saphcos

Just had a look at some of these. Some mid-late 90's models look like they go for peanuts and there seems to be a few around (auto's especially). I quite like the look of them too.

They are about 275bhp as standard, but how fast are they really? I'm guessing they are pretty cheap to tune judging by their popularity in the USA aswell.

Anyone got any experience of these? Is it possible to make them handle?

NotoriousREV

I nearly bought one a few years back before I got my second Impreza. They actually handle pretty well, but on bumpy roads you can feel the rear suspension gettng all confused. The engine is mounted a long way back (half of it is behind the bottom of the windscreen) so they have really good balance.

Go for a later LS-1 engined car and even the fuel consumption isn't too bad.

The only thing that put me off was the sheer size of the thing (pulling into a UK petrol station was not fun!) and the steering wheel being on the wrong side. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the spec I was looking for at a price I could afford (I wanted LS-1, 6 speed manual and T-tops)

I now have a Toyota (or Lexus if you prefer) Soarer 4.0GT as a second car. It only makes 260bhp but is a much nicer car, better handling, more toys and the steering wheel is on the right side. It's just not as overtly "sporty". These go for less than £2k for an average one. The Aussies know how to tune these engines as well for less than it would cost to tune a US V8.

brickboy

I haven't seen a Soarer on the road for AGES, they're a very elegant looking car IMO.

How long have you had it, N-R? Have you had to do much / spend much on it?

NotoriousREV

Had it about 9 months now but it's spent most of that time off the road with me slowly working on it. Paid £1500 for it and so far bought a decent set of alloys for it (£500 off ebay), had the touch screen computer reconditioned (£250) and had a dent pulled from the front wing (£20).

There's still a problem with the computer system, either the TV or sat-nav is causing a fault that stops the radio and air-con working. Seeing as the TV and sat-nav dont work in the UK anyway, I'm going to disconnect them.

The engine is a bit tappety due to needing some shims doing, but it costs the best part of £800 (50p in parts, the rest in labour) so I'll leave it for now as it's not a problem abd eventually do it myself (just me, 32 valves and a set of feeler gauges).

Otherwise it's mechanically perfect and apart from a few scuffs in the paintwork, a worn drivers seat and a minging steering wheel, the rest of it's spot on too. It looks perfect from about 6 feet away

I use my Skyline GT-R as the daily driver 'cos it's cheaper to run than the Soarer



(ignore the missing headlight, I was polishing it up as they tend to go a bit "foggy")

brickboy

Looks very nice. I always thought the V8s were hydraulic tappets, but you live & learn

EddScott

In EVO they have a "buy a car for a grand" compo and one of the cars bought is a soarer.

NotoriousREV

Yeah, they went with the 2.5 twin turbo. Faster than the V8 (the manuals are very quick) but I wanted the V8 soundtrack and wasn't too bothered about performance. The V8 still does 0-60 in around 7 secs which isn't bad for a 1600kg automatic car. In normal driving, the rev counter rarely gets above 2000rpm.