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I can't stand those poser cars. Computer cases are different, however, because it's more like personalizing your case. It's not the same as putting stripes on a car to make it look like there's some actually performance mods when there isn't. You can personalize your car too, but it would probably look really stupid.

Check out Bryan's Rice-Boy Page to see some of those poser cars.

OK, I didn't notice they were under "32 bit microprocessors" at Motorola's site. They mention the 64 bit data path, but that is not the measure of a chip. Even the Power3 chip is 32 bit which makes me think that perhaps it's fine if the Motorola 7400 is only 32 bit. So is everything else on that end, so it's all good. At least it is still RISC, even though the intel clones have been high in numbers. Now a 2.4 ghz Alpha is looking tastier and tastier.

Then again, perhaps we can put a 64 bit sticker on it to make it faster.

Yup. Domestic engines, especially older ones, were overbuilt, and depended less on precise mechanical tolerances to run well.

All these are anecdotal, but I'll tell you the story of a friend of mine. We were in high school then, the long-haired guys with the Motley Crue t-shirts that all the guys from the computer lab avoided (until they discovered that I was, at the time, an avid and good assembly language programmer).

Jay picked up a 1977 Dodge Aspen. It was rotted right out, having been driven in the winter by an uncaring owner. The car cost him $30 and still ran very well. He got it safetied by a garage that didn't really look at it, and put it on the road.

He drove that car for two years, never once changing the oil in the Slant-6. Since it had some oil leaks, it needed topping up occasionally, which he did...

You know how old oil, coolant, transmission fluids and stuff are collected in the high school auto shops? Generally, a bucket under the car. And that bucket gets filled with everything, including cigarette butts and the sawdust that's used to mop up spills.

Jay, wanting to spend money only for gas, used to top up the oil with that. He still managed to put over 50,000 miles on that car in two years, the Slant-6 still coughing to life at the touch of the key. He finally scrapped the car when he got T-boned by a Cavalier on a winter evening.

Again, it's entirely anecdotal; most cars never suffer that kind of abuse, and fewer still would survive it. But now, having rebuilt several Chrysler Slant-6s, I know how Jay's Aspen didn't die. I know why it kept going.

It was built to last.

The Slant-6 is by far my favorite engine, for this exact reason.

More so isn't the external leaks. The oil control rings coke up if the oil isn't changed frequently, and the engine starts blowing blue clouds when you hit the gas. Either rebuild the motor, or better still, yank it out and replace it with a good 2.2L or 2.5L non-turbo engine. It'll last longer.

Hmmm... Are you sure it's a non-interference motor? I know for sure that the Mitsu 2.6L engine, optional in K-cars and stuff before the 3.0L V6, is an interference motor. But that was an engine that seldom made it to the 80,000 mile timing belt change - usually, they cracked their heads long before then. There are, last time I looked, four companies that sell mounting kits that let you put a 2.2L or 2.5L Chrysler engine into your car in place of that 2.6L Bitsumishi.

Okay. Tuning, or building?

Power is generally achieved through pulling off the head, porting and polishing it, increasing valve sizes, shaving the deck for increased compression ratio, port matching the intake and header to the head, etc.

Tuning is basic maintenance, not a performance upgrade, which is something that tends to confuse many rice rocket enthusiasts. Changing spark plugs, adjusting timing, adjusting fuel/air ratios, etc. is tuning, not building the engine up for better performance. Generally, building an engine takes the car off the road for a few weeks; most of these little kids who have the "Tuned by" stickers on their cars can't afford a second (or third) car, and therefore don't get any real performance work done.

The other thing is that once you've built the car for performance, real world street driveability is compromised. The manufacturers are interested in building cars for regular use, not drag or oval track racing, after all.

Absolutely, and I suspect that you're somewhat more astute and informed than most of the Japanese car enthusiasts that I come across, based solely on the fact that you either know what "BigBlock" is, or that you know what "Mopar" is. Though I will confess that I have seen one Honda products that really did impress me. The thing was a perfectly stock looking 1993 Civic hatchback. The guy had hacked on a huge Garrett turbo that looked like it was off a Buick Grand National. This Civic ran 11.9 on the 1/4 mile, despite the fact that front wheel drive doesn't lend itself to drag racing. That was impressive.

Thanks, but I can't really claim all the credit for this one... The Sex Pistols were a helpful inspiration.

I was sitting at the corner of Bay and King Streets in the heart of downtown Toronto's financial district. I was wearing a shirt and tie and driving my lovely old 1983 Dodge Ram, which my friends called either "Patches" (for the rough, unground weld marks from rust repairs) or "The Brick" (for its rectangular shape, almost free of curves, and its red primer paintjob). It was truly the ultimate urban warrior: someone hits you, and you just laugh at the poor fool.

Driving that truck was really neat: people would assume that you were a roofer or something, until they looked in and saw a young guy with a white shirt and silk tie. And then they'd stare at me, looking really confused. Anyway, I liked the truck, it suited me, and it was really practical.

So, what should pull up beside me but a Suzuki Swift with tinted windows, one windshield wiper in the center and the little fake rubber ducky antenna on the back. I had my windows up (it was a hot summer day, and my '83 Ram's air conditioning worked like a million bucks), and I could still hear this guy's stereo just cranked.

So, I reached over to the Alpine CD player I'd put in there a couple of months before, and flipped in a Sex Pistols CD. I skipped up to "Anarchy in the UK", and turned up the volume until the 6x9s in the doors didn't sound like they'd take it anymore.

The Swift, who didn't appear to have AC since his windows were down, didn't fare very well as the big old truck beside him lowered its windows. And, as the lines "I am an anarchist / I am the anti-Christ" played to his shocked ears and drowned out some Eminem crap, I came up with the idea for the Sibilance Projectors. (With apologies to Traynor, who made a tweeter bin with the same name back in the 1970s.)

For those not familiar with the idea of what Rice is all about, here's the Riceboy Page.

And while bashing our fellow motorists, why not get in a few digs at the upscale SUV driver, at the Ultimate Sports Utility Poseur Page.

Enjoy, the Devil made me do it!

Hey, they might look cool, but do people really use them for their own benefit, or for impressing friends?

It's the PC equivalent of taking a rusty Ford Escort van (1.1 litre), painting it vomit yellow, adding big wheelz and turning it into a rice burner.

Jeff

What is a Riceboy?



Stupid little kids who put big exhaust pipes on their Hondas and think they instantly have 50 more horses because the chopshop owner who sold it to them said so. Kids who are proud of their car sounding like a bumblebee. Pimply little runts who think that putting a fake VTEC sticker or "Type-R" badge on their car gives it more horsepower. Punks who only go to "Battle of the Imports" races because deep down inside they know their doors would get blown off by domestic muscle cars. 'Nuff said.

Linux: The 1988 VW GTi with supercharger and nitrous system. It's cheap, damned fast, easy to modify, but ugly to most people. The people who like it love the way it looks.

BeOS: BMW M Coupe, that you scored pretty cheap. Has the performance and handling, but has a more refined feel. Not as easily modifiable, but that would upset the balance. Looks neat, not many people have seen them, and the appearance grows on you. Pretty new, but has a good lineage.

Windows NT: Four cylinder Honda Accord. Lots of them out there, pretty big and underpowered. Good amount of of percieved security. People in GTis and M Coupes laugh at them. Hard to modify.

Windows 9x: Honda Civic. Really cheap, and really common, and a lot of kewl d00ds like to p1mp them out by cutting the springs and putting big stickers all over them. See http://riceboypage.com for more info. VW and M folks laugh even more.

Solaris: Jaguar XJ6. Expensive, kind of rare, hard to get parts for. Still fairly fast, though it spends half of the time on the shop. Has rust spots because of its age. Hard to find a mechanic.