In my efforts to mirror the Original Runduce GRB STi, I sought after a pair of Recaro seats never seen before in the States. When the Runduce car was still in its early stages, they were running a seat called the Recaro TS-G; unfortunately, Recaro no longer has that seat in its production.
In the latest issue of Impreza Magazine, photos of the car show a new seat called the Recaro TS-GS. As far as I can tell, the only difference visually was the accents on the shoulders of the seats. I went back and forth with a few shops here and there trying to acquire a pair.
In the process I also discovered the Recaro TS-G SK and the Recaro RS-G ASM Limited; both excellent seats as well. After two weeks of searching, I went back to my point of contact for the Recaro TS-GS set on buying only to find that production had already stopped and only one seat was available.
The problem: tuning shops take forever to get information on products and string you along all the while. I have an idea of how I’m going to remedy this situation for the future, but that’s still in development; we’ll see if my idea comes to life.
The GTR has always been the forbidden love that I crushed on from afar. Well, I can’t afford the GTR so it’s still like that for me; but a few guys out there are taking delivery of their GT-Rs right now. Daryl Alison was the first to take delivery of his new chariot of demonic destruction and the guy paid sticker to boot.
Well if I were Daryl, the first thing I would do is call Powerhouse Amuse and order every part they make. Back when I thought the S2000 was my destiny, I thought of Amuse as the god of tuning. They made all the best product and I’m not in the loop on GT-R tuning, I dare say that Amuse is most likely leading the pack.
It’s only too bad Amuse doesn’t make parts for the GRB, or else I’d be going broke for an Amuse exhaust right about now. They’re always full titanium; so light that you could probably balance the exhaust on a finger (you can with an S2000 exhaust).
If you’d like to see more photos of the Amuse R35 GTR Phantom (I don’t know), click here. I need to fly to Japan with a machine gun and hold these guys hostage until they’re ready to make me an exhaust for my GRB, free of charge of course.
I recently bought an HKS Legamax Premium Muffler for my 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STi. It’s a fully polished, stainless 304 muffler and piping with 90mm rolled titanium tips. It’s only a rear section (axle back) that was designed to bolt into the OEM mid pipe (I will replace the mid pipe with HKS when available).
Supposedly the gains are around 3hp, but who the hell can feel 3hp with their butt dyno? I sure as hell can’t, and if you say you can; you’re a damn liar! Well, since it’s not a full cat back exhaust, the installation went relatively quickly.
I went over to my buddy Stu’s after work and not including the time we spent waiting for the exhaust to cool, it took about 15-20 minutes to remove the old muffler and put on the new one. We actually didn’t even lift up the car, just got on our backs, took off the 2 bolts, and removed the exhaust from the hangers.
It’s really that easy and I’m happy to say that even an idiot like me can get it done. If you’d like to see a good set of installation instructions, one of the members on IWSTI wrote a detailed guide. The mid pipe should come in the middle of August and I will have a full cat back exhaust then.
More importantly, the sound improved ever so slightly. It’s actually very close to stock and is only offset by a very faint rumble. When running the car at wide open throttle, the engine noise drowns out everything, so I honestly can’t hear the exhaust at all at that high of RPM.
All in all, I got a great deal on the piece and after acquiring the mid pipe, I’ll have spent not much more than what I would’ve paid for an exhaust from one of the shops here in the States; most of which are modified Magnaflow exhausts (I think I’ll pass).
I’ve always thought the BMW 7 Series was ugly and here we are with the 2009 model; it’s still ugly! That’s gotta hurt coming from a guy who drives a weird looking hatchback. At least the engine isn’t too shabby: a turbo eight packing 400 ponies and 450 lb/ft of torque.
It’s just too bad BMW is insistent these things come with their so very special iDrive, but that’s another story of its own. Let’s put that aside for now and look at the many world firsts this supposed benchmark of the luxury automotive is equipped with.
World’s First:
- Side View Camera System - With a touch of a button, you can provide yourself with another tier of driver awareness (their words not mine). So if you’re too lazy to turn your head, just press the button!
- Night Vision - Get alerts when a human is moving into the path of your vehicle by taking advantage of its pedestrian recognition system. I wonder who’ll be the first pedestrian not recognized?
- Lane Change Warning - If you don’t feel like checking your blind spot anymore, these sensors will let you know when another vehicle is present in your blind spot. Additionally, should you be unable to drive straight, you’ll be alerted. Wow.
- Integral Active Steering - This actually has potential: it allows the rear wheels to turn by up to 3º, which could help the car corner faster. We’ll see how it actually performs in use.
Speechless yet? People will no longer be able to park their cars without parking distance control or make turns in junctions without side view cameras. Driving straight and lane changes will simply be impossible without sensors and alerts. What the hell is the world coming to?
Oh well, I can already see all the ballers lining up ready to lease, only to find themselves parking the car outside in the public parking of their apartment complex.
Subaru and Mitsubishi are competitors and sometimes the drivers get a little carried away. I could care less though, I freakin’ love the Evo X! Way back when (before I started surfing), I lusted after an Evo IX MR badly. Two of my good pals from high school drive the Evo IX and it only made me want one even more.
Well, I can’t fit my surfboards in those things so I’m where I’m at now for reason. Don’t get the wrong idea though, I enjoy my phallic looking car quite so and have no regrets. Well anyway, everyone loves to do the whole comparison thing and Top Gear is no exception.
Check out the clip from episode 2 and enjoy Jeremy make the STi look like a Honda Civic compared to the Evo X. I have to give credit where it’s due: even if I hated the Evo, I would’ve been sold watching it run circles around the understeer prone STi.
Too bad a car that feels like it drives good doesn’t necessarily means the lap times are good. Don’t know what I’m talking about do you? Watch Stig take out the two psuedo rally cars for a good old fashioned duke out and see who takes the win.
|
I'm just another crazy guy out there with something to say. 
Give me your email address and you will have the keys to a thousand years of wisdom.
