Ran Into Some Serious Rice!!
 

So I'm at Gainesville Raceway Friday night for a little Street Racing action and I'm paired up against a Mitsubishi Eclipse. I didn't have a chance to talk to the Ricer before the race, as we were paired up at the last second and I was hoping not to race him. He had the usual big fart can hanging out the back and a bunch of techno-crappo screens in the car. I hate racing Rice, as it is no competition (usually at least). Well we blast off and as usual I've got the lead on him all the way through the race (hole shot to finish line (don't take this as any compliment to my driving skill, I suck, my car makes up for me however). At the finish I do notice that he was only about 2-3 car lengths behind me which was a little unusual, meaning closer than I thought the race would be. Well I get my ticket and do the usual scrutinizing of my times and speeds. I take a peak at my competitions number and he has an end speed of 111 mph (WTF!). I immediately figure he has a nitrous setup and he hit it somewhere after the 8th (as his times and speeds up to the 8th were very average to poor, 2.3 60' time, though a decent 8th time and speed (86.9 mph and 9.00 time). We line up next to each other again and there is a bit of a wait. I ask him what he's got under the hood (by the way the Ricer is a very good guy (all my Rice talk is all in fun)). He's got all wheel drive, fully upgraded everything from a bolt on perspective, and a giant turbo pushing 25 pounds. No nitrious. He tells me he's run 116 mph before in the quarter. He makes all of his speed on the top end though. Very impressive for a 2 liter, 4 cylinder turbo. Only other Ricer I've seen that fast in a car which looked very stock was a CRX, however he did have nitrous and ran a 125 mph end time. I ran him again and we had about the same results, me running a high 13.0something and he ran about a 13.4 at about 110. I was pretty lucky as I ran my two best times at the very end of the night, which was against him. This guys car looked pretty stock from the outside, so watch out, you could get busted by some pretty Bad Rice!

Sending to street racer's corner...

Sounds like he was taking it wasy on his clutch and trans and not launching that AWD too hard. If he spooled the SOB up and launched at 6500-7000 rpm, he'd probably see mid-low 12's. By launching soft, his turbo wasn't anywhere ready to spool and he had some serious lag which would explain the 2.3 60ft times.

Yeah
 

Yeah, that's what I pretty much thought. He had told me he had already broken all kinds of components on the drive line and AWD system.

At my local track there are quite a few fast GSX, Talons and Lasers. The Laser looks stock but runs mid 11's. A Stock looking Talon runs high 11's, and most of the GSX's are in the low 13's. Guess its getting time for that turbo kit i've been wanting..........

i know you said that the ricer stuff is all in fun, but.........

i don't understand how a stock-looking car that'll outrun your average gt on the street and was built in illinois can be considered rice........

I run Gainesville about every Saturday,how about some of you guys show up and race the brackets with us,we have about 3 or 4 Stangs that run regular there,would be nice to see a few more.

Well he did say this:

I think that would be chalked up as rice in my book.

turbos need free flowing exhausts...........

if you'll note, many of, if not all, the high-horsepower dyno queen supras, have large diameter exhausts and tailpipes

apparently, it was otherwise stock-looking, so looks to be a performance mod

Yes I agree with the free flowing exhaust idea, I have a Vortech S-Trim on my car. I also have free flowing exhaust from header back, but the tailpipe is the same diameter as the rest of the exhaust....2 1/2 inch, not something obscene like 4 or 5 inch. We all know free flowing exhaust is a must for artificially aspirated cars, but must it resemble a rubbermaid? Must the tip be 5 inches in diameter when the rest of the exhaust from the turbo is 2-3 inches? Having the huge tip makes more of a cosmetic mod rather then performance mod. Most of my buddys with high dollar imports....RX7 TT, Supra TT all have "conservative" looking mufflers/tips and they all bash on the ricers with the garbage can looking mufflers.

Oh yeah, and judging by what this guy said about the ricer having all types of video screens makes him a ricer for sure. I don't care if you're running 10s, there should be no need for multiple screens in your car. I also wouldn't doubt it if the eclipse had other ricer-like mods. Just remember, this is not bashing imports as domestics could be riced out too.

Those cars have weak trannies. My buddy had a '97 or so GS-T and was making 430hp at the crank (he beat my '90 FZR600 on the freeway, so believe it) and he told me he purposely didn't get the all wheel drive model because the traction would just break trannies at that power level. He still broke 3 trannies and smoked 5 clutches in the few years that I knew him in college. Trapped in the 120s, but the ET's weren't that impressive because of the FWD.

Yeah man, there are some fast DSM's out there. It's a shame because if you GS(without turbo), the car will last you a while as long as it's properly maintained. The GSX and GST however are another story. They're extremely easy to make fast but at the expense of being extremely easy to break.