Owners of Rice

M

MissingMyBuick

New Member
Joined
Sep 17, 2002
I am just curious how many of you guys and gals own imports. Unfortunately I am not able to own a TR at the time, my old one was stolen and now belongs to my bro. which is why I am MMB:(
But anyways, I am also married, which means that I need cheap relaiable transportation. So I own a 1992 Ford Tempo ( not rice ), not a great car, but my wife got it for $600 before we were married and it has been extremely reliable. My second car is a 1988 Toyota Celica, it is down as of right now. The timing belt lost a couple teeth and well it wouldn't start. To make a long story short I pulled the motor and I put a used one in and it isn't finished yet. Toyota sucks!!!!!:mad: But my good car is a 1995 Acura Integra ( no flames please ). This car is great!! It gets over 30 mpg, as long as I stay off the throttle. It rides nice and tight The handling is much better than my buick was. It only has about 150 hp with a cold air intake that I installed ( I have to have a little fun, even if it isn't a TR ). I also installed a short throw shifter and poly bushings for the shift rod. One bad thing about these cars is the clutch master cylinder. I had to replace it and the slave cylinder. I also had to replace the clutch with an Exedy organic racing clutch for a little more grabbing power for any future mods;) . One thing I have to say is that even though my Acura is nice, it doesn't even compare to a GN. I miss mashing the gas and the boost kicking in to 15 lbs with my TA49 turbo and bigger injectors and chip set up. The power of TR's is immense. I will own another one some day.

Also one other thing, I know a lot of you guys hate imports. But just because someone is driving an import doesn't make them ricer's. I am definitely not one. If anything I like domestics 10x more than imports. Sorry about the length.
 
I have a 99 Nissan Pathfinder SE...Bought it new..Not 1 problem..

And I am going tomorrow to pick up My new Daily Driver...A 99 Nissan Maxima SE.....Fully Loaded...Couldnt refuse for the price...;)
 
98 Maxima as a daily driver. Comfortable, great Bose stereo all the toys. No real issues so far. We got 3 American and 2 Jap cars here.
 
I had 2 foreign cars in my LIST of cars.

76 Capri broke down many times in 3 months so I sold it.:eek:
85 Nissan 4x4 tin can. sold it in about 6 months

Today I was actually looking at a 1975 Nissan Z for $4k
PLEASE somebody slap me what was I thinking!.

ALL & ALL I think the rice cars from 1990 & up are decent daily drivers cause you see lots on the road.
 
I own a 99 4X4 Tacoma. It's a little small but a great daily driver. It's never broken down on me and it's never gotten stuck in the mountains when I went hunting or skiing so it works for me.



Mike
 
I have a 96 Mitsu Eclipse GS-T. I bought it for a daily when I could afford another car. I had to have something else with a turbo. Ya just get used to that whistle!!

Before I got married I *sold* the Eclipse to my soon to be wife. And a few months ago I bought a 2003 Silverado 2500HD Duramax. So now, all my rides have turbos!! Gotta love it!

That Eclipse is till running strong at 110k miles.
 
I guess I have "meatball" since my import is Swedish.

Like my signature sugests. I have a Saab with some extra stuff.
I used my knowledge of Turbo Buicks and applied it to the saab.

The car started out with 185 advertised hp at the crank. Before I took it apart for the latest stage I was packing a 3inch dp with no cat, and 2.5 sport exhaust. With this was a Forge BOV and a slightly enlarged stock intake with K&N. Also have an upgraded sway bar for the twisties.

The new mods scheduled to be done this weekend are as follows:

Replaced stock FMIC with one from 99 and newer Viggen and HOT 9-3 models.

Extrude Honed rough cast transition Castings.

Rebuild stock Garret T-25 to T-28, (thanks Limit Engineering)

Added manual boost controller.

The car can only handle 15.5 psi stock, otherwise the ecu shuts down fuel. Over winter I am adding more suspension bits, OGS's Propain kit, and Electric exhaust cut out.

The car isnt really meant for dragging, but after launch it pulls hard, that being said, no import unless heavely modded has presented a problem at the light.


WHY you ask? It was cheaper than modding my GN, and I use this car alot more than I drive the Buick, thats just how the chips fell:(
 
My dad used to have an MG, Nissan 240Z's or whatever those were:p My mom used to have a Datsun station wagon when I was like 4. Since then its been nothing Buicks, a Chevy, a GMC, Pontiacs, a Dodge, and Plymouths.
Although I'm very impressed w/ the stuff Nissan is coming up with these days....(04 Maxima) I'm considering getting a Talon TSI for a daily driver too, mainly coz there arent any cheap American AWD cars.
 
Try to remember to reign in the "mod" spending on the Acura so you can start saving for your next TR!:cool:
 
imports

I used to own a Chrysler Conquest. It was nice, but way too small for me. It had a inline four, turbocharged, factory front mount intercooler( small one), five speed, IRS, 4 wheel disc brakes w/ABS, hatchback, removable sunroof, and leather interior.
The motor was SOHC, iron block/aluminum head (prone to cracking between the valves). Every option you can think of. But a big PITA to work. I did a speedoi cable on mine before I sold it. And it was quick too. I couldn't shift it well but it did move. I could go from 45 to 90 in third without redlining. Handled great, like a vette. But its gone now. My .02

Scott
Mr.UPS
 
I've had:

'77 Toyota Celica (P.O.S.) It had over 200K miles and broke down on a weekly basis.

'87 Porsche 924S. Very fun to drive, but also a P.O.S. Lots of money to fix and insure. I worked on it more than I drove it.

'87 Honda CRX Si. Best daily driver I ever owned. It was EXTREMELY reliable, easy to work on, and handled great. I put 200K on it before selling it and it still ran good. It also carried a ton of cargo with that deep hatch back. Not very fast though. It ran a whopping 15.8@88mph in the quarter with a K&N and a muffler. I think my 60ft was about 2.2. I took it to the track one time just our of curiosity.

'87 BMW 325is. This was a good car, but really slow from a stop. It was reliable, but very expensive to fix.

'77 Datsun 280Z. Very reliable for a '70's car with 150K miles. It also was pretty fast with bolt-ons. It could smoke the CRX and pulled on my wifes '92 300ZX up til about 100mph.

'92 Nissan 300ZX. Not a Turbo car and I'm sure that's why it was so reliable. Not exactly fast, but very nice to drive and didn't have any problems until about 160K miles. It was very clean and did well with a few mods.

'90 Mazda Miata. Worst piece of crap I've ever owned. Period.
 
BuickMike, I know this sounds kinda lame to most of the guys on here, but 15.8 in a CRX with muffler and intake is pretty good. What motor was in that car? I took my Acura to the track once. It was my first time ever running any car. I ran a 16.3 at 84 with a 2.3 60' time. I know that is slow. But not bad considering it was about 90 degrees out, I had a bad clutch at the time, it was my first time racing my car ( 5 speed), and the reported time for these cars stock is 16.1 with a professional. I'm not too far off. I plan on going again next month. I want to get into the high 15's. Also I think all Celicas are exactly as your old one and mine are, POS. I will never buy another Toyota vehicle as long as I live, not even a Supra.
 
I have a '93 Eagle Talon (Same as a Mitsubishi Eclipse)

Good car, 150k miles only routine maint. AWD for the winter too:)

As far as I am concerned, rice is fart cans and stickers not just a Japanese car. Do Camaro guys care that they have a "Foreign" car because it was built in Canada or how about the German owned "Mopar" guys...



Mark F. 87 GN 11.9 @ 115
 
Fitz3820, so are you saying that any exhaust upgrade on a 4 banger car is considered rice? I plan on bolting on a Greddy 2 1/4 inch catback, 2 1/4 inchCarsound high flow cat, and a Greddy 4-2-1 header with a 2 1/4 inch collector. Notice it is all 2 1/4 inch, this is to reduce any turbulence that would be caused by going from big to small. I want to keep the same size all the way back. Would this be considered rice, because I will have a larger than normal muffler with a large tip on it? It won't sound like most ricers do, it will have a deeper sound, not like a buzz bomb. Thanks for any feedback.
 
Rice is generally any import (and some domestic FWD) car that has been modded with absolutely no taste. Exhausts that make alot of noise but don't make power, wings and body kits that weigh 300lbs and provide 300lbs of "downforce" etc.............

One more thing I forgot, any car that has $10,000 or more in performance mods and goes to the track and is happy to break into the 14's

If you want to mod your Acura, feel free. Just don't spend so much that you can't afford another Buick that will easily clean the Acura's clock.
 
Yep, just owning an import doesn't make you a ricer. A ricer is a state of mind that projectile vommits onto your car. I have had several imports that were great cars. Tastefully done, but I would fight to the death if anyone called them a ricer. It shouldn't be a crime to own a foreign car, most are built here now anyway. The crime is when you put every piece of plastic and stick on you can find that makes it a ricer. Mark
 
I totally know where your coming from MMB, I bought my buddies 95 Integra off him dirt cheap a couple years ago. Shortly after which I took my GN apart and just haven't had time to get it back together. I love having a car that I can drive to the city or park anywhere and not worry about constantly, plus it gets 30mpg and hasn't had a single problem in the 40,000 miles I've put on it. Better than the GN in that respect, but it doesn't come close t obeing a replacement. They're also fun cars to toss around turns....in fact I go through rear tires in the acura faster than I did in the GN :) Once I get my GN back on the road, or another one (whichever comes first) I think I might throw a small turbo on the integra, figure that will solve its lack of power problem :cool:

Tom
 
Thanks for the feed back guys. I never thought that my car was rice really. And it never will be. Sure I have a few mods, but only functional ones. I do plan on doing quite a bit more to it as time and money allow. Lately I have been doing more maintenance on it than anything ( valve adjustment, clutch replacement) and I will be doing a timing belt replacement in the near future. Also about the ricers, I can't stand stickers and funky paint jobs that they put on their cars. I don't know why they insist on making their cars look hiddeous. I have a friend that had a 96 240SX, it was a nice car. Very clean, but then he started putting all kinds of stickers on it. You know stickers of stuff he didn't even have on it ( NOS, DC Sports ). I always gave him a hard time. I told him that he ruined his car. Well now he has a 99 Accord, the Accord was wrecked but he fixed it ( he works at a body shop ) and it is extremely nice and clean. He said he is going to keep it that way. He repainted the whole car white with a little blue pearl. He also removed the badges from it, and filled in the holes, looks very sweet. He has yet to wet sand and buff it. Any ways it is nice to see someone cured of the Ricer disease.
 
BuickTom, Sweet another Integra owner on this board.:cool: I didn't think there were any. Is yours an LS, mine is. I wish it was a GSR, or even a Type R, but Type R's are way too expensive, I would rather buy a TR. One day, if my B18B decides to give out in my Integra, I will replace it with a Type R B18C5 and tranny. But, I have also considered turbocharging my Integra. I have an old GN turbo that needs a rebuild that I could put in there. I think it would take about 1 minute for it to spool though. Most of the turbos that I have seen in Integras are tiny. Do you have any mods done to yours?
 
MMB, my CRX just had the 1.5 12 valve motor. Being an Si, it was fuel injected and not carb or TBI. I think the motor was rated at 110hp, which was only 5hp less than the 1.6 16 valve. I think if I didn't spin the tires through 1st gear so hard I could have gotten it to 15.7's because my mph was pretty high for the times I was pulling. The '84 - '87 CRX's are much lighter than the '88 and up due to a simpler interior and the newer ones had independant rear suspension. I believe my CRX was either 300 or 500lbs lighter than a newer one. The only heavy thing about those cars was the hatch back. I also did a couple other cheap / free mods. I hotwired the fuel pump, bypassed the coolant lines to the throttle body, bumped the timing 3 degrees, hack sawed out the cat and replaced it with a homemade test pipe, and also had the flywheel lightened when I replaced the clutch. On top of that, I always kept it tuned well. I was able to set the fuel mixture manually, so I used a volt meter on my O2 sensor to get the mixture perfect. That car ran pretty good as long as it wasn't climbing a hill.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

J
EGR block off plate
Replies
0
Views
159
jlat
J
W
Turbo
Replies
1
Views
218
V6sleeper
V6sleeper
Paulmac201
Speedometer and Odometer Problems
Replies
2
Views
309
KC87
K
J
how's your car wash
Replies
7
Views
447
corsair231
C
HalfDozIN
A Matter of Perspective
Replies
0
Views
221
HalfDozIN
HalfDozIN
Top