my brz vs my evo x
 

BRZ:
bone stock

Evo:
to many mods to list (or to rephrase care to take the time listing)

but my evo has 391hp/392tq and has a crap ton of suspension/chassis mods. it is set up for autox/time attack, and includes a stage 4 clutch/lightweight flywheel.

for DD the BRZ is like a gift from god, the evo with the stage 4 was such a PITA to drive every day.

handling: the BRZ goes where i tell it, when i tell it....until i turn off traction control then it is just hella fun but not being used to rear wheel drive it is closing in on uncontrollable. Can't imagine trying to autox this thing, although i am sure it is a LOT of fun to do so.
The evo does not break loose no matter what. i take turns doing 100mph and it just rolls right through them with a nice throttle out.

power: the evo i can have at the speed limit by mid 2nd gear at the latest, where the brz seems it needs almost 4th to get to the speed limit. there is some through you back in your seat moments with it, but if i go WOT in the evo and put a $100 bill on the dash, you would still leave the car broke lol.

looks: the BRZ seems to be more "VIP" status and really looks sleek and sexy where the evo just looks mean and raw. I get a lot more girls (even though i am married so could care less) looking at the BRZ than i do the evo. The evo i get so much sausage giving me thumbs up and people trying to race me in there civics, all the way to their corvettes and such.

Comfortably: with the exception of the sore drivers knee, the BRZ is a lot more comfortable for DD. The evo has more room, but the seat bolsters are a lot tighter, and as stated before the stage 4 clutch is brutal (not the cars fault, but wanted to add this in)

paint: i clear bra'd both entire front ends, but the BRZ seems to have much more to the paint. In the sunlight it shimmers and sparkles, where the evo just looks really clean (until i pull it out of the driveway and it has soot all over it lol.

interior room: hands down goes to the evo now that i put the back seats back in to stay in the same autox class i was in last year. only downside is that it is so loud the wife won't drive with me in it anyways. my 3.5 year old son on the other hand makes VVVROOOOMMMM!!!! sounds in it all the way home so i guess he loves it. having 4 doors is a huge plus when you have more than 2 people in a car.

overall: my goals/builds for these cars are polar opposites so hard to compare when it really comes down to it, but i am in love with my BRZ and the evo has to feel left out. I have driven it 2 times since i got my new baby. Nothing like the sound of a spooling turbo and flames coming out the back of a car when you are stomping on some domestic "muscle" car though!

good review but imo stock vs. stock comparison is fair.

if my evo was anywhere under the 20k over stock mod price i would have compared that lol. but stock for stock i think the evo was better bang for the buck if you track and the BRZ looks sexier out the box.

That's why the evo is getting discontinued!

Not sure what this means, maybe you misunderstood, I have put about 20k into the Evo to make it the beast it is today. It didn't take that much to make it perform, it is just an addiction and I kept modding and buying tires and it added up

Evo is being discontinued because the parent company cannot make another car that sells well enough to justify the development costs. Mitsubishi has no car for the masses that is really competitive in the market.

Btw even though we are off topic, the CEO of Mitsubishi came out and said that the Evo will continue, so we will see it for a while still

I'm in a similar circumstance, and it's good to hear your point of view with your evo. I have a sentra with over 500whp and though my knee never hurts I still feel your pain lol. Suspension is stiff, motor mounts very solid. State I/M is tricky, but I keep mine legal... barely.

The BRZ is an awesome car, and people need to learn to appreciate going slow sometimes. I have found that having a slow car can be a lot more fun because things aren't breaking/overheating/slowly killing you etc.

I had an Evo VIII. I can truly say I love both cars.

The interesting thing about the Evo which was exemplified well but Mr. Jeremy Clarkson is that it can make anyone look good on a race track. What I love most about the FR-S/BRZ is that with the right skillset it can put cars w/ twice the power to shame on a race track.

When I had my Evo I was truly able to say I've never owned anything that handled as well or made me feel so connected to the road. Now that I have an FR-S I'm saying the same about it over the Evo. I've never felt so much a part of the car as I do in my new baby.

Stock v stock of course. I'm sure your Evo is pretty sweet. I love the X.

I used to own an EVO X GSR before my BRZ. I totally understand what you mean by getting so much attention from sausage. Even though the EVO has so much raw power it wasn't practical for a daily driver.

With a kid I find it MORE practical as a DD, it is the parts I put in it that kills that practicality. I have decided to race the BRZ a little instead of just show it, it handles to damn well to not let it see a track.

Yeah I have a Evo X DD with 420whp but I'm about to switch to my FRS since it's far more comfortable and fun to drive as a DD. The FRS steering is far more twitchy (which I like) than the Evo Stock vs. Stock. I just did my suspension 7 months ago on the Evo so I remember how electronic it felt driving. Just the response of the FRS straight out the box is amazing. Yeah the FRS won't get you to 120 just getting on a highway but it did show me something I miss from driving. A car that gave me crisp gear shift (not notchy) and made it so that you had to whine the NA motor to actually get it to speed is an aspect I missed. Plus the FRS gets decent gas mileage compared to 150miles to a tank :happyanim:which is a win.

The evo is certainly not being discontinued. ;)

I have a X - would love to buy a brz and upgrade the evo to 400hp.

I love the evos handling - loved my s2k more though.

How do they compare? That is evo feel vs brz feel?


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I had an Evo X for a short period. I never felt connected with the car. It wasn't the worst car I've driven, it was nothing special. The performance is great out of the box though! I would think the Evo X would be a better street car out of the two.

They really don't compare. Take away the 20k of performance mods and match stock to stock I think the brz might be more fun to drive around town but the evo would still be more fun to race on a track

I also went from a Evo for a GT86. Well this is the last weekend I have the Evo, but I will be leaving it for the trade in on monday so I'm not brave enough to take it out for the last blast ;)

I had(have) a JDM Evo 6 GSR, pretty much stock, a few handling mods, but engine was untouched, and I had lots of fun in it, but its so grippy. I ran it for a few years with R-tires, both Toyo R888, and Potenza RE01R's, and the grip was just stupid. With normal street tires, you got to notice a slight understeer when you was nibbling at the limits of the car. With R-tires it was like you was god until you passed the limit and started screaming. I love Evos and I will most likly import a 5 or 6 RS in a few years, to have something to tinker with, but to be honest, during my testdrives of the GT86, I had so much fun it was retarded.

True, the Toybaru is slower, but damn it is fun, 3½ weeks until it will be sitting in my garage - need to invent a time machine!

These are the two cars I'm considering at the moment, the FR-S and Evo X GSR. Any advice on which to get? They both seem to be good driver's cars, providing good steering feedback through the wheel.

The FR-S felt much lighter, lower, and showed friendly RWD behavior when I was dodging cones at the Scion first drive event. A bit underpowered, but I was only able to try the automatic.

The Evo X felt a lot more powerful (obviously) and had a good gearshift/clutch, but the seating position was a bit lower than I was used to.

I think the FR-S will be substantially cheaper to track/auto-x (tires, brakes, fluids are all much cheaper), but is the Evo X worth an additional $7k?

I love my Evo but so much track parts are on it now it is a PITA to drive daily. Stock for stock I really loved my Evo, but the BRZ reminds me of my old 2001 prelude SH which I never lost my love for until I got the brz

If you can afford another $7k, I'd say just go for the Evo X. They're going to be easier to find, especially without silly markups, plus there is a good amount of used inventory for them if you were considering going that route, whereas used FR-S/BRZ examples are rare at this point in time.

Both cars are VERY fun, and some old articles (I think they were from Inside Line or something) had compared the two when talking about steering feedback, which is a good thing. The FR-S/BRZ will feel more nimble, being RWD and maybe 600 pounds lighter, but obviously the Evo X has 91 hp more and just about double the torque, so it's going to accelerate more powerfully in any given scenario.

Also, if you have more than one friend (or at least a family consisting of more than one other person), the Evo is going to be more practical, plus it's not like you're giving up a lot, since it's still a very capable car, regardless of the door count, though I don't think it has any advantage with trunk room since it doesn't have a pass-through, while a part of it is blocked off since the battery is mounted in the trunk. But when considering factors of practicality involving money (i.e. fuel economy, insurance, maintenance, wear-and-tear items), it loses some ground to the FR-S/BRZ.

I'm sure that there is already an aftermarket for the FR-S/BRZ since it's not like the engine is 100% brand new, but it likely won't compare to that of the Evo X, at least not anytime in the immediate future. Since the Evo factory turbocharged and runs pig rich, I remember some people getting silly amounts of power (80+ hp) just from a TBE and tune, which was better than what was seen from the Evo VIII and IX (which were already VERY responsive to mods to begin with).

However, the FR-S/BRZ comes with crappy tires and handles well, so upgrading to stickier tires has already been shown to really enhance its handling even further, though one thing that people may not always realize is that it's going to make the car ride a lot stiffer, especially if people end up going with Z1 Star Specs.

On the flip side, a big part of why the Evo handles so well is because it has really good tires from the factory, but to maintain it, you have to go with similar tires. Going with a less sticky tire will make a noticeable difference in an Evo. For example, I had the stock Advans on my Evo, then I switched to Z1 Star Specs (which were awesome and maybe a tad better than the Advans), and just recently I got Hankook V112 Evos, which are also pretty good tires. But just pulling out of the driveway of the Discount Tire where they were installed, I could already notice a difference in immediate feedback. I got used to it pretty fast and didn't miss the old tires (though I still clearly remember how much more responsive they were), as these have a quieter, more comfortable ride, though there are situations where the car loses grip earlier. Sometimes it's fun, but it got scary for a split second a week ago when driving through an unfamiliar area in 100+ degree temperatures when I had to slam on my brakes with the steering wheel turned slightly, then the car basically rotated in a way that I know it wouldn't if I still had the Dunlops. My cousin following me in his MS3 later asked if I was showing off. Later on that day, the car started to slide when accelerating to beat a left-turn light on a slightly downhill road. But I'm sure that these will be better in the wet, from what I've read, and I'll figure that out in the next few months.

I think that if you can afford an FR-S/BRZ and can also afford to autocross it on a regular basis and maybe add some mods here and there without having to pinch pennies, you can probably afford to jump into an Evo, keep it stock (as it's PLENTY capable like that) and autocross on a regular basis for a bit more, assuming the $7k price difference isn't a significant hurdle in the first place.

What a thorough write-up man, thanks! I've actually eliminated the Evo X based on the cost differential and the fact I had an STI in the past and want to try RWD now.

Final decision is between a used Porsche Cayman S and FR-S. Gotta love all the great choices in cars these days :burnrubber:

Went to lunch today and was riding on a friends EVO. Dayum. 375 WHP boosted at 25 psi.

I want the BRZ turbo now. 325 WHP at 9 PSI?

Is a turbo bad for the engine or will it not have any significant affect to it?

Lets just say if a turbo goes in, the warranty comes out. Evos are fast with little effort.

Out of curiosity, have you test driven an Evo? It might also be AWD, but it's VERY different from an STI.

I came from a bone stock Evo X (lease). If you do the math the FR-S isn't that far off power-to-weight ratio wise (~15hp shy on the 86). If you factor, the money, the looks, the comfort.

I'm sorry but I've owned 5 DSM's in my life, 2 evos, stock and modded.

You. Can't. Beat. This. Car.

P.S. I've gotten more thumbs up, waves, grins from ear to ear in the 5 days I've owned my FR-S than I ever did in my 3 years with my X.

People on the fence, you won't regret it. This car is an instant classic. Also keep in mind, every car can be modded to suit the owner.

Yeah a couple times now. My buddy used to let me drive his 2006 Evo IX MR and I also test-drove a 2012 Evo X GSR. Definitely fun cars, just looking to go a different direction.

Cool. I have to respect that, with you being part of a small group who has actually driven both. I know that you mentioned having had an Evo X before, but what kind of Evo was your other one?

But with the X, I think that from certain angles you won't immediately notice the difference between an Evo and the standard Lancer trim levels in motion (especially since the standard Evo GSRs all had that same tiny wing available on the Lancers) unless you're either really looking at it or you just know Mitsubishis.

That's good then, especially with you having had a chance to play around in the IX, which most people feel is the best one (and I will hold onto mine as long as humanly possible).

Either way, it sounds like you're leaning toward the FR-S/BRZ, so good luck with everything. It's such a great car considering the experience you get, even if the people over at GenesisCoupe.com don't agree, haha. (Obviously everyone is entitled to their own opinions based on their priorities, but very few of them have actually been in situations where they learned to appreciate the value in a relatively lightweight car.)

I forgot to mention, a few of those thumbs ups and waves were from Mitsu owners... My first Evo was an '05 White RS, mild 363awhp DD. Before that I had a few DSMs around 450-500awhp range. All DD, including one FWD. I've also owned 3 LS1's as well. 2 T/A's and a Vette. With the FR-S I'm still not looking back, so as far as I'm concerned I have the best of both grunty RWD American style and Japanese racing design/ingenuity.


All comes down to the owner, and this car is me especially for a DD. (I still have my current DSM project car in case I feel like going nuts in a hurry)

The math is lies though, LOL. If they had the same power to weight, they would have the same quarter mile trap speeds.

BRZ trap speed: 93-94mph
Evo X trap speed: 99-102mph

Trap speeds have nothing to do with traction, OR driving ability, they're a pure measure of power to weight, and to a smaller extent, gearing.

That said, I have an Evo X MR Touring making 125whp more than stock, but I'm looking at selling it to get an FR-S. The Evo X is an amazing machine, but I'm a little weary of it. It's phenomenal when you drive it balls-out, like few cars on the road, but as a DD it bores me. It feels a little bit heavy, and it rides pretty rough (on Eibach springs mind you), plus it gets sorta bad gas mileage, 16-19mpg average. I love Evos, but this is my second Evo, and I just want to go back to a simpler car that I can drive hard every day without doing 120mph.

The FR-S with rims/tires/bolt-ons is what I want now.

Trap speeds can vary more than you've posted and I never said they were exact. Quoting trap speeds doesn't prove anything but here let me math it for you..


Evo X GSR details:
3515 lbs
276 hp peak
3515 / 276 = 12.73 lbs per hp


FRS details:
2758 lbs
200 hp peak
2758 / 200 = 13.79 lbs per hp


If you add the ~15hp that I actually quoted


2758 / 215.5 = 12.79 lbs per hp


Good enough maths for you? And I bet the FR-S has more useable power under the curve while the stock Evo X hit's peak boost mid range and tapers off from 5k to redline.

I wouldn't go that far. The Evo X's peak torque does hit relatively high (4400 rpm) but it's a pretty flat curve that was stated by Mitsubishi as being torquier at pretty much any given rpm than the previous Evo IX (which peaked at 3500 rpm, so even at that lower rpm, the X has more torque but hasn't peaked yet). Having driven an Evo X pretty hard (while having owned two Evo IXs), I'd say it's a believable claim. Also, based on manufacturer claims, the IX supposedly already had 85% of its peak torque (which calculates to around 245 lb-ft) by 2500 rpm, so if the X is at least at that point (though it's probably beyond it), then I don't see the FR-S having "more useable power," unless you're trying to say that the X has too much power to use on a regular basis in a somewhat legal manner (which is what srt4evah was getting at toward the end of his post).

Nope, I'm saying at 5k rpm a stock X will drop 5-10 psi boost depending on the gear.


I guess you forgot where I said I owned one for almost 3 years.

I would just say power junkies need not apply. I personally find the FR-S more enjoyable to drive then the STi or EVO. I always have a smile ear to ear that never happens when I drive the STi.

Power Junkies will never understand that power isn't everything. Take the 87 BMW M3 that is a very balanced car that has less power than the BRZ/FR-S but it's a blast to drive.

I wouldn't buy another Evo or STi.

After 5 DSMs and 2 Evos, yeah I'm done with Mitsu honestly. Their dealers suck, their warranties suck. The Toyo near me is the best dealer in FL, price, service and parts.

I know that you owned one, but I was referring more to your comment about the "usable power under the curve." Most turbocharged engines (particularly in higher-boost applications like Evos) hit peak earlier and taper off... the same thing was the case with the VIII and IX.

I don't think we're talking about power junkies, since we're not really debating on whether or not the FR-S/BRZ is an enjoyable drive. The STI isn't really a car that is of much relevance in this thread though, since the original topic was between an FR-S/BRZ and an Evo, plus if you've driven both, then you would know that the STI will just about never be in a "best drivers car" comparison unless they are doing it just with AWD cars.

I had both.. as far as fun to drive, I'd rank them the following...

04 STi >> Evo X >>>>>>>> 11 STi

But they are SUVs (albeit with a lot of power/tq) compared to a proper RWD sports car.

Was it stock? One of my closest friends had a 2004 STi that I had driven on many occasions (and also a few times on long trips to Vegas), and even with decent springs, the car seemed a bit numb (when compared to the cars in discussion). But I remember when he changed out other stuff like bushings and other steering-related parts, it really woke the car up in the handling department.

Sorry, I should have been more specific and it probably skews the results some. But the 04 STi was a Stg 2 with Tarmac 2 coilovers. Pretty much maxed out in SCCA STU specs. In hindsight, I should have kept the car. But compared to an 86, it definitely was numb but good for the type of car. The Evo X and 11 STi were stock.