Just bring an STi to the twisties vs these other drag cars and you'll see where its true strength is.

 

Race them in dirt/rain/snow as well and see who wins... right?

 

Those "I'll get him in the twisties", "I'll get him in the snow", "I'll get him in the dirt" excuses get pretty old. Yes, scobbies are very competent all around, but they aren't the best at everything. Yes in a slalom maybe, you can get a decent exit because you can get back on the gas right in the middle of apex. With enough power you still don't stand a chance. I previously had a 96 cobra with a vortech SQ trim making a hair over 400whp and 400lb-ft and had a some toad mouthing off at me with his mildly modded 3000GT VR4 making a tad over 300whp. The cobra had a steeda 5 link and a few other suspension goodies up her sleeve, so she was surely no slouch in the corners. We took it to highway 9 at about 1am, played around a bit till we got to skyline, he was definately coming out of apex on the gas a lot harder than I was. We hit the stop sign at skyline, I passed him on the very first straight, we hit the first turn he got up on my ***, then the next turn I looked up to see where he was and he was about 10 cars back. I took the turn, layed into it again coming out of apex and kept my foot burried, look up again and no he's 20 cars back. I let off the gas to let him catch up, wondering if he was still playing, he passed me on the inside of the next turn, which I promptly returned the favor on the next straight and gave it my all for the next few turns but I guess he gave up because I never saw him again.

A competent RWD vehicle can hold it's own in the twisties if dialed in right, and if the nut behind the wheel is adjusted correctly.

 

Ha ha ha. I'm an Impreza lover but I grew tired of that same old argument about 2 years ago. What helped to cement my opinion was a little Civic (among others) that a guy ran in the stock class at that AutoX and did very well in class AND overall.

I know that there are a lot of factors that would go into this argument, however I believe that this 'position' is stated in many different ways in the comfort of many different forums about many different cars. Seems sort of inane to even waste words.

I'm not a very good driver so I've been bested by many types of cars; fwd, rwd, awd, nwd. (yeah, I've even been beaten by cars on blocks) My friends Joey and Mike are very good drivers (both Subaru owners) who have whupped up on folks while driving many types of cars...and been beaten by many types as well.

It's pretty easy to say that a fairly novice but lightly competent driver in an 200+ hp AWD car could tear up the majority of ghetto clunkers driven by wannabe streetracing legends, but shoot. The same could be said about the same driver in a lightly power-modified Civic with nice suspension and very sticky tires, could it not?

Would it be safe to say that well over 90% of all race cars are rear wheel drive? Don't they prove time and time again that a RWD car can ride 'on a rail'?

I've got more than enough time behind the controls of my PS2 NSX to say that I'm ready to turn NASA and the USTCC on it's head in a RWD car. Now you've really got me wondering if my PS2 laptimes in my NSX wouldn't humiliate Gary Sheehan's times in his little 4 banger.




Not.

 

sykosis, you don't bring a drag car to the twisties

That is the point of this discussion! Each type of car is suited to a particular environment. A drag car is designed to go fast in a straight line and do so efficiently and without blowing up; a twisties car is designed to use power to turn and rotate its mass efficiently without rolling over. Taking an STI and making it into a drag car is, IMO, as foolish as taking a hopped-up Z28 (or a 400whp Civic) and trying to run it on wet gravel.

If you want a drag racer, why burden yourself with an expensive, heavy car, low displacement, AWD drivetrain loss and a picky ECU that is designed with many safety limits built-in. If you want to kick *** in auto-X, why bother trying to convince a muscle car to go through a turn without doing endos in the grass. Use the car for the purpose it was built for! It isn't like the engineers who designed it were a bunch of idiots who had no idea what they were doing.

 

For drag I'd take something with at least 5.7l and go from there. Heavy doesn't matter it's just how much HP you can poop out.

For auto-x I like cars that are relatively light and moderate power. Something like a civic hatch, or a miata. Although the E36 bimmers kick *** in SM and stock class, those things handle great out of the box.

For twisties that's a tough one. For something like highway 9 again, I'd have to go with a miata, but this time add a flying miata turbo kit. RWD, light as hell, silly low center of gravity, with great steering, and even weight distro. For something like laguna or thunder hill, I'd like an RX7(last gen) or an E46 Bimmer.

For the snow? An international scout with locking diffs

For sand? Give me a sand rail any day

For gravel and loose dirt? Seeing as you can't realistically drive at rally speeds on normal roads without killing someone I'd go with a KX450 bike

But that’s where my little wagon comes in. I've had her in the dunes at Pismo, buried up to her neck in snow at Tahoe, on gravel roads up in the local mountains, many dirt roads, she loves the highway, and lusts killing people from stoplights. They're great all around cars, but NO car does everything the best.

*Edit* Oops pardon my typos, fingers sometimes type what they feel like, and not what I tell them to.

 

Amen to that, and over and out!

 

That sums it up for me for just about any modern production car. There isn't just one car that demonstrates superiority for every given road or track situation, fun factor-per-dollar, or practicality of daily driving or longer road trips. It's nice to have a choice.

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