Gap_filler said:
hello, I just bought a '04 WRX (my baby) and its pretty much stock.
i was wondering what i should start with in performance terms.
and i would also like to know what i should do for it's looks.
I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to mechanics but any
help will be greatly appreciated.
thank you.
Horsepower is about putting out a lot of torque at high RPM. Do you
really find yourself driving over 5K RPM a lot of the time? If not,
you could put a lot of bucks into something you will never use. Since
you already have a turbo, upping the boost increases the torque. Ther
are various intake systems to get the engine to breath better. All
that emissions crap cuts performance, so you'll want to "chip it" or
get some form of engine management that gets it to breath correctly
across the RPM range. Race cams will also up the torque at high RPMs
with some loss of drivibility around town. Once you have high torque
at high RPM you'll need better cranks, rods and valve trains to keep
the engine from blowing up.
In the end, it would be a lot easier just to buy an STi.
There is one high performance part that is pure software. That is the
driver, YOU!
Do the phrases "threshold braking up to the corner turn in point",
"trail braking up to the apex", "putting it into power on oversteer out
to the corner exit" and "drag racing the straight up to the next
braking point" mean any thing to you?
Heres a little test. Can you take a more or less constant radius turn
by turning the steering wheel exactly once at the entrance to the turn
and once at the exit? This is positional control. A necessary skill
before you try braking hard from 120 mph down to 70, going through the
turn, and back upto 120. You need to know exactly where on the road
things happen. 1/4 second late on your turn in and you are over the
embankment. Newbies tend to drift the car to the inside of the turn
before the corner. They also coast down, rather than brake down to the
correct speed. And bobble the speed up and down through the corner as
they go a bit too fast and a bit too slow.
If not, get thee to a driving school. Racing and emergency avoidance
are exactly the same language. It's "racing school" to your buddies
and "safety school" to your insurance agent. Personally I find driving
well a lot more fun that having the right stickers on my windows. It's
just so satisfying.
Driving hard on the street will just end you up in jail or a hospital.
Just Say No. You can drive precisely at .9, .8, .7 or .6 of maximum.
If you do want to go really fast, there are plenty of race tracks that
will take your money. You haven't lived until you've turned a 30K car
into 1K of scrap and learned that "it's a bit slippery in turn 3
today".
Have fun with your WRX.