I've been proud to be part of the 8 community for the last 15 months, but today was the day I made the trade for a black '04 WRX. It wasn't for lack of love for the 8, but my wife and I have chosen to live much more below our means by downsizing our house and both cars to something more in line with our desire to begin purchasing some investment property. Although I'm happy with the new car, it was difficult driving off from my VR beauty today. I'm sure I'll continue to "troll" a bit, but don't look for anything like Ike - having now been the owner of both cars (although for only a few hours now!) I can be a bit objective about the quirks and strengths for both. Thanks for all the info over the months and for giving a rotary newbie a solid education. Thanks again and take care.

 

I hope every goes well for you. let us know what you think

 

Oh, and by the way. The WRX is an '04 with 12K on it that I got for $20K. They allowed me around $21k for my trade (it's all funny money with those guys anyway) but it will improve my annual cash flow on my car by around $1300. Every penny helps. Initial thoughts:

WRX is a bit tougher to get solid shifts (could be user issues at this point).
I'm used to hitting 9K on the tach from time to time, and found myself hitting fuel cutoff today a couple of times.
Seats are nice, cloth is on par or slightly better than the 8 I had.
Rear seat room, although with a full size door, is similar or slightly larger than the 8.
Power band comes on very strong at 5K and will pin you back in your seat.
Overall, the car is more "raw" than the 8 and seemingly a bit less refined, but I mean that in the best possible way. The power delivery is much less linear with the turbo, and the driving experience is a lot different (not better, not worse, just different).

BTW, I had a G35 coupe try to mess with me on the way home, and I had no issues keeping up with him after only having driven it for 50 miles! :D

 

Goodluck with the WRX! If by solid you mean smooth it's sort of odd, the one to two shift can be jerky even once you get used to the car. It's usually only when accelerating hard and a couple mods to free up the exhaust and up the boost a touch helps out as well.

Most likely the biggest difference in refinement you'll find is the road noise. There is very little sound deadening in order to save weight, the good is the car is pretty light for an AWD car and when driving aggressively it helps you feel more attached to the road, the bad is that it can be noisy on highway trips.

Also don't get used to keeping up with G35s in a stock WRX unless you go from a dig. He must have been an auto or perhaps your car has a mod or two you're unaware of which happens quite a bit with used WRXs. Feel free to give me a shout if you have any questions.

 

Ike-

It's hard to tell what was done to it prior to my purchase. I've owned a '91 MR2 turbo, a '97 mitsu eclipse turbo, and an Audi A4 1.8T. I'm no turbo savant (but I am a fan) but this one seems like I'm hearing something besides the normal spooling - blow off valve perhaps? I don't know what it is, but it is different than prior stock turbo setups I've had in the past. Any insight?

 

Hrm... I'm going to take a wild guess and speculate that maybe you have an aftermarket or gutted uppipe or perhaps even a silencer delete or downpipe. The BoV on the WRX is pretty quiet, the aftermarket ones are pretty loud and it should be pretty noticeable if you just look in the area around the intercooler. Since you owned a DSM the BoV on my DSM was noisier than the WRX BoV, however the turbo spool has a more high pitched sound to it which can be amplified quite a bit by the exhaust pieces I mention or removing the airbox silencer.

All 3 of the mods I mention are VERY common, even moreso than Intakes and BoVs which most people in the know will avoid since they can cause problems. Your car could very well be stock as well and you're just not used to it's sounds compared to other turbo cars you've owned.

Sign up for http://www.scoobymods.com/index.php and you'll be able to find detailed photos of all the mods I mentioned and you can compare to your car.

http://www.clubwrx.net/forums/ and http://www.nasioc.com/ are other useful sites.

 

ike already sugguested the two sites i would have. im going to agree with you in your general comparison, i still dont like the car though, unrefined compared to the almighty GC8 :D. i love the STi though, cant wait for some more fueling options to expand boost potential and really get the cars to break the high HP limits that the WRX can reach. you got a pretty good price too 20k.

 

What are you talking about??? There are STis making over 500whp and there are plenty of fuel options available and they have been available since the release of the car... I also have yet to see a used STi for anywhere near 20k.

 

huh i was talking about the rex

 

Read you can get a pretty good price not you got a pretty good price, sorry. But what's with the fueling stuff you're talking about with the STi?

 

Ike - what are some easy (i.e. relatively inexpensive) mods to improve boost without having to make the expenditures for uppipes/downpipes, etc.? I'd be curious what you've done to yours. This one is fast, but it seems there is quite a bit of mod technology out for the WRX vs. the 8. Any ideas?

 

iirc, one of the first mods that rex owners typically go for is the boost controller. i seem to remember it being not that expensive or difficult to install.

 

The Cobb tuning piggyback is supposed to be very good for quick boost increase. Ike probably has more info on this or something better though, so I'll step back.

 

cobb is safe but weak in comparison to doing things your own way, fujitsubo's turboback systems have been proven by a private party to be the superior turboback for the current WRX/STi applications. VR, basically the STi has more turbo than the car can fuel, so a boost controller generally does the trick, as well as new up/downpipes and precat elimination.

 

You could run a boost controller and I'd suggest just getting a Joe Ps or making your own since they're all prettymuch the same. This is riskier than engine management and can be tougher on the car especially if you have all 3 factory cats. The best way to go about it is to get some sort of engine management. The Cobb is a great choice and just got better since they just released their streetuner if you should you ever decide to go to stage 4 and or get a bigger turbo you won't be forced to choose from only the turbos Cobb has maps for. The other good choice is the Utec which is less user friendly for someone not experienced in tuning, but is the best for those wishing to get every ounce of performance out of their cars.

The nice thing about the Cobb is it's undetectable to dealers, it simply plugs into the eprom where your dealer would do reflashes. It also has 10 preloaded maps that you can chose from on the fly which is nice since you can put it on low boost settings if you want to be sure someone takes it easy on your car as well as special maps for race gas, or even an economy map to save fuel on long trips. Lastly it also smooths out the car nicely and just regular old drivability seems to be improved.

http://cobbtuning.com/wrx/accessport.html
http://www.turboxs.com/wrx/wrxems.shtml

The Cobb is $550-600 from everyone, the Utec can be had from most dealers around $850-900 so don't buy one directly from Utec. The new Dtec from TurboXS is pretty cool as well if you happen to have a gameboy advance :D Just with engine management and no other mods you're looking at gaining in the area of 25-30whp, tack on another 30-35whp on to that with a TBE and even more if you get it dynotuned and get an uppipe.

 

yeah the TurboXS Dtec setup with the GBA is super cool, havent seen one in real life yet yet though.

 

I just got an accessport and can really feel the difference. I would agree with Cobb's claims of 20-30 hp gain - I should be pushing around 255-260 hp at the crank now. I kind of doubt I'll go stage 2 with the TBE (I'm concerned about passing emissions with the removal of the cats!) but it's more fun now that it was just a week ago. Great first mod.