Cal Club Autocross Forums

I test drove an 09 WRX today, and I have to say I was a tad disappointed. The turbo doesn't fully spool up until abut 3500 RPM, and under 3000 it's an absolute dog. Once the turbo's on the boil, though it goes like a bat outta hell. It'll be interesting to see how people do driving the car in autox, particularly on tighter courses with low-speed turn exits. Doesn't seem like it has the grunt at low RPMs to pull out, so you'd almost have to downshift into first (owch!)

Pete, or someone with one of the newer STIs, how's the turbo lag on your car?

I drove the '08 last year and the biggest difference I noticed was that the suspension had been softened. The car was among a group of sport compacts running a small autocross course at last year's MPG Track Days. The Subie wasn't much better than the Dodge Caliber SRT. The best cars were the Mini and the R32.

Now, these are production cars on OEM tires and completely unmodified. The right changes to the Subie could make a big difference.

Yeah, apparently Subaru heard peoples' complaints about the 08 loud and clear, because they re-worked the suspension to stiffen it up and gave the engine an extra 41 hp and 18 lb/ft of torque. Everything I've read says the new car is almost unrecognizable from the 08. There are articles in Car and Driver's Oct. issue and Road and Track's Nov. issue.

Kurt Rahn wrote:I test drove an 09 WRX today, and I have to say I was a tad disappointed. The turbo doesn't fully spool up until abut 3500 RPM, and under 3000 it's an absolute dog. Once the turbo's on the boil, though it goes like a bat outta hell. It'll be interesting to see how people do driving the car in autox, particularly on tighter courses with low-speed turn exits. Doesn't seem like it has the grunt at low RPMs to pull out, so you'd almost have to downshift into first (owch!)

Pete, or someone with one of the newer STIs, how's the turbo lag on your car?

That just the same as the my little 227 hp 2.0L, with a better suspension , and a more rigid chassis.

Here is a secret for you . The WRX is a understeering pig of a car, any year, to much weight in front of the front suspension :barf:

You can band-aid it but it still understeers

Kurt Rahn wrote:Yeah, apparently Subaru heard peoples' complaints about the 08 loud and clear, because they re-worked the suspension to stiffen it up and gave the engine an extra 41 hp and 18 lb/ft of torque. Everything I've read says the new car is almost unrecognizable from the 08. There are articles in Car and Driver's Oct. issue and Road and Track's Nov. issue.

So much for the PR gal telling me that they made it softer to broaden the car's appeal.

Kurt,

Annie bought an 09 WRX when she moved back to Seattle and has been racing it. She truly believes it can compete Nationally in DS, and she should know, she's owned every DS car out there!

Car does need a front sway bar and shocks though.

Hmmmm. I'll be interested to see her results. She's a great driver, though...she'd probably make my car competitive ;)

Max Hayter wrote:Kurt,

Annie bought an 09 WRX when she moved back to Seattle and has been racing it. She truly believes it can compete Nationally in DS, and she should know, she's owned every DS car out there!

Car does need a front sway bar and shocks though.

When it comes to DS, Annie is the MAN! Uh, well, not literally.

If I was looking for a reasonably priced car, that would make an excellent daily driver and competitive AX car, the 09 WRX would be top of my list. In fact, if I do buy a new car next year, it will probably be a 09 WRX.

Bob - forget about the 08 WRX, that thing sucked. 09 WRX may as well be a completely different car.

Kurt Rahn wrote:she'd probably make my car competitive ;)

Unpossible

Kurt - some light reading for you...

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthr ... ?t=1567760" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Max Hayter wrote:

Kurt Rahn wrote:she'd probably make my car competitive ;)

Unpossible

Had fun driving it, did you? I had fun watching ;)

Max Hayter wrote:
Bob - forget about the 08 WRX, that thing sucked. 09 WRX may as well be a completely different car.

That was my conclusion. A once taut car--could have used a stiffer rear sway bar and softer seats--became "a fast, rolling boat," to paraphrase Seb.

Turbo lag is the nature of the beast, after a while you learn to drive around it. (hint...floor it EARLY)

Sebastian Rios wrote:Turbo lag is the nature of the beast, after a while you learn to drive around it. (hint...floor it EARLY)

Modern turbo cars have lag. 1980s turbo cars have LAAAAGGGGG! Case in point: 1986 Saab 900 turbo. 3k rpm, nothing. 4k rpm, nothing. 4.2k, it was like God kicked the back of the car. Red line was about 5,600, so there wasn't much time shift.

If you think the new WRX has no low end grunt, you should have tried our old style WRX's before we made them STX competitors! Unfortunately with the newer models 2.5 liter engine ... they have to go into STU, where so far they haven't been able to compete with STI's, even though they weight 300 lbs less. The newer 5 spd. gearbox should last, as compared to the old brittle one. But they should do well in DS, until they meet up with well driven 135 BMW's. But it could be a GREAT SK2 car locally. You'll need all of that extra power to try to compete against Tom D!

I think Tom spent around $600 for single adjustable Koni inserts, as opposed to over $2K for double adjustable Koni's like Pete has in his SK1 STI.

Koni SA for my 2005 Wrx are $674.00 shipped through http://www.oakos.com/.
Now i just have to learn how to drive with them :ibrightdea:

Tom Denham wrote:Here is a secret for you . The WRX is a understeering pig of a car, any year, to much weight in front of the front suspension :barf:

You can band-aid it but it still understeers

but the truth is you need the front weight bias to be able to put down any power with the awd without basically welding the front diff solid. Set the car up like an sts car and it'll be plenty fast (although you might need to "weld" the rear diff at that point ;) )

Mako Koiwai wrote:If you think the new WRX has no low end grunt, you should have tried our old style WRX's before we made them STX competitors! Unfortunately with the newer models 2.5 liter engine ... they have to go into STU, where so far they haven't been able to compete with STI's, even though they weight 300 lbs less. The newer 5 spd. gearbox should last, as compared to the old brittle one. But they should do well in DS, until they meet up with well driven 135 BMW's. But it could be a GREAT SK2 car locally. You'll need all of that extra power to try to compete against Tom D!

I think Tom spent around $600 for single adjustable Koni inserts, as opposed to over $2K for double adjustable Koni's like Pete has in his SK1 STI.

haha its so funny hearing people say subies have no low end grunt coming from my honda that doesn't wake up until 6000 rpms. out of vtec its 100% economy car, and in vtec its kind of sort of sporty.

Late to the game on this one but I've been filling Max in on how my new car is. Everyone who's seen me drive it, has driven it, or ridden with me, has come away very impressed. Put it this way, FastMike Lillijord drove it and now both he and Kevin Dietz (Cobalt SS) are circling... Even though FastMike likes to choke at Nationals, he and Kevin trade wins locally quite a bit.

I did some interesting things with the setup (Greg Fordahl's recommendations to try) and the car rotates well and only pushes in circumstances where any car would push. Yes, it has throttle lag but not as bad as my '07 STI so I haven't driven it off a cliff yet! Biggest problem is putting power down, lots of inside wheel spin. And I can't launch it like Max's car

So, my new front bar showed up today, Greg should get it on soon. The NWR season is really done (yeah, I'm back in a place where there is a thing called winter!). Custom shocks of some type will be on it before I run it again - Greg (who does a lot of setup for World Challenge, American LeMans, etc cars) thinks it's minor issues are easy to fix with a bar and good shocks.

We do have a local with a 135 but I'm beating him by ~2-3 sec or so already, so I'm not sure how keen he is on letting me drive his car

Thanks for the update, Annie. Great to hear that the car's doing well in class. Also encouraging to hear you've set it up such that it'll rotate now. I drive a RWD car now, so I like off-throttle oversteer to bring the end around. I'll be interested to hear how the other mods--dampers in particular--work out. BTW, have to done anything to the engine? Cat-back, air filter? Are you considering them?

I'm not buying for a while (unless I can wangle my way out of my current lease), so I'll hit you up for updates periodically.

Kurt Rahn wrote:I drive a RWD car now, so I like off-throttle oversteer to bring the end around.

Off throttle is fairly easy to get in any car with setup, it's the ON throttle oversteer that is more characteristic of the RWDs.

Kurt Rahn wrote:Thanks for the update, Annie. Great to hear that the car's doing well in class. Also encouraging to hear you've set it up such that it'll rotate now. I drive a RWD car now, so I like off-throttle oversteer to bring the end around. I'll be interested to hear how the other mods--dampers in particular--work out. BTW, have to done anything to the engine? Cat-back, air filter? Are you considering them?

I'm not buying for a while (unless I can wangle my way out of my current lease), so I'll hit you up for updates periodically.

So the car isn't going to rotate like a S2K, but it's very neutral and balanced, so compared to 99% of the subies on the planet, I call that rotation!!

It has the factory SPT cat back, so a touch more power (and I believe CARB legal) but now that I'm in WA, screw CARB I'll be going to a straight pipe. Big fat exhaust on the car. The back section is big & heavy looking. And I remember that I could actually *hear* Pete's car when it had the straight pipe! Ya, that's the ticket!

Brakes actually are great - as anyone who's seen me drive, I go flying into corners with my hair on fire and STAND on the brakes... and pray the car stops in time! With this car, it does I will put hawks on it just cuz I can and I have a free certificate. But if I didn't have that, I wouldn't bother...

As for it's competitiveness, look at the DSL results, they actually tell a better story - Beth Strelnieks in the BMW vs Karen Kraus in the older WRX. They were competitive... and neither driver is a slouch, both hold their own dang well in open. If Karen can give Beth a run in the older car, I'm very hopeful this new car can be a notch better yet!

Kurt Rahn wrote:I drive a RWD car now, so I like off-throttle oversteer to bring the end around.

You need an EF!

You need an EF!

I tried that route, as well as the CRX, but financially, we're in the $hi# for another 12-18 mos., so an autox-only car isn't an option, unfortunately.