Just got rid of my wrx and got the evo 8 today. I can tell from
first hand knowledge that the evo 8 is a much, much better and smoother shifter. Don't know about launching yet as it only has
70 miles on it, but it is hands down much nicer. I did have a short
shifter on the wrx which made it better than stock, but still not near as good as the evo. And there probably is about 50 other things I have noticed between them also, 95% of them better.

 

Don't forget that the Evo's tranny won't blow easily like the WRX trannies

 

How much did you get for your WRX and how much you pay for the EVO.. I am thinking doing it the same..

 

Hey mo168, check out the topic on your question about a bunch
of us that traded in our wrx's, pretty informative. All I can say when trading is be strong and stand firm!!!!

 

As far as the shifter goes for comparison I had a kartboy ss w/bushings and weighted billet knob in my WRX. It shifted well, but was a little notchy feeling.Grinding downshifts was a regular occurance.

The EVO by comparison, feels like the WRX with a short-shifter installed. It is extremely precise, and feels a little stubborn during the warm-up period. After warm-up though, it feels really good....kind of like a bolt action of a rifle.

A few people are having issues with missed shifts and gear grinding when running the car in drag-racing type situations. I haven't missed a shift yet, and I run my car through the gears fairly hard.It is a little rough feeling, but I am hopeful that after 4-5k of driving the shifting will smoothe-out a bit which should make it perfect.

Others comments on the WRX tranny are spot-on. I had all kinds of difficulty with my syncros and downshifting. I had to double clutch all of my 3-2 and 2-1 downshifts to avoid grinding. The tranny is definitely the WRX's weak point(particularly with modded cars), and one of the main reasons I got rid of mine!

 

I've put about 1200 miles on my EVO so far... I just drove the WRX yesterday and it is just plain sloppy.. Never realized that before.. The wheel is huuuge compared to the EVO... And the body roll sucks too... The EVO is almost as fast and I've got a complete exhaust on the WRX (headers, up-pipe,downpipe,cat back, straight pipe, everything)...

 

I have about 700 miles on the Tarmac Black. How do you think the Evo will compare to the STi. Probably discussed before but just a thought.... The Evo is definitely better than the Galant VR-4. Haha....she only has 175k on her and still running strong.... Now that the Evo is in the garage I am starting to think about modding the VR-4...

 

that hasnt been proven yet..
--bobby

 

It has where I live.... WRX trannys dont like to be driven hard for long.. They give up after a while... I know 3 different people that have less than 30,000 miles that had their synchro's and clutches take a **** on them... Luckily I haven't experienced that yet... Maybe it's because of my experience with DSM tranny's being so fragile..

 

do you know anybody that has put 30k miles on their evos? if not then you cannot compare the two..
--bobby

 

I think the 5spd EVO tranny has been around for a while, and is definitely more durable than the WRX 5spd. It will be interesting to see how quickly we find out what the breaking limits are of various components.

We should all be thankful that our friend Alfriedesque has swapped from WRX to EVO. If anyone can break something its Al, he really puts cars through their paces. This gives the rest of us fast followers an opportunity to know when to back-off!

 

What are you talking about man, he won't wait for the 5sp to break before sourcing the JDM 6spd with the AYC and all that stuff and put it on the car

 

5-speeds which are in the evo VIII's are the same "Bulletproof" 5-speeds as used in the Previous Evolution. As far as my knowledge, I don't hear much about upgrading tranny's in the Evo VII's. Am I not correct? And guys are running stupid fast times on Evo VII's lightly modded. By the way took my Evo VIII to 6k rpm and dumped the clutch...... everything seems to be alright so far... Oh yah and it felt great!

 

"Don't forget that the Evo's tranny won't blow easily like the WRX trannies "

Umm I guess you havent seen all the posts in the drivetrain section with people having problems with thier trannies huh?