The funniest thing about these posts is that anyone can get emotionally involved. I bet I'll never see that WRX (if it was a WRX) again or the Vette or the Targa. It was a fun drive to the summit and back. I had an absolute hoot for 45 minutes.

I wouldn't trade those minutes now for new GT3. Dumb as that sounds, I wouldn't.

I love my car and get my tail spanked on a regular basis @ track days, by M3s, Vettes, any number of other Porsches and a Miata or two, driven by the right folks. Hell a Mini Cooper can be a real challenge on a bad day.

oxymoron of the day
 

I suppose it is good to downplay the SC's superiority, so they don't know what hit 'em. :)

Jürgen, SCWDP chapter of West Tennessee :)

Embs--I'm not being critical so please don't take it that way--I've got the same setup as you--3.6 SC targa. I'll just think twice when I come up against one of these cars on the strip. I'll have to lower my expectations cuz I thought I would be able to hang with them. What's Protomotives's phone # again?.....

My wrx is fast but not fast enough to take an old 911 with a bigger engine shoe-horned in. The rex has around 12-14lbs of boost stock and from what I have heard if you crank that over 16 you'll blow number 3 since the turbo is right on top of it and causes too much heat on that cylinder. So unless it's really modified they can't be boosted too much.

With all this talk I just had go look up the specs on the current WRX. A buddy of mine has one and last track day he mentioned that, "it's not really a race car like a 911". I just took that as a little car envy and with a grain of salt. I also noticed he avoided our run group like the plague. I just figured he either didn't want to or couldn't play with the "basic" 20 year old 911s.

2003 Impreza WRX:
215 HP @ 6k rpm
Torque 217 @ 4k rpm
3085 pounds

My '79 SC
est. 205hp @ 7K rpm
2300 pounds
and a set of gears that will embarrass a WRX between 40mph and 140mph.


A stock SC gear set, 300 hp stuffed into a 2600 pound 911 should run circles around a WRX, even the STi 300 hp version @ 3263 pounds. If it won't something is clearly wrong with the 911.

Please note I did mention circles. A 915's 1st gear, the box and the clutch was never designed for drag racing.

I do believe in the power to weight ratio thing. The 3.6 in my 2465 lbs Targa makes my 3032lbs 300HP C4 feel slow in comparison. That's of course only a butt dyno measurement. Same power but 600 lbs more weight.

Problem is that I get so exited in those little street drags that I tend to forget to shift and redline comes sooo fast. As Moses said, in 1st you can't get your food all the way to the metal before it hits. And second is not much better....

ingo

HAAHAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH! GOOD ONE!:D ;)

Last time I was at Thunderhill with my '88 Carrera was with NASA in one of the "intermediate" run groups. There was an 18 year old kid in a Ford SVT Contour (FWD sedan with ~220 HP) who was constantly in front of me. I'd stay with him in corners and could never get around him on the straights. He was a really good driver who knew his car, and he was using the safe understeer to its limits. On the other hand, I was (am) a newish track driver whose main goal is to have some fun and not wad up my car.

In the pits, I walked over to talk to the kid and look at his car, and he said "why didn't you ever blow past me? I was pulling over in the straights to let you by!" He thought I'd come over to yell at him, not shoot the breeze. He was totally surprised to hear that my Carrera just didn't have the beans to zip past. Another, better driver would have taken him in a turn and walked away, but I couldn't.

Anyway, my point is that your WRX friend not wanting to play with the 911s doesn't have anything to do with the cars' respective mechanical abilities. There are a lot of preconceptions about Porsches out there (which we do everything we can to nurture :)). I'm still saying that the WRX is a fast car and is going to give any NA 911 made a good run for its money.

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EDIT: Okay, that was quite rambling and confusing. Here's my point: WRXs are fast cars, driven by people who believe that Porsches are faster.

But with average drivers at the wheel, a lot of Porsches are not faster than WRXs, and there's just no getting around it. You can argue that we're all above average, and that's why we can all spank WRXs, or you can be realistic and realize that we are driving old cars that aren't warp speed anymore.

We still look cooler, but technology marches on. :)
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One more time. I agree with rdane...a lightened 911 with 3.6 should CLOBBER a WRX in every category, including straight line. You guys are bowing humbly to cars that are not the equal of a Porsche 911.

I also agree with what I think Colin has said. Namely that for many motorists, your Porsche wins unless you race somebody and lose. So, if you want to be King of the Road to most motorists, just don't race.

2003 Impreza WRX owned by typical performance-minded enthusiast:
260-300 HP
260-300 lb-ft
It's unbelievably cheap and easy to add power to a WRX. There may be some naive WRX owners who think their bone-stock cars are the fastest thing around (kinda like Boxster owners), but the typical punk who pulls up on you on the highway is probably running higher boost, a bigger turbo, and certainly a custom mapped ECU.

"why didn't you ever blow past me? I was pulling over in the straights to let you by!"

Too funny. We had a gomer in an old, smoking, BMW 2002 that would pull over in every passing zone, he just never let off the peddle. There were cars there that "blew" past him. None of the older 911s were in that group though. We passed him on the long straight. Lots of capable cars out there. A lot fewer capable drivers.

A WRX is a nice car. I suspect my suspension and tires are a lot better than a stock set up on a WRX. I have not dissed the WRX, just not impressd by one. The actual difference in a 200hp 2300# car and a 225hp 3100# car is hardly going to be noticable on the track unless you are a skilled driver. The 2300# will be faster every where, hard to take advantage of that fact as a beginning driver. ( I am one BTW) Make the suspension set up a lot better on the 2300# car, add some driver skills and lights should be going on.

You can buy a darn nice 911 for 25K and an even better one for $30K. Any number of older 911s currently in that price range will walk away from a either factory WRXs in 225 or 300HP versions. Trick is being able to actually use that 300hp.

Off the track I can't drive my crew cab pickup to the limit let alone a Mini Cooper or my 911. While I would like to have a 500hp 911 everytime I track my car there are so few cars on the street that can a run away from me there without the risk of loosing the car and your license why stress about more HP?

300 hp and a light car, set up right, should do just about anything a person can ask, including loosing your driving license ;)

Jack Olsen mentioned something about driving against 500 hp cars in the OTC. I think he still has 260HP, 3.6 and a light car....he seems to have done "OK" so far in that set up. And whipped a few 500 HP cars while doing it.

Good points all, but I can't get over the fact that you guys are talking about 911s modified on an extreme scale. Yet you make the assumption that your "opponent" hasn't done even the most basic tuning.

Why not just assume that the guy in the other car can't drive, or has a medical condition preventing more than half-throttle accelleration? Then you can win ALL your races. :D

I think Dane and Superman pretty much answer the question here. I can't see how any of these cars can blow away a 911 - even with the slightest suspension and lightweight modifications -not in the long run at least. With all the AWD gear on a WRX, the weight to transfer fore and aft, etc, I would figure it would bog in the corners more than slide as might a 911, even as a WRX is meant to "slide." BMWs and Cobras I'd be more worried about. Corvettes even more so.

In general, I don't know. Don't really care, either. 911s are much nicer than buy-me-now-dispose-of-me-later WRXs, Beemers, Mustangs and Corvettes. In the cool category, a 911 is the 800-pound gorilla compared to run of the mill hot-for-today automobilia. Yes, something has to be said for the aforementioned cars, but few are as engineered for performance driving as the 911. The BMW might be the closest, or the Corvette. But a Mustang is a Fairmont in pony car clothing, and a WRX is an economy car in reality. The 911 is a 911, hands down.

This is particularly true of the older models, like pre 90s. For twenty-year-old cars and older to still be competitive against today's new-new car is quite remarkable.

I wouldn't lose sleep about it. I'd worry more about Arnold becoming governor; or Ariana, who might take away all our fun car toys in general. In the meantime, if you really want to trounce competition, by a Formula Atlantic.

"Good points all, but I can't get over the fact that you guys are talking about 911s modified on an extreme scale."

Geeeezzzzzzuuuuuusssssssssss!

Adding a set of SSIs, a very moderate set of cams and taking out my back seat is extreme? My gear box is so similar to the older European gear sets it is hardly worth mentioning.

I smoked the WRX from 60 to 110 and I let him go first! And I bet I was 20 years older than the driver of the WRX! What else should I give 'um?

My car will be 25 years old soon. This conversation reminds me of the old bull and the new bull standing on the hilll looking at a herd of cows. The young bull says...... well, if you haven't heard it you should have.

My point is short of $50K you'd be hard pressed to come up with a car that will keep up with a Carrera that has a little tweaking. Let alone a light 911 with a good 3.6, done right. If even a gomer like me can tweak a old 911 into a car that ISUSUHODAKASUBARRO can't keep up with for our less than 25K$, then we have decent cars.

Even if some of us could use a good tuneup ;)

Screw this I am going to buy a WRX dump 30K into it and then hunt you laggers down for some pink slip drag racing !

Oh, sorry--thought you were a member of the lightweight 3.6 brigade. :)
A little tweaking? A $22k WRX + $28k of work will do a lot more than keep up... {argh, stop. Must. Not. Bench race!} :D

These aren't heavily modded cars rally, putting a 3.6 into an early car is the equivalent of taking a base model mustang and dropping in a cobra 4.6 into it. Heavily modded would be running around with a pair of garrets next to the motor boosting over 700hp to the wheels. These are lightweight sports cars with the engineering intent of going fast and handling very well, the AC sucks, the heating is ok, and radio could be better so obviously comfort wasn't top priority. The wrx gives a little of everything for a very reasonable price.

BTW, i thought the wrx with a few moderate options was like 30k at msrp?

The STi is 30K msrp...I just wanted the best WRX and figured another 30K would make it a decent car ;) 1000 hp and 1800lbs so I should keep up with a GT3 in the straights. :LMAO:

Another thought. We're not talking about 993TT versus (place econobox model name here). We're not talking about 996 versus (place econobox model name here). We're still comparing new factory hotrods with twenty year-old Porsches. (smiley face goes here) And we're not even finding that the new factory hotrod stacks up in any sort of dominant way. Against Porsche engineering that is two or three (automotive) generations old.

I personally am surprised the older cars weren't faster than they actually are - nowadays manufacturers have to deal with all sorts of issues. Between emissions controls, safety restrictions, noise restrictions, and whiny mass market consumers, I think the new cars are doing pretty well! :D