Let me start off by saying I have been a car forum member for many years and have put a ton of work into my car, but have just recently been converted over to the dark side of car computing.
My car is a 2000 Dodge Intrepid ES with the 3.2L engine, and is Dark Garnette Red.
Here is an extremely abbreviated version of my mod list to give an idea what I'm working with already.
Interior: Full black 300M interior with black "Oh ****" handles, custom black headliner, black EVIC with Tire PSI Monitoring, Automatic Temperature Control, Auto Headlights, Red LED lighting in overhead lights and doors, et cetera.
Sound system: Currently running a JVC HU that I hate (insurance gave me this when the good JVC got stolen), JL VR650CSi Components up front powered by a MTX MXA4002 amp, rears are Infinity Reference 9613i 6x9s that I picked up for cheap brand new and are just powered off the HU (for now-going to change soon). No subs yet, but I've got my eye on a few that I've wanted for a while, and I'm about to acquire an amp to power them. All 4 doors are sound deadened along with a significant portion of the floor.
Performance: For those who are interested, I've done a few things here too
I have a custom intake built off the JoeKD intake, but upgrading the throttle body bend, the K&N filter (to a larger one with inverse cone), and adding an AEM air bypass valve to prepare for a ram air intake setup that will come along eventually. I have a bored out throttle body, a lower intake manifold spacer, a bored out lower intake manifold, and a 160 degree T stat (stock is 180). Soon I will have 3.89 gears and a new ECM (no ebay crap, tuned by a real shop - I already have it, just need to install). Also a custom fan switch will be going in over summer.
I also have tinted windows. 35% on all four side windows with 17 on the rear. I feel this is worth mentioning with regard to how much sunlight a screen must deal with.
That should be more than enough to satisfy a little curiosity and show that I've been at this car stuff for a while, and am just new to adding the PC into the mix.
The Carputer is just in it's early development stage. I'm building it off of a Dell Inspiron 8600 Laptop I already own (screen broke, so I moved to a new laptop). It's running a 1.8 Pentium M processor with 512 ram, and a 100gig 7200rpm HDD.
Right now I'm working on setting up RR as my front end with LSX Void as my skin. I've got MS S&T 06 for cheap in the mail, and that will probably tide me over for a while until I look into IG4.
Hardware I've already collected:
Lind DE2045-1342 - power adapter made for the laptop.
GlobalSat BU-353 GPS receiver - got it for a good deal on ebay new
My sound card is going to be a SB Audigy 2 ZS NB version using the PCMCIA slot that I have open on the laptop so that I can use kxProject (can't do on their USB cards). I already ordered one, but it showed up broken so I'm hunting for another one.
Mitchjs' HDR-RS232 HD radio patch cable
XMPCR kit and XMPCR optical board
Visteon HDZ300 - finally won an auction at the price I was willing to pay
W3bmaster's Auto on power supply
Dell docking station
MS Streets and Trips 2006
New Audigy 2 AZ PCMCIA card - Works great (finally - cost me less than 70 shipped so I'm happy)
Maxtor One Touch 4 500gb external HDD
I just successfully installed the W3bmaster's Auto on power supply into the docking station.
I have my two JL 8W0 subs and am starting to build the enclosure for them. The amp powering them should arrive anyday now. It's a Pioneer 5300T amp that I got a great deal on one brand new. Should be more than good enough for those subs. I also ordered my two sets of Infinity 32.9cf speakers to place in each door as the center channel. The last piece is to find the amp for those and the rear 6x9s (gonna run each pair of infinity speakers as a single channel with the 6x9s on the other pair of channels). Also I need to order my upgraded power wire which I finally decided to go all the way to 0 gauge wire. Right now I'm still running 4 gauge, which is enough for now but once I move the battery and am powering the entire system I'll need the beefiest wire I can get.
Yes I know the screen wasn't mentioned here, because I have no idea what I'm going to end up doing for that.
As far as the physical install itself, I'm going to do a massive custom trunk install. All the equipment will be mounted in the trunk using a false floor that is 3-4 inches elevated and also using the trunk space behind the rear wheel wells. I have a 28"x48" sheet of Lucite that I will use to make the setup visible and a little flashy (why not?). This will probably start being built gradually in a few months once I have figured out all the hardware I need to mount so I know where to mount it.
I'm debating how much I want to disassemble the computer. I definitely want to remove the screen (I know to check if it has a wifi antenna up there), the speakers, and possible the keyboard and touchpad as well. I also would want to remove the built in volume and mute buttons so they never get activated on accident. Also if this is going to be an uglied up computer like this, I would look into venting the case better and possible installing heatsinks to help with cooling. I'll have to see once I get into the computer, but for now I'm still using it and testing software/hardware for the final setup.
The workbench DC power supply is here, I just need to get it out and get everything hooked up.
I also just dropped the 160 bucks to get a new audiocontrol matrix new. It'll be worth it in the long run, even though that really hurts the wallet for something I hadn't planned on.
Linear Mode
