any evo shopper could look at evolution imports, who sells jap spec evo 8's for 1k over usdm dealer cost, US legal, and they come with the active center diff, 325 stock horsepower, front lsd, active yaw control, and a beefy 6 speed ...here is the current registered times of some owners
I would change that "could" to a "should"! The JDM EVO much more of a car than its USDM counterpart.
The VF39 in the STi is very nice turbo and should scale nicely. The 34 can run 17-19psi all day long and flows fairly well. Remember that the USDM STi also gets all the goodies of the JDM car+0.5L. It's also making 300bhp on only 14.5psi of boost. With forged internals, AVCS, beefy clutch and trans, this car should easily be a 400bhp+ daily driver. My guess is Easy Street's WRX will continue to be the king of track-only Scoobs, but street driven STis in the 450bhp+ will certainly not be unheard of. The JDM EVO is a badass car, but the USDM model was neutered in too many ways for my taste. The STi, on the other hand, got a nice big boost from the extra displacement, something no other STi has. The tuning potential is huge, especially since the stock boost is relatively low. Back all that up with the STi 6spd, DCCD and beefed up front/rear diffs and I think you've got a very stout package. Not holding it up as the almighty, but you were definitely selling it short.
I'll agree that the STi understeers, but that's nothing a set of coil-overs, sways, mounts and strut bars won't fix.
Sorry to jack your thread DinoZ. I hope any potential STi owner you come up against in the future is a little more willing to answer your call than the yellow EVO described above.