Now, I don't street race. In fact, in my years of driving, I haven't ever once with a random car I've encountered while driving around. But this worked out quite nicely and I just wanted to see what my car could do.

Middle of the day, two lane highway (Route 38 in NJ, I think). I roll up to a red stoplight and another black 2.5L WRX pulls up to me with 3 passengers in his car (three guys and a girl total). He looks at me and yells "Whooo!" I don't know, he was a younger guy. I ask him if he's stock. He revs and I hear that Subaru rumble. I took a look at his exhaust and it's a huge twin tip. I yell back that I'm stock. I'll probably lose, but I can't turn it down, seeing as we have similar cars.

So the light turns green and I launch my baby with the glass transmission. Eep. He pulls ahead slightly, spinning all four of his wheels (I didn't know we could do that) and I catch up by the time 1st is wrung out. Second, I keep up with him but he pulls away slightly. By third and 80 MPH, he's about a car length in front of me. We shut down after that and he just kept going, no slowing down for a thumbs up or anything. Ah well, I was laughing it up because it was a first.

So what happened there? I know he has a lot of extra weight. I'm guessing he was running stage 2 with his TBE. I'm thinking I was able to keep up at first because of my less weight (just me in my car as opposed to him carrying 3 passengers). I've never launched my car before, but I know the basic technique from reading WRX forums. Didn't spin my wheels like he did, though.

So by the time second gear was done, the weight advantage became a diminished factor and he started to pull away. Opinions?

 

bolt-on subies get some REAL nice numbers.

 

thought the glass tranny on wrx was fixed?

yea maybe he had a reflash and full turbo back

 

the jump is everything. i'd suggest performing more pulls

 

3 passengers is a lot of weight. I heard that the stage 2 on the 2.5s isn't a huge gain like it used to be with the 2.0s.... Maybe boost leak or something? Or different shifting points?

 

No way is the glass transmission on the WRX fixed. It's still the 20+ year old design. Junk.

Eluded, I would if I ever had another chance.

20aeman, stage 2 on the 2.5s gives the same HP as stage 2 on a 2.0. But TQ is higher on the 2.5s. The turbo is the bottleneck on the 2.5s.

 

yeah but a stock 2.5 dynos higher than a stock 2.0 so the gap between stock and stage 2 on the 2.5 is less. Regardless of the launch, with three people in the car you should have slowly pulled him if he was stock. So yeah, he definitely had mods.

 

I think he just drove his car harder than you did, and you know what they say about the star that shines the brightest...

FWIW, the WRX has never had a "glass" transmission, it just wasn't made to take the abuse the STi tranny was, which doesn't mean it's weak or junk, it just means that you get what you pay for. You want to do 150 high-hp clutch dumps? Get an STi.

I can give you a thorough explanation on how to correctly launch your car if you'd like.

Lastly, the 2.5 responds MUCH BETTER to mods than the old 2.0 did, it's basically an STi motor, and that .5 liters has accounted for a lot of the STi/WRX performance difference over the years. I suggest those who think differently read a bit more.

OP: Get yourself a nice, quality TBE, and a professional tune and you won't believe you're even driving the same car. You have a 13.3 car, all you have to do is unleash it, and learn how to drive it without destroying it.

 

[QUOTE=S2Kguy,Jul 20 2007, 04:37 AM] I think he just drove his car harder than you did, and you know what they say about the star that shines the brightest...

FWIW, the WRX has never had a "glass" transmission, it just wasn't made to take the abuse the STi tranny was, which doesn't mean it's weak or junk, it just means that you get what you pay for.

 

i trying to talk the Mrs. V into trading our TSX in on a 07 WRX Wagon. oh yea!