2004 Subaru WRX STI or 97 GSX

[TJCTalon]

I'm sorry, as much as I love STI's, I personally think they are the BIGGEST cliche. Every stupid 17 year old who's parents buy them a new car immediately wants one. It's as if they don't know of any other car out there.

Personally, I would go with a GSX. The scooby will make a much better daily if unmodded, however I doubt that's what you're buying it for. There is no better feeling than spending $4k on an older car, dumping a couple thousand in mods into it and roasting 80% of what's on the streets. It also helps knowing you don't have a car payment, but still manage to spank your buddy's brand new mustang. Not to mention insurance costs alone.

+1 man.
Im in high school. There are 3 sti's in the school parking lot on any given day. My parents didnt buy my talon. I worked for it myself. And i probably have the only dsm in the whole school district. Thats why i love my talon. Its so unique. I see subies every day. On a lucky day i might see a dsm. Im sorry but im a die hard dsm fan. I dont wanna be like every one else. My arguement is what motor is the fastest 4 cylinder in the world? The answer to me is the only answer you need man. Go with the GSX.
Good luck!

 

[toofast82]

I will say from my personal experience, I recently was driving past a dealership and saw a used STI sitting there. I think it was either an 04 or 05. It had like 80,000miles on it. I'm assuming it has been beat to death every mile of it,too
I never had any intentions of buying it, I just never drove the STI and figured i'd take it for a spin. Luckily I got the young salesman who smelled like he had been drinking. So I took it to where he said was a "good spot".
I did a nice little launch and took it up to about 100mph. I immediately could smell clutch which the salesman thought was brakes I took it a little further on a nice curvy road to get a feel for the handling. Then I turned around and beat up on the Subapoo the whole way back.
Upon pulling into the dealership, I began to hear a vibrating and clanking coming from the rearend and the salesman heard it too. I said "seems like the rearend, huh" He said " I could care less, I aint no mechanic, this ones junk"
Funny thing was he was showing me the button for the variable front/back, and he put it somewhere. That's probably what did it in.

This is the same thing, my 91 gets subjected to every day

But on a serious note. The STI handles and stops awesome. It has good acceleration with what seems to be a pretty flat powerband. It has good lowend torque, too. I like watching the hood scoop shake while driving
Would I buy one over an EVO?, NO

 

[Dallas J]

Id rather have the STi, but Ive also had DSMs for 10 years now and Im kinda tired of them.

I also dont care about huge power and the STi has a much better diff setup for handling.

 

[spyder420]

i dont even look at scubaru's they have a box style like the fidge in my kitchen .If you compare that style to a porsche , ferarri or vr4 you can tell they put time and money into there design. Again whats the fastest 4 banger turbo in the world?

 

[Cassera]

for the money you pay for a sti, you should get a dsm and put the rest of the money you have left (from not getting the sti) and it will smoke the sti. IF you do decide to get a sti, dont get an evo ;-)

fastest 4 banger in the world eclipse gsx 6.9 woooott!!!!

 

[Nati0nalxCrisis]

I can see that you guys are super die hard fans for DSM, I like that alot, thats great. Like I said, you guys are pretty convincing, spending ten grand or twenty . I'm pretty sure I'll get a clean GSX and do what I'd like to do with it, this way I can learn a little bit more about motors and how cars work. I'm not completely new to cars, but by no means am I some master mechanic, it'd be a nice little car to see whats going on with motors.

THEN :
Maybe I could do a Subie later on in life , or an Evo.

 

[pboglio]

I will say from my personal experience, I recently was driving past a dealership and saw a used STI sitting there. I think it was either an 04 or 05. It had like 80,000miles on it. I'm assuming it has been beat to death every mile of it,too
I never had any intentions of buying it, I just never drove the STI and figured i'd take it for a spin. Luckily I got the young salesman who smelled like he had been drinking. So I took it to where he said was a "good spot".
I did a nice little launch and took it up to about 100mph. I immediately could smell clutch which the salesman thought was brakes I took it a little further on a nice curvy road to get a feel for the handling. Then I turned around and beat up on the Subapoo the whole way back.
Upon pulling into the dealership, I began to hear a vibrating and clanking coming from the rearend and the salesman heard it too. I said "seems like the rearend, huh" He said " I could care less, I aint no mechanic, this ones junk"
Funny thing was he was showing me the button for the variable front/back, and he put it somewhere. That's probably what did it in.

This is the same thing, my 91 gets subjected to every day

But on a serious note. The STI handles and stops awesome. It has good acceleration with what seems to be a pretty flat powerband. It has good lowend torque, too. I like watching the hood scoop shake while driving
Would I buy one over an EVO?, NO

It sounds like you might have locked the differential by accident. That would cause the car to vibrate & chatter as you pulled in. It isn't a setting you would use unless its snowing out, or raining and you need traction around a corner. Fastest way to mess up the diff is running it locked all the time, I use it when needed and it makes a huge difference in safety.

 

[Nati0nalxCrisis]

See thats what I like about these cars, they sound like they can do pretty much anything you ask of them, while it would be very hard to get a GSX to do this.

I live in Wisconsin, it snows alot, and when it does its slippery as hell, no that I have a problem with this , but I need a car that can grip like hell.

Although I know if I got a Subie that thing would never see snow, the salt would tear it apart, and I really feel like I'd be the same way with the GSX as long as it was clean to begin with, I couldn't subject a car of these magnitudes to that.

 

[ian_maham]

With my 97 GSX I can't really hold the "transmission" together long at the 350-400 w.h.p., and the Subie's "motor" probably is in the same situation. In terms of having a brokeass car, what is the difference if the tranny explodes or the motor, your still not driving anywhere?

The DIFFERENCE is that I can build the STi motor to be much more reliable, and in this case the OP is already planning a built motor anyways. But there is NOTHING you can do to improve the reliability sustantantially of the 97 GSX tranny. As odd as it sounds, because of the trannys, which frankly I've spent many many many thousands of dollars on, I'd rather drop $4000 on a built STi motor once and forget about it.

Are you just rebuilding the stock trans with original parts or are you actually upgrading it? I'm pretty sure if you bought a stage 2 Shep trans you would be good to go for a LONG time. I heard those things are bullet proof.

Nati0nalxCrisis keep in mind that everybody on this site owns a DSM. If you went to a Subaru forum and asked "which car should I buy" they would all say that dsm's are shit cars.

I say test drive both cars and drive the hell out of them. You'll probably like the sub more just for the fact that it is newer though. Plus the suspension on those sti's are sick from what I've heard. But like stated above, DSM parts tend to be cheaper. Plus to me there is more of a creativity factor pushing them.

Ian

 

[Nati0nalxCrisis]

Well I kinda figured people would be going with the "Get a dsm aspect". Obviously that makes sense seeing how its a DSM forum, I was hoping people would give up their hardcore DSM love for a few seconds just to give me a brief unbiased opinion. For the most part you guys did so I appreciate that.

Like I said, I'm pretty sure its going to be a GSX for right now, I know what I want to do, and I know how to do it for the most part. It'll give me a good learning curve for motors too, which is priceless if you ask me. Then maybe if I save up a good hunk of money, I can have a little something else =P

 

[pboglio]

Are you just rebuilding the stock trans with original parts or are you actually upgrading it? I'm pretty sure if you bought a stage 2 Shep trans you would be good to go for a LONG time. I heard those things are bullet proof.

Nati0nalxCrisis keep in mind that everybody on this site owns a DSM. If you went to a Subaru forum and asked "which car should I buy" they would all say that dsm's are shit cars.

I say test drive both cars and drive the hell out of them. You'll probably like the sub more just for the fact that it is newer though. Plus the suspension on those sti's are sick from what I've heard. But like stated above, DSM parts tend to be cheaper. Plus to me there is more of a creativity factor pushing them.

Ian

Hmm, lets see. Had a TRE upgraded trans and ripped apart the input shaft at 10,000 miles. That was rebuilt with a new input shaft among other parts, then it imploded at the 400 w.h.p. after another 10,000 miles when the heavy duty 3rd gear decided it was taking a vacation. So score card is: 1 brand spanking new built "racing" tranny and 1 rebuilt "racing" tranny. I am on another TRE built tranny that has the entire gear stack practically brand spanking new with EVO3 shorter 3rd and 4th gears and FULL shot peening of the entire gear stack assembly. What I have they don't make stronger unless you go to a dog box. These trannies break, trust me on that one.

See thats what I like about these cars, they sound like they can do pretty much anything you ask of them, while it would be very hard to get a GSX to do this.

I live in Wisconsin, it snows alot, and when it does its slippery as hell, no that I have a problem with this , but I need a car that can grip like hell.

Although I know if I got a Subie that thing would never see snow, the salt would tear it apart, and I really feel like I'd be the same way with the GSX as long as it was clean to begin with, I couldn't subject a car of these magnitudes to that.

The salt thing isn't necessarily true. My 2005 WRX STi has seen 4 winter/salt seasons. I use a combination of pressure washing 1 once a week in heavy salt conditions. If you went 2-3 weeks then thats when rust forms. This is the critical part, at least a 1-week pressure washing of the engine compartment and undercarriage.

The engine compartment is immaculate and even the zinc plated bolts are still in outstanding shape. The Subies are EXTREMELY rust resistant, extremely. The GSX rusts just sitting there in my driveway in the summer time. The difference is night and day. Even my buddies "immaculate" 2006 EVO9 is rusting pretty good. Way to go Mitsubishi

 

[buryurfear14]

This is a dsm forum so your going to be pushed to go dsm. The 4g63 is an excellent engine capable of producing great power on stock internals. They are cheap as hell to buy and mod. Weak point, transmission. Guess what a subaru's weak point is? You guessed it, transmission, ESPECIALLY the 04 model year. They had synco issue's worse than any other year. So if your in love with the wrxy get an 05! I love every year of the STi so it'd be hard for me to tell you exactly what year to buy, except that you don't buy an 04 unless the syncro issues were addressed. You can't beat the sound of a scooby. but know their aftermarket isn't as cheap as a dsm. But they come with nice seats (although most replace them with, what seems to be the most popular choice, bride) momo steering wheel, and they handle great. Evo's have a totally different awd system than both dsm's and STi's though and are indeed faster, not leave you in the dust faster, but their gonna win stock vs stock. Simple put, the evo's put down power to the wheels with the most weight on them so all of your power is going to the ground. Long right sweeping turn where your ON the throttle, most of your power is going to be in the left rear since your right front has the least weight, which would provide the least amount of traction.

So cheap looks pretty good, tons of support. 2g
More expensive, original styling, more rugged driving car with all 4 all the time awd with a raw orignal sound. STi
Evo, if you have the money, go for it, otherwise the 2g could kill an evo and provide the same performance (just about, be honest) with the money you'd spend buying the evo.


Didn't really read the thread, wouldn't change my post anyhow. Personally, if I'm going to spend 5-8k I'm going to get an FD ( I know, rwd, just saying) which would need work, but would be worth it.
If I wanted to spend 1-3k on a car, 1g every single time. Clean mean cars with stock body's with an evo like platform, how could you go wrong?
If I'm spending upwards of 15k on a car, speed3 mazder, or an STi.








Upwards of 50k - '10 cts-v #### yeah!!! Lol

You northern guys are weird. Awd performance, rally inspired cars? Throw snow tires on that beasty and freakin shred! Take good care of everything and rust won't take over like it normally does! But I'm from FL so wtf do I know . I know that I'd have fun with my car in the snow though!