Picked up my first ever Scooby last weekend, MY00 Classic Turbo Wagon.

Unbelievable! Its just grip, grip and more grip. So much fun to drive I just can't get enough. I just wish other drivers would get a move on exiting round-a-bouts, I keep nearly running in to the back of them.

Never driven another car with a more natural driving position. Very, very addictive.

One question though, what’s the quickest way to drive the car round corners? I'm getting mostly understear if I nail it half way round. I thought that the power delivery was 40% front and 60% rear. How can I get the back end moving (Just a little bit)? I have had it out in the wet, once.

 

Welcome to the club 5tuart, got my MY00 wagon a couple of weeks ago. Great fun!

Been able to get 4 wheel slides going round round abouts in the wet, just shed loads of boot all the way through!!

Only time the rear end has wiggled was when some prat pulled out in front of me on a r/about and I had to lift off the power. Power back on and it all tidied up again.

Happy motoring!

 

Welcome.

Power is 60% front and 40% rear hence tendency to understeer.
I believe a 'Bumpsteer' mod helps rear end action, ahem.

Have fun.

Blobster

 

Good aint it

 

Here, here! I picked up my first Scoob (MY97 Type RA) last week, never have i had so much fun driving a car before!

As for 'getting the back end out', i'm no driving expert but i did find it to be a bit on edge whilst pulling out of junctions quickly (in the wet). Same goes for it snaking; i was just putting the foot down a bit too much going into a tight bend and as the car came through the apex, i could feel it kick from side to side for a few yards... Still, the car seemed to correct itself while i just kept my right foot down

Kel

 

5tuart,
Enjoy the car M8 but please be careful when booting it off roundabouts, 3 weeks ago I started putting the power down and the back end came right round.
Very surprised by this as in 2 and half years I hadn't had a wobble and then bang.
Net result at 25/30 MPH ended up writing the car off.
Don't wont to scare you but I don't won't a newbie to be as gutted as I am.

 

Welcome to the land of endless smiles.

 

Understeer is a result of too much speed/throttle. So if you feel understeer, lift off(feather) a bit until you feel the nose gripping again. You can almost steer it on throttle....

I did say lift off "a bit" NOT "a lot". Lift-off oversteer can be a bit of a surprise....

 

Agree with HelloM8.

Spend a bit of time gettin used to it first, have 'wobbled' it myself a couple of times on wet roundabouts Get a feel fer it first before gettin caught out and 'wellying' it into the hedges!!

GR8 car though, enjoy then go and place an order fer an upgrade!

 

Depends what sort of corner you are talking about!

No, that's incorrect. Only the STi Type R/RA's have a rear-biased power split. The rest have a viscous coupled centre differential with a 50/50 theoretical torque distribution. In practice, this will lead to a car that usually understeers under power.

As the others have said, the car is quite adjustable on the throttle. If it starts to push on under hard acceleration, a subtle reduction in throttle will normally pull it back in. However, it's also prone to lift-off oversteer and can catch you out if you lift enough to dump all the boost, so don't experiment in confined spaces until you've got to know the car.

The viscous centre diff cars are not tailor-made for tail-out driving. However, you will find that a few subtle modifications will make a very noticeable difference to the car's balance. A thorough alignment and setup session will help loads, as will fitting solid rear anti-roll bar droplinks. The bump-steer mod is then the next step, and that will remove most of the standard car's understeering trait.

 

Ok, when I bought my scooby I had similar questions and similar goals. Unfortunatly, you won't like the answer and that is quite simply that the UK impreza just isn't very good for rear end action. Bumpsteer and geometry helps a lot but even at that the car is just a little too unpredictable. Lift off oversteer is possible as with almost any car and it doesn't require silly provocation. However, owing to the turbo lag and slow throttle response it is a lot harder to blip the throttle to take her back out of it than say a hot-hatch which can switch from oversteer to understeer with about 10% throttle input either way.

Greasy or icey roads are your tail-out friend but this is where the uk diffs really p!ss me off. I don't know the technical reasons for what it does but it goes something like this: If you are on really slippy roads you'll likely only get understeer. To get oversteer you need to give the car a lot of provoking but not too much. Thump the throttle coming off a roundabout and you'll find all four wheels will spin the car will face the same direction as your exit line but 'moves' at a 45 degree angle accross the road. This is VERY BAD as you don't have much control through the steering anymore, you are usually moving towards the wrong side of the road or a hedge/tree and you don't have much steering input with the throttle - in effect you are a runaway train until you back off or get some grip somewhere! Instead come off the roundabout with a little less gas (but just enough to cause a little spin at the front end) as soon as this happens power seems to be dumped to the rear and you have get some nice sideways fun. However () it doesn't take long before the diffs try putting power forward again (I assume detecting the spinning rears) and the front end can often snap back very quickly seriously unsettling the car. In my experience its not always easy to predict when its going to do this The simple fact of the matter is that you want the rear wheels of the car to be slipping but the car is trying to prevent any wheel from slipping at all and seems to move power about accordingly. Basically you more often than not find yourself trying to fight the car and this is very often dangerous unless you are on a massive airfield in the snow (which btw is A LOT of fun ). If you want tail out action you should probably have bought a rwd car or one of the imports with the adjustable thingymajiger so you can set the bias. The trick to powerslides in a UK is knowing where its about to send power BEFORE it does it as believe me you'll have very little time to react when it does

All that said when you have massive space to play in its relatively easy but the UK doesn't seem to like trying to do tight controlled powerslide - it likes massive 100ft jobbies with the car using up about 50ft of space in every direction

For real fun line the car up squint in the wet and dump the clutch

[Edited by Saxo Boy - 12/17/2003 4:42:49 PM]

 

I tend to find that if you want the back end out the handbrake works wonders

 

I heard that was REALLY bad for the diffs as they try to comphensate(sp?)!

 

so reading what you lot have said do i take it that the uk models have no LSD on the rear and my 94 WRX import is 50/50 driven with LSD on it then ???????????

 

P@ul

Unless you can disconnect the rear diff, via a switch near the gearbox(on a type RA I think) using a handbrake is a very bad idea. As it will tend to destroy your diffs pretty quickly.

 

No, that's not correct. UK cars have a viscous coupled rear diff, same as yours.

As the others have said, the handbrake is not really the way to "get the back out" on a UK car. Certainly not on the road. The transmission isn't designed to be used in this way, and neither is the handbrake.

 

Saxoboy is spot on. I've had my MY01 since new and never had a "fun" sideways experience on the road at anything over 20 mph with a heavily provoked lift off going round my favourite roundabout and even that can get scary if I pick the speed up just a bit. I kid myself that I was in control just because I survived but I probably know better.

BUT...get it on an airfield and you can do 90 - 100 mph corner sideways on FULL opposite lock and still feel like you are in control. The slide can continue for a good few second, so you have time to look around and soak it all in. This car makes that whole 'Top gear' slide look like a doddle. When it is time to come out of the slide just unwind and accelerate and off you go. I have tried it other cars and the balance just isn't right so you cant hold it for long without doing a full spin or correcting the line.

The other airfield trick I enjoy is taking the ABS fuse out (very tricky if you dont have the right tool BTW). With the fuse out you can steer on the brake quite easily (particularly effective when combined with left foot braking whilst keeping the boost up but I'm not that good). What you do is approach the corner, turn in and feather the brake just to move more weight to the front and bingo the back has slid round smoothly to give you the right angle to start your exit. I was truly amazed at how massive a difference it made to take the ABS fuse out, it seems that that little gizmo is working all the time even when you dont feel it through the pedal.

If anyone is interested I can give you details of the instructor who gives motorsport tuition days at Northweald airfield.

Andy

 

What's ABS?

 

Oh.. I see !!!

so I am a bit slow on the uptake here.

ABS is the thing that stops the car when my girlfriend is driving in the wet and something pull out on here in the next county. and it keeps the insurance valid when I am driving.

bit boring eh?

 

Didn't realise you could get that on an Impreza. None of the ones I've driven have had it...