Simon C

How on earth does a long, wide, gas guzzling V6 or V8 Falcon or Holden make any sense whatsoever as a city car?

Ok, I confess, I CONFESS! *sob* I violated the spirit of Spec C and added some weight to my car! *sob* 3" exhaust, STi front strut brace, and a stereo! Oh the shame of adding a stereo to a Spec C! *sob*

What about taking it to a place like Stocks and getting them to sort out some Konis for you? Dunno what the price of that would be, but I had Koni springs and shocks on my last car and they were superb.

The GC8 ones are actually those little Lamco ones. There are usually plenty of gauge sets for sale on the NASIOC forums, and usually with sensors. The GDB STi Genome set are Defi, you'll pay through the nose for those (as have all of us who have them, and would have nothing else )

The achilles heel of the Mini Cooper S is that it has a joke of a boot. It has about the same capacity as a large shoebox. Although I was otherwise very impressed with it, handled extremely well with the traction control off, reasonably peppy although obviously the WRX or any of the alternatives mentioned thus far will outrun it easily. I move the motion that posting recommendations in this thread be made only be people who have actually DRIVEN the cars they are recommending (or not, as the case may be).

V7 STi's are a bargain at the moment. Beyond the addition of twin scroll, the "noticeable" differences with the V8 STi are really only cosmetic. For the price of a V8 WRX, your money is better spent on the V7 STi if you can get past the ugly face and ugly Momo steering wheel. Do what I did and stick a picture of an S202 up as your wallpaper for a month. Then you won't mind the bugeye shape at all, it'll grow on you

Indeed. You can get a used E46 M3 for less than that.

Are those USDM power stats or JDM stats? Because we all know the Yanks have crap juice to run their cars on, it's their fault that the 2.5L STi which makes less power than the JDM 2.0L exists. Remove all the silly US extra emissions stuff, remap it and it should do a lot better. And does anyone else think the centre dash looks like a Dalek?

You do realise that the moment you drive it off the yard, you'll lose $10k in depreciation?

Explain what you want in a car and what you want to do with it, and we'll be able to offer an opinion. I would personally skip the V11 WRX, and go get a Renault Megane R26, a Ford Focus XR5, or a Golf GTi.

Might be because those brakes didn't have to stop an extra 150kg worth of airbags and sound deadening Jason

Having owned a Peugeot, I'd have to strongly disagree with your generalisation

A Subaru that hasn't been thrashed and has been serviced regularly is about as reliable as a wood burning stove.

No, both were 2.0L. The fatso 2.5L engine was only on the V10 onwards. The only definite difference that I'm aware of is that the NZ model came sprayed with data dots. Subaru started doing this with all the New Age Imprezas because of the appalling reputation for theft that the WRX had at the time of the Bugeye's introduction. I'm not sure if the NZ models came with a retuned ECU, although I suspect they might have because they needed to be able to run 96 octane, vs 100 octane in Japan.

I've got Bridgestone Playz PZ-1 on my car, and I hate them. Good in the dry, but just completely let go in the wet. Car understeers madly while off boost, so no confidence to use any of the car's handling in the wet, you can feel the front end just go all loose and soggy. Thank goodness they don't sell them in NZ. Anyone tried the Falken Azenis RT-615?

Is a few kW of top end worth the turbo lag and worse throttle response though? I'd rather have my turbo spool up a few hundred RPM sooner and have more instantaneous response to the pedal, for real world driving.

Read this: http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=171928 And for heaven's sake, ditch the Teins. They're killing you. http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1267918

Nolathane and Whiteline are the same company. Just depends upon if you want red or yellow bushes. I've got Nolathane. I've got the same squeakiness, I'm told it's from the rear bushings on the front control arm. Changing the endlinks and swaybar bushings didn't help. So I've got a Whiteline antilift kit going on shortly, as for the same price as buying new bushings and getting them pressed in, a little extra gets you a bolt on improvement.

I'm taking the complete opposite route with my V7, suspension first, power later. Get an antilift kit, replace what bushings you easily can with polyurethane, heavy duty swaybar endlinks, and buy my Spec C springs since they're coming off this week Put decent rubber on, get some really good brake pads. Get a good alignment, toe set to 0 and maximum negative camber on the front camber bolts. Then you won't need the power because your later braking points and higher corner speeds will compensate If you're absolutely determined to get power, downpipe + exhaust + retune will certainly help, but I think you'll get much more bang (ie. speed and fun) for your buck playing with the suspension.

Those hoses are definately hooked up, there's no hissing, and the wastegate actuator arm is plugged on properly. My biggest fear is that the uppipe cat may have disintegrated and shat itself into the exhaust wheel of my turbo. It's rare, and my car isn't particularly high mileage (102,000km) or thrashed, but I really don't like the idea of $1k USD + shipping for a new VF34.

If you're getting adjustables, be careful, as the GDA and GDB suspension geometry goes pearshaped very quickly with not a lot of lowering. Apparently an inch lower than standard STi ride height is about all that it can tolerate before it starts giving you positive camber in corners. A set of V7 STi take-off struts with a set of Spec C springs (or similar rate, lots of options available) will give you plenty of handling with lots of spare cash compared to adjustables, just perhaps not as low as what you might like.

For the price of an ECU retune, you could also go to polyurethane suspension and steering bushings, get a front anti-lift kit, get better brake pads and DOT4 brake fluid. Possibly source some used uprated sway bars for a bit more. Would recommend that rather than powering up the car in terms of fun for money.

I'm running a stock V7 STi RA Spec C. Parked my car at the airport, got back and drove home. On the motorway, heard a couple of funny rattles from the engine bay, which went away. But now the car is a bit boost crippled. Lots more turbo lag, and definitely not hitting full boost any more. Popped the bonnet, and at idle there's a definite high pitched wheezing sound which is loudest when I hold my ear right over the BOV (but isn't the BOV itself, it's deeper). The car idles normally, no engine fault codes. Nothing else obvious under the bonnet, no loose hoses. I'm presuming I've got an boost leak somewhere along the intake tract. Anything else I need to think about before I start tearing apart my engine and replacing gaskets?

I got aircon in my Spec C too, but it only gets used to demist the windscreen, the rally scoop is all the cooling I need Windup windows are great, another electrical thing that can't go wrong. Seriously though, I think the V7s are much maligned and unfairly so. They're still a good car, and a great base car if you're going to start piling on the mods. After all, a V8 is basically a V7 with a facelift and twin scroll (but no boxer rumble). Yeah, there are other differences, but those are the only ones you're really going to notice, is it worth so many thousands more?

Don't buy it unless it has a sticker on the back which says "Type RA Spec C" ;D