HI guys,
Well, I finally got some time to test that new comer and her is what I can
say about the WRC proven little thing.
It looked kind of small at the first (I am not going to even touch overall
look of the car, due to obvious reasons), but after I sat in it and looked
better, it was just fine. Since, I've been driving an AWD DSM for last
several years, I will use that as the something to compare it with. Size
wise, cars are pretty close. There is much more seat room in the back. Front
seat is a bit more upward than the DSM one and it has more space in the car
for the groceries.
Front seat adjustment is kind of strange and think that DSM has better seat
position adjustment. Agronomically, everything is in the right place except
the support for the right elbow. I was told there is an additional part that
can be installed to fix that.
Shifter is a bit long and mushy. It was a brand new car so I am hoping this
will get better after a while, but nowhere close to the BMW feel. I did
several 70% hard launches and I had no problems shifting 1-2.
Steering wheel feels nice, but it could be a bit more leathery instead of
those plastic/composite parts. Steering it self is pretty quick and faster
than what we have in DSMs. It will be easy to drive through the slalom with
this car and DSMs will stay behind there. Precision of the steering is also
there, but not like BMW for example. For the AWD car, I am very satisfied
with this part. Definitely the best stock steering I have driven so far.
Brakes are pretty good and even tough I didn't push them that hard, they
seemed to be up to the task.
Engine was a bit of disappointment, considering my background. I was
thinking of the turbo charged car that is 17 HP stronger than my stock DSM
and close to the 200 lbs lighter. Well, in reality, you get a feel of the
3.8 V8 in a heavy car. No turbo sensation and no whooooosh to scare V8 guys
around :) Car felt suffocated and knowing it has a turbo, it just couldn't
breath.
Than, all the specs I've seen so far pointed to the Mitsubishi turbo in
there, but no number on which one. After thorough looking it ended up to be
a TD04 turbo (and probably 13B - this part I couldn't see). That is the same
turbo that was used for the 1G DSMs with automatic trainy. Kind of
disappointed there too, since I was hoping for at least TD05 14B in there.
:)
The thing is that this turbo is kind of too small. It looks smaller than T25
that is one in may car (2G DSM) and I would say that no mater what you do
there, this one will make no more than 280 HP ever (and this is a huge
stretch - more realistic numbers would be in 250 to 260 HP range). Only time
will show and bunch of the after-market mods that should/are available for
this little thing.
Air box looked very restrictive and even tough it has some kind of cool air
supply, it looked kind of too small. I didn't see the filter it self, but
since you can't here any turbo noise, I might say that K&N (or what ever
else is there) should help a lot.
Few other good things are very nice IC and good placement for cooling. No
upper IC pipe, since throttle body is attached to the IC it self! Still a
bit longer IC pipes than one would like and presence of the one of the 3
cats in there doesn't help at all. Two additional cats are behind the turbo
and one of them has an O2 sensor in the middle which might make replacement
of such a but hard (not that anything like that should ever be done, of
course). Car is also pretty compact and there where no loose ends or any
other weird noises while driving.
I push the car a bit on a couple of the exit ramps and at the end car had a
bit of push. I had to lift and rear end came back, straighten the car and I
was back on throttle. That was about 75% of what car could do, assuming I
would drive it for a bit longer and dealer representative wouldn't be with
me. On one of the 90 degree turn launches, it has some tire spin and it took
off pretty well. For the ProSolo type starts, clutch will do it for a while
even tough it felt a bit soft at the beginning. I am not sure it will be
doing low 1.9x, but it will be quick! It doesn't seem to be as fast as I can
remember my DSM when it was stock (it has been a while). That lack of the
turbo kick probably didn't help overall feeling, but I couldn't help it. For
all of you that didn't drive turbo cars before, car will be pretty strong
and fun. Ones you launch 400+ HP AWD cars of the line, things change a
bit... :)
GS potential? That is tricky. Everything will depend on how well GS allowed
mods will improve this car. If it gets to be a bit more alive, it might have
a nice spot in there are stay close to the other hot cars in there. One
thing that this car is not is the GS killer. I have no information on how
much of the camber adjustment you can do with those struts within the rules.
If this car has a Neon syndrome and ends up with over 3 degree of the
negative camber, it will have a great chance overall. If not, things will be
hard in GS for this newcomer. Still, I would put my money on the Type R.
FSP has much more sense (assuming it stays there) and this car should be a
high contender in there. OK, maybe too much of the sense. :) Can it
survived in ESP? That also depends of the effect that open intake and
exhaust will do to this car. If car gets much more responsive, than it might
not be a bad underdog in ESP (next to the DSMs) car as well. Otherwise,
where ever it ends up, I guess.
Have fun!
Fedja
95 AWD
#34 ESP/SM
"Let boost be with you...
...and bring some timing too!"
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