Nice try guys but pretending to be me is a bit lame.

No one here can explain why my brothers Impreza don't handle (even with the specs given), and the only guy to try and give a sensible answer was a Cosworth owner. Kind of says a lot for the people that drive them.

And NO my car is not to hard, more the case that Imprezas are to soft. And my Koni set-up is a soft set-up compared to competition suspension.

It's a bit lame to say F1 cars are soft, when did you last see a picture of a F1 car, with one side over a foot in the air, come on be sensible. You can't honestly look at that picture say that cars stable.

I never once came on here, using bad language, and I always kept my argument to the point.

Also I think I’m right to have this argument, as I have experience first hand of these cars, and all the trouble it's been to make one handle. ProDrive could not get this my brother’s car right, and they admitted their kit was wrong!

All I’m saying is that the Impreza handling is over rated. And I know that my Koni fitted SRi handles better than a standard one, and a Cavs not a £20k car ;-)

 

Jason,

will you start to read. How many people on here have said that they used to own a cav?
How many of them do you think would have been modded? A fair % I would say, because we are basically the same type of people, we enjoy cars.

A koni cav will not outhandle a scoob with the same driver (if he knows his stuff). Im sorry, you may seriously think it, but its not going to happen period. Maybe in certain situations it will, but in the majority of cases no. Have you stiffened the chassis? Cos the 4 cavs of various ilks and ages that I have driven (all had aftermarket suspension spookily) all had too much body flex, cos the shells are not designed for a serious car (you can hear bits creaking).
When you start putting proper suspension that has been properly designed for the car on, it comes on leaps and bounds. This isnt max power type tuning.

No amount of squarking by you is going to convince anyone on here that you are correct, cos you arent. If you really think that then I suggest you start another thread in suspension asking for help to tune your brothers cars setup, you may just find a bit of help. Or maybe just look at some of the other posts.

On the power sliding at 100 on public roads vomit that you are talking. I honestly hope you are lying, cos you are going to kill someone sooner or later. As has been pointed out before a corner is a risk. You do not know what is round it, mud, animals, cyclists, another road user, a brick, anything! If you are sliding, you are barely in control, anything can cause you to loose it, and then its game over. Even if your cav does handle, something they dont do very well is come out of crashes. Thats one thing you cant argue that a scoob does do.

robski

 

I'm sitting in the finest part of a "cav" at the moment. I took it out of the car and put a swivel base on it, Fantastic handling , and very comfy I'd recomend it to anybody ----------I drove my father-in-laws' Mk 2 "Cav" once , it was quite the worst handling car I've ever driven (our old farm Marrina Van I remember fondly from my yoof was great by comparison ) great wind up !!!!

 

I don't see Jason insulting anyone whereas some of you seem very keen to do so (and it isn't tongue in cheek either).

Whether he's right or wrong about understeering Imprezas, surely someone can express an opinion and ask some serious questions on a public BB without being subjected to a load of insults?

Also, if you're going to berate someone for speeding, then be prepared to insult 75% of your fellow BB'ers too.

He's not on a wind up like 6SSK.

 

This is starting to get on my t1ts.

I took my GSI with standard suspension to the 'Ring. It had the original 15" alloys with Bridgestone SO2's.

It handled extremely well for a standard car. Four wheel slides (controlled) from entry to exit were enormous fun. I could get the power on early and drift to the outer curb and line up for the next corner.

It felt like it cornered very flat and had a harder ride than my Scoob (MY96). At one point I was catching a 911 and going through the corners quicker. Why? - because he didn't have as much confidence.

I was driving the GSI to the edge of it's limits, and a couple of times I over cooked it. But it is very humbling when a 1950's (circa that era) ex racer can drive through corners better than you in much newer machinery.

I was also made to look very slow through the corners by.... Yup you guesed it, a Scoob and an Evo.

I love my old GSI, but no matter how much I fantacise (sp) there is no way (even with Koni etc) it could match a well sorted Scoob.

However, I think a sorted GSI would be capable of frightening a STANDARD early MY Impreza IMO.

As for doing the ton up round the twisties, it's plain stupid.

I went through that stage, very quickly and have grown up to realise the consequences. Example - I was going along a country road on holiday that I knew well. It was a 60 speed limit zone, but I was only doing 30.
I approached a blind corner and was covering the brakes incase. Luckily for me and my passenger I was, as a Dustcart was stopped round the corner.
I stopped intime. If I had been tring to 'lose' someone I was racing against then I would have lost not only the race but mine and my passengers LIFE as well. DON'T RACE OR WHATEVER ON THE ROAD.

I hope your brother sorts the problem with his Scoob out. I am over the moon with mine and as people have said here, and been told personally by a mechanic. You have to be commited to get the best out of it. If you don't commit it goes sloppy.

P.

(Sorry for the long post).

 

Keep believing they handle good.

And my Cav, I’m talking about a 16vSRi with a Full Koni Kit, with the dampers set hard, and on 39k miles. Somehow a standard 1.6L's not the same. I will admit that Cav's don’t handle in standard form, and you need to get the Kit fitted to them

And Popeye you don’t know me, so why don't you just but out. The truth is your all worried because your now thinking there may be some truth in what I’m saying here. Why else would write all these posts trying to get out of it.

 

Sith & CC

I respect both those posts, and I assure you I'm NOT on a wind up. And I kind of agree with what you’re both saying.

Look at what I’m saying here, including the spec of my brother’s car, including history of what was done to it. Why would I go to all this trouble if none of this were true?

I think that a sorted impreza (maybe the P1) could be very good, but the standard ones are simply over rated.

Apart from the power mind, but again if a car don’t handle powers almost pointless!

 

If I remember rightly, John Cleland won the BTCC in a GSI. And Top Gear's Quintin Wilson also said that the GSI was Great Fun. I still have loyalty to my trusty old stead.
I prefere the Scoob though Grin factor 9 Mr Sulu.

P.

 

SORRY,WRONG

Been working on Scoobs for seven years.Driven every variant you could think of also curently own a Cav SRI(piece of crap )
Every Scoob will understeer unless you have it set up correctly/decent driver/good tyres etc.To come on here and tell people their car is apiece of dodgy handling pooh is bang out of order.
Cav's handle like crap unless you spend cash on them,take a Scoob straight out the box and try and keep up.
Rant over(hopefully)

S

 

This was hysterical for the first 2 pages, then it became sadly depressing.




Ho hum. Off to the pub (on foot).

[This message has been edited by sickboy (edited 30 September 2000).]

 

Your point should be your brothers Impreza does not handle to his liking. Making generalisations about the breed as a whole based on your brothers car and the one they had on Top Gear isn't right.

Its a bit like saying all people in IT are geeks... its not going to go down too well.

Most cars can be made to handle significantly better by chucking money at them. Without exception the best front wheel drive car I've ever driven was a Koni equipped Fiat Strada Abarth, but the suspension was about the same price as the car !!


AllanB

 

as a new bloke who doesn't even own a scooby I can't really comment. BUT I own a nitrous injected astra gte and a 3 door sierra cosworth. these cars did not prepare me for a two mile high speed run through Datchet as a passenger in a standard uk spec impreza ( i think it had a scoobysport back box but that was it). during this two mile journey, I was convinced i was going to die on 3 seperate occasions, it just didn't seem possible for a car to take corners at the speed the driver was going. Try a 90 degree CORNER, not bend, at 80. it was a sobering experience, i can tell you. the only time he broke traction was round a roundabout and it was deliberate. even then the car was rock solid and although the inside wheel was spinning like a ******* the car did whatever he told it to. in short, the impreza is the don. end of chat.

 

Erm Jason,
try reading up about F1, they actually do use soft suspension settings, if they used hard settings then the car would handle like cr@p, if you also look they have somewhat equipment fitted to them and are VERY low to the ground, dont know if you have ever heard of down force??????
Plonker!!!!!!!!!

 

Its time to play the music
Its time to light the lights
Its time to get things started
On the muppet show tonight....

To introduce our guest star,
Thats what I'm here to do
So it makes me very happy
To introduce to you......

Ladies and Gentlemen

Mr JasonM2....

 

Jason, here's an idea , why don't you stop asking what suspension your brother should be using , again and again and again and again........ Instead why don't you take the advice that has been offered, go to Powerstation (banner ad at the top of some pages) or Scoobysport and have them look at it. It is impossible to say what you brothers car needs doing to it without someonr having a look, and FINDING OUT WHAT YOUR BROTHER WANTS FROM THE CAR. Very important that. You say handling "right" or "well" but you haven't defined what you mean. For Mrs Miggins in her Metro, understeer in all cases is right, for me its something else entirely.

As regards the set up your brother is running, you'll find that most people with uprated suspension use LEDA.

Have him take the car to one of the above people, tell them how he thinks it handles now, i.e. when it under/over steers etc etc, poss go out for a test drive, then talk to them about what he wants.

Of course the best upgrade you can do doesn't involve the car at all, the driver is the most important link in the system. I have no knowledge of your brothers driving at all, but F1 drivers still have driver training, and I doubt he's as good as Michael Schumacher. When a guy in 2.0 non turbo Impreza Sport can keep up with a 22B across country you can see that drivers make the most difference. It may be that your brothers driving style needs modifying, it may not be suited to AWD.

 

JasonM,

you carry a number of comments...

basically you are saying that your brothers Impreza handles badly - why doesn't he come on here and ask set-up questions for himself .

You also are calibrating the handling and suspension set-up to your modified 'cav'. In what way - how about on a track (already asked) or how about lateral grip - standard Scooby can pull 1.0g, more that the majority of cars.

Of course grip isn't everything - you also need to learn and understand AWD handling - personally I am at the bottom of that curve

So, why not check out SDBs website Driving Techniques, then you can learn about these things to.

Of course, it may be that your brothers Scoob doesn't handle well because it needs new batteries for it's remote control, or if not, it is because you, with all the handling and set-up wisdom you have demostrated here, helped him set it up.

So, call Scoobysport, Powerstation, Scoobymania, whoever and get out there and get the car sorted and then come to a track day and enjoy your 'cav' and your brothers Scoob

R

 

JasonM, CC,

Direct quote from a JasonM posting earlier in this thread...
"
What’s happens with the impreza is that people see it on TV doing the rallying, the motorpress get hold of it, and say it's the dogs. THEN people that are not use to driving a fast car, buy one and think it's the dogs. It's a tossers car lets face it, driven by tossers that would normally never have a fast car.
"
With reference to the last sentence of that quote:


Jason,
I don't like being called a tosser. You are entitled to your own opinions, (however wrong or missguided they are ), but there is no need to be so deliberately offensive on here.


CC,
You reckoned jason wasn't being offensive... did you read the above?


Moray

 

In all honesty it sounds like the scooby has far, far to much roll stiffness. If the car won't budge when you try and compress the suspension then you are going to need slicks and a larger amount of negative camber to make the car go around corners.
Has your brother looked at what the tyres are telling him after a fast run. I imagine there will be signs that the outside edges are over heating, or even 'chunking' as the tyre is being skipped across the road.
Get it softer for a start, then get the geometry double checked by an expert. I did the same on my Evo and it was the best 70 quid i spent on the car. it transformed it.
With springs you can't just slap on the heavist possible, ideally you need to corner weight it and calculate from there. What settings are the damers on ? It sounds like they are at max stiffness as well. Have you adjusted them right down to softest and done some trial runs - eg medium speed over the same sequence of corners, and then adjust dampers..
You are meerly controlling weight with your suspension. It sounds like your brothers suspension is no longer controlling that weight correctly. As for body roll- don't be afraid of body roll. Check out some shots of Grand pric cars through the years, they all learn to a degree. These days it is mostly tyre sidewall deflection - but check out a 1977 lotus, the whole thing leans.
TonyC

 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by JasonM2:
<B>>> Mr Sainz and Mr McRae

But unlike Mr Sainz and Mr McRae cars, the standard UK turbo dont cost £500,000 either!

Thats like saying the Vectra is a top performace car just because it wins races in touring cars.

STILL WAITING FOR SOMEONE IN THE KNOW TO EXPLAIN WHY MY BROTHERS CAR WITH IT'S SPECS DONT HANDLE ANYGOOD[/quote]

You've missed my point it bit there Jason. A cavalier/impreza/mondeo etc. in standard form all handle roughly to the same standard. That's the way massed produced cars are designed, they are a compromise between safety and performance. You can improve the handling by employing various methods, but that doesn't mean just because you have got yours set up the way you want that all other cars don't handle.

Mr de Banke might take your car arounf d MIRA and declare t the biggest pile of **** ever, but that might be because it does not suit his driving style. Walter Rorhl's style was understeer, very unusal in rallying, butobviously effective for him. Most other drivers would not have been able to drive his cars asthey were set up. He won two world championships, so the handling of the car is immaterial (to a pount) as long as it suits how you drive the car.

The point about Sainz and McRae has nothing to do with £500,000 cars, they could be driving very slightly modified stock cars, but their setups would be different, and that is what I am getting at, handling is subjective, so your statement still holds no water.

Geezer

 

Moray,

truth hurts!

hey at this rate, this thread may even eclipse the RS owners thread

now that WAS good fun, and look what came out of it, the link up with Mr R and his nutter cossie

robski

 

JasonM,

if the impreza is for tossers, what is the cav for?

lets guess,
-those who need a soft ride to avoid
upsetting their colostomy bag
-teenage muppets who one day will look back in shame at their early cars
-people whos idea of handling is a rollerskate on the wrong side of the road in a carefully controlled "slide"
-the soon to be backwards through a hedge
-the hopefully not, soon to killing another road user

robski


[This message has been edited by robski (edited 02 October 2000).]

 

But Morey only after they started at me.

 

Moray,

If he carries on he'll be up there with your amount of posts

Just think if Stef had started like this

 

Let's just leave it now eh?
The only possible conclusions are that either the car in question has a major problem with it's suspension settings or your brother is one complete muppet of a driver. Either way, it is NOT the car.
If your brother had any sense, the first thing he would have tried would be to change the geometry settings. This works for most people.
If this wasn't enough, some new springs like Eibachs, perhaps with new dampers would have been the next stage.
And if this wasn't enough, then maybe change to fully adjustable set-up.
If your Koni's are so great, why did he buy AVO? He obviously doesn't read this bbs, so probably has no idea about the geometry settings, or the bump-steer removal or other people's experiences with different set-ups.
I have a UK car with Eibach springs and the bump-steer removed, and I defy anyone to try it and say it handles badly.
Anyway, tell your brother to go and sort it out where someone knows what they're doing, or ask him to come on here and ask us himself.
Oh, and keep off the drink, eh?

Stef.

 

JasonM,

Okay, you call me a tosser and then you miss-spell my name... the one that appears at the top of the post you were replying to... wow, you're really making a good first impression here!

You obviously have a gift for language... pity it isn't english!

Moray

 

Stef,

I suspect you're car will probably handle quite well... for a UK car.

Moray

 

UMMMMMMMM.............NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Have respect little boy I was actualy a wind up!

some took it as a joke others didnt ,but I cant belive you!

Im sorry but your one serious misguided person. My audi would kill your cav on handling >>>>>>>>

By the way I have no chance agaisnt ANY subaru when it come to handling, Uk or otherwise.

 

TOP

This post had to see the light of day again. It's brilliant!!

Steve

 

had someone taken one of the wheels off this scooby he had?

 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by JasonM2:
<B>Luckily for me there were some nice fast roads just coming up ahead, and knowing how my brothers Impreza handled standard I decided to "give him an education".
[/quote]

2Nite I is angin' wit da bruvvers in the Staines Masif......aaiiiy. I is going 2 edukate the Impretza [sic] people...

Cavaliers - hmmmmm Sold any vacuums lately??