A moment of silence while we pay respects to Chester da Mouse ... NOT!

Update:

After all the traps we had laid, the corridors of doom built and the sleepless nights anticipating a "THWACK" ... we got him!

But not by any of those methods ...

The wife noticed him scurrying along the wall and pinned him behind an ornamental tray. She came and got me and we began trying to figure out how to snare him. All of a sudden his tail peeked out from under the tray and THWACK! I snagged it.

me ===> <=== Chester



We now have him in a DeMonte glass jar trying to figure what to do next. I'm savoring the moment.

Maybe I should contact DelMonte and say we have a mouse in one of their jars ... race car needs new tires.

I'm certainly glad this little chapter of life in Granbury has ended. You folks in the big city don't have a clue what exciting night life really is.







Kevin ... what is your mailing address. I have a present for Midnight!

Congrats!!!!

I'd mount his head

A "mouse-a-lope"?

That's funny.....

I guess Midnight can catch a return ride now and save the rest of the trip.

See Mitch, we'll make a cat out of you yet.....

Perhaps Midnight will have a newfound respect for Mitch now?

He seems to think that Mitch tastes like chicken......

Midnight says: Those Texas boys ain't so tough after all.......

had a great laugh reading this story !
You could've fed him to the rattle snakes ... aren't there plenty in TX ?

Sure ... next to the cattle and armadillos ...

anyone ever figure out who was posting as "Chester"?

That one is too easy, but I have admin tools...

Chester actually posted from 4 IP addresses. 1 of them twice (Oct 18th), 2 of them once (Oct 16th and another on Oct 9th) and 1 of them six times on Nov 3rd. Only one of those IP's isn't specific to Chester, it was also used by another member. That member has used 906 IP addresses to post here. One of those 906 IP addresses matches one that Chester used and that member used it two times to post on Oct 8th. Of course I could have just e-mailed him at his e-mail address.

Nope, couldn't tell ya who it might have been...

It was brought to my attention that I never finished the story and explained what became of the actual Chester da Mouse.

My youngest daughter had a friend who owned a Boa ....




"Well, I'd certainly say she had marvelous judgment, Albert, if not particularly good taste."
Blood - A Boy and His Dog, 1975

Damn. I loved that mouse.

So did the boa.

Circle of life ... glad I could do my part.

Good story! I once ran over a mouse with the lawn mower. That was a lot of blood for such a small animal... All that was left was some tiny hairy red chunks.

I don't recall the chester story, but I do know the boa would be welcome in my garage for a week or two.
b

I was searching for another old thread here and found this one. Ahh....great times. I had to bump it back up just for those who missed all the fun.

Man are we getting old....

RIP - Chester.

That was hilarious!

I guess I should come clean. I was the one who created the "Chester" user ID and posted all those comments. I had a blast posting it and almost pissed my pants doing it.
Good times.

You bahstad! It wasn't the mouse?!! TAR AND FEATHER HIM!!!!!!

What the heck has been going on? Haven't been here much since selling my racecar. Did some time kart racing, until I figured out that I was at better-than-even odds of getting myself permanently maimed (5 races, 4 podiums, 2-3rd places, 1-2nd place, 1-1st place; 4 wrecks bad enough to end my race, one of which was bad enough to crack my kart chassis in 2 places and 1 set of broken ribs).

Now I've just got a 500hp G8 that I drive daily. About to start as an instructor at the New Orleans Motorsports Park on their road course, though.

A lot of the newer members have missed out on all the old gags around here. We seem to be in an "old and mellow" phase these days. There's a lot of classic stuff in the archives around here...





Just the usual (but possibly less of it). That G8 sounds like fun. What's been done to it?

Well, it has 134k miles on it. 2008 model. Up until just recently, all I did was upgrade the brakes to 4-piston Brembos, put a CAI on it, wider tires (255/285, Potenza S04s, which are GREAT) and get a mediocre tune. Oh, and put a good sound system in it (replaced all stock stuff except radio, made custom sub box and amp mount, etc.).

But, just a few weeks ago, after I decided that I was going to keep the car (nothing I wanted, used or new, that costs less than $40k), I put in a new cam, valve springs, lifters, LT headers, exhaust, tune, etc. Still haven't gotten the vendor (Texas Speed and Performance) to get the tune quite right, so I may end up going to Geoff at EPS for a dyno tune (mail-order tune was $250, dyno tune is $580). But, once it's all finished, it should make just a hair over 500hp at the crank, or 410-415 at the wheels.

Funny story. When the car was brand new (still had temp plates and less than 100 miles), I took it to the track. Friend of mine has a E46M3 racecar (GTS3 class, no more than 11:1 power-to-weight ratio) and was getting some lap time in. I followed him around the track, trying to keep up. I was able to barely keep up with him, running my car at about 102%. Ended up going off track through Turn 1 at No Problem Raceway (Grand Bayou Raceway, now) at around 135mph trying to catch him. No damage to the car, so I simply re-entered the track after Turn 3 and kept racing. Frankly, I'm amazed at how well the car handles for being 4000+ lbs. I only stopped when I heard a grinding noise coming from the rear of the car. Turns out I'd heated up the rear fender liners so bad that they melted and were rubbing on the tires. And, when I stopped, the stock brake pads caught fire. Put them out in a few seconds with a fire extinguisher.

This car has been good to me.

Pretty good recommendation for the new Chevy SS...

Auto only

The main problem with the Chevy SS is price. Yeah, it's going to have the 6.2L, I think. Which should mean 430hp. And, the interior is fairly nice. But, it's got a pricetag of $45k+. Compared to an as-new price of the G8 in 2009 of less than $30k. Or, get a slightly used G8GT (<40k miles) with mods to make similar power (bolt-ons and tune) for under $20k.

I'm not a huge fan of the auto, but it's not bad. Once you tune it, or even without a tune, the manual shift mode works very well. Stays in the gear you put it in, makes downshifts and upshifts quickly, revmatches, etc. Shift times aren't exactly like a Ferrari 458 (drove one a few months ago - holy Christ!), but they are adequate for anything up to and including a track day.

BTW, the car is 200% easier to work on than a 4th-gen F-body. I had everything out of the car (heads, transmission, headers, intake, cam, radiator, fuel rails, etc.) and only had the car on jackstands in the front. Only thing left in the car was the engine block, crank, connecting rods and pistons. Entire front suspension, cradle, steering, etc. all got to stay where they were.

I needed something fun to drive with 4 doors. The G8 sounded like a great car, but I can't stand autos. It just sucks the fun out of driving. My wife has a G37 and that is by far the best auto I've ever driven. 7 gears, match rev, stays where you out it. You'll be cruising down the road in 7th, hit the brakes and go into a turn. The think will drop to a lower gear and stay there until the turn is completed, even if you're off the gas. Pretty damn cool. But I still prefer a stick.

I went with an. E36 M3 4 door. Talk about cheap and fun to drive.

I don't understand why a T56 G8 swap is so difficult. I guess headache is all in the electronics. If it were possible, that would make the G8 much more attractive.

You can do a swap with the manual out of a GXP. Supposedly, after you sell all the auto parts, it's about a $1000 swap.




The consensus is that it's usually easier and cheaper to sell the GT and buy a manual GXP, though.

Ehh, that's what everyone says about everything. But where's the fun in that? GXP's are still pretty pricey. Plus yours is already built.

Yeah, I do lots of stop-n-go commuting. An auto is nice in the morning when I'm on the phone with work and not really able to have fun.

But, the evenings are less trafficky. And, I'm rarely on the phone. So, I slap it into manual mode and have fun.

To give you an idea of the kind of fun I have, I'm averaging 11.2mpg over the past 2 years. Some of that is certainly from sitting at redlights going 0mph. But, a good deal is also keeping it above 2500rpm all the way home.

I've been there once and listened to your advise!!! Its a scary way to do when I had ZERO time on the track. Good luck on the new car.

John

Godspeed Chester!

I stumbled across this one while looking for a thread on radiators that should be here. I figured I should bump it for the newer members who may have missed it when it happened.

Mitch is quite the master storyteller!

Poor ole' Chester...



Costas
cars and such...

You should hear his racing tales.....

Easy now ...

I am better prepared today to deal with the Chesters of the world.

Especially since Chester is a zombiemouse.

But you have to also watch out for Ben, and all his friends.

We have a couple of those at the shop and I was considering one for a few moments. How do you like it?

Also, a bit of a warning. Don't put a vertical grip on the pump handle. I saw the photos from a guy who was hammering rounds down range at high speed when the vertical grip handle broke off of the pump handle. He removed a good portion of his hand when it wound up in front of the barrel as he pulled the trigger.

I like it fine. Its more of a novelty item than practical. But so is most of my "stuff".

The biggest complaint is a FTE/FTF ... on mine, you can't pussy-foot around.
You have to slam it pretty hard for to operate reliability.

I installed an AFG ... backwards ... on the lower rail to prevent a slippage of my hand to even creep in front of the muzzle.