Permit me to ramble on for a while about the Subaru Impreza GC8, one of which I’ve owned for more than 6 years now. How I happened to end up with a pretty crazy GC8 is actually a bit of a funny story..
My car in front of the Lago di Livigno on a roadtrip last summer.
The scooby is actually my first own car so when I bought it I didn’t know too much about cars, apart from basic knowledge of the Ferraris and Lamborghinis of the world.. But when I started looking for a cool car after having driven around in my parents car for a while I was drawn to the scooby. To be honest, that was probably because I had seen it on TV ripping through some muddy forrest or icy landscape on various WRC stages and then seen almost the same car inclooding scoop and wing on the street.. who wouldn’t want that?? And this is probably how quite a few people became aware of the Impreza and it’s eternal competition, the Mitsubishi Evo.
A 1997 Impreza WRC car, something I’d really like to drive some day..
So I bought one and kinda by accident got into something quite big, as there is quite the community behind the Subaru Impreza. As you might know, the Impreza is and always was also available as a normal non-turbo family car, but of course we’re only gonna talk about the performance versions of it here, simply said everything with a turbo in it.
Scooby meeting in the UK in the honour of the late Colin McRae.
Now unfortunately in recent years, both the Impreza and Evo have mainly become softened family cars, which are still able to go about as fast as any car on any road but just aren’t as raw anymore, with fancy electronics and wannabe-plush interiors. At least the Impreza doesn’t have a flappy-paddly-fiddly gearbox yet! What I really want to say is that the only real Impreza for real scooby drivers will always be the GC8 (being fully aware that a few GD drivers might take offence at this.. but come on, 1500kg? 😉 ). For people not too familiar with scoobies, the GC8 is the „old“ Impreza, back when Subaru still won rallies. Just to be correct, not every classic impreza turbo actually is a GC8.. the C stands for sedan or coupe versions, but there is also a wagon version called GF8. But for the sake of simplicity I’m gonna keep using GC8 in this article.
2011 Subaru Impreza STi, still good but not the same..
The wagon is just as good as the sedan/coupe underneath and has its own appeal by being different.
So in this article I’m gonna talk about the GC8 with most (but not all..) of it being true for the New Age Imprezas too (in scooby language, GC8’s are classics, everything after that is „New Age“, consisting of bugeye, blobeye/peanuteye, hawkeye and some mazda-resembling thing which I don’t really know how they call it..). There are an almost infinite number of versions and varations of the Impreza GC8, with none of the really good ones ever having been sold in europe. It all really started in 1994 with the first full WRX STi version in Japan, ending for the GC8 with the Version VI in 1999. Along the way there were also very special versions like the homologation special 22B version, which remains until today the ultimate Impreza, no further discussion ;).
An Impreza WRX STi Version V (with version VI rear wing and front lip). This is the Coupe version called Type R.
A nicely done Type R Version VI.
The ultimate Impreza, the widebody EJ22 WRC homologation special 22B, only 424 were built.
Another special version, the UK only Impreza P1 by Prodrive, which was based on a Type R Version VI.
But unfortunately, europe never got any of these STi’s, so we had to make do with a toned down „GT“ version, being equal to what was called just WRX in Japan. This had the same basic EJ20 1994ccm Boxer Turbo engine as the STi, but with generally weaker parts all over the car and 218PS instead of 280 for the STi.
GC8 engine bay.. in an STi the characteristically shaped inlet manifold would be red.
But still, what we got was a four wheel drive turbo rally weapon which was able to run away from pretty much everything you would encounter on a public road and also certainly looked the part. So quite a few of them were sold which means that there are still plenty of good ones out there to be found. Which is exactly what I did and was happy with for some time, having bought a scooby with a few nice extras on it already. Almost inevitably though, at some point owning a scooby (or actually any japanese performance car I guess) you start modifying stuff.. because there is always something to be improved upon. Isn’t that what we love the most about them, that there is just sooo much potential in them, depending on effort and budget you can make pretty much anything out of them. This is especially the case for Scoobies in my opinion. Making drift cars out of them might be a bit tricky but I’ve seen it several times. And for grip racing or fast road driving, I completely agree that the absolute purist solution will always be a good RWD car but with the right setup, a scooby GC8 can be pretty close in adjustability and fun plus its incredible traction means it’s pretty hard to keep up with.
Watch out or he might just run away from you!
at every Speed Industries Trackday there are always one or two scoobies having fun.
It takes some effort but several RWD-converted drift scoobies have been done.
Then there’s the absolute ultimate performance potential demonstrated by several Time Attack contenders especially in the UK. Also there’s the absolute all-weather capability added to the mix, be it a rainy forrest road that can still be attacked at a pace unattainable to mere mortals in anything else or even more importantly, snow! I can tell you that if you own a GC8, you will never be sitting in your appartment when it’s snowing outside. One of my most memorable drive is a several hours long session on Swiss mountain roads in the Engadin region on an evening when it was snowing heavily for hours on end. I had my own rally sweden there.
The ultimate Time Attack weapon, the 850bhp Roger Clark Motorsports „Gobstopper“ based on a WRX STi Type R.
Also pretty much stock Imprezas are a lot of fun on snow!
Not even big loads of snow can stop a GC8, visibility issues might arise with low front spoilers though..
All weather, all terrain.. as long as you don’t mind a bit of cleaning.
I mentioned above that to get the best out of it, you will have to change a few things about the GC8. This is especially true for the european GT versions. I recently had the opportunity to drive a STi Version VI and have to say that it has pretty much what is missing from the WRX/GT. Of course it can still be improved in many ways but what I wanna mention here is some basic stuff. I’ve modified a long list of parts on my own cars and won’t mention every single one of them but here are the most important things I can think of right now:
One of the weak points are the WRX’s brakes. The original front brakes are Brembo four-pots with 294 discs, which is just about adequate for road use but won’t get you anywhere on track, especially with a tendendy to overheat. I got pretty good results with decent pads, discs, braided hoses plus a small custom part that stabilizes the main brake cylinder. For real performance you will have to go for the full big brake kit, with several available from different manufacturers. I had a 328mm Brembo setup on the car for a couple of years which I’ve unfortunately had to remove again due to legality issues in Switzerland and I really miss their incredible stopping performance!
Strong brakes will really improve a car’s performance as well as give you better confidence to attack a track.
To be honest, the first thing I would change on a stock WRX is the suspension, as the stock setup of a GC8 WRX appears to be quite soft and wallowy. I can’t say for sure because I haven’t actually driven a stock GC8 myself, but I’ve followed one and I constantly prepared for the moment when it would finally fall over. The best coilovers I’ve had on my car was a fully adjustable Cusco Zero 2R setup, but this had serious leaking issues, so I currently run a set of student’s budged-regulated adjustable BC coilovers. What I’ve learned here in general is that the fancy and expensive setups will be worth their price, but cheaper options provide 90% of the performance for 50% of the price, so you will have to decide what you want. Aside from coilovers, what you really have to deal with is understear and how to get rid of it. As the european GC8 unfortunately didn’t get the STi’s decent limited-slip differentials, the cars natural balance is slightly towards understear. The way I was able to cure that is by slightly harder damper settings at the back (relative, in terms of damper settings), a chunky whiteline anti-roll bar at the back (into which we actually drilled additional holes to be able to set it even stiffer) plus quite aggresive negative camber settings at the front. But finally, as with all cars, you can have the best suspension components available (and there are lots more for the Impreza) but they’ll all be pretty worthless without a good alignment, so go to a shop who has the full laser equipment and your car will be transformed!
Getting parts and settings of your suspension right is all important for good handling!
Engine-wise, the WRX can be improved to STi levels quite easily. A simple remap or if you like it riskier even just a boost controller and fuel cut defender will see at least 260PS from a european GT with no reliability penalties whatsoever. Going on from there getting a slightly bigger turbo will get you above the 300PS mark which makes for a pretty quick car. I won’t go into more details here, because it would turn this post into a tech-fest and most you know how to tune engines anyway.
A cut-up EJ20 engine, showing the distinct Boxer layout.
Stock STi engine setup, the intercooler to be fed by the scoop with the turbo to the side of it, top left of the picture (not visible)
Improving the cooling by adding a Front Mounted Intercooler results in very long air pathways, worsening response somewhat. The next step would be to rotate the inlet manifold.
Very highly modified EJ20 setup, including custom turbo location and a huge oilcooler where the intercooler is usually situated. As there’s no intercooler to be seen this car must run on Methanol, which cools the mixture enough on its own.
If you want you can go as far as this, the Andy Forrest Impreza.. it runs 8-second 1/4-miles. Unfortunately found no engine picture.
Finally there’s the exterior.. as with every performance car, there are an almost infinite number of bodykits, spoilers and wings available. In my opinion though, a GC8 doesn’t need a lot of modification in this department, e.g. I’ve never seen a front that looked better than the original. All I did on mine was to add a front spoiler lip as I don’t like the look without it and put a big wing on it because Imprezas need to have big giant wings! 🙂
It needs the wing, otherwise everyone would laugh at it!
So to summarize, even though there might be many ruined examples running the streets of Spreitenbach, always respect the Impreza because done and driven correctly, it is unbeatable! 😉Permit me to ramble on for a while about the Subaru Impreza GC8, one of which I’ve owned for more than 6 years now. How I happened to end up with a pretty crazy GC8 is actually a bit of a funny story..
My car in front of the Lago di Livigno on a roadtrip last summer.
The scooby is actually my first own car so when I bought it I didn’t know too much about cars, apart from basic knowledge of the Ferraris and Lamborghinis of the world.. But when I started looking for a cool car after having driven around in my parents car for a while I was drawn to the scooby. To be honest, that was probably because I had seen it on TV ripping through some muddy forrest or icy landscape on various WRC stages and then seen almost the same car inclooding scoop and wing on the street.. who wouldn’t want that?? And this is probably how quite a few people became aware of the Impreza and it’s eternal competition, the Mitsubishi Evo.
A 1997 Impreza WRC car, something I’d really like to drive some day..
So I bought one and kinda by accident got into something quite big, as there is quite the community behind the Subaru Impreza. As you might know, the Impreza is and always was also available as a normal non-turbo family car, but of course we’re only gonna talk about the performance versions of it here, simply said everything with a turbo in it.
Scooby meeting in the UK in the honour of the late Colin McRae.
Now unfortunately in recent years, both the Impreza and Evo have mainly become softened family cars, which are still able to go about as fast as any car on any road but just aren’t as raw anymore, with fancy electronics and wannabe-plush interiors. At least the Impreza doesn’t have a flappy-paddly-fiddly gearbox yet! What I really want to say is that the only real Impreza for real scooby drivers will always be the GC8 (being fully aware that a few GD drivers might take offence at this.. but come on, 1500kg? 😉 ). For people not too familiar with scoobies, the GC8 is the „old“ Impreza, back when Subaru still won rallies. Just to be correct, not every classic impreza turbo actually is a GC8.. the C stands for sedan or coupe versions, but there is also a wagon version called GF8. But for the sake of simplicity I’m gonna keep using GC8 in this article.
2011 Subaru Impreza STi, still good but not the same..
The wagon is just as good as the sedan/coupe underneath and has its own appeal by being different.
So in this article I’m gonna talk about the GC8 with most (but not all..) of it being true for the New Age Imprezas too (in scooby language, GC8’s are classics, everything after that is „New Age“, consisting of bugeye, blobeye/peanuteye, hawkeye and some mazda-resembling thing which I don’t really know how they call it..). There are an almost infinite number of versions and varations of the Impreza GC8, with none of the really good ones ever having been sold in europe. It all really started in 1994 with the first full WRX STi version in Japan, ending for the GC8 with the Version VI in 1999. Along the way there were also very special versions like the homologation special 22B version, which remains until today the ultimate Impreza, no further discussion ;).
An Impreza WRX STi Version V (with version VI rear wing and front lip). This is the Coupe version called Type R.
A nicely done Type R Version VI.
The ultimate Impreza, the widebody EJ22 WRC homologation special 22B, only 424 were built.
Another special version, the UK only Impreza P1 by Prodrive, which was based on a Type R Version VI.
But unfortunately, europe never got any of these STi’s, so we had to make do with a toned down „GT“ version, being equal to what was called just WRX in Japan. This had the same basic EJ20 1994ccm Boxer Turbo engine as the STi, but with generally weaker parts all over the car and 218PS instead of 280 for the STi.
GC8 engine bay.. in an STi the characteristically shaped inlet manifold would be red.
But still, what we got was a four wheel drive turbo rally weapon which was able to run away from pretty much everything you would encounter on a public road and also certainly looked the part. So quite a few of them were sold which means that there are still plenty of good ones out there to be found. Which is exactly what I did and was happy with for some time, having bought a scooby with a few nice extras on it already. Almost inevitably though, at some point owning a scooby (or actually any japanese performance car I guess) you start modifying stuff.. because there is always something to be improved upon. Isn’t that what we love the most about them, that there is just sooo much potential in them, depending on effort and budget you can make pretty much anything out of them. This is especially the case for Scoobies in my opinion. Making drift cars out of them might be a bit tricky but I’ve seen it several times. And for grip racing or fast road driving, I completely agree that the absolute purist solution will always be a good RWD car but with the right setup, a scooby GC8 can be pretty close in adjustability and fun plus its incredible traction means it’s pretty hard to keep up with.
Watch out or he might just run away from you!
at every Speed Industries Trackday there are always one or two scoobies having fun.
It takes some effort but several RWD-converted drift scoobies have been done.
Then there’s the absolute ultimate performance potential demonstrated by several Time Attack contenders especially in the UK. Also there’s the absolute all-weather capability added to the mix, be it a rainy forrest road that can still be attacked at a pace unattainable to mere mortals in anything else or even more importantly, snow! I can tell you that if you own a GC8, you will never be sitting in your appartment when it’s snowing outside. One of my most memorable drive is a several hours long session on Swiss mountain roads in the Engadin region on an evening when it was snowing heavily for hours on end. I had my own rally sweden there.
The ultimate Time Attack weapon, the 850bhp Roger Clark Motorsports „Gobstopper“ based on a WRX STi Type R.
Also pretty much stock Imprezas are a lot of fun on snow!
Not even big loads of snow can stop a GC8, visibility issues might arise with low front spoilers though..
All weather, all terrain.. as long as you don’t mind a bit of cleaning.
I mentioned above that to get the best out of it, you will have to change a few things about the GC8. This is especially true for the european GT versions. I recently had the opportunity to drive a STi Version VI and have to say that it has pretty much what is missing from the WRX/GT. Of course it can still be improved in many ways but what I wanna mention here is some basic stuff. I’ve modified a long list of parts on my own cars and won’t mention every single one of them but here are the most important things I can think of right now:
One of the weak points are the WRX’s brakes. The original front brakes are Brembo four-pots with 294 discs, which is just about adequate for road use but won’t get you anywhere on track, especially with a tendendy to overheat. I got pretty good results with decent pads, discs, braided hoses plus a small custom part that stabilizes the main brake cylinder. For real performance you will have to go for the full big brake kit, with several available from different manufacturers. I had a 328mm Brembo setup on the car for a couple of years which I’ve unfortunately had to remove again due to legality issues in Switzerland and I really miss their incredible stopping performance!
Strong brakes will really improve a car’s performance as well as give you better confidence to attack a track.
To be honest, the first thing I would change on a stock WRX is the suspension, as the stock setup of a GC8 WRX appears to be quite soft and wallowy. I can’t say for sure because I haven’t actually driven a stock GC8 myself, but I’ve followed one and I constantly prepared for the moment when it would finally fall over. The best coilovers I’ve had on my car was a fully adjustable Cusco Zero 2R setup, but this had serious leaking issues, so I currently run a set of student’s budged-regulated adjustable BC coilovers. What I’ve learned here in general is that the fancy and expensive setups will be worth their price, but cheaper options provide 90% of the performance for 50% of the price, so you will have to decide what you want. Aside from coilovers, what you really have to deal with is understear and how to get rid of it. As the european GC8 unfortunately didn’t get the STi’s decent limited-slip differentials, the cars natural balance is slightly towards understear. The way I was able to cure that is by slightly harder damper settings at the back (relative, in terms of damper settings), a chunky whiteline anti-roll bar at the back (into which we actually drilled additional holes to be able to set it even stiffer) plus quite aggresive negative camber settings at the front. But finally, as with all cars, you can have the best suspension components available (and there are lots more for the Impreza) but they’ll all be pretty worthless without a good alignment, so go to a shop who has the full laser equipment and your car will be transformed!
Getting parts and settings of your suspension right is all important for good handling!
Engine-wise, the WRX can be improved to STi levels quite easily. A simple remap or if you like it riskier even just a boost controller and fuel cut defender will see at least 260PS from a european GT with no reliability penalties whatsoever. Going on from there getting a slightly bigger turbo will get you above the 300PS mark which makes for a pretty quick car. I won’t go into more details here, because it would turn this post into a tech-fest and most you know how to tune engines anyway.
A cut-up EJ20 engine, showing the distinct Boxer layout.
Stock STi engine setup, the intercooler to be fed by the scoop with the turbo to the side of it, top left of the picture (not visible)
Improving the cooling by adding a Front Mounted Intercooler results in very long air pathways, worsening response somewhat. The next step would be to rotate the inlet manifold.
Very highly modified EJ20 setup, including custom turbo location and a huge oilcooler where the intercooler is usually situated. As there’s no intercooler to be seen this car must run on Methanol, which cools the mixture enough on its own.
If you want you can go as far as this, the Andy Forrest Impreza.. it runs 8-second 1/4-miles. Unfortunately found no engine picture.
Finally there’s the exterior.. as with every performance car, there are an almost infinite number of bodykits, spoilers and wings available. In my opinion though, a GC8 doesn’t need a lot of modification in this department, e.g. I’ve never seen a front that looked better than the original. All I did on mine was to add a front spoiler lip as I don’t like the look without it and put a big wing on it because Imprezas need to have big giant wings! 🙂
It needs the wing, otherwise everyone would laugh at it!
So to summarize, even though there might be many ruined examples running the streets of Spreitenbach, always respect the Impreza because done and driven correctly, it is unbeatable! 😉