Any one else waiting on their car? Its week 9 still no VIN, and I suck at waiting. PS: I am back!!! :wavey:
Wow...way to shit on an excited guys "hey I ordered a new car" thread. Not all of us are happy with no power.
There was a slight pricing change but I think that was it. The all chrome headlights were the "big" change in 2012.
Well for those of us that don't know that...it doesn't exactly look like it. Just thinking back to the whole conversation before about trying to attract more people to the group and the new owners/people that have ordered cars maybe lurking the site and saying "hey...I ordered one!"...then seeing that. I wouldn't post if I was new. Inside jokes/messing with each other is what most of us do with friends. I do it all of the time. When it is done on a 2014 order thread it doesn't look like a fun community to be a part of. Doing it in a personal build thread? That probably doesn't nearly have the same effect. That's the end of me saying anything about this for the future. I'll just FTFU.
Oh the discussion has already been had... my thought on the matter is that I know what I am getting buying the last of the EJ cars, god knows what kind of weirdness is going to come from the next round of motors. More bad tunes, possibility of more computer interference, and "I want to be it to be a eco-friendly sports car crap". The is one change for 2014. The sat nav option is now more smart phone friendly and costs $200 more than last year. Other than that same car as 2013. My miata committed suicide after the thermostat died. I gave it one chance to seal the HG back, it failed so I parted it out. After that my wife went on the "you aren't getting anymore used cars", so we walked over to the dealership. I had a 2004 STi for a while.
I was in the same boat. I pretty much had the money saved for the motor when I bought the car because I already knew my mod schedule. I had a freak of nature though...ran 392whp/387ft lbs tq for 20k miles on the stock motor.
Don't worry duke I drove the living hell out of mine in the mountains, babied her all the rest of the time. (drove much harder, many more times, after that night run). At 70k miles, the only thing that was negative was trim rattling... but you've had a subaru... so I'm sure you know about that problem already... :rofl:
See I don't plan on doing anything to serious with the car mod wise. I'll most likely end up doing coilovers, sway bars\end links, and turbo back\intake\accessport\tune. That will be about it, so I say now... once the mod bug bites... :coolugh: I am going to give a several thousand miles of warranty coverage though to see if that cylinder 4 ringland decides to pull the rug out from under me. General thought on the '10+ GRs, is the stock tune really as bad as NASIOC says it is? Those guys seem to live with tin foil helmets on.
Not trying to fill this with negativity, but it boggles my mind that anybody would spend $30-40k on a car, full well knowing that a key component of that vehicle is garbage and will likely carry a $5-10k repair bill in the coming years. I love subaru to death, still love driving our bugeye, but that's a huge investment into a new vehicle with known massive flaws.
I more than doubled the output of the motor. 264 or 305 crank hp to 380+ whp and a massive torque bump as well. For that same percentage change in a GT-R you have to spend 50+ grand on a motor and transmission build. On an EVO for the same percentage you are doing a motor build at least and likely transmission. S2000...same deal. Subaru's are actually cheap to mod in the big scheme of things. It's not a MASSIVE flaw. It is just how the modding world goes. Like Bix said...stock cars run great. When you mod any car you take that risk.
I disagree. I and Techlord both modded our WRX's well beyond the told 'limits'. We both went from around 170-180 hp to 350+. We drove our cars harder than just about anyone on here. Our engines never died in our WRX's. I had a slight oil consumption on mine at 170,000 miles....it used 1 quart every 3000 miles.....and that was NOT normal for my car but was for others. I used that as an excuse to go hybrid.....that engine is still running today with just new rings and a hone and also with 260,000 miles on it. The Subaru 2.5L engine SUCKS for longevity. I personally would love to see the JDM 2.0L come back and it will be it looks like. Maybe not the high revving JDM engine but the 2.0L yes.
My last EJ lasted beyond 80,000. The trans was what went from damage from the previous owner. It was leaking oil like mad, but there were no signs of other issues. If you start modding a car its going to have a higher failure rate no matter the car. Its the same story when Mazda made their 1.8L miata motors, they compromised the awesome by making a bigger displacement version for the US market.
I waited 9 months or so to get a VIN on my BRZ order. I wouldn't hold out on receiving any information from the dealership or SOA in a timely fashion but I am confident that it'll be worth the wait for you!
Well the 2.0 in the BRZ is failing like crazy just trying to get to STI like levels. Granted...that is a Toyota direct injection mixed motor but you would think Toyota would bring reliability...
Well perhaps doubling the wheel horsepower was left out of design considerations for the factory FA power plant? I am curious to see what new accessories may be offered both domestically and internationally as Subaru is introducing some interesting trim bits for the 86 platform in Japan.
Not everything is posted on the interwebs...Crawford publicly said that they broke A LOT of things getting to the 400 number. Everything is fully built outside of the transmission now in that car. I think they even went through axles and a diff in the process.
there are also more boosted BRZ/FRS than the Crawford one. Its expected a lot of things will break going from <200 hp to >400
Wow, this thread.... really speaks for itself in many ways. ON TOPIC: I waited over 4 months just for a VIN on my 2013, which by the way destroyed two of its pistons @ 17k miles with a downpipe / intake. Ever since they started playing games to meet EPA guidelines, avoid the gas guzzler tax, and generally stray further and further from the JDM EJ257's, it's been garbage. Oil pickup tubes break, in 2008/2009 there was a TSB released for spun rod bearings and a full longblock replacement? Completely ridiculous. I love my wifes 2013 impreza 5dr, and subaru makes amazing cars, but they need to stay the hell away from forced induction "performance" cars, at least in the USDM. Just my $0.02
I get that you are mad and I get the feeling of being pissed but..... While it is no secret there are issues with the ringlands......keep in mind that as a whole there are less than 1% failure rate amongst them all. For every ringland failure there is, there are 99 others out there with absolutely no problem.
^^^ you have any credible data supporting that? I would venture to estimate the failure rate among turbo charged imprezas is higher than 1%, probably closer to the 5-10% range. granted, it's hard to find anything viable, as you really only ever hear about the failures I'll throw in my edit - I'm referring to drivetrain issues, which includes all manual transmissions from the early bugeyes, too
This. There are a lot of people that initially join forums to ask questions about what is happening with their car as a resource. Also, people with failures are more likely to post about it everywhere. I have never seen people start threads or comment in threads something like "hey! My ringlands are still running!" Well...I did that a couple of times when I was pushing 392whp because that is not normal...but you get the idea. I would venture to say the failures are probably around 1 percent...3 percent on the absolute high end. Of the stock ones that fail...I would say less than 1 percent as long as we aren't talking about the '08 STI.
No credible data that is concrete but there would have to be some recall due to the Lemon law (or whatever that law is) wouldn't it?
yes and no. subaru can't recall an entire model line for faulty ej blocks. I've heard about a lot more issues since I had an in at SoK, and we've all seen / heard SOA doing some shady stuff to try and make all of this go away (like stating that redlining your car voids your warranty). i'd put the stock car number at 1-3%. however, if you look at what the reliability ratings are for the individual parts, i'd say that even simple mods that are still within a given safety factor are seeing much, much more than a 5% failure rate. also, weren't the 07's the worst as far as factory tunes are concerned? I feel like I remember that being one of the worst years, as EVERYBODY was popping ringlands back in 08-09 also, i'm pulling all of these numbers out of my ass, but i'd be interested to know what the actual numbers are.
also, in case SOA is watching... :fawk: I've seen memos that went out to dealerships stating MAJOR issues that they were essentially gag ordered on. A few of you on the site know, I think I sent Shring a couple of them. Shady. As. Hell.
Me too. It's all speculation on our parts due to personal experience and what we have seen. We all know what the issue is and what generally causes it...just not the raw data.
There is always some issue or complaint. You should have seen the "shitstorm" when the 04/05 wrx came out with the open loop/closed loop delay
And it's that EXACT stuff that kept me from biting the bullet on a STi. I almost got one when I wrecked the WRX....then another a year later....then was tempted again in 2012. Ultimately I kept hearing from very trusted resources how much worse the ringland issues were getting and I said screw it I'm not going down that road again. Hopefully it gets addressed at some point because I really would love to own another reliable 'performance' Subaru.
Can someone tell me what causes ringland issues? What should I avoid? Digi's mod list is nearly identical to mine, with the only major difference being his tune vs my OTS Cobb tune.
comes from a couple different issues, but the main one in regards to subaru is due to AFR. Subaru leans out the motor due to emissions / fuel economy regulations, and restricting air flow on a forced induction motor is about the worst thing you can do edit - also, their castings are provided by the lowest bidder. this is one of the reasons that correctly sized drop-in pistons are a great mod if building power edit 2 - you can't avoid it, only replace it
This and also the PTW (piston to wall) clearances are insanely tight if I'm not mistaken. Edit: I just dug up from old info from the one and only WJM. He measured 6 different brand new OEM EJ257 castings. They all were anywhere from .0023 to .0026 out of round. Hmmmmmmm!
So... to add some discussion fuel to the accidentally shit storm I started... lol Is the stock tune really that dangerously lean? Is it a good idea to AP + pro tune early? My current thought is ride out the "free" oil change marker to make sure the motor isn't going to spin itself apart, then get the better tune\supporting mods. Thoughts, concerns, and otherwise good information even though it has be way off left field topic wise... lol :fawk: the EPA...
So if I went completely back to stock, I would be at the same risk level as I am now? intake, downpipe, OTS tune? Didnt Digi get tuned pretty early on?
See I've read people showing up at the dealer to pick up their car with an AP in hand, and then I've seen other folks wait a bit. I've also driven a stock one vs a tuned stage 2 one. BIG difference, the Stage 2 car had about 60,000 miles on it and still ran well. I know he took very good care of it, and drove it hard. Until proven wrong I am going to guess that barring some bad luck, which does happen, most of your my engine blew up stories were caused by beating the crap out of it and not doing proper maintenance for amount of punishment given. If you run a car, no matter the car, hard as hell every time you get in it. That car isn't going to last near as long as one that is taken car of properly for the amount of punishment given.
Or we just threw too much power at the stock short block...which is the route mine took to blowing them.
That is key. Also I think that the increase in boost doesn't help much. You have stated you don't care for power increase as much as a fun reliable car. Perhaps just do an OTS tune and drive the car with some sense? Don't beat on it unless it's been running for at least 5-10 mins (oil is up to temp). Nothing is bulletproof but those I know who are stock with lots of miles have done just that. Just because it's considered a performance car doesn't mean you have to beat the ever living snot out of it 24/7.