so, i want to come into this war of european cars vs jap cars.
1. If you want a light car -- Jap Car
2. If you want a safe car -- European car

a small comparisine, my poor vw polo weighs 1.3tons, my mother's mitsubishi lancer glx which has a larger engine and a taller body weighs less than my polo :eek:
Japs car are much lighter than europeans car but much less safe.

if you want speed in a 4cyl engine, than you must look into jap cars, hondas with their vtech and their monster rev limit which many of them can rev up to 10k have very powerful engines and very very reliable. and btw (especially to joe), hondas are not the only jap cars, there are nissan like the very wonderful skyline with a nice powerful 6cyl engine, there are the mitsubishi, toyota ...

what i mainly want to say is that if you are looking for a family car or for a luxury car, go for a european car like mercedes, bmw ... if you want a race car, go for jap car.

ok i did not forget the porsches and all the other super fast cars, but compairing the price of a porsche with that of a honda RSX or NSX, i would choose the honda :dome:

I don't know about that man. That Impreza that slammed into that bus was doing 240KPH and the driver lived. That's either pretty impresive safty or extreamly lucky or most likely a combination of the two. That wheel mark from the bus is a damn impressive hood ornament! Not cheap though...:D

BMW's are far from slow aswell. They make some damn fast and good handling cars. lets not forget the BMW Z8, M Coupe or (the more affordable) Z3.

I would take a Carrera over a NSX anyday.. they are similar in price, and an NSX could never touch a 911 in almost any area.

An RSX is a whole nother class of car, its an econobox small car, not a super car like the NSX and porsche so its not terribly fair to compare those.

And Jap cars arent bad, but they are too much of one thing and not enough of all the others. They are good on high reving low torque engines. They are making safer cars now than before but normally materials quality lacks until you get into the 50k$ range for them. Whereas you can get a hot European car with excelent material quality, solid engine, and way safe for less.

Weight is a factor, but I would much rather have some additional weight and have a car that can alow me to survive in a crash. And dont forget about European engine design... since most Jap designs are based at some point off the ground breaking designs invented by Ferrari and Porsche. I mean valve lift changes while running at a certain throttle position (VTEC in honda) was being done by Porsche 20 years before Honda even thought of it.

I would personally like a more well rounded car than one thats overlooked comfort of the driver, and design quality for just more power. I mean you cant even begin to compare a Civic Si to a Mini Cooper in terms of build quality... I have drove both, and the Civic is plentiful in plastics, where as the mini seems much more conservative on using cheap plastic in places they dont need to.

Also ... desgin styling... Jap cars always look much flashier than I think they need to... European cars for the most part are very understated, but well refined designs.

Jap cars are coming along fast, but they are riding the coat tails of the European car MFG's who pioneered much of the technology they are using today.

you are right on variable valve timing technology (the vtech in honda). porsche invented that and nowaday, porsche and bmw only use that technology much wiser than used in hondas enigne but remember that most of bmw and porsches engines are 6cyl. the difference is the following, while the vtech of honda, or the vvti of toyota or the miver of mitsubishi are like an on/off switch, that vary only once through the rev rangel, the varibale valve timing found on the bmw enignes and on the porsches engines advances and retardes the camshafts all the way through the rev range, that is why bmw can get more than 100bhp per 1000cc in their engines :eek:

i like both types cars :D personally i would go for an evo 7 or the latest evo 8 or for a bmw m3 if you want the best of all sectors, maybe the evo is faster but the bmw is better built and nicer ;)

Those Mini Coopers are nice. If I save up for few months and they have a clearance sale I might be able to pick one of these up:

And the 996 is 10x1000000000000000000 times sexier too

My dream, when i get to be a Big boy, is to get an good ol' days mini, and stick a kawazaky ZX-12R engine in it...

meh, I'd rather just have a shifter kart. ;) Screw road cars, not a damn one will ever be as fast as a 250cc superkart, and most wont be as fast as a 125.

I do have a wrx though, and its kind of a pig. Understeers terribly. I think I'd be much happier with a Miata, or some other small, light, rwd car.

Even in the wet on asphalt, my wrx will plow extremely bad.

german cars rule.

BMW, Porsche, Audi, MB, even VW has good stuff.

they know how to make art of engineering.

jap cars arent bad, but they are european wannabes.

Well, I do agree that German cars are nice, but japanese cars are wannabes? Id hardly say so.. Jap. cars dont even try to immitate German cars. Also, the top Jap. "pocket rockets", Evo, WRX, Skyline, have many top spots as far as lap times for stock cars on road tracks. At nurburgring the Sti Spec C i believe is only second to like 2 or 3 cars, all costing 2-3 times as much as it.

So while German cars are nice, dont discount a Japanese car.....They can and have shown that the performance they bring to the table can hang with some of the top german sports cars, even while being WAY cheaper.

Also, what about a Z06 ;) 50k, <110 ft 60-0, 4 sec 0-60, 1g later grip, great handling characteristics. Tell those german cars to take that ;)

performance aint everything

I dont think anyone said it was. If it was everything, everyone would be driving crotch rocket bikes at a VERY nice power/weight ratio.

now if your poor, just transmitting rotational energy to some type of wheel is considered everything.

Thats the subaru push ;) all subaru's have that NASTY ass understeer. takes lots of suspension work, and excelent tires to overcome that.

Replacing the stock RE92 tires is a BIG first step in improving that car.

Kinda hard since every company around is now in bed with each other.

Toyissondenzryslemotorord.

Yeah, I already have replaced the Crap 92's. I got yokohama es100's, i kinda wish I went with the kumho ecsta's though. I dont want tires that are too grippy ;) I actually kinda liked the RE92's cause I COULD get them too break loose, and have alittle sideways fun.

And yes, it really takes a good set of coilovers and to make a wrx handle anywhere near neutral. So, thats why I am just gonna leave my car stock(basically) and get a s hifter kart. The $ per performance of a kart is ridiculous.

Careful with that... You might want to do some reading.

BMW's Double Vanos is only capable of changing the phase (retard/advance) of the cams. Read about it

Honda's Vtec is capable lift/duration by swapping in a completely independent set of cams at an RPM. Also, the new iVtec can control phase angle as well. Read about it

Porsche's Variocam Plus can control lift/duration as well as phase also.Read about it

As can Toyota's VVTL-i. Read about it

Phew. Joe's right that Porsche was playing with variable valve timing 20 years before Honda, but Honda brought it to the economy consumer market and made it mainstream.

*Edit*
Here's a fantastic comparison page of iVtec to VVT
Right here

that's only possible when using the dual cam system, vtech systems found on 1.5l engines dont have dual cam system and don't change the cams but only advances and retardes the cam on its engine. for example, the stage 3 vtec found on the 1.5l honda vtech engine advances the cam at 3.5k and advances it again at 5.5k, other stages of vtec's will advance the cam at only one point

Oh yes...I do love the Impreza - been a proud owner of the last of the old style turbos for 3,5 years now.

I've done just about everything myself on the car (including the mapping of the link ecu) - and I'm quite happy with it, not so much styling, but more power, roadholding and brakes. :D

http://www.impreza.nu/ssi2/expo/albu...2307.sized.jpg

0-60 just below 4 secs
60 ft:1,77
1/8 8.01 @ 87
1/4 12.72 @ 110.6

No naaaaawz. ;)

And it goes around corners like nothing else, and the brakes are of the sort that makes your head hurt. :evilaugh:

/J

NICE I love the old Impreza! If I could have gotten a hold of a WRX in that body style I would have gotten it. I was not to thrilled with the '02, '03 USDM WRX, but I love the '04 so much I got one.

did you compare a $100k+ car to a <$30k modded car?

not everyone can buy a skyline, or even have access to possibly by a skyline. very hard to get in the states, you gotta bring em over and bring em up to safety specs. you probabily knew that, but its a point.

if I could get any <50 car OTC (over the counter, as in walk into a dealership and buy it) i'd get a WRX or a 3.5RL, AWD. If I had money to mod I'd go cheap with either a perfect condition CRX or a hatchback Civic and just make it really, really nice. I dont like big cars and 4 doors is too much for me. Personally I am driving a Nissan Altima 97 and its way too much for me. Its big and, well, big. There are always bigger but considering most of the time I'm driving myself around, I'd rather get 30 MPG and have something that can toss the road around.