Thread: 2005 Subaru STi

Hey, new step. Thought I'd let you all know.
With the addition of the USB wheel, I began thinking about some problems. For instance, I'm in Miami, where even the movie theaters have valet parking. I dont want some valet screwing around with my system. And then there's the vacation problem. If I'm away for a week, I dont want to come back to a dead battery.
Solution: Switches galore. I have 3, 2 of which are up front in the dash and a third in the trunk by the computer. Of the two in the dash, one kills the power to the lilliput, which is good in case of the occassional ghosting. The other in-dash switch interrupts the ACC/IGN line going back to the computer. So if that switch is off, the computer thinks the car is off. So when I roll up to a valet, I kill that switch and the computer turns off and stays off even if the car is shut off and then restarted, it stays off until you flip it back on.
The last switch in the trunk is a master power kill. If I'm going on vacation, go to the trunk and kill it. That way there is no trickle-drain over time!

Thoughts?

I have a 3 position switch also that does similiar on my STi.

I put the switch inside the glovebox next to the DVD-CDRW SLot load.

On the left position, it goes with the Accesory on and the PC boots up, the center position is nothing, so the computer thinks the car is off, the last position is to the right and that supplies constant 12 volts so I can turn on the PC if the car isn't on.

When I valet park or wash my car at the carwash, (Rare) I put the switch in the center position and lock the glovebox if I need.

Maxxell I'm still compiling my photos and info for my 2004 STi CarPC setup post. Stay tuned.

Could use one of those big battery isolater switch/key things....

Woot.. Another WRXer here.. I just picked up a 2002 WRX and was checking out some installs.. Nice clean install you go there.

I just ordered my utec and was thinking about putting my CarPC into my WRX and streaming live data from the utec. Could be fun to play with.

I wish I had a radio opening at all - my radio is built into the dash as a unit. I'm right in the middle of my install now. Once you make the first cut there's no going back!

Just adding to the Suby content

Oh yeah - and I've already got the Ecutek software for live monitoring.

Just thought i'd chime in on the Subaru thread, i'm in the research stage and will probably be there for about another month or so! Post pics when you get your new case.

I'm so excited. My Impreza RS arrived today, cant wait to get home and pull the dash off and start planning. Now just got to figure how to get it off.

I have nothing useful to add. I just wanted to post cause I have a scooby too

BTW...I'm using the Patrick bezel as well...the tiniest of gap is still there, so it's not a perfect fit...but still, pretty darn good. I wish I were still in school though. I'd just spend a few days in the school machine shop to mill out what I really want. Nevertheless, Patrick's bezel is still very kick-@zz.

This is probably as good a place as any to ask. I'm having problems with my lilliput. Here's the whole story:

The USB hub was always just running power through the bus. I had run into power issues once or twice so I decided to power it. So I found the molex plug that had been tapped for the lilli and I took the remaining 2 wires (+5v and GND) and ran them up along the path the lilli wires take through the back seat, but then diverged and ran straight up under the carpet in the middle, so the lilli wires and the hub wires only run next to each other for a max of 4 feet. Once I got to the trunk, by the way, I realized that the molex I was cutting off the OPUS was one of the little ones for an A: drive, I believe. {POSSIBLE PROBLEM #1}

Once I plugged in the hub, it all worked. Hooray. Until I took the car in for service, 2 days later. Brought it in in the morning, went to class, and came back to find it chilling in teh parking lot, in the sun. It is easily the hottest day since the install, it hit mid-80s (Miami) and it was in the direct sun. {POSSIBLE PROBLEM #2} It couldn't have been there too long, I was only away from the dealer for 2.5 hours. In that time, they did a tire rotation and an oil change. When I brought it in, I killed the power by the OPUS and the switch in the dash. I am almost positive they didn't turn it on or go near it. Nonetheless, on the way back from the dealer, the lilli started ghosting.

This is the first time it has ghosted since the install. It used to ghost on a regular basis indoors, but it would always come back after a power cycling or two. Now I can cycle the power all I want and nothing comes of it. It always ghosts.

So this morning, when I turned on the car, it ghosted right away. So I killed the power to the lilli, and then flipped the switch on the USB hub back to drawing power from the bus, rather than the power lines I had run last week. And the lilli worked fine, for about 30 seconds. Then ghosted. I turned off the lilli, and turned it back on, and it worked fine, for again about 30 seconds. That's all I get. 30 seconds of life, or less.

One final observation. Back even before I changed the USB wiring, I noticed that sometimes my lilli would kinda get some horizontal lines across it, like interference. You know how you can dim the lights on the dash, usually by twisting a knob on a wand on teh steering wheel? The interference would only happen if my headlights are on, AND the dash was at either of the 2 brightest dimming settings. (Actually, now that I think of it, I dont remember for sure whether it was the 2 brightest or 2 dimmest) So that's {POSSIBLE PROBLEM #3}
Anyone have any thoughts on what could be going on? I dont really have time to do any serious trouble-shooting this week because I have a paper due on monday. So I have a few days of going without a monitor, and time to research.