Do the math. Subarus are slow and expensive.

It's been said a 1000 times, but Subarus are money pits. I have a friend with an 04 STi that's making 360whp (Dynojet) with upgraded turbo, alky, exhaust, UTEC, intake and catless exhaust. I'm leaving his $1200 FMIC out of the equation just to be nice.

He's about $5000 into the car and he's making the SAME power as my IX, and I only had to spend $1100 to get to 355whp (same Dynojet).

Once we start talking about 600-700whp cars, then it might be a different story since there's plenty of money that can be spent on making that type of power on an Evo.

No one is ever happy just modding their Evo/STi to make ~300whp. Subaru guy gets a MAJOR reality check once he decides he wants to reach for 350whp.

That's $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ all day long...

(I'm a reformed 300whp WRX owner, so I know the pain)

 

With ref. to the plots here: http://www.torqueperformance.co.nz/e...dynographs.php (as provided by another member) of the Sti and Evo called "MY03 WRX STi Ver8: Custom Tune" and "EVO 8: Custom tune with Highflow air filter in Standard box and 3' exhaust (Factory Cat)" respectively.

The plots for stock Sti and Stock Evo, both 03 are pretty similar with the evo having better bottom end and the Sti eeking ahead in the top end. Seriously, I think they are quite equal with the evo being a little faster. Glancing at the tuned curve with the mods listed it the two are still fairly similar. Now both are ecutek flashed by the same guys and both have exhausts (the evo has hi-flow filter also). Now I'm not entirely sure whether the 'custom' exhaust means cat-less or not. If not they're fairly even and if so the evo's quite a lot ahead.

The sad thing is, the gains on the Sti is pretty much limited to this, unless you're looking at spending serious cash. The evo can gain more still with relatively little cash.

I think if one was to look at it, for the first few hp's then they're probably on par. For more serious power then it will favour the evo. Once you go beyond that, they're probably the same again.

p.s. the sti here is a JDM 2.0L model (a 'proper' one) and they're both 03 models. Things have moved on from there since, but I think the situation remains similar today with regards to JDM cars. How the 2.5 compare, I don't really know.

p.p.s. i seem to recall a number of boosted engines with alloy blocks that run fairly extreme hp with no problems. Also, the sti's boxer engine means that each side of the block is shorter, this probably helps stiffness somewhat.

 

Quite the interesting thread...

 

Holy resurrect from the dead, batman! You might want to check the year on that timepiece of yours!