Hello from Essex

Thanks!

My first Impreza was a 2002 Bugeye WRX which I modified to around 275/260 and fitted coilovers, ARB's, droplinks, STi brakes etc.. it was a great car, loads of fun on the road but always had a touch of understeer no matter what geometry/ARB/tyres it had. Wasn't much of a problem on the road and only reared it's head when pushing too hard on track. It sounded good, drove well, comfortable for what it was and gave me 7 1/2 years and 98k miles of fun.

The last one was a proper 'nutter' Impreza, a 2006 JDM Spec C which was Subaru's proper attempt at making a fast road/track car. I modified it to 365/400 and it was a great car! It had loads of extra bits over the UK models, shorter steering rack, thinner glass, no sound deadening, roof flap, stiffer chassis, equal length headers (no burble), twin scroll turbo (virtually no lag) and had DCCD (Drivers Centre Controlled Diff) which made the car so much better than my previous one.
Left in Auto mode it works similar to an EVO, using yaw and speed sensors and steering angle it adjusted the power between the front and rear wheels and got rid of 99% of the understeer. Turn into a corner and give it a bootfull, the rear stepped out and pushed the front of the car in towards the apex, all in a totally controlled manor, absolutely fantastic on road and track. You could manually adjust for up to 65% (I think) to the rear so basically had a rear biased car (drifty) with the added confidence of front end grip which made it a proper monster when you were in the mood.

The MX-5 is totally different, very light, great steering and chassis, soft top, loads of fun and just brings a smile to my face everytime I drive it!
It's very 'go-kart' like as it's so small and darty.

The Spec C was a bit serious, you had to concentrate all the time, it was an adrenaline rush everytime you got behind the wheel whether you were on track or just driving to the shops. Absolutely fantastic bit of kit but got very tiring at times and unless you were driving fast then you were just bouncing up and down due to the suspension and constantly correcting the steering due to the quick-rack, and after 8 years I fancied something different.

Basically the MX-5 is fun 100% of the time whether your plodding along or giving it some beans, where as the Spec C at least, was fun 60-70% of the time, fantastic on track, great fun on A and B roads but only when you could actually use it, sitting at 70mph on a motorway got a bit annoying quite quickly.



Didn't mean to type quite that much!

I had a Turbo 2000 PPP on Prodrive Bilsteins alongside my MX5 for a couple of years. Very different beasts, very different to drive, but equally fun and involving. Had to concentrate when changing from one to the other.

Hi! I'm a new member (and new mx5 owner) from South Essex. I'd definitely be interested in a mini meet at some point.
I bought a standard Jade Green mk2.5 a few months back.