There has been some minor debate over this topic for a pretty long time on this forum.

I'd like to know what side each of you stand on. The people who I would most like to hear from are those in the US that have owned both a a 2005 or 2006 Evo before owning an Evo X. The reason I leave the 2003/2004 cars out is that I want the comparison to only be on the SAYC. 2003 and 2004 cars had viscous center differentials and 2003s (and most 2004s) had open front differentials.

I've seen a lot of posts from people that have very limited seat time in an VIII/IX bashing those cars for not having SAYC, and conversely X owners who just assume SAYC is better with no real time behind the wheel of the CT9A.

I'll post my opinions in a reply shortly...

 

subscribed - curious for others input as well.

 

On to my opinion. Some of this will be review from older posts, but other parts will be newer from having over two years of X ownership.

I'll be honest, SAYC was the main allure of the Evo X for me. I had read/seen so much about it:
-The Best Motoring "Evo Strikes Back" with the CT9As that one didn't have SAYC and was much slower and the pro drivers said how much better that car would be with SAYC.
-The SCC review where they got to drive the Evo IX wagon and then promptly forgot about it when they drove a Japanese IX sedan with SAYC and kept raving how much better it was than our sedan.
-The fact the Top Gear IXs were always faster compared to cars I know around their circuit than our Evos seemed to be.

A lot of people claim SAYC is a band aid, but in an front engine AWD car that is suspension tuned for the street and does not have 50:50 weight distribution, understeer is a valid concern.

Reading about SAYC does not do it justice, it must be experienced. And you cannot experience it on a little test drive, you'd need to pilot the car in fury.

There is a road not terribly far from my home that is comprised of several bends that are nearly ninety degrees. The road is open, and you can clearly see the other sides when its not the middle of summer and trees aren't too overgrown. One of those turns I knew that I could take at a certain speed in my IX. I matched that speed the first time in my X and it gobbled it up no problem. The next time, I came in about 3mph higher and committed sharply. The car began to rotate to the point that it felt like a RWD and was really surprising how well the car handled it. The next time, I committed at around 6mph higher, and I oversteered badly enough to wag the car and had to countersteer to stop it from coming off the road.

I recoiled a little bit after that, and slowed down to less questionable speeds. I don't recommend anyone pushing their car on a public road, the only way to explore handling limits is on a racetrack. But once I made peace with SAYC and realized that the car enters a corner more like a rear wheel drive and still exits like an AWD, I began to be able to drive my X faster than I was ever able to drive my IX.

I realize a good chunk of this could be differences in the chassis, and the way to really compare would be to have a JDM IX onhand to drive it and a US IX back to back.

But all this to say, I think the US X is much more communicative driver's car than the US IX. I realize the engine, gearing, and lighter weight makes the VIII and IX an open-shut case as a drag platform, but for what I believe the Evo was intended (handling), the SAYC does a large part to make the Evo X my US Evo of choice by a pretty wide margin.

All that said, I drove an Evo VI with early AYC, and it was better than all of them. Even with a more crude system, owing mostly to the fact its over 500 pounds lighter than the X and 300 pounds lighter than the IX.

Thanks for reading.

 

And if you don't like the AYC you can always shut it off

 

You can shut off AWC fuel throttle cut/braking, but SAYC is full time IIRC.

 

ohhh ok! I watched that one AYC video.

so even OFF, OFF the AYC is still working ?

 

Definitely! That is when it is the most fun.

 

if it would have prevented my slide and crash, I'm all for it. since most tests/comparo vs the porsche, M3 and RS4 were on a SAYC/ASC equipped IXMR I would assume it is a better package hence the allure of the "X" vs the US "9" in terms of drivetrain. BTW, just drove a X MR recently, but wasn't able to test the SAYC/ASC I just couldn't drive that fast anymore.

 

link on the video?

 

noize of course you'd know i'd make a comment or two here =]

you're right in that i haven't had enough time in a X to make any final judgments - i'm assuming most people who don't own both or haven't switched from one to the other don't.

a couple things i'd mention in the comparison though - the mechanical rear in the usdm ct9as is some janky modified version of what they used to have in the evo3 - it's not the mechanical rear offered in the ct9a evo rs's - i'd say the performance of this old mechanical hardly functions as more than anything other than to literally limit the inside tire from slipping.

another thing is that i don't question that the ayc does what it was meant to do. it's true that it is a "bandaid" in that it fixes the evos problem of having the engine so far in the front of the car. that's what it was designed to do and that's what it fixes - the behavior of a front-heavy car.

also, i don't question how much benefit the ayc would have in a rally/loose surface situation (for you rob =]). the complexities and calculations the computer is probably making to adjust for the maximum performance possible on all sorts of surfaces isn't something that can be matched by a mechanical differential.

finally i think a point should be clarified about oversteer and understeer. understeer is not the fastest way around the corner, obviously; but neither is oversteer. lets if you take a corner too fast in a ix and it understeers, and you take a corner too fast in a x and it oversteers.. it doesnt mean the car is going any faster - the behavior is probably preferred though, as it's a traditional rwd feeling.

i'm not sure if in your comparison both cars were stock, but assuming they were - and lets say the x cornered 3mph faster than the ix - how much of that can really be attributed to the ayc? as opposed to things like the car's wider track, slightly better overall weight distribution, wider tires, grippier tires etc?

i'm not in any way doubting that the sayc is doing what it's supposed to be doing - helping the car rotate. i think my question has always been, say, for a normal street car on tarmac - compared to a decent rear diff - ie, a modified tre rear diff or the cusco 1.5 way that i recently purchased - how much benefit can there really be? that's the only thing i question. i've been autocrossing with my new mechanical rear and the power-on oversteer is real and it's there.

i'm almost certain that for any given corner, putting a legit 1.5 way in the rear and upgrading some of the control arm bushings in a ct9a (with acd, front lsd) will corner as fast as the X. i actually think it would be more neutral and that the X would be a little more oversteer-y.

and none of this factors in the reliability and consistency of a mechanical rear, as opposed to the sayc making the distribution slightly different every time.. when does it reach the point when you can just gun it in every single corner and the computer measures all the factors and just does the cornering for you? on and on

but yea for a one on one comparison between the handling of the x with sayc vs the usdm ix with old *** evo3 mechanical rear.. of course the x has it. the rest is what i'm not sure about.

ps since this addresses both owners is it possible to put it in both x general and 8/9 general? i feel like the x vs 8/9 thread belongs in both too, since it's really about both cars..

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGAjT6R0WBA

 

I'm sure there has to be a shop that could do this cmparision, if using customer cars. you might run into a problem of mods, but i think you could still get a general feel for the cars. There are also several people that have raced on some level of road cars both the IX and X. Ryan gates is one that comes to mind, although his X is out of control ( lol ). I am willing to bet he has some great feelings on this subject.

 

I guess the ASC must have prevented most X crashes unlike the IX by electronically slowing the throttle.

 

Hey kyooch, thanks so much for coming into this thread!
The end result that I feel from the X is much more neutrality, and only did the car oversteer to a scary result when I took it 6mph over my IX speed. 3mph over it was no sweat and just hunkered down and gripped better. OEM tires on both cars for comparo. I have Star Specs on now and it can handle 5mph more without too much pucker factor.

The oversteer factor only happens if you turn in too sharply at high speed or if you do something really stupid like lift when the SAYC is doing its thing. As long as you enter properly, it works great and feels more like a good RWD car, not one that oversteers too much.

I'd say the slightly wider tires are easily offset by the excess heft they are carrying around. I definitely agree with the weight distribution bit, but can't help to going back to comments where people have driven IXs side by side had SAYC and ones that did not and commenting that the difference was stark.

When unequal levels of mods go on and/or cars get more hardcore, all bets are off. My point is that when power:weight is made equal on otherwise stock cars down to tires, the X is going to be faster. Now I'd say some of that is chassis and some is SAYC, but a lot of the SAYC part is handling feel and control, and I just really prefer a car to have it.

I think you need to track an X. Best of all, find a non-US market CT9A, which is where all your seat time is anyway, and compare SAYC in a chassis you know like the back of your hand.

I definitely don't think its idiot proof. Like I said earlier, you can lift and see weeds in a hurry. There is still a limit, point is the limit is just a little higher and attitude is much more neutral instead of pushing.

Unfortunately, I don't know a way to have a mirror thread that the content updates simultaneously in both. I put it here, because I assume much more people go from VIII/IX to X than go from X to VIII/IX, and that nearly everyone in this forum has experienced SAYC. I just want to capture opinions of those who have had both and see what they think.

 

Fair points. I think overall if you're looking at the big active diff/sayc vs mechanical debate or whatever else its really about what it's trying to do and how effective it is at it, and tradeoffs (if any). i'm sure the active rear gets the car to rotate on command more than a mechanical would. no one's ever mentioned consistency so i guess that's not really an issue. as it stands right now, my mechanical in 1.5 way form rotates me just as i like - i dont really need it to rotate any more than what the set up does for me now. does the ayc rotate cars better? sure. it doesn't affect me either way though now..

one thing i found odd/inexplicable, like someone mentioned the gates car did run the sayc, and switched to the cusco 1.5 way in the back also. not because of any reliability issues, but i believe he said the car, when making more horsepower, would understeer with the s-ayc. this strikes me as pretty odd, the function of the s-ayc shouldnt really change no matter how much power he's making. if anything, it should work the same or rotate more with more power, but he said it understeers compared to the cusco