Thread: To Rice or not to rice?

I'm thinking about doing a wire tuck and possibly re-painting my engine bay. I was contemplating using some ebay billet products but I don't know if it would possibly be ricey. I need your opinions.

I ask because even tough I like my car a lot, I sometimes regret taking the route I took with my SE-R. This is how it use to look:


Then I went turbo and changed the look to this:


I do like my car now but sometimes regret doing the changes I did, so before I spend a few $$$ on these things I want to make sure I'm not doing something ricerish.

This is the engine bay how it sits as of now(yes I know it's rather ugly):

I plan on having the manifold, downpipe and turbo exhaust housing ceramic coated black. I also plan on getting a Cusco FSTB

I will be doing a wire tuck, possibly painting the engine bay, getting a OEM style billet coolant tank, I don't really need opinions on those mods because I don't consider them being one bit ricer and will do them anyways.

This are the parts I'm contemplating but not sure about:

Catch Can


Plug Wires Separator


Valve Stems



Fender Bolts

Personally, I would hold off on the fender bolts. I'd agree with the rest of it tho. If you get the valve stems, you should get lug nuts that match. I like the way your car looks just the way it is anyway. Theres my $.02. At the end of the day, its your car so do you.

If your gonna do a wire tick i would hold off on the cusco bar and fender washers. Less is more.

I would say if your going to spend time on the bay do it right. Fill in all the holes that aren't needed. I would also suggest you find a theme when you open your hood what do you want people to see. For example on my new daily driver project I am using a very bright textured VC that will be the first thing people notice. Once you get into my bay you will notice the pinstriping and all the other detail work.

wtf are fender bolts for?

On some level, anything you do to the engine bay will not be seen by 99% of people, so you can really go as crazy as you want and keep the exterior mellow and you could mostly avoid the ricer label.

Catch can - If it flows well (has ports the same size or large than the OEM tubing) then go for it. If the inlet/outlet are smaller than the OEM tubing, don't do it. It will add a restriction to your PCV system.

Plug wire separators - It looks like you could use some anyway so why not? I'd recommend black OEM plastic ones, but anodized blue? I guess... =/

Valve stems - Absolutely not.

Fender bolts - If there are where no one will see them while driving down the road, then go ahead. But drilling out a perfectly good threaded hole to add them never made any sense to me. If you don't have to do that, then I guess that's cool.


Keep in mind most of the engine bay dress-up crowd isn't going to appreciate a "theme" of tons of anodized blue stuff. Less is more here. Pick a main color for the valve cover and then a mellower accent color for the rest of the stuff you have to color. (Red and blue don't normally go together.) Keep everything thing else OEM or nature in color. Do that wire tuck. Think about shaving the firewall and rest of the engine bay as well.

They are a dress up item. They do the same thing they just look better or different.

What color were you thinking of painting the engine bay?

exact what ben said 99% people wont see it unless your like me who hits up alot of shows . Ive allways been guilty of having alot of color in my engine bays but nothing crazy like neon green ect.....

1) Loved your car before.

2) Love your car now.

Awesome in both pictures, zero rice evident to me.


X2.


Agreed, I have no issues with under-hood dress-up. In fact, I like it. Hidden away under a "clean" overall exterior appearance. The only folks that get to see it, do so at the owners sole discretion. Chrome, paint, powder-coat, shaved bay, tucked wires, braided steel lines, it's all good if done with a theme/color-scheme that is aesthetically pleasing.