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Sorry for the hijack, but I must disagree about the 5 speed WRX transmissions being fragile. I think that reputation comes more from the way people were/are driving the car vs. any real flaw in design.

 

Our bone stock 2002 sedan has been autox'ed since new by dual drivers at dozons of events, has had two 16 year-olds learn to drive with three pedals and shows no signs of advanced aging or weakness. Roughly 90k miles to date. (OEM SPT short-shift kit from factory)

 

My friend's 2002 wagon on the otherhand (second owner) has led a much harder life. The car is pretty heavily modded (260ish AWHP/280lb/ft ish) lightweight flywheel/ACT clutch, full drivtrain bushings. He drives the car to its full potential on a daily basis, races, snow/dirt shenanagins, etc, and the original transmission has somehow stayed intact. 120K and feels like new. (Stock trans minus bushings, clutch/flywheel)

 

Folks have been flaming this trans for years, but from my personal exerence, a properly operated WRX 5 speed can not only live a long life, it can withstand racing and support STI power levels.

 

Just my .02 cents

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Yes I support the wrx 5spd atleast 03+ when they brought in the RA gear sets updated syncro's etc. My friends 04 wrx SOMEHOW even after going through 3 clutches in under 200,000km drives perfectly fine he abuses it all day long with stage 2 how quite a while and now vf39'd.

 

One thing I did make sure though was keep the original transmission mount people believe the slack in that mount is bad I think that is a bunch of BS it needs that nice soft mount to jello up hard shifts etc...

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A neighbor/friend has an 02 that's been beaten for the past 175k, and even had the rear transfer gears shredded out of it doing donuts. 1st-5th is still fine, and it's living behind a EJ257 now. We may pull it out to swap 4.44 finals into it, it could use the lower gearing with the big tires we run on it with the lift.

 

I don't buy the glass tranny bull****. People that were used to wheelspin and launching cars by sidestepping the clutch at high rpms bought their first AWD "performance" car, beat the bag out of them, and the trans let go. Weakest link in a chain. They put a clutch damper in in 03 so it wouldn't let you sidestep the clutch, and suddenly reliability went up.

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