thanks, I do think this is the way to go.

I had just mentioned price on my last post but I spent about $800. I already had the XM tuner so i saved a bit there. I am just using the onboard sound card on the MB right now and it actually sounds really good. very clean and clear.

That is only temporary because I am going to get a usb to optical out and hook it up to alpines pha-h701 which has 3 opts in and will process dts and dolby dig. So i will soon enough have true 5.1 in the car.

You could use any HU that has an aux in but id reccomend alpine one because of the part i mentioned above

Thanks again

 

what are the measurments of the cutouts in your custom dash for the lcd and is the other one standard din size?

 

that is one sick cpu..

 

i love how you changed the center consol..it looks sweet,very nice man

 

Looks great. How do you like the Ampie PC case? Im thinking about swaping that one for the one I have now in my miata.

 

thanks guys!

I love the ampie case. Its a very tight fit internally and BARELY fits under the pass seat. It cools well but thats also becasue i added another case fan. I did that cause my MB temps were as high as 160 degrees!! little did i know it was becase my IDE HD cable was touching the fan blades on the ampie fan which meant i only had a fan on the processor. So with the combo of all 3 fans my MB temps are at 66 under the heaviest loads for hours at a time. case temps are typically at 44-55 degrees, lol.

Other than that I absolutely love it, haha

 

I put together a car pc for a friends honda accord and the HD is the least of your problems when it comes to cold weather. Low voltage shorts WILL happen b/c of condenstion. But do not fear there is a cheap cost effective way to deal with it. The case that i used for my freinds PC was a (AOpen A340A) a little bit bigger than yours. Now my objective was high insulation w/ condensation proof membrane w/o restricting airflow. So with a little spray adhesive and some old carpet (i got from an old ford taurus from a junkyard) i lined the outside of the case with it. and lined the inside with GORE-TEX® self adhesive membrane (non-flamable, and non-conductive, and it doesn't retain heat....) , not including the face with all the input/ouput connections. and not including the hole for the exaust fan. Then I bought a higher rpm fan with a built in silencer (sounds fancy but its only like $5). The carpet insured the inside of the case would not drop too to low and the membrane made sure that no water was retained inside of the case b/c of condensation.


old carpet = free
self adhesive spray = $9.50
roll of membrane = $12.20
Higher RPM fan = $5.20 shipped

total project cost: $26.90



When i get a chance i will hunt down my friend and take pictures.

 

Hey i have a question????

What material did you use to fabricate was it fiberglass was it an epoxy.

I could probably use an old baby-wipes box to make the form of the lcd screen and an old din with a little bit of bulking around. to make the hole for the standard din

 

Condensation has not been a problem at all. ive booted in 20degree weather a bunch of times. my pc does not get that hot. Temps are only 66 degrees, i dont think dont think condensation will form. but i could be wrong. I could throuw a packet of silica gel in there and that will solve any probs to i would think.

And to answer your other Q I used duramix 4040 (liquid plastic repair) that is 2 parts. It is very similar to 2 part epoxy, but i think its a little more flexible so it doesnt crack away from the original parts. Then i used rage gold (body filler) to fill in the little pits.

 

im bored waiting for fiberglass to cure so i thought that I would update this a little bit.

I acidentally fried my motherboard due to carelessness when doing a small hardware upgrade.

So I decided to rebuild most of the design and I went with an ASUS microATX motherboard, an AMD 2ghz processor and a gig of ram. This thing should fly once i get it all together. All its going to be running is a flash frontend (www.streetdeck.com), GPS nav, MP3s, DVD every once in a GREAT while, OBD-II monitoring (for fun but should get some precticality out of it) and a few other small things.

Im having to make a custom case for it so im hoping that turns out decent, i may start today when im finished with 2 sub enclosures

Thats about it!

 

and since i know ill get asked, here are the prices of what i just ordered.

see car PCs can be real cheap!

And i know there is better stuff out there but im pretty sure this stuff will work great for my application ( )


Products
Qty. Product Description Total Price
Item(s) shipped from NJ Tracking Number:

1 ASUS M2NPV-VM Socket AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6150 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Item #: N82E16813131014 $84.99


1 AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Orleans 2000MHz HT Socket AM2 Processor Model ADA3200CNBOX - Retail
Item #: N82E16819103637 $99.99


1 CORSAIR XMS2 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model TWIN2X1024A-6400 - Retail
Item #: N82E16820145566 $104.00


Please be aware that Newegg does not deliver packages on Saturdays or Sundays. Delivery attempts will be made on weekdays only.
Subtotal: $288.98
What's this? Tax: $0.00
Shipping: $6.67
Printer-friendly Version Total: $295.65

 

WOW! That's pretty ballsy to go with the AMD. I'm a big AMD fan but it gives off to much heat to put in the car. I hope you make a real good case with a lot of fans. Just make sure the fans all blow in one way and out the other. Also make sure the hot air has some place to go so that means don't put in in the trunk under the cover. Post pics when you're done.

 

AMD makes a lot of procs - I don't know what you chose, but a mobile chip would work great in there. Everything fast gets hot - that's why all the fanless chips are really slow. I'm sure he's got something figured out though.

 

They used to run hotter. Now they're fine, like the Athlon 64. Shouldn't have a prolem, especially in an ACed environment like the car

My only concern would be the noise of the fans, but I'm sure regular engine noise would drown it out. Obviously if you are playing music then you shouldn't have a problem whatsoever.

 

Well, im hopin ill be ok. ill have about 3 fans in a small case (10"x14"x3") so with that many fans, i hope ok. I have a temp monitor so ill see how that goes also. I also wont be using the full load of the proc either. it mean its pretty overkill really.

and to be honest im not real big into knowing alot about pc components. ive read a few reviws and others seem to use them in thier car (AMD) and didnt speak of many major issues.

So we will see! lol

oh and the case will be under the passenger seat.

 

You will hear it - fans are loud, but little fans are very loud. You might want to try underclocking the proc - you dont need 2 ghz. One problem with our car is there really are not any good places to put a little carputer like that - cars with trunks and stuff generally have much better places to hide one away. I was really thinking about going that route myself but I just broke down and bought an AVIC-D2 - should be here by Thursday!

 

lol, i was waiting for the iwa200 about 6 months ago but got impatient and and went this route, lol

yeah i could try to underclock it. i dont mind hearing fans. i heard them on my last setup and i only heard them when sitting still. and you get used to them real quick. but with the trd exhaust, injen CAI, and the peice of junk weapon r engine torque damper, i dont hear the fans when im driving, haha

 

Ah - nice - sports upgrades do have the effect of masking the other noises. I bet you're the only tC driver who can't hear his hatch rattling ;)

 

Three fans and under the seat should be good living in Illinois. I'd setup the BIOS to turn the computer off at hight temps just to be safe (it should be set as default but check to make sure). You may also want to check out case modding sites to find some good blowing/low noise fans if the noise is a problem.

 

lol trunk rattle? what do you mean? haha

No i have a little rattle but i fixed some of it. it never really bothered me anyway. nothing was as loud as my trade-in, a toyota tacoma with un balanced bias ply mickey thompson 33" mud tires and my exhaust exit was right under the cab, ugh. that was loud. haha