Hi Misha, Thanks again for the amazing lap. You really showed me what the car and you are capable of. This gives me a nice benchmark to keep in mind when modding the car. I had a blast and created a memory I will never forget. Next up: Big brake kit! haha
1 thing i noticed that u have whiteline "caster Com" frot absorber top mount... But it was installed incorrectly... The offset should be installed towards facing the car firewall (to the rear of the chassis) It will give better steering fedback in cormer entry as well as straight line stability... (Better caster geometry from +3.5degree stock to around +4.5degree) The way its currently installed i would say your caster number will be less than factory stock.. maybe around +2.9degree -ish...which was far from optimal
Anyone who has ever experienced a failing brake will agree it's the real Pucker Factor 10.0 moment in one's life. It's like walking on a stopped escalator. Your brain has an expectation about it (pushing this pedal is harder and it slows down the car), but when you experience the contrary (the car isn't slowing down and the pedal just drops to the floor), all your confidence and sense of security is gone. Our brain starts to look for escape routes, suddenly every other car is brake checking on us.
Yep. Its truly horrible feeling. Had a brand new VW Transporter with stuff in the back and its brake booster failed. I almost went to a back of a bus while standing on the brakes, not knowing what the hell is happening.
@@LawrenceTimme but cooked brakes still work, somewhat :D. I know because I have caught my Focus ST and Fiesta ST brakes on fire a few times. It's the sudden "fuck, nothing is happening, am I standing on the wrong pedal or something" :D
happened on my bike,i stopped on a lil decline after a long downhill ride. gave it a minute then got on it, i hit the brakes and ther is nothin - rolled on to a bussy streat fortunetly at the moment there was no car
@MotorHeartAT mine were mildly tuned (Mountune Stage 1 type sets). One of the biggest downfalls of fast Fords are the brakes. I didnt need an extinguisher, got them to settle down with driving and didnt even warp discs. Yes, those cars were driven hard, but still, they caught on way way too fast. Even my MX-5 NA does better job with handling its brakes.
The sound of a Subaru's engine has been and always will be my favourite sounding car, my dad has had a couple of Subaru Impreza WRX STI since I was young and they just sound amazing 😊😊
Great so see a Impreza on your channel. For the people that don’t know, i’m the current owner of the Impreza. Reacted on facebook first, without realizing the end of the video. Was surprised to be honest, because we didn’t talk about it when I was at Apex. Didn’t know that the subaru love was still that strong, but good to see that the love is still there.
They never get boring do they !! My most fun driving years have been in spec C’s and GC8 ra /type R’s .. keep your Yaris GR’s a spec c or widetrack would run rings around one .
@@k20ee96 The latest spec c corrects all the faults of the previous models, especially in terms of braking ... but the gc8 has a flavor not found elsewhere
@@THESHADOW97139 ...the gc8 had character....the later cars, not so much.....the gc8 could be modified quite well to perform way beyond the abilities of all but a few who think they know how to drive......they never handled worth a damn, but they had tremendous grip when done well. i went through dozens of sets of RA1's on my gc8 STi clone
@@grahamhaynes7658 Spec c is better than a standard STI or widetrack STI, and def above a GR yaris. GR Yaris is more comparable to a base model STI (and even then prob still a touch slower - depending on the track in question of course). Watch video - "Toyota GR Yaris v Subaru Impreza WRX STI track test and performance review" by Car Expert, and you see Chris Atkinson (actual former WRC driver) drive a base VA STI and still get a faster lap than a GR Yaris.
Was the proud owner of a 2000 GC8. Very mild tune, just a exhaust and a chip. Loved it. That engine sound at low revs is just so damn good. My dad would steal the car on saturday morning when I was still in bed :)
GC8's all had a stock oil cooler that I found to work quite well, its a oil -> coolant heat exchanger at the base of the oil filter housing. Even with medium power upgrades it always held up ok. Watching this brought back memories and smiles, they were such a drivers car compared to most today, they were almost like driving a gokart... just fun.
I still have mine I bought in February 2000. It still brings a smile to my face, much like yours when driving it. I will never willingly get rid of this car.
I have an 04 Forester XT with VF39 and a whole bunch of other STi parts. So this is the closest this to my car I have seen on here, really awesome to see!
That smile you get from reliving your Boy Racer memories :-) I played with a late 90's 22b STi and it was a fun thing for sure but an Evo IV came up and I bought that and played in the dirt for a few years where im more "At Home". The Suby was an awesome thing even in stock STi form and I regretted selling it but the Evo IV was too good a deal to pass up and having driven Winton and Bathurst on club days IMO the Evo felt more sure footed on Yoko A008's (The best at the time). That engine note though ...... Gave me goosebumps and a big smile!
Awesome vid. I daily drive mine (in the summer) and I love it more than anything. Currently 100% stock with less than 100k miles but whenever the stock drivetrain dies I have a swap already waiting to go in. I want to leave it stock as long as possible.
Never sell your first car you will always regret it. Still have my 97 GC8 when I bought it brand new when I was a young 23yo lad. GC8 models release between 92 to 2000, I believe the best ones that came from production was the 97, 98 & maybe 99 because this was the time when Subaru won 3 x WRC championships in a row. Mine was a GC8 97 special edition managed 255kph stock & it was scary as fok floaty. Small upgrade I did was front lip, rear diffuser, slotted brakes, whiteline adjustable shocks, whiteline handling kit + sway bars & anti lift kit, alloy control arms, engine mounts, transmission shock mount, Exedy Lightweight race flywheel made a huge difference rev so fast I thought I was revving a bike, ACT heavy duty race clutch, PPG gearbox rebuild 1 & 2 straight cut 3 to 5 helical, quick shift gear shifter, Perkin rear diff race cooler cover - very lucky find they're rare, Speedy race alloy rims 17' x 8' just fitted full steering lock no scrubbing but had to roll the guards out slightly for the Advan 235 Yokohama's, AP racing 4 pot front 2 pot rear brakes, AP slotted rotors, highflow dump pipe, 3' exhaust all way, tomei exhaust manifold, APS intercooler top mount + water injectors, BFG blow off valve, cold induction box with KNR high flow air filter, 800cc injectors ran a bit rich but safer than lean, high flow oil pump, high capacity oil sump with oil baffle plates so no starvation issues at hard cornering, Bosch high flow fuel pump with tank baffle & plates so no fuel starvation issues are hard cornering, oil cooler, hitech highflow radiator, fuel cut defender & boost interface bypass ECU, APEX adjustable boost good thing about the 97 GC8 the ECU Subaru designed was a self learning self mapping ECU so when you changed airflow or boost the ECU was able to remap itself to suit the changes. Because it was easy to mod your car Subaru removed this feature on later models. Cusco strat bar front & rear & Cusco LSD lock one way front & rear. Engine was stock with stock turbo running 16 to 18 psi putting out around 340 to 350HP wasn't bad before 2000 & the engine held up good didn't fail even pushed to 8k rpm. I think Subaru under specked these models on paper when they put them onto the market due to regulation & just D-tuned them.😁😁
i got taken to school in the back of many wrx’s as a kid and even when i had mine and drive them now occasionally they are some of the most fun cars ever, i have a e92 m3 and i still have more fun driving a wrx lol.
The GC8 Impreza was what I wanted as a teenager but in the US we only got the RS 2.5 as the top model. Eventually purchased a Evo8 when they arrived in the States and been a Evo guy since. Would be a dream to ship my current track prepped Evo X to Europe to have you test it Misha!
Also Stock Brake Fluid is only DOT3 so not made for prolonged hard driving or racing like this, will quickly foam up and boil. So many Classic WRX Owners never upgrade to DOT4 or better and it can't run DOT5.1
Brakes are always the first thing I upgrade on a car. And with a reason. A car can have so much power tweaks; but you only really need the brakes once to get you out of a crash.
Get a 2004 widetrack prodrive STI and a gc8 and swap everything from the 2004 to the gc8 you will have a killer car that with a bit of care can last forever and hold onto the memories . Awesome video loved it
As on the non sti wrx, these discs and calipers are too undersized to do the circuit, in competitive mode ... the best thing is to start by mounting the brembos of the wrx sti ... at the rear, it will not be not plug and play, the 2 holes of the brackets do not fall in the same place . Can't wait for me to put mine back together
There is a part of me that always wanted to build up a 2 door GC8, but by the time I had the funding to do it properly all of them had either rusted into oblivion or cost more than a new base Cayman.
They’re not the fastest, nor the best handling, but a GC8 just gets under your skin. I would love to have another Type R in my garage, but with the spec c drivetrain this time.
Back in the days my cousin bought a brand new Scoob (1998) model and was showing it off to me and went for a spin, I said "nice car, sounds and handles great but.. those brakes..... not sure about those" He replied "those brakes a bad-ass with dual pot calipers, nothing wrong with them". I said "I will show you but don't complain about warped discs!!" Needless to say in five minutes the brakes were red hot and totally destroyed, he went for an AP Racing brake set up 🤣🤣
Without playing professional mechanics we see that the brake discs are very worn and certainly the calipers so maybe the hydraulic liquid and if there is water on it with the heat it does steam which is compressible unlike hydraulic fluid etc,etc😮
I love this impreza because it looks like a serious car for mature people, the next one looks like a barbie car, but the next one is also more memorable.
I had a US spec 2000 'RS' with the NA engine that I did a JDM EJ207 swap in i 2002....I put an 18G turbo and all that stuff on it....I spent a lot of money to turn it into, as close as possible, a JDM spec STi.....I really wish I still had that car as it really was a LOT of fun to drive....and YES, the stock brakes sucked.....but that is easily fixable.
As a long time bugeye owner, I’ve experienced that loss of brakes so many times on stock brakes, no lines counter it, pads, rotors nothing💀after a bit they just cant keep up
It's not often you see a windows down lap but you know if it's a GC8 with exhaust Misha is making an audio quality exception so we can hear the rumble echoing off the barriers.
I have had one of those no brakes at all moments in a car.. an Austin Mini at 60mph headed right for a staggered crossing over a busy trunk road (also 60 mph) ... down the gears, on with the hand brake and stopped 3 feet short of the line... passenger asked me why I used the handbrake... when I showed him the foot brake pedal he went white.. and thereafter called me cucumber because he otherwise had no clue... I was just focused on stopping us safely and had no time to divert attention to verbal or other indications XD
I've had a GC8 with a USDM WRX swapped engine that made 227HP and ECU flashed to 255HP. The car off the line beats many sports cars that were around 300HP because mine only had around 2700lbs. It was fast but the chasis feels very unstable compared to modern cars. I always slow down below 90mph because the car doesn't feel very stable under lots of hair bends as it wasn't very rigid compared to German cars of the same era.
17:15 A little correction: At some point (in 1999 / 2000) the Impreza GT Turbo costs less than 50.000 gulden (ca. 22.500 euro) in the Netherlands. A big deal, although without ABS and airco.
JDM brake servos are not left foot braking friendly, there's a check valve inside the vacuum line that will start acting weird if both braking & throttle pedals are pressed, somehow for turbo charged engines it may create positive pressure inside the servo
Mishas smile👌Yeah the breakes are a pain at that Car. I've added a Brake cooling and racing Fluid after the gravel bed took over the break job... Hope they will last now
So i was casually watching Misha's video, not really paying attention, heard them laugh at the Quiddelbacher Höher so i thought: "wait, what was so funny? Let me justrewind 10 seconds." THEN I SAW MY CAR, THE HONDA CR-Z! AH YES, Misha was following me all through Hatzenbach!
that smile of you is addicted, my wife looks at me with big eyes, and asks what are you looking at. is said Misha in a Subaru hahaha. this is why i need one, one day in my life.
