SECCS Picture Thread

[Joeyy]

The picture was at Martis Peak fire lookout.

[sperry]

Okay, here's an old one of the WRX, and a new-ish one of the SVX. I left my camera in Reno, so I'll have to wait a bit before I can get a new picture of the WRX.


(someone tell sybir to keep his arm in the car!)

[MPREZIV]

Cory 01 rs black and sexy, like me. . .

[MattR]

Originally Posted by MPREZIV

Cory 01 rs black and sexy, like me. . .

That was funny. Cory, are those the same wheels you powdercoated? Or do you have a couple sets of wheels?

[MPREZIV]

I got three sets. These are some cheap-o 16's, then the Team Dynamics that are on now, (they used to be white) are 17's, and I have a set of stock 02 wrx 16's.


^^that pic is pre-rock, and Teins.

[GST Mike]

Here's one from a while ago, different rims now but everything else is much the same I guess

[skimonkey30]

David 05 STI

[doubleurx]

Originally Posted by skimonkey30

David 05 STI

David you have to do the Yakima mount mod. I just did and you will love it. PM me and I'll give you the info.

[Ezdno]

Sperry,

As much as I never liked SVX's when they came out, I think yours looks pretty damn good.

[cody]

Yes, I need to Koji my lights...

[sperry]

Originally Posted by cody

Yes, I need to Koji my lights...

What's a Koji? And why is it a verb?

[cody]

Are you serious?

[Nick Koan]

Koji is the crucial ingredient in Sake production. Koji is steamed rice that has had koji-kin, or koji mold spores, cultivated onto it. This magical mold, for which the official scientific name is Aspergillus Oryzae, creates several enzymes as it propagates, and these are what break the starches in rice into sugars that can be fermented by the yeast cells, which then give off carbon dioxide and alcohol. Without koji, there is no sake. For what it is worth, sake is not the only beverage in the world using koji. There are a couple of others throughout Asia. But the brewing methodologies are vastly different.

A quick comparison between the production methods of sake versus other alcoholic beverages may prove useful. Wine is fermented from grapes, which already contain sugar (glucose, to be chemically correct). This is what yeast cells need for food. There are other kinds of sugars, but they cannot be metabolized by yeast. So in winemaking, yeast is added to a liquid already containing sugar.

Beer and other beverages made from malted barley begin not with sugars, but with starches, which are molecularly monstrous. Here, brewers employ enzymes brought out in the barley malting process (where the barley is moistened and warmed, i.e. the sprouting process begun, albeit artificially) to break down the starches into sugars. These enzymes, which activate within very specific temperature ranges, chop the starch chains into much smaller sugar molecules. Some will be glucose and feed the yeast, some will be chemically different sugars and add to flavor.

Back to sake. Sake is brewed from white rice stripped of its husk. There can be no malting, so the starch-chopping enzymes must come from somewhere else. Enter the cooperative koji. The dark-green spores, sprinkled onto steamed rice, graciously provide the necessary enzymes for saccharification. There are many enzymes involved in this process. Some act to create fermentable sugar (glucose), others act more to create sugars that will not ferment but will instead affect texture and flavor in a sake.

Koji production (known as seigiku) is at the very heart of the sake-brewing process. The leverage it holds over the final product is immense. From a good beginning all things flow naturally, and so it is with koji. Koji is cultivated in a special room in the kura (brewery) called the koji muro. When ready, it is mixed with more steamed rice. Initially, yeast and water are added here. In later stages of a batch, koji is transferred into the large tank within which the sake-to-be is fermenting away. It continues to do its sugar-making work, while imparting the effects of its own sensitive production, until fermentation is finished.

As an example of how sensitive yet powerful koji can be, I once had sake presented by the brewer with an apology: "Look, we just rebuilt our koji muro last year. The wood used for the walls was not quite as ready as we thought, and you can unfortunately taste the cedar wood in the sake." Sure enough, delicious though the sake was, the faint essence of cedar was evident in the flavor and fragrance.

In general, the koji-making process takes 40 to 45 hours. During this time, the developing koji is checked and mixed constantly to ensure proper temperature and moisture, as well as an even distribution of both. As the koji mold works its way into the center of the steamed rice grains, heat is generated. Different temperatures are ideal at different stages of the process. Not only that, but these ideals will change depending on the sought-after flavor profile. The type of rice, pH and mineral content of the water, and a myriad of other things affect the way koji is made as well. These variables compound to create a process that is more art and intuition than science.

When koji is ready for use, it looks like rice with a small amount of white frosting on each grain. The smell and taste are slightly sweet, as might be expected. There is a characteristic light chestnut-like aroma that wafts wonderfully up.

In response to the demands of the times, there are several manifestations of automatic koji-making machines. Some of these are fully automatic; insert ingredients here, stand back for 42 hours, here's your kooji. Others allow much more human intervention, some being only closed-loop temperature controlled tables. Even robotic-finger kooji mixers are out there. All of these work well; some better than others. On the quality-versus-labor-saved curve, these score very high indeed. But it is interesting to note that almost every kura in the country makes kooji for their best sake by hand.

[Nick Koan]

Originally Posted by cody

Are you serious?

seriously though, 'koji my lights' gets nothing from google. What excatly is this process?

[Ezdno]

More than you ever needed to know about saki and more! I thought he just used it as a metaphor for a bit more ricey with different lights.

[sperry]

Nick, I still don't see a verb version for Koji.

Also, I'm guessing it means painting the reflector black, you know what we called "the headlight mod" back in 2001 when we all did it.

[cody]

The Koji mod is a cheap way to make your Subaru have more badder ass headlights. It basically consists of baking your headlights in the oven so they come apart. Then you use paint, a small PVC coupling, and love to make your head lights look like this.

This is JPSimon's car...although he has EDM's now.

[cody]

Originally Posted by sperry

Nick, I still don't see a verb version for Koji.

Also, I'm guessing it means painting the reflector black, you know what we called "the headlight mod" back in 2001 when we all did it.

LOL, that car's been to DIY hell with that chicken wire grill.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by cody

The Koji mod is a cheap way to make your Subaru have more badder ass headlights. It basically consists of baking your headlights in the oven so they come apart. Then you use paint, a small PVC coupling, and love to make your head lights look like this.

This is JPSimon's car...although he has EDM's now.

I'm pretty sure Khail (and some other i-clubbers) invented the use of PVC with that mod back on the original i-club in '01.

[Nick Koan]

I can honestly say in all my years on Subaru message boards, I've never heard of blacking out your headlights being called 'koji mod'. How did that name come about?

[cody]

http://www.scoobymods.com/forums/sho...highlight=koji

[sperry]

Originally Posted by cody

LOL, that car's been to DIY hell with that chicken wire grill.

That's funny cause it seemed to work pretty well when I hit a bird.

And it's only noticable in that picture due to the angle and flash... see it here?

[cody]

Sorry Scott, didn't realize that was yer car.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by cody

Sorry Scott, didn't realize that was yer car.

BTW: you got me looking up old i-club threads... any of the old-school members remember this:

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=284483

Man, I used to be a nice diplomatic guy online.

[sybir]

BTW, not to be pedantic, but if you're going to get all fake-JDM with your headlights, the correct spelling for what everyone calls baking the damn things is Kouki, not koji. As in zenki (early-model) and kouki (late-model).

I've seen both spellings, I guess it depends if you're going off the guy's username like he invented it (which I doubt given the timeframe of that post, as I'd seen this done right after the cars came off the boats), or you're using the correct (incorrect) terminology for making them look like bugeye JDM projectors............which would be incorrect anyways, as long as we're talking about the GDA, as that would be a zenki model.....I spent too much time around S13/S14 and hachi guys

/rant