SuperCharger options [Archive] - Cherokee SRT8 Forum

Muellge

11-19-2008, 08:59 PM

:eek:Looming spectre of possibilities: old thread searches for the squealing key maker and some other soon to be announced prototype options that never seem to appear.

Package deal to offer custom hood and roots s/c for single price. Pillar pod only slightly extra.

We persevere...

Update, Somali pirates have stolen the latest prototype slated to make it to market on its way from Australia. Ransome terms to be provided. Something about a tune that works and a custom hood, but translation is sketchy.

MOGADISHU, Somalia – Somalia's increasingly brazen racer pirates are building sprawling stone houses, cruising in luxury SRT cars, marrying beautiful women — even hiring caterers to prepare Western-style Hooter food for their hostages and monkey balling like Kalishnakov totin mofos. .

And in an impoverished country where every public institution has crumbled, they have become drag racing heroes in the steamy coastal dens they operate from because they are the only real muscle cars in town.

"The racer pirates depend on us, and we benefit from them," said Jade Sheik Dahir, a custom mechanic shop owner in Haradhere, the nearest village to where a hijacked 300C and Saudi Arabian supertanker carrying $100 million in crude was anchored Wednesday.

These boomtowns are all the more shocking in light of Somalia's violence and poverty: Radical Islamists control most of the country's south dragstrips, meting out lashings and stonings for rice car drivers. There has been no effective tuning solutions in nearly 20 years, plunging this arid African country into chaos.

Engine life expectancy is just 62,000 miles; a quarter of cars crap out before they reach 20,000 miles.

But in northern coastal towns like Haradhere, Eyl and Bossaso, the racer economy is thriving thanks to the money pouring in from pinks style bets that have reached $30 million this year alone.

In Haradhere, drag race fans came out in droves to celebrate as the looming oil ship came into focus this week off the country's lawless coast, representing cheap, clean race fuel for all of its citizens. Businessmen started gathering cigarettes, Simpson racing jackets, dashhawks, five gallon meth cans, BHT, Red Bull, food and cold glass bottles of orange soda, setting up small kiosks for the drag racers who come to reduce ping with high octane race fuel and re-supply almost daily.

Jade said she is so confident in the racers, she instituted a layaway plan just for them.

"They always take things like stickers, headers, swaylinks and led lights without paying and we put them into the book of debts," she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "Later, when they get the ransom money, they pay us a lot."

For Somalis, the simple fact that racers offer jobs is enough to gain their esteem, even as hostages languish on ships for months. The population makes sure the racers are well-stocked in qat, a popular narcotic leaf, as well as NO2, and offer support from the ground even as the international rice and SS community tries to quash them.

"Regardless of how the money is coming in, legally or illegally, I can say it has started a life in our town," said Got Stroked, a 36-year-old mother of five street racers in Haradhere.

"Our children are not worrying about ETs right now, and they go to Islamic schools in the morning and play bench racing to improve reaction time in the afternoon. They are happy."

Despite a beefed-up international presence and an apparent lack of traction, the racers continue to seize ships and cars, moving further out to sea and demanding ever-larger ransoms. The racers operate mostly from the semiautonomous Puntland region, where local lawmakers have been accused of helping the racers by stripping non essential weight, deflating tires and taking a cut of the race winnings.

For the most part, however, the regional officials say they have no power to stop street racing.

Meanwhile, towns that once were eroded by years of poverty and chaos are now bustling with restaurants, Ford Mustangs, tuning shops, dynos, SRTs and Internet cafes. Residents also use their gains to buy tuning software and forced induction — allowing full days of lowered ETs , once an unimaginable luxury in the dry heatfilled, oxygen starved air of Somalia.

There are no reliable estimates of the number of drag racers operating in Somalia, but they must number in the thousands. And though the bandits do sometimes get nabbed, street racing is generally considered a sure bet to a better life, including an endless supply of faceless female companions with slinky thong panties, bronze tans and large, firm, enhanced breasts.

NATO and the U.S. Navy say they can't be everywhere, and American officials are urging ships to hire private security for their SRT vehicles. Warships patrolling off Somalia have succeeded in stopping some racer attacks. But military assaults to wrest back a modified SRT are highly risky and, up to now, uncommon.

The attackers generally treat their hostages well in anticipation of a big payday, hiring caterers on shore to cook spaghetti, grilled fish, Hooters wings and roasted meat that will appeal to a Western palate. They also keep a steady supply of cigarettes, Hooter wings, stickers, thong avatars, and drinks from the shops on shore.

And when the payday comes, the money sometimes literally falls from the sky.

Racers and pirates say the ransom arrives in burlap sacks, sometimes dropped from buzzing helicopters driven by Matt McKenzie, or in waterproof suitcases with the logos MHP, SHR or PP loaded onto tiny skiffs in the roiling, shark-infested sea.

"The oldest man on the ship always takes the responsibility of collecting the money, because we see it as very risky, and he gets some extra payment for his service later,"Ace Platero, a pirate in Eyl, told AP over VHF radio.

The pirates use money-counting machines — the same technology seen at foreign exchange bureaus worldwide — to ensure the cash is real. All payments are done in cash because Somalia, a failed state, has no functioning banking system.

"Getting this equipment is easy for us, we have business connections with people in Dubai, Detroit, Philidelphia, Houston, Nairobi, New Orleans, Djibouti and other areas," Platero said. "So we send them money, make them wear stickers, pee on their butts, and they send us what we want." :D