Before the internet, and before I knew about toe-out and LSD and rebound damping I went to auto-x and had fun. Somewhere along the way my knowledge and ambition began to interfere with wanting to do things because they were fun. I should be more ashamed to say it.
I went karting with my family a couple weeks ago and I had a blast. I was fast and it felt good. Carving around 14 year old kids and 45 year old Mom’s isn’t really much of a challenge though. Maintaining top speed around 6 corners in a 3hp kart isn’t really much more difficult than finding the line and minimizing slip angles, but I was reminded that driving is fun. Auto-x is way more complicated, and there are some very good drivers in our local club who can easily humble me, who was a big fish in this pond 10 years ago. Somehow with my new and untouched car I saw a challenge in that; in recent years I have only seen defeat.
Some interesting things about the Impreza probably transformed this “challenge” into an extra good time for me. The first is that it is stock and my new “direction of car life” mandates that it has to stay basically so. That meant I wasn’t making any excuses or plans for next time or next year. This car is what I have and I’m going to work with it. I’ll admit, it sure looked silly in the pits with it’s off-roadish ride height and skinny wheels, and with Vettes and S2000’s and GR Impreza’s all around I felt like a pimply 16 year old… almost like driving a plain AE86. I do miss those times, and sometimes wish I never ever got caught up in engine swapping, weight reducing, fender flaring etc. I’m not going to this time, so I might as well just drive.
Second… the car really handles poorly. Yes this actually made driving it rewarding and fun! I’ve driven lots of cars that “handle” well, and they are really entertaining. So much so that I always think I can overdrive them and go fast. It goes well while I’m on course, but back in the pits I sit and reflect on my OTB times and that sucks. I’ll probably always be a drifter at heart. The Impreza though… when I started over driving it, responded quite obviously in bad ways. I.E. super Uncool understeer. I.E. crazy back and forth bobbing and rolling.
This is not a balanced car. The entire engine sits forward of the front axle after all, and Subaru really didn’t do anything notable to offset that. The end result is something close to 65/35 weight distribution: deep into the realm of FF cars. I was actually surprised that the car turned in as well as it did. Certainly I could make it rotate in transitions, but if the wheel stayed pointing in one direction for too long, the front would quickly be over whelmed. The best plan seemed to be to slow down.
Which makes me wonder about buying a sway bar. Rules dictate I can change/modify the sway bar on ONE end of the car. Magazine logic says I should buy a rear sway bar: help that mid to late corner attitude, make use of the standard rear LSD, and keep a little more weight on the inside front wheel to help the open diff there feed it power. I’m not so sure. A larger front bar would only exaggerate the cars current handling issues: it would transition harder… and push harder. But as far as controlling body roll, stabilizing the car, and keeping the tires flat on the ground a front bar would do almost twice as much work as any rear bar every could. It would be controlling 65% of the car after all.
Probably an experiment I’ll try.