Hi Folks. Started doing rally cross with my son in a 2015 golf after reading about the Ford Focus build. Tons of fun, but the nannies can’t be turned off which is limiting our performance. Starting to research getting a Subaru Impreza for the new season, but can’t figure out the pros and cons for the 2005-2007 or the 2008-2010 non-turbo cars. Would love some help to figure out what car we should search for. I am planning to run stock to start, but I am sure we will start playing later. Thanks for the help.
I'd look for a good (not rusty) 02-04 if you are going for a NA Impreza. Those cars still had throttle cables rather than drive-by-wire and the engines just seemed to respond better and without any rev-hang, this is important when you are trying to get the car to rotate with the throttle. I personally went from an 04 Legacy Wagon to an 07 that on paper should've been faster (better peak numbers) but was a slug in comparison, I've done some open source tuning that has got me back to a similar place but that shouldn't be necessary. Up here as well those 02-04 cars are super common in our U-pull yards so if you need a motor, transmission, brakes etc. they are really easy to come by, the newer stuff not so much (but getting better).
If you do go for something newer the 05 were drive-by-wire but from what I have read the calibrations basically copied a cable setup so they aren't so bad, having said that the 05 cars also have a one year only EJ253 without the AVCS (like a really disappointing V-tek) that the 06-09 had so it limits you if things go boom while you are having fun and you need a new motor.
Adam
