Thread: The StationRocket WRX is done.

Here is a picture of the completed cockpit. I removed the stock head unit and then cut up the Xenarc and fabricated a bracket out of plastic that would hold it on the stock head unit’s mounting points. I removed the dashtop clock and modified the Subaru dashtop gauge pod to accept the Alpine head unit. The cell phone sits in a cradle that I mounted onto a piece of heavy sheet metal bent such that it would snake into the dash through a gap around the grey bezel and to one of the HVAC control mounting bolts. A company called Panavise makes these brackets but I found it relatively easy to make it myself. The Jabra headset sits in it’s cradle/charger which has it’s own dc/dc power supply so it always is charged and ready when I need it. It’s location makes it easy to grab when there’s a call coming in.

Here is a close up of the Alpine head unit in the dashtop pod and the iTrek GPS. This is a fantastic GPS. I got it with a serial cable because I had a serial port available and I had heard about people having issues with USB GPS going in and out of standby/hibernation.

here’s the slot load DVD/CDRW mounted in the center console. This bezel was intended to be a temporary fix until I made a decent one but 99% of the time it’s out of site so I don’t mind that it looks kind of crappy.

There’s a USB hub in the glove box mainly to support the keyboard (which in reality I rarely use) It’s also pretty easy to get at when you want to plug in a jump drive, mp3 player or something like that. I really like the super small keyboard because it tucks away in the glove box. I usually keep it unplugged so I don’t have to worry about crap jammed in the glove pressing keys.

I made the enclosure out of an aluminum box. It neatly houses the motherboard, hard drive and the Opus. I’s not very pretty but when the driver’s seat is in it’s regular position you can’t see it. It’s has 2 small fans to provide cooling airflow. Under the passenger seat I mounted the cell amplifier. I talked about this device at length in a thread titled Cell Booster / Amplifier in the general hardware discussion forum so I’m not gonna go into it here. In short it’s a great device but it can’t save the world.

Here’s a couple screen shots. I use Media Engine with brushed metal skin for my front end. Making a skin of my own design is something I really hope to find time to do someday. Internet access via the cell phone and Bluetooth adapter is not particularly fast but it works and is always there if I want it.

Havin a baby on the way meant that I was glad my WRX was a wagon and had lots of cargo space. One thing (perhaps the only one) about the WRX kind of sucks, the stock sound system. I took an incremental approach to fixing the problem. First I replaced the head unit but still wasn’t happy. Next I replaced the door speakers but it still wasn’t quite loud enough with the windows down and something else was missing. It was time to add a sub and some amps. Back to that baby on the way and the need for cargo space, I really didn’t want to fill it all up with audio stuff. The trunk was built up a little so that when you put the back seat flat it was all even. That provided the room for the amps in a storage tray without loosing any space. The even better news is that the Impreza has room for a full size spare but the WRX ships with a doughnut. This meant that there is quite a bit of space between the trunk deck and the top of the spare. Enough room that I was able to make a fiberglass sub box with .65 cubic feet of volume, plenty to provide a sealed enclosure that’s acoustically correct for my 10” sub. The net result is no change in available cargo space, spare is still there, amps tucked away and a sub that will move your hair.