This thread just left a bad taste in my mouth.... Chuck finished last at the Dixie tour..... I believe the raw time they speak of is with three cones.... Also they were not using stock boost tables with their tune which is not "STU"... Here is their thread: http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1472712
haha... 08 = t3h underst33r improved traction with new rear suspension + old front suspension = excellent recipe for understeer. I did ride in one at the event yesterday, and it had a pleasant ride. It felt closer to the Mazdaspeed3 that I rode in later in the afternoon, than it does to our 05 STi. For the money, I would just get a Mazdaspeed3, or an old ford fiesta
Well there have certainly been enough vehicles that didn't appear in stock form to be very competitive, but as more people autocrossed/got the car correctly set up, they became competitive. I see no reason to believe that this might not be the case with the 08. The understeer may help on an autocross course a little even. As for boost maps, unless he was running significantly higher boost, I don't see this as being a huge issue. A technical illegality, yes, but does it mean that the boost was the reason for the solid finish? Doubtful. ..
It would have changed the pax results significantly..... BSP versus STU.... If this was a result from a National tour it would be post worthy. FWIW Pax results can vary greatly region to region... I paxed once in AL Region in my STi 3rd overall... but then I only pax 20-something in Atlanta Region. If this was a result of the National tour in San Diego where they had 12 STU cars this past weekend .... yes it would be a worthy and proven point about the 08.
its got the same type suspension as the 05+ legacy. Meaning the super shitty front-rear control arm bushings. its horrible.
I realize that talking about one car at one event does not a competent autocross platform make, but since its a relatively new car, any posts about its performance are noteworthy. Considering how well the regular 08 impreza did at the subbie challenge last year, I am not ready to write off the new model as an understeering, worthless pig quite yet...
No. Not at all. Understeer in any driving situation that is 'sporty' or 'competitive' is bad. The only time understeer is good is when a maker is designing a car to be 'safe to drive' meaning the customer cannot easily make the car swap ends. In this case SUBARU made the 08 STi much more safe for 16 year olds to drive. :squint: Its still illegal. There is a reason boost changes are illegal. Some cars respond well to it, others do not. But in order to level the playing field they made it illegal on all supercharged/turbocharged cars. it may be that with the DAVCS and increased boost on an otherwise stock car it now makes massive power compared to the previous engine. It is sporting alot of items that make it possible.
You cannot count that at all. The driver of that 08 WRX can drive a trashbag with a steering wheel attached to it to FTD/FT-PAX all day long.
I kindly disagree that understeer is ALWAYS a negative in autocross. As for discounting a vehicle simply because the driver was extremely talented seems somewhat backwards to me. As for the legality issue, my intent was not to excuse the violation, but rather to state that it probably didn't have much overall effect on his times. I am not anywhere near as versed in suspension technology as you or Mere or Brian. What I do know however, is that there are some vehicles that really shouldn't do well in autocross on paper, yet end up nationally competitive. Maybe not for long, maybe not in A stock, but it does happen...
Understeer is my arch-enemy. It just tends to ruin your fun. It might be fun if you are just beginning to autocross and love the sounds of your tires squealing when you enter corners, and killing those sidewalls on your nice new tires, but I am done with it. We tried a bunch of stuff with our STU car setup, and in the end, we were able to substantially reduce the amount of understeer from stock, but it still was there as an inherent trait of the car. Also, with a class like ESP or BSP, you are allowed to put large enough wide race tires in the front of the car to increase the grip enough to reduce the understeering traits to make it bearable, but not so much with a a car setup on street tires, and especially not with a stock car. With my civic, and the wife's s2000, understeer is virtually non-existant, allowing much better cornering and performance.
Look, I sold the WRX because of understeer. I drive a Miata, my third one. No one has to persuade me that understeer is a fun killer...
haha, finally you admit it! It is easy to be in denial if you have great pride in Subaru engineering How are you liking the miata? I wouldn't mind get one of them some day. I DD'd my wife's s2000 for part of last week, and today, and I realized how much I liked convertibles.
I still think your old S2K that I drove during that Novice Day a while back was my favorite car ever to Auto X in. Going thru the slalom was so smooth, and if you wanted to kick the tail out a bit, it was so incredibly easy to do. The WRX on the other hand, going thru the slalom, is like riding a Wooden RollerCoaster. It throws you side to side so violently that it almost hurts. Then, of course there is the understeer. Mere's STi was much better than my WRX, but still did not compare to the S2K. The Subaru's make excellent beginner cars for Auto X, but something like the S2K, you have to know how to drive, to drive fast.
It does seem a little premature to be touting the '08s with the results of a good (illegal?) performance at a local event. What's the widest tire that they can fit on the new wheels? That's what my next car would be if I had to buy now.
Yeah that's my "bad taste" from the thread. Danny Popp is no slouch and a serious autoxer.... however 40-45 degrees is prime AWD conditions. If this was random nasioc user posting I'd laugh but it's Turn in Concepts. STU you are limited to 245 tires for AWD, RWD cars can run 265 in STU. No doubt the 08 will be a threat in STU but I'd like to see several data points in different regions and at a few tours as well before I make rash generalizations.
But what's the widest that they could fit (you know, for someone that might choose to run AS, hypothetically)?
275. Altho with the 18's you might could get some 285's under it. Its still no match for the S2000's.
I think it might be somewhat important to note that I was faster around the course in a bone stock car than some of the very heavily modified STis and WRXs of previous model years at the event. I remember bobby being somewhat baffled that I was quicker around the course than he was. And he drives a swapped JDM Ver 7 STI wagon as we all know. Now I'm not saying I'm an amazing driver (don't make me laugh..lol). Quite the contrary. While I know the basic dynamics of driving fast, this was my very first autocross and in all honesty I was sloppy. I, however, found my car to be very forgiving and easy to drive quickly. The beefy midrange came in handy. I think my best time was 57.1 or something. Also, yeah, let's not forget that pro guy that was slaughtering everyone in that autocross prepped 08. This thing a solidly quick car, I think.
Here's the thing...you cannot go off of SUBARU Challenge results. A large percentage of the people that come out do not complete regularly and/or their cars are not setup to autox. Your point of saying that you beat up on a bunch of heavily modded cars that would normally hand you your ass on a silver platter is null and void to an extent. With my 87 RX, lightly modded (bolt on exhaust, TMIC, manual boost controller, ebay coilover conversion kit and a set of TINY 13 inch race tires) I was beating up on purpose built autox cars. I nearly had FTD at a few events. Does that mean that the 1985~1994 A10/A11 chassis is faster than the G10/G11/G12? On paper, no. In practice, it was. All things being equal, it was not. Why? its not apples to apples here. The RX was DANGEROUSLY light. I'm talking it HAD to have a full tank of fuel, the floor mats still in it (drivers side mat over in the passenger side)the cargo accessories in, all the fluid tanks full AND i still had to add 50lbs of balast to it in order to make it meet the minimum weight for SM (AWD-Turbo was 2600lbs back then). Even still, I usually won SM on a local level. So you are comparing a stock G12 WRX to G11 WRX and STi's that were poorly prepped for autox and driven in a 'mediocre' manner...pretty much every time the stock car is more suited to be quicker here than the others. So lets back up a few steps...well, all the way. In order to get a proper comparison you have to start at stock. D-Stock. Drive the two cars stock vs stock, i mean BONE stock. Only modification is air pressures. Make them equal between the two cars as well. Then spend $10k on shocks, put a big front sway bar on, drop in filter, a Ti catback, expensive stock legal wheels w/hooisers and lets see which is fast when its 'developed.' The 06~07 is always going to be faster than the 02~05 due to more power and better delivery of the power. 08? dunno. No one has developed and delivered. Now, we cannot compare the 02~05 to the 06~07 or the 08 in ST* classing as the 06~08 is in STU due to displacement limitations in STX. However, from what I've seen a properly prepared 06~07 is going to beat out an equivalently prepped 02~05 any day due to power and delivery of the power. Weights are nearly the same if you go to the max of the rules. 06~07 vs 08? Dunno. Again, no one has developed and delivered. Lets move on to ESP. Currently ALL WRX's are classed here. This is where it gets hairy. You can update-backdate the 06~07 drivetrain into the EARLY 02 chassis. That will give you the slight weight advantage WITH the power of the 06~07. Next you can UD/BD the trans with the tougher gears. Since diffs are free, helical the front, Cusco Tarmac the center and do a 2 way rear. Sawzaw the fender and throw some 295's under it. Put an AEM on it, run C16, custom intake manifold and huge TMIC....the list goes on. No one had fully prepped ANY WRX to the max allowances of ESP. We dont know whats better or what the winning combo is, at all, period, for this class. The 08? Dunno. Again, no one has developed and delivered. The next level is SM. I wont go there. Too much shit you can do. You could spend $100k on the car and it still get outrun by Zimmer's FSP Rabbit. I promise you, every time. Money on this one too. Ok... 10.5 seconds off of FTD which was a 45.5. 72nd out of 99 drivers with times. For comparison, a nationally competitive DS car (won DS-Ladies at Nationals in 2007): 6th overall out of 99. You were 7.764 behind seconds assuming he didnt leave any time out there. Since Karen was roughly one second back, lets just say that was all the car and driver had that day. You'll pick up 2 seconds instantly from tires. Another 2~3 seconds from the driver. Thats 5 seconds at best. Next, front bar, shocks, drop in filter and exhaust. Is all that worth 2 seconds? You bet your ass that shocks will give you almost 1 of that. The rest might net 0.2~0.5 seconds. So for this bench race, lets just say that both cars would be equally matched. It was barely prepped. Zeal coilovers, wheels and tires. That was it. 0.709 seconds faster than the DS WRX. Coilovers account for a metric ton. Plus given the prep level, thats about right when compared to the DS WRX. My point is that we should not be jumping to conclusions until there is a real comparison with properly prepped and driven cars. Otherwise, if what everyone said was true then my outback should always finish in last. But for some reason, it never does....*which was 3rd out of 6 this last weekend in STU, only 0.684 behind the winning STi*
Rankins was my co-driver for nationals..... on the day i didn't choke I was 1.5 seconds of pace from his best run in the same car. Granted he had driven that car at several events... I had 6 runs of practice. At the subie challenge I ran a slightly faster time than steven (but with a cone but the times were reproduced in my SS runs with no cones). Steven should have very well been faster than me.... but in the end it's all just sitting around BSing about random results. Until somebody developes the 08s and brings to national level events where the talent and prep level is extermely high it's all just speculation.....
Karen drove like complete and total crap that day. Well, I did okay my first run of the Challenge, but that was about it. And don't bring up that the car won DSL.... not my proudest moment. However, the same car did win the DS ProSolo Championship. BTW, I'm still trying to figure out this : How is it ever a positive? Maybe if you're a tire manufacturer, it's a positive because it means that people will tear through front tires faster, but I can't think of any situation where it is a positive. And I've driven some seriously understeering pigs, including FS Camaros and Mustangs, DS WRXes and Meredith's AS STi!
I would argue that from the perspective of a newbie driver, a little understeer can be a help rather than a hindrance. I think some are overstating the amount of understeer the stock 08 WRX has. Its not an S2K, but its not a 2001 Corrola either. I realize that a neutral chasis with the ability to induce oversteer when desired is more desirable, but for those just starting out, a little understeer might be beneficial in helping to stay on course...again, not arguing that I would WANT understeer in an autoxing application, just that the statement that understeer is NEVER helpful is not true either. Watch a newb driver in an S2K, Miata, etc, and my point will be made at some point in the day. Utlimately, while I have been autoxing for several years off and on, I would def. defer to you, Mere, Brian, Will, etc...