chris12102

i currently own a uk 2000 turbo and am considering replacing it with a sti type r or ra - anyone know of any problems/what to look for when buying one?

Adam M

buy the car thats for sale in the for sale section now.

it is a two door type ra!, very rare.

spend an extra 1k and you have yourself a henuine P1 alternative, almost identical in everyway for less than half price.

Aside from that the cars are no mroe prone to any particular ailments than any other impreza.

clarence

There's no Type-RA 2dr ever made, all 2dr are Type-R & it's mechanical spec is identical to the STi-RA.

johnfelstead

oh yes there were, but they are not common.

GC8E27D 300 WRX RA V-Limited 2 door Special edition 2 door RA
GC8F27D 300 WRX RA V-Limited 2 door Special edition 2 door RA
GC8G27D 300 WRX RA V-Limited 2 door Special edition 2 door RA

Bruiser.STi

John is it also true that the RA and Type R have the same specs??

Any differences??

airhead

......and the type RA being a lot lighter then the type R.

ChristianR

iTrader: (1)

wrx type RA has abs.

scoobynutta555

I would suggest that you drive the type R and Ra in the wet before you commit. You will notice it handles totally different than your uk2000. If you clock a lot of motorway miles or drive twisties in the wet you may be better off with an sti 4 door.

Correct me if im wrong, but dont Ra's have manual diff control just like the type Rs? that being the case then the Ra wont have abs just like the type R

johnfelstead

There are so many different versions of Impreza’s it’s hard work keeping up. These are the ones I know about, there are bound to be more!

Firstly, the car that was designed purely for stripping and building into a rally car wasn’t an STi, it was a plain WRX TypeRA. It only had a 260BHP basic WRX engine as the factory expected you to take that apart and buy a purpose built GroupA engine. It had really cheep seats and interior too.

The WRX STi 5 TypeR and TypeRA has a close ratio gearbox, center diff electronic control, standard WRX seats and interior, Manual windows, Thin lightweight glass, 300BHP Closed deck block engine, Automatic intercooler sprays, No ABS, Alloy bonnet, LSD in the front and rear diff, Alloy lower wishbones, Uprated STi shocks and springs, four pot front brakes. The TypeRA also has a rally style roof vent.

The WRX STi 5 TypeRA V-Limited has all the above plus electric windows, special seats, 2.2 turns STi quickrack from the 22B, 2 pot rear brakes from the 22B, automatic air conditioning. It had a limited production run of 1000 and has a plaque on the dash. The most significant difference from a driving perspective between the standard TypeR/RA and the V-Limited is the gearbox. It has the same 1st to 4th gear ratios but 5th is higher making it a much better long distance car, which suits me for my trips to Germany.

The standard STi5 TypeRA has a 5th ratio giving 19MPH/1000rpm, the V-Limited in 5th will do 22MPH/1000rpm. So at 150MPH the standard car is doing 7900rpm where as the V-Limited is doing 6800rpm. The rev limiter is at 8250rpm.

1st to 4th gear is pretty nuts, 4th gives 12MPH/1000rpm giving 99MPH top speed at 8250rpm. From that you should be able to see that with 300BHP on tap, acceleration to 100MPH is very quick.

The STi5 engine is designed for 100RON fuel, the highest you can get in the UK is 98RON so I have to put some octane booster in at each fill, otherwise the ignition retards it back to about 280BHP. I am not that bothered about losing 20BHP but I use the booster to protect it from Det, as that’s what kills these engines when they are driven hard. I am going to connect up a select monitor and give it a fast run, just to check the current situation with regards to Det with the fuel I am running. It should be OK with the booster but if not I will get the ECU remapped for safety.

So far so good though, it’s a cracking car. I need to get the geometries altered and the steering rack shimmed to eliminate bump steer. This makes it oversteer rather than understeer at the limit so you can really push it just like a good RWD car. Apart from that it’s staying standard. I am even keeping the standard orange wedges in the bumper, I haven’t seen a single STi5 that hasn’t been messed with, this one is too original to start ripping apart and should keep it’s value better I think.

chrisp

The early WRX RA's were 260 but from v3 onwards they were 280PS same as the 4 door WRX engines. Gearing on my MY00 WRX RA (GC8G47D) is about 19-20 per 1000rpm in 5th. Redline is 7,500rpm so it will push about 150mph (ish). Mine has plenty of STI goodies on as well and the WRC limited interior spec, SWRT alcantara seats, air con, electric pack, blue dash and console, abs, STI gold wheels, STI 4 spoiler. It seems from talking to people who are knowledgable about imprezas it has confused most as its a very strange spec and they seem to have made the spec up as it was the end of the production of the classics.


I love it, the gearing means that the lag is almost non-existant and when its blowing its going .

John you will be happy to know I even sprayed the little orange wedges the other day as well

[Edited by chrisp - 6/11/2002 1:00:55 PM]

[Edited by chrisp - 6/11/2002 1:03:40 PM]

johnfelstead

You at Dono for the SIDC day chris? If so we should do a side by side comparison.

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

John,
Just go out and buy a Gems ecu, all 300ps and no need for octane booster (unless you want even more power ) but not cheap at 1400 quid thou

Tony

johnfelstead

absolute waste of money Tony. Why would i want more power when i used to be quicker than half the turbo drivers in my 115BHP sport? I just want reliability.

chrisp

I may be but still undecided as it British GP day as well .

clarence

What I mean is that non limited-ed 2dr WRX are all Type-R. The V-limited are the exceptions.
The 4-dr RA can be had with ABS, but it's an option. The 2-dr didn't have that option.
Drivetrain wise, the Type-R is identical to the STi-RA, but the Type-R has more equipment than the RA (climate a/c, elec windows).

Adam M

John, didnt know you had bougth a new performance car, congrats.

Just to make a pointy to anyone who is unsure.

regardless of all the other different spec bits we are or are not aware of, eg closed deck block can only be confirmed on 22Bs it is the only cars whose official literature states that it is standard.

anyway.


there are combinations of things that go hand in hand, and once you get these you will know pretty much each car will handle.

The manual centre diff tends to come with short ratio gearboxes, the type r is only slightly shorter, and only the early type ras are very short. The manual centre diff tends to also come with an R180 rear diff, which has thicker rear driveshafts and different rear hubs, and hence two pot rear calipers. These hubs dont support abs, but then neither does the manual centre diff.

these cars handle differently as they dont have the planetary centre diff which splits torque 64:36 front:rear, and also because the R180 rear diff is a clutch type LSD rather than a viscous coupling. This means then its action tends to be very agressive.

I am currently trying to change mine for a quaife!


Either way in general, look at the rear brake calipers, if they are a two pot, it will handle in a more rear dirve biased way, it wont have abs and it will have an manual centre diff.

If it has a sliding caliper, it will have an r160 rear diff, it is still possible it will have a non adjustable centre diff.

as ever with subarus, there are exceptions to this, but I have yet to see any. As a rule of thumb it tends to work well.

John, if you want to be certain about your closed deck bloc, you can tell from the outside if it is or not!

UK cars have the same gearboxes as sti 4 doors, only final drive is different (3.9 v 4.44)

johnfelstead

Thanks Adam, i collected the car friday, it's great.
I have the 2 pot rears etc and i know it's a plated diff cos i had that working hard on the test drive, it is quite a brutal thing, even in plated diff terms compared to others i have driven.

How do i tell externally it's a closed deck block or not?

Adam M

thats a secret which I can only reveal offline!

johnfelstead

so mail me then.

WREXY

John,

I'm another believer of leaving collectors items original.

If you are interested in having the car fully fully original, I have the original part number for the originl WRX STI sticker for the back of your car if you like. I just read that you want to leave it fully original, including the orange bits under the blinkers, so I thought I'd mention that I have the correct part number. There are 4 different ones but this is the right one for your car. I'll post it cos people get mixed up and go out and buy the wrong ones most of the time. It's ST99800ST430. That is the genuine Subaru number. But if IM can't get them, you can get it from MRT in OZ with this part number, stistickp. You can view it here. It is the first one on top of the page,

http://www.mrtrally.com.au/shop/sear...lAction=Page+8

If you do decide to purchase it, before you apply it to your boot, measure where the old sticker on your boot is sitting, ie the bottom bit of the sticker that is still there(white line with Subaru Impreza STI written) so you get it right.


Cheers,

Wrexy.

johnfelstead

Thanks Wrexy. Thats kind of cheesy, think i'll leave it as is.

I am having the Powerstation geometries and bump steer mod done on saturday, plus the Anti-Lift kit. This should make the car handle much more neutrally and suit my driving style more. I gave the car a bit more power out of a roundabout tonight and can confirm it has a lovely tendancy to oversteer, which was nice.

Bought myself some P1 front wing spats too, to protect the doors from stonechips. That lot should be my limit on mods. (he says trying very hard to resist )

pat

The ABS is not compatible with the Type R electronic centre diff because, unlike the usual VC centre, the Type R can be set in a pretty much "open" way, ie minimal VC action between the front and rear output shafts... this means that fun stuff like handbrake turns are OK on that diff, whereas it will heat the oil in a normal car. Also, it's perfectly OK to have the rear wheels spinning but the fronts not... whereas on a normal centre diff that would boil the oil. Obviously, this difference in wheel speeds confuses the hell out of the ABS module which was designed to work with a permananet AWD system, and therefore if there is a large discrepancy between wheel speeds on hard acceleration, the ABS system shuts down... Also, the centre diff controller takes an input from the handbrake, so it unlocks the centre diff when the handbrake is pulled to allow the rears to lock to be the back end out

There are two ways to tell from the outside whether the engine block is an open or closed deck item. One is pretty definitive, and the other is a pretty good, but not definitive, indication.

Cheers,

Pat.

airhead

anybody want to spill the beans on the closed deck identification..
..or is it a state secret.

Adam M

its a state secret, but with a wrx type r, you wont have one . They were only an option on stis. sorry.

TRIGGER

Just a couple of things - my version 4 RA is not mechanically identical to the equivalent type R. As others have said it has the 22B rear 2 pot brakes, but also has the quicker steering rack. The manual clearly states that with the differential open the torque split is 64/36 pct. My 5th gear also does 19mph/1000 rpm. My car also has Climate (one of the only options available) but no electric windows, mirrors etc (can be retro fitted). ABS is not an option.

The car is very much more a rear drive car compared to any other Imprezas anyway, and more fun accordingly, although harder to drive well. I wouldnt be without it.

The trouble is as they arent brought in officially I would need a translator to make sense of the original manual, so an awful lot of guesswork is used by most people.

Hol

iTrader: (1)

My STI4 TypeR also has the 2pot rear callipers. Mine was originally imported from new, so I dont know if this nakes a difference.

I also have factory upgraded Electric recaros and a sunroof, although these are documented as the only extras. Apart from some STI/BBS alloys.

I agree with trigger that it would be nice to get the standard kanji manual translated.

johnfelstead

The V-Limited RA has the electric pack and higher 5th gear, the non V-Limited has the lower 5th gear.

Adam M

trigger, apart fro the quick rack which you are lucky to have, all the options you describe are the same as the standard sti type r.

As I have said before, it is not clear whther the wrx type r non sti comes with or without the manual centre diff and two pot rears.

it doesnt have the electric windows because it is a type ra, but these could be re specified when bought, as the aircon probably was.

I am yet to see a (version 4 onwards) wrx sti type r that does not have a manual centre diff and two pot rear brakes, but they probably exist somewhere.

What confuses me, is that somewhere there is a 22B with aircon and abs! which means it must have a P1 drivetrain! How they did that I dont know as the rear hubs of the 22B are supposed to come from the svx, meaning it would need to have one off custom driveshafts made!