How do you drive your scoobies?.

How many of you go on long, hard fast sustained drives at high rpms for over an hour at a time or do you only ever do the occasional quick 5-10/15 mins sprints ?

How long have you driven in your current style and has it had any noticable effects ?

Are these cars GENUINELY capable, at stock, of taking that kind of extreme driving for days, months or even years without producing any significant detriment to the engine ?

What steps do you take to ensure you don't 'overdrive' your car during a 'session' ?

 

well at the min i dont do anything as im having a rebuild done.... so i get the courtesy corsa...lol

 

I used to cane every car that I had (including the Scoob) within an inch of it's life on a daily basis, but now that I have been driving in Oz for a month with speed cameras scattered all over the shop and seeing more police with lasers in 1 week than I have seen all year in the UK, I have kind of slowed down!?

Before long I will be posting along the same lines as PS Lewis

 

As long as you don't over rev the engine you should'nt have a problem!, DO NOT REDLINE!!.

I make sure i change gears when my turbo tends to die down, Usually 5,000 rpm, if you push it beyong that point them IMHO you are stressing the engine. And also check your oil level when doing these sprints, as long as the oil looks fresh then as far as i'm concerned you can not cause any problems.

 

I went for a drive round Elvington area on monday and in some areas i was taking it to 6k. Where the conditions allow i try to drive it within its, or my! potential!

 

Usually give it a 5-10min sprint depending on driving conditions. I've got a MY00 Turbo with a few mods, had no problems apart from blown MAFs (took induction kit off) but nows its fine other than that no probs

 

I guess mine gets a bit of stick, the most important thing for me is to make sure its properly warmed up before driving hard, thats means 10 to 15 mins of normal off-boost driving.

 

Thankyou Martin also a VERY IMPORTANT point.

 

What Oil do you need when you thrash the bollox off the poor thing .... I have read that Halfords Fully Synthetic, made by COMMA Oils, is very well suited for all aspects of Impreza driving?

Pete

 

Commas only good for imprezas with 40ltr tanks Pete.

 

especially when towing a caravan eh Pete

 

Thats a shame ... coz mine is 45 Litres

Pete

 

It's a FOLDING CAMPER!!!!!!!

Pete

 

i personally use Motul 300v or Valvoline 5/40

Although any reputable brand & correct grading should be fine. Dont wanna go into too much discussion on the oil subject as it usually causes a big debate on SN.

 

Does it??

Thats a shame ... seems civilised at the moment??

So? you seem to back up the evidence that a good reputable brand of Semi Synthetic is every bit as good as anything else you could choose?

I'm new to all this so am interested that the COMMA Oils are actually top notch .....

Pete

 

I give mine a good "spirited" drive a couple of times a week for 20 minutes each time. I sometimes take it to 6k rpm's, mainly in 2nd and 3rd gears and I do worry about how sensible this is.

However, the car's redline is 7k and the turbo is wheezing at 6.5k so I can't see that taking it to 6k is going to do any damage as long as it isn't every day. If the engine wasn't designed to safely go to 6k then surely they'd lower the redline/rev limiter?

The Impreza is designed to go fast, so enjoy but don't abuse.

(That's my tuppence, for what it's worth )

 

Well according to Prodrive my car (MY00 PPP) makes its peak power at 6000rpm. A rolling road session saw similar results, so i dont see any problem with taking it that far when conditions allow.

 

A normal drive for me is about 10 miles of warming up, then a good 20 miles of virtually constant hard driving, followed by another 5 miles or so of cool down.

I am happy to rev my engine to 6k and do so regularly. The car is maintained to high standard and as long as it's warmed up I don't see this as any kind of problem. Most common failures on these cars (properly modified and not running lean) seem to be gearbox related etc, so I am not overly hard on the gear change.

At the end of the day the car was designed with this kind of hard use in mind - as long as you take precautions not to unnecessarily increase the chances of breaking it, I think it's a shame not to get your money's worth out of it.

 

[quote=pslewis]It's a FOLDING CAMPER!!!!!!!

Pete[/quot

I'M the one who tows a caravan with my MY01 in WR blue!

Does a bloody good job too!

Ted.

 

Used to drive mine hard-ish, but not for more than 10 mins at a time, and even then at only about 80% .(always warmed first).
But it was an import, with no gauges except boost.
also the most reliable car have owned, and serviced by somone who knows what they are doing.

 

Well, i have a my00 with 304 bhp, on the stadard engine.... i do the odd trackday, when i do, it gets driven very hard, up to the redline, for periods of up to 30 mins at a time...,, i would do that probably 5 or six times in a single day, don't usually get into fifth though, so speeds up to a mere 120 ish.....

I change the oil before the day, and if i remember afterwards aswell.......

48k, and it's still going very well, i've had it from new, and am not a sluggish driver..

 

Yes the engines can take plenty of stick.

What kills them is vmax runs. The vast majority of blow-ups occur well into the three figure speeds. The top mount intercooler / scoop arrangement just isn't effective. At these very high speeds the boundary layer of air moves beyond the scoop, very little air flow through the intercooler, and then temps rise etc...

 

One of my mates had a WRX with low mileage, bounced it off the rev limiter everywhere! needless to say it blew up after a month. So i would be inclined to say they just carnt handle constant abuse like an N/A could.

 

Used to drive my last one really hard, everyone said, "Do what you want, she will take it....!"

....she didn't, she snapped a rod and pushed it through the side of the engine, then the atomising oil hit my downpipe and set on fire!

 

There's hard use and then there's just abuse of a car. Bet he wasn't warming it up properly for a start and probably not running it on a high enough octane. Agree it is pointless redlining them on the smaller turbo's as well out of the power - but if your car makes peak power at 5,800 rpm say, you need to be changing up well over 6,000 if you want the fastest overall acceleration it's capable of.

 

He did warm it up but no turbo timer for cooling down. Optimax without booster and it melted piston number 4. Also it was on the motorway!

 

Cheers guys...Some good real world experience here...

I think on the strength of the experience here I'm going to limit my spats to around 30mins before a bloody good cooldown. I already limit myself generally to 5500rpm ( max bhp/torque on wrx300) only extending it over 6K if a throttle down corner requires it..but I won't do drop clutch or cane 1st gear - the real fun in this car for me is the 30-80 range)

My real concern with this car is consistent high pressure oil delivery. My last car had a dry sump and oil bearing/pressure starvation wasn't even an issue but I've heard that over a progressively hard series of fast corners you can swill the oil to a point where you could potentially leave the suck pipe with nothing to suck...is this true ?

 

MY93 WRX. I've driven it for 100,000 miles, now done something like 150,000 miles (still on original clutch!?!).

Doesn't get driven hard as often as it used to, but tends to be thrashed for a couple of hours at a time, probably about a dozen times a year. Rest of the time it's normal driving + a few 10 - 15 min sprints here and there.

With the old TD05 turbo, the engine pulls nicely to the red line at 7k rpm, where it's right on the power for the next gear.

Has Vmax'd in France (indicated 145mph at 7k rpm in 5th), and has done sustained 120+mph for around 30 minutes on at least one occasion.

Car is always fully warmed up and cooled down.


Still goes!

 

They are tough enough to take pretty much whatever you can responsibly throw at em on the road mate, and then some, with a few provisos:

1) They are served on time and properly
2) Use the best oil and petrol.
3) Don't use any cheap and nasty mods; do it properly or not at all
4) Warm it up and cool it down before and after hard use.
5) Don't bounce it off the limiter- UK models are generally out of puff after 6k rpm, that's your cue to change up
6) Don't drive em on vapour- keep a good amount in the tank
7) Avoid sustained high speed runs. Aerodynamics of the bonnet mean the TMIC can't really cope and keep the intake temps down.

That's it, if you adhere to the above, no reason you should have any probs.

NS04

 

Always let the oil temp (not the water temp!!) get to about 80 untill I start using boost......then drive it hard on occasions but you don't need to drive the car silly hard to have fun!! currently hitting 1.4 bar in this weather!
normal driving I use a bit of boost but never the full whack......unless of course there is an audience....ahem

And always let the car cool down, fans come on and go off before switching off....

I've bounced it off the rev limiter a couple of times but that was just getting used to it and wondering where the power has gone?!?!
"Oh no! my cars not running right!! why doesn't it seem as fast!!........"

Unlike alloy who loves his HKS dumpvalve far tooooooooo much.....