2008 Mustang GT/CS carpc install

**Deric** · 08-24-2009, 12:01 AM

Nice and clean install.

I just finished my CarPC install in mine a few weeks prior. One suggestion though is paint the front frame piece black so it blends in better with the dash. Anothe option if you wanted a slot load DVD is moving the AC controls down. I plan on getting a 16:9 display so I can do the same. A bit of hacking is required on the support piece but not too much. See my thread below.

2006 Mustang - Deric's Indash Solution

Also since you have a S197 additionally you may be interested in replacing the blank with the mycolor switches and cluster. Checkout the following if you don't have the mycolor harness

http://www.mustangcollective.com/showthread.php?t=24775

And finally if you want to replace all the LEDs in your car you can look at the following. The only difference is now if you want blue LEDs you can buy the 2010 window and door lock switches since they are interchangable

http://www.mustangcollective.com/showthread.php?t=15391

**Wayne613** · 08-24-2009, 02:52 AM

Originally Posted by Deric

Nice and clean install.

I just finished my CarPC install in mine a few weeks prior. One suggestion though is paint the front frame piece black so it blends in better with the dash.

I actually kinda like it silver. Never been a gold fan, but silver... The only thing I don't like is it's not even, as in centered.

I plan on just putting a slot loader in the glovebox, or the center console along with a usb hub. Otherwise I'd need to do fabrication work.

The links are interesting, love your install, but the LED make-over and such are overkill for what I want. The only things that really remain other than carputer accessory installs for my stang are:
1) window tinting
2) removing the driver door to clean the inside window housing (spilled friggin' soda in there about a year back, every time I put the window down and back up it's streaked with gunk).
3) replacing the louvers with ones that seat inside the window housings rather than using adhesive to the outside.
4) and a rear window louver that actually MOUNTS rather than using stupid adhesive holders that go on the window itself. I made the mistake of getting one, it lasted a day before it tore off, scratched part of my back-end, and is now on the the side of the road somewhere in several pieces by this point.

Oh, and pulling off the passenger side overside wheel housing to pull out the stock antenna and put in a wifi-one. Perhaps a multipurpose one if such a thing exists.

Originally Posted by justchat_1

As for your usb wifi - im pretty sure proxim wireless has cards with pigtail connectors.

I just googled and found 'em, I don't see any with visable outward connectors, there are some out there, but I've only seen maybe one that was USB based with that, and that only did b/g. This is the only thing about the intel motherboard I'm missing at the molment, a PCI-express slot. I've got a card right here for it.. Although MMCx I think the connectors are called I don't look forward to. The little dang snap on ones, maybe it's MCX. Can't remember..

**summer69guy** · 09-09-2009, 10:31 AM

Originally Posted by Wayne613

Took me quite some time to get back to this. But I finally got it in the dash. I ultimately had to replace the motherboard with a Zotac 9300 and make an ad-hoc VGA cable as the 90 degree angle adapter was just taking up too much to fit.

I am also going to ultimately replace the M4-atx PSU as I think I have an older firmware revision, and it's not working right at all for power-up/shutdown via the pins. Ordered an Opus 360W Inteligent Vehicle DC-DC Power Supply (DCX6.360) to replace it.

The picture shows the final unit installed in the dash. And the single modification I did, which was to use a SPSW momentary switch in parallel with the PSU pins to control the power button switch connectors on the motherboard. Pained me to do it, but necessary, and a relatively cheap plastic piece to replace down the road if needed.

how good the opus is?

i orderred an 360 w opus too..

did opus send you anyconfirmation email when you purchased yours?...they just dont reply my mails and i paid yesterday by paypal.

**Wayne613** · 09-17-2009, 02:13 AM

Originally Posted by summer69guy

how good the opus is?

i orderred an 360 w opus too..

did opus send you anyconfirmation email when you purchased yours?...they just dont reply my mails and i paid yesterday by paypal.

I don't remember to be honest. I *think* they did, but I paid by CC I think. And it wasn't until the day after.

Works great. I have no problems with it at all, save the size of course. I had blk02si do some work for me on this for mounting everything inside that double-din unit. Shelving and the like. I had to redo the standoffs to raise the unit higher to clear the 2 steel bars in the dash. But the unit works great. Instructions were easy to me, set it to 10min auto-shutoff, hasn't failed me yet. I had to make a 5v molex connector for the subwoofer remote, just so I can disconnect everything when I need to, as the remote line to it requires 5v rather then 12. I still got some engine noise from it (subwoofer RCA connection), but I slapped a ground loop isolator on it and it's just barely there when it comes on now. Goes away completely once windows comes up.

**Wayne613** · 09-17-2009, 05:09 PM

Here are the final shots of it installed.

Later once I get time I'll redo a write-up of what all I needed to do, buy and the hardware specs of everything I've needed to install/use.

**MacGyver0105** · 11-25-2009, 05:31 AM

Wayne was lookin through your build and was wondering if you got any pics of the carpc once you were done since i am considering this monitor kit for my own pc and am just wondering how you set yours up

Thanx MacGyver

**Wayne613** · 11-29-2009, 03:19 AM

Originally Posted by MacGyver0105

Wayne was lookin through your build and was wondering if you got any pics of the carpc once you were done since i am considering this monitor kit for my own pc and am just wondering how you set yours up

Thanx MacGyver

If you're looking for finalized pics of the housing itself, I never did take any detailed ones once I was through. But I might have it out of the car again shortly. I wanna redo the software OS install soon.

It's got two extra shelves from what was originally pictured.

**Wayne613** · 11-30-2009, 02:05 PM

Ok, I pulled it out yesterday and re-did the software install and updated the bios revision. It's now running 64bit Windows 7. I'm testing out Centrafuse as well. I still think Ride/road-runner is better overall with the Digital FX skin, but I don't mind shelling out if this comes close and I'm not friggin' nagged anymore because my damn clock isn't perfect, or it just otherwise feels like nagging me.

Here are the updated pics, the last I did as to do a bios update you need to know the revision, and of course it's ONLY listed on the bottom. Also note the raised standoffs to clear the metal bar in the dash, and the homemade VGA cable, both were necessary due to the room constraints.

**Wayne613** · 12-22-2010, 08:00 PM

Figured it was time to update this.

A few things have evolved as I went along, hardware wise:
I'm using an ODBLink (ODB-II interfacing),
an opus 360 PSU,
the black momentary button wired/used in parallel to the PSU's on/off header control changed to house an LED 2v push-button one so I could have the status light of the PSU flash on the dash/button itself.

Now, since I hate making things look truly after-market if it's not necessary with a new car I bought a wrecked "mycolor" console so I could have not only the button housing/circuit-board housing for re-wiring, but an extra console to trash later when I feel like getting around to putting in a 10' screen vertically like a couple of other mustang installs I've seen. Perhaps bigger depending.

Anyhow, here's the picture of the re-altered dash after I was done. Still only have the 4 gauge dash display, as I did briefly consider just going ahead and buying the mycolor display dash as well and just re-thinking where to put the status led and momentary button, but decided against it as this is more practical for hiding things.

I plan to move the IR receiver for the Lilliput in the middle "Setup" button housing later once I feel like ripping the PC out again as it should pass through the clear section relatively easy and not be noticeable at all.

I apologize for not taking pics while I was cutting traces, soldering, and re-wiring the circuit-board for the mycolor buttons, but as most things I tend to do outside of work, it was impulsive beyond the initial purchase.

The "Info" button now flashes the Opus 360's status using the SMD on-board LED, it's unfortunately about a shade darker than the TCS and Hazzard buttons once the running lights are on, but that's due to the resistor pull down used, as it's not brought back all the way down to 1.8v, with the others with the resistors kept in place they run around 2.3v, so slightly brighter, but still easily viewable in daylight. All 3 of the buttons for "mycolor" are now tied (after the re-work) to the on/off MB header, so pressing any will send the shut-down/turn-on pulse.

For anybody looking to do something similar, R10(Info), R11(Setup), and R12(Reset) are the pull-downs for the on-board SMD LEDs, bringing the 12v input on pin 1 when the running lights are on down to 2v (pin 4 is ground). I just removed the SMD R10, then bridged the pads by soldering a very short jump wire, <1mm across the pads as I just wanted the "Info" LED to do the flashing of the status. I cut the trace to pin 3 and just jumped it with a short soldered jumper wire to the other button´s contact point, but you could probably just follow the circuit a bit closer and remove/short some of the SMD diodes to get the same result testing with a multimeter.

When I get around to doing the IR receiver move I´ll probably go ahead and isolate the Info or Setup buttons for usage for another function. Although I still can´t think of anything truly useful to use the remaining 2 for. Never felt the need to kill the display while it was running, mute is a touch away, not enough buttons for the display setup features...ah well.

**David Espinda** · 03-29-2011, 04:14 AM

Hey Derik I'm doing the same thing with car pc in a mustang only difference is I'm going for the knight rider Kitt style look with software voice activation orb and all. I have 2 questions for you what software do you use and where can i get them. They look really nice. The other question would be what exactly did you get for your external hot swappable hard drive? As that looks more cooler to do then just having a usb one connected to the pc witch was my original plans and if so let me know where to get theses if possible thanks. if you are curious on what I'm going for search on youtube knight rider orb. Now I can't wait to get my monitor portion so that I may start on my car installations

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