^ I guess we have now come to terms with this old & constantly beaten-up debate :-)

 

Nope, give it is a week and a new member will find it and post up a response stating that the Ralliart is basically an Evo Jr. and the WRX explodes if you look at it wrong.

 

Isn't it the same way, how a lot of subie owners see the WRX... An STI Jr.? =D

 

Not really, the new members tend to but then the older STI and WRX drives quickly shoot them down. It would cost more to make a WRX an STI than the price difference between the two cars. Save goes for the Ralliart and Evo.

 

sorry im the OP of this thread.. i thought people might have wanted to see the updated test, how the sportback compared to the other cars.

the current wrx is honestly amazing performance. i have a friend who has one of the older gen ones and its a great car. amby, you might know but i was wondering - how much better is the DCCD than the (I believe viscous?) center diff of the wrx? I heard from my friends that the actual difference isn't that huge?

 

The wrx has great bang for your buck, but damn it sure is boring looking!!!

 

The difference is astonishing. In day to day driving, you're friend is correct that it isn't huge but take the two cars to the track and the STI will run circles around the WRX. Even with equal power levels, relatively equal tires and brake pads, the STI simply has more grip and the DCCD allows you to really dial out the understeer.

 

i honestly think it looks fantastic, especially the STI! GTI is the best looking of the bunch IMO, followed by the RA

 

I like the WRX hatch, the sedan doesn't do anything for me but I'd gladly rock a white or blue hatch with gold wheels.

 

gotchaa

i haven't been reading what im assuming to be garbage from the past x pages. my big interest is among the lap times of the cars. It's gotta be either the MS3 or the WRX, followed not that far behind by the GTI and the Ralliart, assuming same tires for all. It's interesting that the diffs aren't doing more for the ralliart, but i guess its just the weight etc it's lugging around. The rear diffs Mitsu has been sending the evos besides the X have been a big let down - they are NOT the diff from the jdm RS evos

 

I'm guessing the track layout would have a big impact on who the top car would be. I can't see the GTI or Ralliart coming in first with anything short of a miracle because the power to weight difference between the MS3/WRX and the other two is pretty dramatic. I suspect that on some courses, the MS3 would be faster with it's WHP advantage (only powering two wheels rather than four) but on other tracks, maybe ones with more slow to midrange corners, the AWD and extra grip of the WRX would prevail. I would hope the Ralliart would be ahead of the GTI. With equal tires for all, it seems like it'd boil down to suspension and power to weight.
To further elaborate on how much of a difference the STI drivetrain makes, a friend and I tracked our cars this past summer (summer of 09). The best time I could manage was with an STI turbo, STI TMIC, TBE, tune, front and rear sway bars and 245/40/17 Kumho XS was a 1:33ish. My friend in an STI had a TBE, tune, various suspension pieces (that contributed roughly a second) and R-comps (NT01s) ran a 1:26ish. That's a pretty big difference.

 

I really like the GTi looks also, but those wheels are fugly as hell.

 

Yea - well I remember on whatever given track the old MS3 used to run as fast as the S2000 - pretty impressive I thought. Tighter stuff I could see the WRX taking it - I remember they did an auto-x test of the stock cars and I think the WRX came ahead of the MS3 by 1 second.

The new GTI is greatly improved - I think it has the potential to be as quick as the RA on the track. That's all just conjecture though. In the Evo mag PCOTY test it was only .85 seconds off the MPS (MS3) over there

 

Heres some fuel for the fire.

http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/...#ixzz0hsaJSfS0

 

That's the article in question, it's hardly more fuel for the fire.