Help me understand why Subarus are so slow on a road course

[PhilT]

There's a good reason the M3 is almost twice the price of the Mustang

[Penguin]

It is a more complete car, and a much nicer place to spend time. It's just not significantly faster.

[PhilT]

If you want a fast car for little money buy an Ariel Atom, if you want a high quality car get the M3. If you want something in between, get the Mustang

[Penguin]

Sadly the Ariel Atom is not cheap, or practical, or easy to get in the US.

 

Even you have to admit the new GT with an aftermarket exhaust sounds fantastic. Go ahead and admit it Limey, the Queen won't disown you for it.

[PhilT]

It must be a cultural thing, I find the Mustang sounds too much like a truck, not particularly attractive at all.

 

I much prefer a high revving engine, a Ferrari 430 at full throttle is pure heaven.

[Penguin]

7,000+ RPM's is pretty high, the upcoming Boss 302 should be good for 7,500 RPM's.

[doccrowley]

Can't find the Jan 15 results yet, but for the Dec 11 results, you did well (winning your class). Of course, you also got beat by an '08 Evo, several Vettes including a '90 model (not sure if it was stock), and a 1990 Honda CRX....

 

All that said - I'd love to have something like this within driving distance..

 

Here's the day's results for the entire group who ran that day:

 

http://www.millermotorsportspark.com/uploads/WintercrossResults011611.pdf

[TrueWhiteBoy]

...nice to see a Yaris beating EVOs...

[CTATV]

It must be a cultural thing, I find the Mustang sounds too much like a truck, not particularly attractive at all.

 

I much prefer a high revving engine, a Ferrari 430 at full throttle is pure heaven.

 

I prefer sleeping with fully submissive supermodels with a backdoor fixation, because that is totally reasonable or relevant to a conversation about women you meet at the bar... Just like a Ferrari is relevant to a talk about mustangs, M3's and Legacy GT's...

[Spoonwacker]

Bullshit! Are you telling me that my four-cylinder Subaru wasn't made to dominate V8-powered sports cars? LIES! My turbo is SO MUCH faster than any of your wee-tod-ed pushrodmobiles!

 

Anybody who buys an STI because he wants to be the fastest thing on the track is a moron unless he lives in my neck of the woods and only goes to trackdays when the weather is doing its fall-to-spring drizzly thing...then he'll be pretty quick, depending on how eager the sports car owners are to risk their machines in the wet...

 

That said, I have problems with using laps times at a single track as a definitive statement of a car's ability. VIR has a lot of long straights that, in a straight time-attack format (as opposed to a race where you have to actually get around the bastard), reward power over handling. Other tracks do the opposite. For comparison, Evo tests at Bedford Autodrome, and in their testing an M3 is 2.5s/lap faster than a Shelby GT500...which is about what C&D found, but Bedford is half the length of VIR. Evo says a 335i and a 350Z have the same lap time; C&D says the BMW is 2 seconds faster. And both the Porsche GT3 and GT3 RS are faster than the Nissan GT-R at Bedford, while the GT-R beats both Porkers at VIR. It's a benchmark, but of dubious value. Who's to say which is a better representation of a car's abilities? It depends on what you want to do with your car. Specific data on cornering speeds through a variety of corners, or straight-line in-gear acceleration, is where the good stuff is, but people who like to have a circlejerk over their 5th-gear 50-70 pulls have to keep that in a separate thread Guess what, though? The STI is still pretty slow around Bedford. Slower than the Z-cars, slower than the 335i, slower than a Boxster S...but it's faster than most of the other hot hatches...

 

My solution: Subaru used to have a good reason to stick with the flat-four turbo for the STI - it was necessary for FIA WRC homolgation. Now they're out of the WRC as a constructor, and they've upgraded the WRX to the point that it's essentially a detuned STI. The WRX can replace the STI as the homolgation starting point, and Subaru can finally get around to keeping up with the Joneses by adding a few cylinders under the hood of the STI. While they're at it, they can add direct injection... Wait, this all sounds like stuff I've been hearing for a while...could it be that Subaru knows it doesn't matter whether they add heaps of power, they'll still sell lots of their cars?

[Merc6]

So from reading this thread, I've extracted the following fanboy excuses as to why Subaru are slow on the track.

 

1. "the track favours power rather than handling" aka. Subarus are underpowered

2. "the drivers aren't used to AWD" aka. Subarus are difficult for even skilled test drivers to driver

3. "AWD cars tend to push through corners" aka Subarus just don't handle that well

4. "Subarus are great for getting to work in snow" aka. they're not meant for the track.

 

So in conclusion, Subaru's are underpowered, don't handle well, are tough to drive fast, and are really only good at soccer-mom duty.

 

With this much sarcasm, I've lost track of which way it's supposed to go.

 

Still reading this thread will add cause didn't see it yet.

5. Most people testing the car never mention if SI drive is used properly. Seen some reviews where they blatantly said the left in in intelligent cause it shouldn't make that big of a difference on a stock car. Back to reading this thread.

[Merc6]

After reading I'm torn between somewhat bias, drivers lack of finesse with some cars and the fact the suspension is getting softer over the years.

 

Yes depending on textbook or personal opinion of the best car some items are kinda obvious. Yes the legacy is not the best idea of JDM Powah out the box. I considered it a happy medium and faster than what it replaced in my stable of cars.

 

In the beginning I had a few fwd cars, those were replaced by rwd(takes some skill to grasp) then to AWD(not the easiest thing to grasp since hype and(video games blow it ou of proportion). Before going on a life story rant, I didn't get a feel for the legacy the first week I got it but over time.

 

As for suspension being soft you have to remember this was a peppy family car and average people consider stiff suspension a NVH issue. I have no Idea why people would buy a car that says GT or Spec B and complain about stiffness on these series tires and suspension components. We are a large group here but in the real world I barely see the 3 people who post in my area with LGT. The amount of people who buy a mustang and want to mod it are way higher than the legacy. As for the STi I have no clue why it's growth hasn't been up there in comparison to the evo.

 

Not exactly up to date video(bold it for you already since I'm gonna get flamed) but this thread boils down to cars that randomly get put together not on performance and utility but due to their price range and popularity.

 

Video

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlqjChw9H3A]YouTube - 2007 Ford Mustang Shelby GT vs. 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STI[/ame]

[ehsnils]

Adding more cylinders isn't necessarily going to improve the car as a whole. It may just cause it to gain a few extra hp, extra weight and be more expensive. And the extra weight will disturb the weight distribution.

 

And I see the Legacy as a car that has very few really weak spots when it comes to handling, regardless of road conditions.

[StoplightAssassin]

That said, I have problems with using laps times at a single track as a definitive statement of a car's ability. VIR has a lot of long straights that, in a straight time-attack format (as opposed to a race where you have to actually get around the bastard), reward power over handling. Other tracks do the opposite. For comparison, Evo tests at Bedford Autodrome, and in their testing an M3 is 2.5s/lap faster than a Shelby GT500...which is about what C&D found, but Bedford is half the length of VIR. Evo says a 335i and a 350Z have the same lap time; C&D says the BMW is 2 seconds faster. And both the Porsche GT3 and GT3 RS are faster than the Nissan GT-R at Bedford, while the GT-R beats both Porkers at VIR. It's a benchmark, but of dubious value. Who's to say which is a better representation of a car's abilities? It depends on what you want to do with your car. Specific data on cornering speeds through a variety of corners, or straight-line in-gear acceleration, is where the good stuff is, but people who like to have a circlejerk over their 5th-gear 50-70 pulls have to keep that in a separate thread Guess what, though? The STI is still pretty slow around Bedford. Slower than the Z-cars, slower than the 335i, slower than a Boxster S...but it's faster than most of the other hot hatches...

 

move your pointer over the numbers

 

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/10q4/lightning_lap_2011-feature/track_map_3a_vir_track_map_and_lightning_lap_2011_sector_times_page_7

[Spoonwacker]

move your pointer over the numbers

 

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/10q4/lightning_lap_2011-feature/track_map_3a_vir_track_map_and_lightning_lap_2011_sector_times_page_7

 

Oops, I should've said, "I saw that, and that's the most useful data of the whole article, but I wish they included data for every corner and the ends of all the straights."

[Sydtron]

That said, I have problems with using laps times at a single track as a definitive statement of a car's ability. VIR has a lot of long straights that, in a straight time-attack format (as opposed to a race where you have to actually get around the bastard), reward power over handling.

 

VIR West is a great all around track, and it shows in the results. The only way you could have described cars differently would be to run it on a flat out track like VIR Full or Spa, or a track with no elevation changes like the Top Gear track.

[ehsnils]

Elevation changes is actually not that important unless you run a severely underpowered vehicle like the Renault 4 or something.

 

As for "all round track" - even if it is a combination of straights and curves it may still be favoring a specific car type over another. Add to this that the cars were driven on the track on different tires. OK, stock tires, but that means that cars with tires for allround use were handicapped compared to cars that had more race specific tires.

 

However this means that if they were to test the cars under different circumstances - like rain on the track or on a gravel track then the results would be completely different. Not to mention ice and snow.

[Merc6]

Not gonna see snow and ice. That would be more in our favor. I was gonna say never seen a mag do it but they did with evo/sti stock and winters installed.

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHKjXfbqc90]YouTube - Ice Bowl! - EVO Vs STI Snow Challenge[/ame]

[Sydtron]

Elevation changes is actually not that important unless you run a severely underpowered vehicle like the Renault 4 or something.

 

Elevation changes, especially through turns, are a good way of separating the cars with cheap/inadequate suspension and proper suspension.

[Spoonwacker]

Also, elevation changes on a straight can significantly change the effective length of the straight - an uphill straight will be longer, giving additional advantage to high-HP cars.

[TrueWhiteBoy]

Also, elevation changes on a straight can significantly change the effective length of the straight - an uphill straight will be longer, giving additional advantage to high-HP cars.

 

That's why I only race the downhill

 

http://driftjapan.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/initial-d.jpg

[Spoonwacker]

:lol:loud

[TRS]

Pretty much boils down lbs per bhp.

 

From rao's list, the 2+ ton CTS-V compensates for all that weight by having only 7.62 lb per bhp thus relatively fast lap time as acceleration can make up for a lot of what is lost in controlling all that momentum when braking and/or changing direction. The interesting outlier is the Boxster Spyder. Second quickest lap time but does this having to deal with 9.57 lb per bhp. However, from rao's list it's the lightest vehicle. Much less momentum to have to keep controlled when braking and turning.

 

The V6 Mustang hauls around 11.52 lb per bhp, just a tad above the WRX STI's 11.21. The poor WRX's ratio is 12.15. The V6 Mustang is 8% heavier than the WRX while having 16% more horsepower.

 

Fastest on rao's list is, not surprizingly, the Z06 with only 6.46 lb per bhp. The Z06 is less than half a percentage point heavier than the WRX but has 91% more bhp.

[Penguin]

Oh yeah well I have managed to get .7 hp/ton up to 40MPH!

[fishbone]

lbs per bhp is not the complete picture. You can have gobs of power but you'll have to do more work on the chassis and drivetrain to overcome mass.