Nope. Stop fuelling the Max Power mentality of driving road cars on a 1/4 mile piece of tarmac.

It's cool - if you have a dragster.

 

LOL @ Tony Blair level of arrogance

 

Well I have owned both an M3 Evo and a well modified STI. The overall performance of both cars is pretty similar and it is as people have said. The Scooby has the sudden rush of power as it comes onto cam and the boost lights up but it drops again comparatively quickly while the M3 has tremendous bottom end torque because of the variable cam timing and the acceleration although not so violent lasts much longer as it pulls a much higher gear.

The handling is interesting with both cars. The Scooby with the bumpsteer removed and solid anti roll bar links with the STI suspension, is very well balanced and hangs on like a leech both wet and dry. The ones with bumpsteer will understeer for England!

The M3 being rear wheel drive is a different style but nevertheless also hangs on in dry and wet weather as well as the Scooby. It has no vices when cornered really fast and will hold a full four wheel drift with ease remaining fully controllable. The M3 Evo has particularly good steering compared with the earlier M3's. No understeer worth mentioning with this one.

I think Senior AP had the best comparison of the cars, the M3 is so smooth even at full stretch, the build quality of the car is outstanding, and the engine is pretty well bullet proof. Even the Vanos does not give problems any more. It is also a very good looking car, especially the coupe. The Scooby is a raging tiger in comparison at similar speeds, but you always have that twitch factor about when number three big end is going to let go and drop you for a couple of £K +. They are both outstanding cars and it is as always up to personal choice which one you prefer.

You can get an immaculate early M3 Evo for £10-11K these days.

Must be wonderful to be such a star driver achad!

Les

 

Let my M3 (E36 rag top) owning friend drive my STi8 PPP. He was gobsmacked by the mid range grunt and pick up to the point where he couldn't bring himself to grab the next gear quick enough. I drove his M3 and I have to say it felt sluggish because it was difficult to keep it above 6000 revs where all the power is. In normal driving the Scoob power is just so much more accessible. No contest.

Diccy.

 

10.4 to 100 does sound more interesting, but at quite a price.

Re M3 reliability, there have been quite a few M3 engine blow ups.

 

Never one to fuel a fire or anything , and have to admit I skipped the 2nd & 3rd pages, but I came up against an M3 recently on the Bristol ring road. I saw out of the corner of my eye that someone was gunning for me as I exitted a roundabout on dual carriage way, so I floored it expecting whatever it was to disapear into my mirror. When it didn't, and I could still hear the scream of an engine through the gap at the top of my window I realised it must be somethign with guts. Did fine to about 60/70 mph, then it just left me behind. Turned out to be an M3 Convirtible, and I was mildly miffed for a moment, until I realised that his car cost about 2 1/2 times what mine did.

 

Erm, I'm sure there have been quite a few Scooby blow ups too! :s

 

Yep, I am quite arrogant at times.

1/4 mile f$cking up your car isn't cool.

 

M3's are poofs cars....

 

not my cup of tea either but I have serious respect for people like John Banks who are technical / mechanically minded enough to extract that extra few (hundred) bhp out of an already highly tuned car.....and I never associate them with the Max Power brigade.

I think they're absolutely nuts....and secretly they like their engines blowing up just so they can rebuild them again


each to their own

 

Nice username. lol

 

In the real world, here in Britain, where its either raining or very damp 90% of the time, and 'dead straight' roads are very few, the Scoob IS the car to have, 4 wheel drive, superb 0-60 times. I'll challenge any M3 on any twisty route in my WRX PPP, with a bit of rain as well please..........no chance M3. Nice cars, but not for me!

 

Keep convicing your self mate!

As a matter of fact, we have more days without rain than with rain.

 

In addition, those days we do have rain, it's not necessarily raining ALL day, only part of. The roads start to dry off at some point. So I reckon it's at least 80% (probably more) of the hours in a year, the roads are in fact dry.

Why no chance M3? These things have all the traction control gubbins to keep it on the road, it's only TRACTION where it may lose out. It still has loads of GRIP, more than enough to make swift progress in the wet.

 

Are we getting this in Muppets anytime soon per chance??


Time out lads, it's the weekend!! Live and let live!!

 

I would happily have either,

Both are great cars and either is only brought down by people slagging them off - just compare them on the road to a 1.6 Vectra and you'll get a perspective on how good either is

I'll stick with my WRX though (for the moment).

Brian

 

I quite fancy a M3 Evo myself, not just yet though as i have only just turned 30.

A friend of mine has a Std E36 M3 Evo. At the time my STi5 was also std and we went head to head together, first on the A34. i pulled away from him until i hit my limiter (i did say it was std) then he flew past me. then when we came of the A34 onto the A343 between newbury and andover - a very twisty road which we both new well - i left him within half a mile and had to pull over 10 miles later to let him catch up.

when we got home he said he had no chance of keeping up as soon as we hit the twisties and if i had it delimited at the time he would have struggled to keep up on the dual carriageway.

Having said that though, his has more gadgets and it was much more comfortable to travel in.

 

i have a standard sti 8 no ppp, had the m3 from the lights, cars length ahead and it stayed that way to 150mph.

 

You can't fancy one of those BBBBBBBmw thingies Chris.

How was the trip up north then??

 

Well everyone knows that a blue impreza with the gold alloys will win any race against an M3. Unless the M3 was in that yellow colour then it would win hads down. but every one is forgetting that anyone with a red car or a white van will blow both into the weeds because they are the fastest vehicles on the planet.



Wouldn`t own an M3 anyway think they are to much of a hairdressers car now. But wouldn`t say no to an M635Csl or The original M CSL Batmobile.

 

hey up marv

thinking about it, i'd swap my sti5 for an E46 M3 CSL tomorrow mate. otherwise i'll wait until i'm about your age

scotland was wet, windy, wet, miserable and did i mention wet yet ?

 

Do they? Both Evo mag and Top Gear have the STI quicker than the M3 on their respective tracks

 

Chris .......hows it going matey?

scoob made 329BHP today

 

If it was in Yorkshire it probbably was Sticky Stuff...
You can't miss him.. its yellow... the car that is...

 

Nice review m8...

 

hiya gary

yeh seen yer thread. mines in for a remap on oct 23rd with bob rawle. I shall have to get it on rollers some time, gawd knows what its putting out at the moment let alone after a remap.

My festa is down your way at the moment, its having some work done and its MOT across the road from you at rapid fit. ive been too bloody busy to drive it recently so i'm having a few things sorted on it.

Anyway, I'm suprised to see your in UK this weekend and not the ring haha.......you must have your own room on a permanent basis in hotel nordeshleife now eh

 

Funnily enough Daveyboy and me are thinking of renting or buying a place over there. Well thats the dream anyway ....

A few vids going up in 15 mins or so. Including an 8.40 lap with a WR1

 

cool, did i read somewhere you was having problems with the pug ?

if so is it fixed ?

 

The E12 M535i was the car to have a while ago. Excellent performance but not in the same league as the M3 Evo. I knew a guy with one with the M5 engine and that really did go!

I respect both cars, Scooby and M3 for their respective attributes and the M3 is extremely fast in the twisties when driven in the style it requires. Who needs traction control anyway, it spoils the fun

Don't need a hairdresser, Mrs Leslie does it so I can buy more petrol

Les

 

From what i have read mostly on this thread is complete and utter bo**ocks and is little wonder why i havent posted on here in yrs, to start with in the real world there is very little difference in any of these cars in terms of performance .1sec here .2 there.
To here some comments shows in terms of driver ability how bad most of you are, firstly most of you own a subaru which in terms of ability is one of the easy cars to drive fast, jeezz my wife could, after owning 2 p1's due to the first blowing up i was very unimpressed after only a few thousand miles as i was getting very little driver enjoyment without going crazy, feed back was like flogging a dead horse it was just all to easy and sideways was happening more than 2 or 3 times a day with no effort, yes the chassis was very good just boring, most of you will progress and when you do you will see that the evo is way better in every department, oh sorry no it ist, forgot about the noise and fuel range,,,,,,,ha again fecking laughable.......
Again though the evo does the same things as the subaru just better, quicker, with more reponse and feeback, as for the m3 well guess what that came after the evo and is the best yet by a long way, i drive my cars very hard and never on tracks and am quite happy to play for log books...!!!!!!!
In the real world which most of you here now dont live in ( some subaru **** flick ) the m3 is a good bit quicker around the devils play ground ( the ring ) than the evo and guess what alot quicker than a standard sti....hehehehehe
Let the fun begin..................!!!!!!!!!!!!
To say that most of you could not drive an m3 fast as they are a drivers car hence driver ability not just the cars....!!!!!!!!!!!
Jay