By the way, how much slower are the automatic WRX's? I have been so curious as to what the actual difference is that I was thinking about just going and test driving one.

 

I drove my re-92's into the ground by 11k miles. I autox'ed on them at least 7 times and essentially put in 3 track days on them. The are fine for having a slab of rubber street around your wheels to drive around with every day. They still have tread but I couldn't bear to keep them any longer. My Suby is stock (12k miles) except for a Momo race air leather shift ****, a performance alignment, SynPower brake fluid, and a Prodrive muffler.

With that said I thought they really held up pretty well on the track days. My first day on them was this summer at Pacific Raceways in WA. It was my first track day, so I pretty muched sucked. LOL... But by the end of the day I was pretty much going as fast as my Suby would go into turn one... 120ish... The re-92 hung in there all right that day. My brakes were total cooked by the end and that’s what really ended my afternoon. I ended up boiling my brake fluid that day but that really didn't surprise me to much after the fact. I changed the fluid out and it did fine on the next track adventure. The second time I took them out I brought along my girlfriend and the Suby did double duty that day... One session with her (this was her first time), and then she would hand over the keys to me and I would take the car out for my session. They got too hot (as expected) by the end of the day but by then the brakes, while were still performing reasonably well, were tired, and so were we...

For autox the suby did great my first three or four outings but then again I was a total newbie to the sport. I quickly wanted new tires, a quicker steering rack, and less body roll. After learning how to drive and after eight events I really only wanted new tires. The main reason I wanted new treads is because I was sick of getting the “loudest tire squeal of the day” award. It was sooooooo painful some days… The re-92’s just plain suck for autox. If you don’t believe me, go out and try it, you will see. Enough said.

Lessons Learned

|1| - If you are going to the track at the very least change out the stock brake fluid for some Valvoline SynPower (http://www.valvoline.com/pages/produ...asp?product=51) It is cheap, effective, and is a quality fluid that is great for daily driving and it also holds it own at the track.
|2| - Get a quality performance alignment, the difference I felt was profound for what I thought could be done with an alignment. Make sure your steering wheel is centered after you take it for a drive. It is well worth the 75 bones.
|3| - If you are going to the track and still have the stock tires on the car go out and totally beat the **** out of them. Have absolutely no regard for the health of the tire and go out on the track and drive your car like you stole it. More importantly beat the crap out of the tires.
|4| - After this pummeling drive home and rest… After a short recess and then do not stop, and do not pass go… either go over to your computer or get up and go to the store, but please go get new tires RIGHT NOW! Please don’t humiliate your car any longer it may not be able to take it… it wants new tires.
|5| - Get new tires…

I just got a new set of Dunlop SP 5000 tires and I absolutely can’t believe I didn’t do this on day one. What the hell was I thinking? Seriously, at the bare minimum go out and get yourself a new set of quality tires. The difference is absolute profound in my opinion. My new dunlops have about the same grip in the wet as my re-92’s did in the dry. The difference is really that substantial. The stock rims are fine really, they are reasonably light, pretty substantial and decent looking. Keep them and do yourself a favor and go out and replace your tires.

My $.02…