lol, yes I eat rice, at home and on the street

 

Rice is nice!

But anyways, I wasn't saying that identically equipped Japanese cars get better mileage than their American counterparts. What I was saying is that we folks here in North America are producing larger and larger engines and throwing them into our cars and trucks without remorse. There's no such thing as a Japanese production car with an 8.3L V10 for a reason- it wouldn't sell in Japan! The reason?: their energy costs are significantly greater than ours in North America. To mock their cars for having "rice engines" and lightweight bodies is rather biased. I'm sure that if Japanese energy costs were equivalent to North American they'd be producing Godzilla-sized engines to compete with our King Kong varieties.

As far as crash safety is concerned, it's understandable how Japanese cars would be generally less resilient to impact than American made vehicles. For one, the typical American sedan is generally quite large in proportions compared to most of it's Japanese counterparts. The added mass and dimensions typically provide for more desirable crash conditions than the smaller, lighter Japanese cars. One can consider this an acceptable trade-off. In Japan, it is more beneficial to have a car with space saving qualities since there is far less available area to park ones car. In North America, we have far greater space to park and maneuver in traffic thus making comfort more desirable. All vehicle manufacturers have their own set of balances unique to their region. These simply are decisions made by necessity, not necessarily by freewill.

On the topic of abiotic oil theory, I'm finding myself becoming more and more fascinated by the whole concept. It does have many strong arguments pushing for it. However, until the evidence becomes more than circumstantial, I will not yet label myself as a believer. Nothing is ever certain in this universe of ours- that much is proven more and more every day. I like to keep as open a mind as possible about my surroundings, but one can never be sure where to draw the line between truth and falsehood. My question is, how do we know for sure that the Abiotic Oil Theory isn't just another ploy to spur investors and garner public approval for continue drilling operations?

The OPEC crisis of the '70s was later proven to be a sham to raise dollar per barrel cost. Examples like this show us just how treacherous these self-proclaimed gods of natural resources can be. Who can one trust during times such as these?

Now then, who has a good Jambalaya recipe they want to share?

All this talk of rice has got my stomach juices flowing!

P.S. Hasn't it been speculated that the moon of Titan once held life of some form?
Does it not have an abundance of frozen water on it's surface?
I seem to recall reading about this in a book entitled "The Universe and Beyond" (a deeply interesting piece of work!).
Could this be a possible counter-argument for finding natural gas on Titan?
Just food for thought.

P.P.S. The Stud, I've never owned a Japanese vehilce in my life. To say that I'm a "rice lover" would be a failed assumption. I will admit that there have been many exceptional Japanese performance cars made over the years (ie. Acura NSX, Nissan Z series, Toyota Supra, Mazda RX series, Nissan Skyline, Mitsubishi Eclipse and Evolution, Subaru WRX STI etc.). Aside from the odd exotic or two, I'm a passionate lover of Hemis, Maxwedges, Six-packs and the like. There's just something about raw, unbridled power that puts a twinkle in my eye and a rocketship in my pants. Just because I strongly prefer one affiliation of vehicles doesn't mean that I can't appreciate the inspiration and ingenuity that goes into all vehicles. I used to be an import-hater just like yourself, but one day I opened my eyes to the world around me and what it had to offer. You should try it sometime- it's very refreshing!

 

Um yeah....open my eyes, as if I don't know anything. Actaully I have owned rice, and will never again, where as you say they are exceptional, and good products though you never owned one, how ironic is that. I speak from experience of brand new Honda Accord that went to krap in 1 month, how sad is that, and also had another new one years ago, did the same thing, but I thought it was fixed now too by all I hear like you hear, but I experienced it first hand, no quality has been improved, it's a drive by the left wing media to undermine our own companies because they hate anyting that burns a little more gas, so they'll do and say anything to stop our vehicles. That's the facts, not something I heard
Maybe you should open your eyes, and use your brain, not what everybody tells you.....
And what do you mean exceptional performance cars? So they are faster than other foreign cars of the same brand...wow....exceptional....they might break 6 seconds 0-60....outstanding......not....and most have to have a turbo to do so
here's exceptional.2006 Corvette, 400hp, 28mpg.....that's exceptional
here's exceptional, 2006 Charger Daytona, 350hp, 3800+lb, 25mpg....that's exceptional
here's exceptional, 2006 GTO, 400hp, 25mpg....that's exceptional

they've made little or no inventions/contributions to the automotive world, GM, Ford, Chrysler have made almost every automobile imporvement there is, but foreign cars are exceptional?
WHAT MAKES HONDA AND TOYOTA SO EXCEPTIONAL? I DON'T GET IT?
I don't mean to sound mean, but I get so frustrated when people set them above our own vehicles and I never see why, all they back it up with is claims that they heard this from somewhere, well guess what, I have owned their acclaimed best ones, and they weren't as good as our detroit made worst ones.

 

*I shake my head in disbelief*

The Stud, you really aren't listening at all to what I say, are you?

Never once did I say that Japanese cars are attributed with higher build-quality than domestically produced vehicles. I'm sorry you have so grossly misinterpreted my writings, but I can only be so clear in these matters. I'm certainly not saying that one region of carbuilders is better than another. I am simply defending the Japanese builders from unjust ridicule. They have built many a respectable performance car in the past and deserve credit where it is due. Take the Subaru STI for example. The STI has a turbocharged boxer 4 and a rally-engineered suspension that can keep up with an LS2 Corvette on tarmac and leave it in the dust on the dirt trail...for ten thousand less dollars comparatively. How about a Nissan Skline R34 compared to my very own Charger SRT-8? Our straight-line performance numbers are virtually identical, but such a car could run circles around me on a racetrack with it's vastly superior handling. Just because it doesn't have a V8 does not mean it cannot be great! You can't tell me that a 1000 plus horsepower Veilside Supra isn't impressive either.

All I'm saying is that it's not cool to be a hater. If you were born in Japan instead of the USA, I'm sure you'd be ranting and raving about "fat American cars" right now instead of "rice burners". Please just take a step back and give your ethnocentrism a rest. Besides, the Charger, Challenger, 300, and Magnum are all built in Canada and utilize German engineered componentry...not quite what I'd call "Detroit Muscle". lol

 

so what does a rally car have to do with a corvette? And I explained like a million times why I don't like the asian brands, you must have missed that, seems like I can't say it enough, except that you should read my like 2 page post on why I don't like them, it's not solely because their imported, otherwise I would hate European vehicles,which I don't mind, because their not challenging our own companies futures, their too small, while toyota is trying to take over America's entire business. And AGAIN I HAVE TO EXPLAIN THIS, who cares where most are assembled, most are in Detroit or somewhere in the U.S., sure some plants aren't in the U.S., but a lot of th emoney comes from the hundreds of manufacturing companies in the U.S. that makes all the parts that are shipped to the assembly plant, I explianed that earlier as well,
and who says the STI has better cornering than a Charger, how do you rank a rally car against a full size family street machine? totally different classes? If you wanna compare off road stuff, put that rallly up against a baha truck, byby subaru. Sure they might have made a few ok cars, but who cares, when they try to put our own brands out of business, and therefore hundreds of thousands of people down the line, I reach to my patriotism for America, where's yours? If we don't embrace our own brands again and stop believing these cars are something spectacular, then our economy is screwed, there's hundreds of predicitions down by analysts that if Detroit automakers go, the economy is screwed, so it's your choice. America or China/Japan, pick a country, support it, I don't even know why I'm saying this to you, you own American cars, why do you stick up for something you don't even know about? makes no sense to me, you even said you never owned one, yet you keep defending them(and I have owned them), saying I'm racist and a hater, yet I explain over and over why not to buy them, I never said don't buy it because asian people are gay or suck or whatever, NEVER SAID ANYTHING LIKE THAT, that would be racist...if I said something like that. So they make a good rally. I'M STILL WAITING FOR SOMETHING SPECTACULAR
again I don't mean to sound mean, but if we don't quit supporting brands that try to undermine our own people and country, then we're screwed, that's all there is to it. No discussion about it, that's my point, wow
truce dartman, my fingers hurt, lol

 

LoL Yes, perhaps a truce is in order. Our views obviously differ subject. We could go on and on until the end of time and probably solve nothing. I guess that's what happens when two stubborn individuals cross paths. Before I start on about how I hate the word 'Patriotism' and how I feel about governments (not their people) who start wars to spur their own economies, I will call it a night, shake hands, and go about my business (sleep in this case). I have enjoyed our little debate The Stud. Allow me to be the first to welcome you to Dodgeforum.com. I hope this isn't our last run-in. haha

P.S. I haven't had a good exchange like that since the last time I crossed paths with DevilsReject!

P.P.S. Sorry for calling you 'daft' earlier 03neonRT. You MIGHT damn-well be right about the whole abiotic oil thing, who knows? I'd sure look like an *** then if that were the case, wouldn't I? lol

Good night all!

 

i dont think i made a comment about the abiotic oil theory earlier but my thoughts were along the lines of "and the earth is flat too right?" but the more i talk to my pawpaw (who is a major player in the industry down here in southeast texas where most of the nations oil comes from) and the more i read up on it there is too much that cant be explained by coincidences and such. im not going to go ahead and say i believe in it but im pretty damn close to being a believer.

 

I'm only going to address certain parts of this multi-topic discussion, just the cars and fuel mileage parts.

Your trying to compare to completely seperate worlds, the US, Europe, Japan, etc. all have very different cars and consumer demands. The Japanese cars most seems to be praising and heralding for their gas mileage and fit and finish don't seem to realize that they only build the cars for the US market that way, because we are fairly picky and they had to win over Americans brought up to buy American products. The true Japanese cars built for Japan are not nearly as environmentally friendly with their absolute lack of emissions testing or control which is why all their top performance cars are not legal for sale here in the US. All their big performance cars that do make it here are only here because of 3 catalytic converters just to get their 4 cylinders to pass our emissions regulations. Even the RX-7's barely over 1 liter rotary engine has to have 3 converters and they had to strip it of one of it's rotors, the US version has 2 while the Japanese has 3 rotors, and it creates so much heat in the exhaust with the 3 cats that they line the floorboard with asphalt and have a temperature sensor in the floor with an idiot light that if it comes on they instruct you to pull over immediately and exit the vehicle because it's going up in flames. Over there it's a matter of space which is why they keep their cars small and because of that they have small engines. Over here there isn't the over crowding issue and we can have larger vehicles and thus larger engines. And even though the engines here are creeping up in size, they are a far cry from what they use to be, back when there were no 4 cylinders, it was just 6 cylinders and tons of V8's of which some were up to 530 CID stock. 6 and 7+ liter engines were common then and now it's almost unheard of to see a V8 break into the 6 liter range. The Viper and it's 8+ liter V10 is a very rare exception and is only one very low production high priced car. The European market is much like ours, but they are a varied mix of very small econo cars and big V12 gas guzzlers with millionaire prices. The given example of the M3 is a good one, but look at how much it costs. With enough money any car can be turned into superstar. The top performing Japanese cars are by far the cheapest, because they cost very little to build because of such low labor wages. The American and European top performing cars are far more expensive with the European being far more expensive than ours due to their higher speed limits and in some cases lack of any speed limits making for a larger market for such cars. Fuel prices control the car markets fuel economy and that varies by location. They all have their strengths and weaknesses and there are varied examples all over the spectrum throughout, so you can always argue any point and back it up to no end.

I'll always stick with my Mopars.

 

i owned a ricer and i will admitt it did get good gas milige but it just did not fit my style. some people just like the way that the exaust sounds and other dont. dont bag on them that is there personal prefrence. i sold mine because i wanted to get a dodge challenger with the 440 mag. i have not found one yet but i am glad i sold it.it just depends on your personal prefrence.

 

NEED HELP!! i am in a bind. i dont no witch to choose from. a cuda, superb ee, or challenger. none of them are in good shape but i am going to put a 440mag or a 331 hemi witch should i go with