A friend of mine has asked me this question and darned if I can answer it.

'If you had to lose 50 bhp or lose the 4x4, what would you choose?'

This is on a standard UK turbo BTW. I am leaning towards losing the Bhp BUT...

 

I think it would be the 4*4.

Keeping the 4*4 but -50bhb would make for a fairly boring drive ie sooo much grip that you will never get the car to do anything interesting under power!!!!

Still there you go!

 

The 4x4 for sure - the 50 BHP would be made back up by not having a complicated 4wd drive train eating up horsepower !!

 

Neil,

Depends how good a driver you are and whether you get front or rear wheel drive.

Given that choice, I'd keep the 50bhp and have rear drive assuming I got appropriate chassis and suspension tweaks. But if you want to maintain the Impreza's characteristics you'd be better losing the 50bhp - the Impreza Sport is a damn fine car in its own right (I know I put one on its roof!!! )

Cheers
Mike

 

If your goal is safety, loose the power. If your goal is to have the most fun, I would tend to loose the 4wd, as the loss of 50bhp and retention of 4wd transmission losses will make for a very safe, but quite dull car in anything less than extremely hazardous conditions IMHO.

~160bhp (210-50) would make for more fun if it is less bogged down by transmission losses and severe traction. Of course, you could always loose the horses, keep the 4wd and strip everything non-essential from the car to keep the power-to-weight up a bit...

Moray

 

Ok, so I didn't see Mike's post about his Sport when I wrote this, it wasn't there at the time I started! Maybe I should re-evaluate the 4wd making for a safe car statement... maybe I won't!