If Toyota wanted a V4 engine, then they would look somewhere else or they would develop it themselves.

I didn't mention during acceleration, but let's leave it there.

Not sure why a car that is praised for its handling ability, has now a garbage weight distribution. 911's have an even more garbage weight distribution with the majority of the total weight on the rear, but they have worked with suspension geometry for decades and they are well established in car's history.

Subaru have their expertise on building boxer engines and it is what is. They don't have the capacity having different engine designs. I am mentioning it again that they even had a big trouble moving into direct injection! Something that looks a "fix" for you, could mean a (financial) disaster for them.

I never said anything about Toyota...

In any context, your comment about JDM tS having "softer rear springs that transfer more weight to the rear" doesn't make sense. Softer rear springs don't transfer more weight to the rear under braking, acceleration, or cornering. If they went with softer rear springs, they moved roll stiffness distribution forward, which would further load up the outside front during cornering and keep the rears more evenly loaded. Good for drive, but bad for front grip...

55/45 is crap for an FR performance car. Yes, the car is well set up and very fun to drive! But grip is *far* from optimized... With 50/50 weight distribution, I would have won my time trial easily on Sunday vs coming in 2nd by less than a tenth...

Rear bias is BETTER for a rear-drive performance car. 50/50 is *not* "perfect". It is better than 55F/45R, but 45F/55R is *better still*. Mega-performance rwd cars will generally have ~45/55 to ~40/60 weight distribution.

Forward weight distribution means the outside front is doing way more than it's fair share during cornering, so you're losing grip there. Could try to correct for that with more rear roll stiffness, but before long you'll overcome the Torsen diff's ability to deliver power to both rears, so kind of a dead-end. Even with a good ramp-type clutch diff, you're only going to be able to put so much power down on corner exit. This is already a minor issue even at stock 205hp.

Forward weight distribution in an FR performance car is bad for:
1. braking: fronts are relatively overloaded with ~75% of the load and rears underutilized carrying only 25%
2. cornering: outside front overloaded, way beyond the linear portion of the grip/load curve, while outside rear is underutilized again
3. accelerating: less load on the driven rear wheels = less drive grip.

There are better ways to do things. But yeah, it's easier to stick with what you know. But is it really the best long-term strategy? At this stage, probably not worth the investment as we move to other types of power units...

Kinda proving Nikitopo right there bud..

Just feel lucky we have these cars. They may not be around forever. The world is changing.

Funny people get all worked up about a cars faults, but really some of those faults give the car the character and a different experience.

The EVs of our future will start to bore you fast. After a few launches, you get car sick and you are done. Rarely do them again unless someone new is in the car. Then you just drive them like any other grocery getter. I find the experience of going slower with sound is better then faster with no sound.

Let’s hope they let me keep my old Subarus with all their faults.

My mistake. I wanted to say stiffer rear springs.

Sorry to hear this. Hope you have a better luck next time.

Torsen is a trademark of JTEKT Corp. owned by Toyota. They have an improved Torsen diff., but they don't install it much. I have it in my car and I am quite happy with the result. Check attachment below for details.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and it makes me sad. Last night I went to the local NASCAR races and had a blast. The cars are mean and so loud you can feel them on your chest. That all could be gone in a decade.

Yet Porsche's entry level vehicle has to be continually neutered in order to keep it from dethroning their halo 911, in just what, 10-15 years of existence, vs 60? They can't accept they made a mistake putting all that mass behind the rear axle, so they engineer around it.

Yes the new vette really shows that the mid engine is the ultimate winner. But do you really need to be the ultimate winner for 97% of the people who just buy cars and drive to be seen or at pretty regular speeds. If the car feels good and is fun to drive that’s all that really matters. It’s about experience and cars with different setups offer different experiences.

Plenty of un-neutered Caymans in the aftermarket.

What's all the fuss about the COG? I'd owned/driven several Subarus WRX/STIs and they're all felt like pigs compared to my EVO X, which probably has higher COG than an STI (by a negligible amount probably).
The 86/BRZ is an amazing car and I love it. However, I'd take inline 4 over a boxer any day.

If your argument is need, then no one needs a car at all.

I am supposed to walk for 6 hours to get to work? I am afraid that for many a car is a total necessity. Now of course how elaborate a car needs to be for basic transportation is a whole different matter.

Not a valid argument unless hou live inisde a city with good timely public transportation and your work is in the same zone.

There are a great many things a person can do to eliminate a car from their lifestyle. Therefore, not a need.
Keep in mind, I didn't bring up the need argument, but if humans NEEDED cars, they'd have been around a lot sooner than they were. You may THINK you need one, but you don't.

Sure we could all move to within a mile of where we work or just quit our jobs and work where we can take public transportation.
You have it backwards anyway. People have always had a NEED for transportation. That is why cars were developed in the first place. They couldn't make what there was no tech for earlier though so they could not have been around sooner. In fact that is a really silly idea.
You can wax philosophical all you want there is a distinct need for many people.

See this all the time in the car community. People want to brag about lap times for some car they just bought, but they never actually take their car to the track, much less compete in time trials or w2w. I think it was James May who pointed out how pointless Nurburgring lap times are for 99 percent of buyers. How a car feels or functions in your actual usage is more important, although there are no bragging rights for that.

I definitely want to uproot my family and move downtown to pay more for smaller living quarters so i can walk to work and get rid of my cars.....

I whole heartedly disagree.

I believe you're treading somewhere between "need" and "require". We certainly aren't required to have a vehicle or a quick means of transportation most of the time, but there is absolutely a need for it, for many.

Any person can change their lifestyle to no longer "need" a vehicle for transportation. But if we were to take away everyone's need for a vehicle based on their lifestyle, we would be living in a far different world with far more condensed towns and cities. So I guess you can make the argument that humanity can settle for that lifestyle and therefore not NEED a vehicle, but at that point I think it's off topic, as it does not represent current reality.

It has happened before during the industrial revolution and the results were not pleasant.
BUT even then there was still a NEED for vehicles.
They were just horse and carts at first.
Then the railroads came along and improved things.
Those were followed by the automobile which allowed people to spread out a bit and conditions improved.

If humans needed cars for survival, every human would have one, and that simply isn't the case. It's a want. Not a need.

where are all these $70k+/yr jobs that require zero commuting? because there sure ain't any in my area, and ironically, the area's that do have those jobs and require commuting require one to make at least $120k/yr to pay property taxes alone if one were to live close enough to not require commuting...

So again, I get what you're saying, but with what you're implying, we really don't need anything other than a little food and water in life. This is true of course, but we're not living in caveman times. So our needs have technically changed. What was once wanted has become a necessity to many in order to function and live properly in modern society. But sure, in a sense you're right. No one needs anything at all in life aside from what keeps them living.

Are cell phones a need?

Because here in WA homeless advocacy groups convinced the government they are so now homeless people all have them.

Not sure how this relates, just wanted to be apart of the argument.

Thanks.

Cars arent a need, they are a want but they are also a neccessity in many cases depending on lifestyle.

If you are talking sustenance levels only as a "need" then that is a whole different picture. A bit too narrow to be realistic though. I would move it a bit further along and say that for the last 200 years or so that transportation, of which cars are a part, is a need in order to meet that sustenance level. In the modern world transportation is no longer a want it is a survival necessity. With urbanization and the dependance that the human race has developed on transportation about 70% of the population would starve to death within two weeks of a total transportation shutdown. That is a need if ever I saw one.

People choose their career paths, and where they live based on wants.

Exactly.

Your lifestyle is your choice.

I said nothing about transport. The discussion is about cars. Perhaps I should have stated personal automobiles, but I doubt it would have made a difference.

At any rate, the argument was presented that no one actually needs a "the ultimate winner 97% of the time". If we're simply to accept that as a statement of fact, no one needs anything that laps the 'Ring in any time at all. The point was, I actually agree, but it was a ridiculous statement that I stretched to a ridiculous extreme. We're an enthusiast group. We geek out on the best of this, fastest of that, quickest of those, etc. and the Cayman is the better car than the 911 because the Germans are too stubborn to admit they made the glaring mistake they made with 911 and have done some seriously spectacular engineering over the last 60 years to make it something truly great. Can you imagine if the Cayman had 60 years of the same intense development, how much MORE better it would be than the 911?

Personally, I think the cayman is the better car for public roads because it has less power. A 911 turbo S, GT3, GT2 are nuts and you can’t really even use then on local roads without risking yourself and the unwitting public. They are great cars, but really made for the track or showing your wealth. A regular camera S is all you really need, if that.

This pony race is just that, an arms race to sell people cars they don’t need or can’t use to the cars potential. These cars are in a plateau region where the improvements are minor just to say they improved something, so the fanboys buy the next new shiny one. Magazines, you tubers journalists go along because if they say something bad they won’t get the next press car. I am no longer impressed by supercars, it’s basically more of the same. But I get it, if thousands were pennies to me, I would be first in line to buy them, because why not.

I would forgo vehicle ownership to live to downtown SF.

What was this post originally about again?

:bonk:

How Subaru is offering free 2.4 swaps to original owners of the previous generation. :lol:

I thought is was about doing KA24DE swaps because drift car.