Here man, If you really dont get the whole "rice" thing, then read through
this. The first quote is taken from www.ricestreet.com and the second is from
the infamous www.riceboypage.com. I hope you find this of use.
"1. Riceboy has a vehicle that is generally not considered a performance
car, ("performance car" meaning it stems from the sports car or muscle car
background).
2. Riceboy starts by adding visual modifications to the vehicle, to give it
the image of "looking fast." This can be done by adding a body kit, a
performance uni-blade windshield wiper, vast amounts of stickers
strategically placed on any part of the vehicle, performance seat belt
covers, PIAA driving lights that are fluroescent or blue colored, large
exhaust tip (at least twice the size of the actual exhaust pipe), 130+
decibel stereo system, and an oversized rear wing/spoiler.
Keep in mind, THESE ARE NOT PERFORMANCE MODIFICATIONS. Riceboys think they
are, and as a result will cruise around town like they are fast. Zooming
around corners, riding laid back, and music cranked with the windows down to
make it known that there is a loud stereo in the vehicle all to make it
APPEAR as if they are tough, have a fast vehicle, and aren't to be messed
with.
3. Riceboys "race" from a rolling start of about 30mph. This is not a
real race.
4. Riceboys on several occasions will cruise the streets with their local
car club which should actually be called a decal club. They typically flaunt
their newest windshield stickers while sporting other offset sticker designs
they came up with to promote the club for their
economy-cars-turned-race-cars.
5. Riceboys call their exhaust systems "high-tech" sounding. We don't know
about the rest of the world, but our farts sure don't sound remotely
high-tech. Riced out vehicles sound like a fart, a gnat, or a swarm of bees
when travelling in packs.
6. To draw more attention to their vehicles, when large crowds are in the
area, they tend to drive by several times at about 6000rpm so everyone can
see their immaculate vehicle speed by and fart. Riceboy drives fast or in
crowded areas doing all that he can to attract the most attention and turn
the most heads. Ultimately, this is riceboy's goal.
7. Whenever riceboys park, they like to keep their windshield wipers up.
This is still a mystery to us, but for some reason this is cool. Why, we do
not know. Maybe to prove that the ricer has the coordination and timing to
turn off the vehicle before his or her wiper(s) retract.
Many riceboys deal with what they have. Unfortunately, they go overboard with
whatever vehicle they can afford, was handed down to them, or was purchased
for them by mommy and daddy. Because of this, there are literally several
thousand 4-banger, 6-banger, and even some 8 cylinder vehicles roaming the
streets with extremely poor taste in exterior body modifications. This poor
taste somehow translates into an image of performance, and to the average
person these vehicles might actually look "fast." Keep in mind that riceboys
can drive any type of vehicle, not just an import.
When someone says a car is riced out, they are usually basing this
observation on the appearance or sound of a vehicle. The chapters display
several ways riceboys change their vehicle's appearance, and from this we can
apply variations of each of these "mods" to the term "riced out."
Typically, if someone adds stickers to their car, regardless of its actual
performance capabilities, it can be called riced out. Granted, you can
jokingly say that funny cars and various other high performance dragsters are
"riced out." This is obviously not the case, but using sarcasm we can say
these cars are riced out when in fact the whole world knows that this is
truely not the case. At the same time we realize that this is the image the
rice boy tries to obtain. Dragsters often times use stickers to promote the
sponsors of the vehicles. Riceboys will promote "HONDA IMPORT RACING TEAM"
with stickers plastered every which way just because it creates the image of
being fast. Whether or not the stickers are performance related, it's fun to
call your buddies riceboys when they have any after market sticker on their
vehicle.
Any vehicle with a damaged muffler can sound ricey. The hardcore riceboys
have a fart-sounding exhaust, and typically when any "normal" 4 cylinder or 6
cylinder loses its muffler, it sounds like a fart. The person probably does
not enjoy this sound but just has not had time to visit the exhaust shop. We
call these vehicles riced out, again utilizing sarcasm. We say this because
the riceboy does not realize it, but he looks like these normal people with
loud fart-sounding exhaust on an economy car. Except in riceboy's mind, this
farting noise is the sound of performance.
Often times because rice boys think that fog lights add horsepower when
applied in excess numbers to their vehicles, we like to call even factory fog
lights "rice lights." Try it with your friends, you too can be cool and drive
with your rice lights on during the day! "
#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#**#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#**#*#*#*#
"Who/What Exactly Is a Rice-Boy?
Rice-Boy is a stereotype. The typical Rice-Boy can be identified by his car,
or rather what he does to it. Generally, Rice-Boy will start out with a car
that was not meant to go fast (typically a Honda Civic), and attempt to "fix
it up," usually consisting of aftermarket rims, lowering springs and an
aftermarket exhaust system with a large exhaust tip.
Most Rice-Boy cars (or "Rice Rockets") have the usual complement of stickers
proudly displaying features that the car might or might not have, most
notably, the Honda VTEC sticker from the later model Preludes, and the
plaques from the later model Integras.
Rice-Boys do not exclusively drive Japanese cars. There are quite a few fake
Mustang '5.0's and Camaro Z28's out there, as well as quite a few strange
looking Neons.
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--
Under the Hood of Rice-Boy's Car
Of course, most of the modifications done by Rice-Boy do not actually
increase the performance of his car by any significant amount, but rather,
try to give the appearance of high-performance. What most Rice-Boys seem to
not know is that many of the things they do to their cars to make them faster
actually hurt the performance.
The Generic Rice-Boy Civic
For example -- I have seen many a Civic with aftermarket rims with the wrong
wheel offset, or just plain lowered incorrectly. Sure, the car looks nice,
except for the tendancy for the wheels to slant inward, preventing the tire's
full contact patch from touching the ground, which results in poorer
traction, leading to slower acceleration and poor cornering. This of course
defeats the purpose of lowering one's car (to acheive better cornering).
Now, a slight amount of negative camber can aid in cornering, however, the
slant I am describing can be 4 degrees or even more, which is an excessive
amount, far more than could ever be useful on the street, especially on
stock-sized wheels.
Another interesting point about lowering cars: it really needs to be done
properly. I ran into a Rice-Boy who drives a White Civic EX Coupe (like how
many of these are out there??), who, after replacing his aftermarket
"performance" lowring-springs with his stock springs again (he was taking his
car into the dealer and didn't want them to know he messed with the car),
exclaimed, "Hey you know, my car handles BETTER with the stock springs!". I'm
not surprised. I'm sure some Honda engineer spent days working on those
springs... why mess with them?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Appearance vs. Performance
What sets apart Rice-Boys from normal performance enthusiasts is that they
are more concerned with the image of speed than they are about actual
performace. Few Rice Rockets add the one option that can make a Civic begin
to go fast -- a turbochager.
Take for example, the above pictured Civic. It looks pretty mean and fast
with its rims and super-spoiler (another staple of Rice-Boy technology), but
closer inspection will reveal that this is a Civic DX. The mirrors and
liscence plate frames are FLAT BLACK, whereas LX and EX models are painted
and would be shiny. A noble attempt at fooling people (as black plastic would
stand out more on a red or white car as opposed to a black car), but the
outside appearance doesn't change what is under the hood -- a Civic DX
economy car engine.
It's not so much that Rice-Boy is trying to make his car look good. There are
lots of people out there who just want to make their car look good, and don't
care about speed at all. Rice-Boy, however, says that he is making his
modifications to enhance his car's performance, when really, all he cares
about is fitting some sort of image. For example, he may lower his car,
saying that it is for a lower center of gravity, and thus, better handling,
but if he doesn't do a good job of it (i.e., his car is bouncing around from
his shocks being able to handle the higher spring rates... or he cuts his
springs making his car uneven) then we know that really, he cares more about
looking low then he does about better cornering. "
-Matt
'94 Sentra XE
http://www.ga16desentraxe.com
