilst I can happily afford it, I could not justify getting rid of my car for £15K and replacing it with an STi for £27K. I could justify replacing it with a P1 for £22K though.
People that have bought STIs obviously can justify it to themselves. That's what makes the world go round - be very dull if we all had the same opinions

I shan't be buying one.

 

Am I missing something here, new car, requires full decat to fully perform. Does that not immediately invalidate your warranty, and not to mention, make it a tad illegal ? Or are you just removing the bits required to allow it to be sold in the UK in the first place. But if that's the case will it pass the emmisions tests if challenged ? Any answers, as I would quite like one of these.

 

Thats very generous Mike, see you in a couple of weeks then.

The car doesnt "need" a decat to perform, it's a cracking piece of kit out the box.

People always want more though, it's human (scooby owning) nature.

It's simple physics, take away the cats and it's going to perform better than if they are there. Yes it is illegal to remove the cats from a car, but these cars are used on track only aren't they. LOL