I went down the Institute path for my initial playthrough, but their aggressive denial of Synth sentience/free will made me feel very uneasy. I ended up completing a second fork and my endgame playthrough is now with someone else.

Going to avoid spoilers, but if you go down the Institute plot line you’ll find that they do. Also explains why the memory wipe may be necessary.

My first car, a Toyota Celica, had a level of enthusiasm unmatched by my later ones. The Pontiac I had a hate-love-hate relationship with, and though I’ve often pondered about another SSEi, the awful build issues with mine quickly send me back to reality. My Subaru, which I’m about to get rid of, was a very good car,…

When I was doing wholesaling, we ended up talking to a reseller who sold cars in Nigeria. Because as it turns out, even our clients, the 20-car lots which sell nearly exclusively to the subprime market, occasionally got trade-ins.

It is at least worth noting that, with the exception of the test pipe (high flow cats are wonderful things), all of these can be quite effective when used in conjunction with other parts. If you’re building up an L67, you’re going to need colder plugs very early on in the process to reduce knock retard. Lowering…

I learned a lot reading NASIOC when I started modifying my Subaru, and the knowledge base there helped me make some well-informed decisions about my car. My luck posting there, in terms of response and the types of users who did, was not nearly as good as yours. I pretty much only lurk now as a result. I did take a…

My tuner said that those tolerance ranges increased for every dimension on the engine by 08, and they were seeing really wacky runout numbers on head surfaces even for new block halves. They couldn’t crank EJs out fast enough, unfortunately for their QC. I have no idea if any of those issues carried over to the FA.

The one complicating factor was that the 02-03 had different wastegate and boost controller configurations that, combined with looser emissions tuning, let you theoretically run the car with a turboback exhaust and no tune. While the car wouldn’t boost creep to hell like the 04-05 205s and all the 255s would, you’d…

Sure, but the 205s are significantly less likely to blow ringlands than the 255s, for both those reasons and better tuning in the earlier cars. Ultimately people were still spinning bearings on the 205s plenty often, but the ringland issue is generally found more on the newer cars.

Like I always said: “Nah, the ringlands on the EJ205 are fine...because you’ll spin a bearing way before breaking one.”

I know it’s easier to “unveil” body styles, but they keep talking about a new Si and I’m kind of interested to see specs for that. The base engines are too boring and the Type R is out of my price range.

I got those calls, as well as some calls for “extended warranty” nonsense. Not anymore:

In Massachusetts they’ve fixed this by only requiring proof of insurance at one point: registration. There’s no separate insurance card, rather your proof of insurance is printed on your registration. If your insurance is cancelled for any reason, the insurance company must notify the RMV who will in turn suspend your…

The synchro issue I’ve heard more people refer to is one of significant difficulty getting into first at low speeds and getting into reverse at any speed, these issues were somewhat addressed in 2006 but never entirely went away. As far as synchro wear is concerned, I purchased my car with 90,000 miles and some whine…

The wagons fly under the radar, and because of the lack of fender flares most of the appearance-conscious guys don’t buy them. That being said, they’ve typically been modified fairly often (maybe not as often as the sedans) often by guys who think “ooh, I can fly under the radar!”. Like myself. Even so, I have 160,000…

93-07 had a WRX wagon.

Economics is not the opposite of fun...

Third group: old guys who wanted a British roadster but not to work on one, and end up modifying their Miata with inscrutable and idiosyncratic appearance pieces, including wire wheels, luggage racks, and wood trim. When I went to a Miata lawn show these guys made up about 40% of the cars in attendance.

This was one of the reasons replacing the wagon with a hatchback was such a problem...the WRX wagon was pretty much the only shot you had at owning a WRX and not looking like a douche. The minute the wide-fendered STI hatchback came out in 2008, we knew we were all screwed.

On a slightly different note, the most ironic car commercial in retrospect was when Lance Armstrong appeared in a commercial for the WRX under the tagline “driven by what’s inside”.