Originally Posted by
silky16v
buy a 8MR or 9 and simple mods will take them to 400bhp
my old MR 320 with just a full 3" exhaust and walbro fuel pump felt much much quicker than my old 380bhp 4x4 saph from 0-120mph and in all honesty they can take abuse all day long and love it i must have covered 10,000 miles in mine in 7 months and it got a hiding everytime i was in it limiter most gears & on couple of occasion off the clock in 6th, it wanted for nothing and i just kept an eye on levels and had it serviced when it needed it, i'd have another tomorrow if i hadn't gone self employed
The later ones are technically better I suppose but the extra weight and the 6 speed box make them less of an interesting drive in my experience.
My mate is a plate whore and turns his nose up at older stuff and had an evo 8 a few years back (when I was running a 6) and he agreed the box was better in the earlier cars and his had ecutek, blitz bits (nur exhaust, air filter, boost controller etc) and ran 1.5bar so had to be making some decent power (and the speedo used to move along nicely) but it didn't feel lively at all, just very linear and boring to me (and him) he ended up with a 6 after it.
His 8 was amazing in the bends though, he's a good driver (but drives hard) but one of the reasons he got rid was he thought if he crashed he'd be dead as they just hold fast cornering so well and when it lets go it's going to be a big off.