Acceleration:

As with Mike's 3000GT, launching the WRX is a balancing act. With AWD you have tremendous traction available, but with a turbo motor you don't have instantaneous power. The fastest launch technique for WRXs, Evos, and 3000GTs has always been dropping the clutch at 5000rpm or so and holding on. If the driveline survives the abuse, you get an incredible holeshot that cannot be compared with any RWD or FWD car. If not... you get bits and pieces of clutch, u-joints, or other expensive bits littering the ground.

As is our normal G-Tech practice, the driver always makes the call about how much strain he wants to put his new, pristine, new, shiny, new car through. So Jake was informed that the G-Tech readers (both of them) would be happy with whatever he was comfortable with. Given the tender age of the WRX, Jake performed three acceleration runs that ranged between a 14.9 to 15.2 seconds (unadjusted). The first run Jake opted for low RPMs and stress, and we were off with the engine bogging a bit. On the second run, with no prompting by yours truly, Jake instead chose to launch at 4500rpm which resulted in a nice, smoky, AWD burnout and a much harder launch. Woo-hoo! The last run, unfortunately, was aborted by a missed two-to-three shift. Since the traffic at Test Site North was relatively heavy we opted to scoot after three runs.

Power:

The highest power output recorded was 167 bhp @ 5200 rpm. The power peak is spot-on the published figures, and after a lot of reverse-calculation guesstimates due to the AWD powertrain, the corrections spreadsheet calls it 208 bhp. While this is lower than the published 224 bhp peak, it is really due to the variables in the AWD power estimation and not a reflection on the WRX's engine being low. Unfortunately, there just aren't any real substantiated published figures about AWD driveline loss.

Technique:

As mentioned before, while the optimum launch technique is an RPM-be-damned clutch drop, Jake wisely chose a lower-rpm launch for two of the three. However, for the second run he lit up the tires like he was trying out for a Top Fuel dragster slot. This gave the WRX enough thrust to leave at 0.75 Gs and improved his ET by three tenths of a second! While this was obviously the "best" technique, best in this case also means "the technique most likely to eat expensive driveline pieces." It was smoky fun, but definitely best kept to a minimum. Really. I mean it!

Just since we have so many bits of interesting data, check out this comparison of Mike's 3000GT and Jake's WRX. While both cars are manual transmission cars with AWD, Mike's is heavier but has much larger tires and a lot more engine. Jake's WRX is lighter and has a smaller engine and tires. So both cars launch much harder than any RWD car without slicks and a wheelie bar, but do so in very different ways. There is one other common factor besides the AWD drivetrain: thankfully, both of them held together!

After looking at the data, especially given the AWD hookup, the only suggestion for improvement would be to shift between 6000-6200 rpm instead of at redline. According to the power output graph, the WRX has a very broad torque and power plateau, and the power comes up at about 4200rpm and falls off shortly after 6000 rpm. Shifting a few hundred RPMs earlier should maximize the available power.

Corrections and Other Factors:

As with all our other tests, we correct for weather and weight to level the playing field. The correction spreadsheet shows that the unadjusted best run of 14.9 seconds at 93 mph was helped by relatively cool temperatures, but hindered by the extra weight of the passenger and a half-tank of fuel.

	Recorded Data	Corrected Data
Best Run	0-1/4 mile in 14.9 seconds @ 93 mph	0-1/4 mile in 14.6 seconds @ 95 mph

So Jake is on the board and did very well, especially given the WRX's young age and care taken not to vaporize its driveline. Welcome to the G-Tech club!