Here are Urban Dictionary's top 3 definitions of rice burner...

21 Jul 2017

“What every 16-20 year old who’s seen “The Fast and the Furious”, or “2 Fast 2 Furious” is likely to drive. Usually running a ridiculous amount of negative wheel camber due to the car being lowered without getting an alignment done, wheels larger than can reasonably fit in the wheelwells (giving lots of tire rub), a 3 foot tall aluminum wing, under car neon tubing, “Type R” decals, a boost gauge (esp in a normally aspirated car), and has the overall appearance of an automobile onto which every advertiser in Super Street has barfed a part.
Required equipment includes a 5 inch exhaust tip on an otherwise stock exhaust system, a 4 million watt stereo system that, from outside the car, seems to do mothing other than vibrate the rear hatch glass, and every aftermarket gauge that the local Pep Boys carries (not necessarily connected to anything).
Not to be confused with a “tuner car”, which may be quite a bit faster than anything you’ve seen away from a racetrack.”

Here's the 2nd one...

Badly modified car made to look fast but most probably running the original 4 cylinder engine with less than 100 horse power. Usually Japanese, although, there are a few European and American examples about.

Identifying features include:

Ear piercing fart like sounds produced by the exhaust.
Loud music coming from the car.
Badly modified lowered suspension makes the car bounce dangerously even on the smoothest of roads.
Often seen wrapped around the tree.
Often driven by spotty teenagers with their equally spotty girlfriends on the passenger seat.
HUGE wings made out of sheet aluminium.

Finally, the 3rd

To qualify to be a rice burner, you must:

have Stickers that add hp
have a Fartcan that adds hp
have cut springs that increase cornering capability
have a hatred for muscle cars because they have less hp per cubic inch
have no idea what porting heads or the word camshaft means
think that turbos automatically take your e.t. from 16 to 10
constantly brag about beating Camaros and Mustangs to your friends, but when they’re riding with you, you won’t race them because “they’re not worth it”
dangerously weave through traffic like a maniac and piss off everybody else on the road
play your music loud enough to wake the dead

Comments

I got a car collection behind my desk, and when my girl’s dad came to visit, he said “ oh look you got some rice burners over there” and then she asked me what a rice burner was, and we both, at the same time, said “ jap car”. He likes a lot of cars, imports included but he really leans to homegrown stuff and drives a vette.