chickenwafer wrote:I'm fairly confident you hit the nail on the head. Again, I've never owned an Evo and I can only go off some mild hearsay and personal experience which has been limited to rides. I've never driven one.
The most common complaint is the interior and the overall "cheapness". I was actually looking at selling the FD and just picking up an Evo X MR as a DD. With the sequential paddle-shifting trans, it has the potential to make city traffic fun. But, I'm a purist and want a clutch pedal. I also don't like heavy cars, even if they can be dressed up enough to handle well with the aid of electronic gizzmos. I like a more raw, visceral driving experience, which is why I own a pre ODB-II car.
And spending $40k on an Evo X MR is stupid. I don't doubt the technology is awesome...the SST transmissions is truly an engineering marvel. But once you look past the electronic wizardly there isn't much left...just a standard shitbox Lancer with a stout motor and a twins scroll snail hanging off a cast manifold..nothing special. I prefer "clean sheet" sports cars myself.
Again, not saying Evo's can't be made stupid fast with little coin. AccessPORT, intake, turbo back exhaust, FMIC and water/meth and you're deep in the high 300's awhp with near OEM level reliability (provided you have a good tuner). But every car has it's drawbacks.
Yes sir, we seem to be very much in agreement
I considered picking an EVO X up as a daily driver.... at the time I was rocking an Infiniti G37x, which was an absolutely wonderful daily driver, I just wanted something with a little more grunt potential and was a little more playful overall. Don't get me wrong, I really liked my G37x, it has a very plush interior,
very easy on the eyes, quiet cabin, DEEP footwells (I LOVE RWD based cars for that very reason!!), for it's heft it handled very well, lots of steering feedback, and I really liked the 328hp V6. At low-mid RPM's it sounded great, and even though it sounded a bit thrashy at higher RPM's, it actually revved to it's ~7500rpm redline more smoothly than most publications suggested, and felt natural up there. There was one downside to it... the only way you can get the "x" (AWD) is coupled to a 7-speed auto
Granted, I would say the auto shifts faster than most manual drivers are able to, and most publications show the 7AT being 0.2-0.3 seconds faster in the 1/4 mile with 1-2mph higher trap speeds than their 6MT counterparts, but for playing sporty car driver, slushboxes just aren't my thing.
Either way, I drove a couple EVO X's... and after spending some time with my Infiniti, it really just felt like a HUGE downgrade in almost every category except being pitched through corners. While the 4B11 has a lot of potential, even the motor felt cheap and unrefined... classic Mitsu trait. That and if I have my choice, when going for an AWD vehicle, I prefer something built on a RWD-based chassis vs. a FWD econobox. At least the Infiniti G is 100% RWD when no slip occurs, and is built on the 370Z chassis (better weight distribution than the EVO).
I also drove the new STI (hatchback version).... I won't lie, the new GR chassis has become a MUCH nicer car than the old GD chassis STI's. They have more positive caster (heavier, less-twitchy steering feel, with more feedback) than the old STI, it rides smoother, higher quality interior, more spacious front and rear, same rock-solid 6-speed & drivetrain, quieter interior ect... overall, I would say it really is an upgrade over the old STI all around, except for in one category: doesn't feel as tossable in the corners. Granted, it handled transitions much better, but I make no mistakes about it, the STI hatch I drove would get murdered by the EVO X in the corners, which is sad as the STI still weighs around ~200 lbs less than the EVO X.
Other than that though, I only had 1 other complaint about the new STI... the motor. I've owned an EJ205 powered WRX & an EJ257 powered STI, and I'm just sick of that motor lol. They're fragile, ringland cracking, needs to be tuned with kiddy gloves motors in comparison to an EVO (4B11 or 4G63). It's a 20 year old design, and it's starting to show it's age. Given similar mods/compressors & tuning, they will pretty much never have the same potential as either of the EVO's.... and after driving my G37x for a while, honestly I no longer cared for the feel of a fairly laggy turbo-4. The VQ37 has a torque curve that is so flat it almost looks like a straight line made with an etch-a-sketch... what lag? It has a motor that doesn't have traditional "cams" per say on the intake side, but has cams/actuator shafts that are controlled by DC motors, able to alter lift & duration drastically at any RPM, making for almost infinite lift and duration, so you receive near peak torque at almost every RPM, it really is amazing:
http://www.370z.com/MagazineArticles/tabid/57/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/57/Nissans-370Z-VQ37VHR-Cylinder-Head-and-VVEL-Continually-Variable-Cam-Timing-Technology-Technological-Terror-or-Performance-Breakthrough.aspx^^^What's crazy is that the motor needs no throttle body (like a diesel), as the throttle doesn't control engine speed, but rather the valves do. At idle, the throttle is 100% open... the only reason they even put a throttle in the motor was to create vacuum to help with the brakes.
Either way, going from that motor with enough low-end torque for me to not have to rev it at all in order to move through traffic, and having the high-end revving capacity (it's 328hp peak power RPM is right around redline) to make passing on the freeway a breeze, getting back into the EJ257 just felt like downgrading.... granted, the STI is faster, I'm sure, but it loses to the Infiniti down low as well as up high (it's little VF-series IHI turbo makes shifting above around ~6200rpms fairly pointless). The STI has AWESOME mid-range power, but like any turbo-4, there is a compromise. You lose power down low due to lag from having a decent sized hotside/turbo, and you lose power up top due to not being able to hold peak boost pressure, making it's powerband fairly narrow by comparison. Faster while being driven at 10/10ths, but slower around town.... I honestly am a busy guy, who doesn't have the time/money to spend much time at the track anymore, so for me, I am coming to appreciate more daily driver friendly cars... yeah, I know, I'm getting old
For my daily, I wanted plenty of power, a large powerband, something that feels at home in the corners (no SUV's or boaty cars please), with a nice interior (subjective), a
manual transmission, 4 doors (I have a 2 year old son), a usable trunk, AWD and is overall fairly easy to live with on my commute to and from work/daycare daily. So I was led to BMW....
This motor is amazing! BMW claims peak torque comes in as early as ~1400rpm or so, and I believe it!! What turbo lag? Seriously, I was told it would feel more like a V8... and holy shit is that claim true!! Torque EVERYWHERE!! It's no wonder numerous publications have given the N54 motor of the year awards, this thing is awesome! The twin-turbo inline-6 is smooth throughout it's entire powerband, with no dead spots to speak of, and makes heaps of torque from just off of idle all the way to it's 7000rpm redline. With just a chip/piggyback (stupid huge gains... I've never heard of a simple OTS map on ANY car picking up so much power), my heavy, AWD (large drivetrain loss) 335xi pulls my brother's 400hp LS2 GTO & my buddy's 425hp Charger SRT-8 with ease, from any speed...
The gearbox... seriously, smoothest 6MT gearbox I've ever driven. I'm not joking or exaggerating. Go drive one, you'll see what I mean. You can't hardly miss a gear, the gears are perfectly spaced IMO and buttery smooth. The clutch is smooth, easily modulated and not nearly as stiff as I expect for a car with this kind of torque... like pretty much all BMW's, it has fantastic weight distribution, lots of positive caster (which I LOVE!!), and tons of steering feedback. The interior is simple (like all 3-series IMO), but nothing to write home about. IMO, 3-series interiors have always been boring/plain, not nearly as appealing to the eyes as my Infiniti G37's, but very high quality materials, everything feels solid and well made. If only they would put a set of more modern looking gauges in this bugger as opposed to the plain white/red gauges that they come with, as they're a bit dated IMO.... but BMW has always had plain looking gauge clusters, meh, small gripe I suppose.
I believe fuel economy is rated slightly better than the EVO/STI... and I believe it, as I average about 1-2mpg better fuel economy mixed driving than I did when my STI was still running 91 octane pump gas. Automobile did a comparo of the EVO, STI and 335xi (AWD version) a couple years ago:
http://www.automobilemag.com/reviews/0804_2008_bmw_335xi/index.html^^^Seriously, I very much agree with them. This thing is like an EVO/STI for a more grown-up buyer (which makes me wonder why my childish *** bought one haha).
Seriously, if you're considering an EVO X, you should really look at the BMW 335.... I picked mine up for considerably below book (I shopped around for a while), and it was a 1-owner, CPO car with low miles. BMW's CPO plan is pretty damn good, as they threw on an extra 2-years/50k miles onto the warranty (although it was/is still well under the factory 4-year/50k mile warranty) as well as threw in 1.9% financing for 60 months. Not a bad deal, one that I couldn't walk away from
