95 Lexus SC300 - 0l33l's "Project SC300" - Page 5

IxTanGxI · 01-16-2005, 07:55 PM

I know you posted this a while ago, but......... Before painting rub alcohol on the piece and make sure it dries. This will take all the grease off of it and dont use too much alcohol because it is a paint remover. After doing that avoid touching the piece while you paint and then prime it. If you have anymore questions just post away.

0l33l · 01-16-2005, 08:00 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by IxTanGxI

I know you posted this a while ago, but......... Before painting rub alcohol on the piece and make sure it dries. This will take all the grease off of it and dont use too much alcohol because it is a paint remover. After doing that avoid touching the piece while you paint and then prime it. If you have anymore questions just post away.

I'll try that too. But first, I'm gonna have to get some better paint. Like Krylon Fusion Plastic Paint, or some Molecubond (used for leather, but I hear its great for my dash).

jcdillin · 02-09-2005, 11:05 PM

Hey mr boris have you been working on this at all?

0l33l · 02-09-2005, 11:37 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by jcdillin

Hey mr boris have you been working on this at all?

No

I need to get the parts from my friend and drop em off at my uncle's place and instruct him on what to do. He was the one who fixed my cupholder (see pics here, and compare em to the pics of it broken before in the fab forum).

0l33l · 02-28-2005, 07:49 PM

I got the stuff! Now I'm going to drop it off at my uncle's on Friday

0l33l · 03-06-2005, 01:41 AM

Dropped parts off at uncle's house today. I'm going for the stock look, so no cutting will be done to the bezel. I'm chopping the top (curved) part off off the climate control to have the perfect fit. Also going for stock clearences. To hold the screen, he'll drill a hole into the cupholder and do a L braket to the monitor. Panasonic DVD/CD-RW going under the screen and the rest will be filled with bondo

TO_SC300 · 03-08-2005, 01:37 PM

Wow. Another SC owner, nice! I'm eagerly watching your project, I've got an SC300 and I'm about to get a carputer in there. Interesting what you're doing with the climate control, is the plan to control the climate from the carputer itself? I'd be interested in knowing if anyone has 'hacked' the climate controller yet and replaced it, considering the LCD bleed problem these units normally have (including mine).

You mentioned 5 SC carputers, whom are the others?

0l33l · 03-08-2005, 08:01 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by TO_SC300

Wow. Another SC owner, nice! I'm eagerly watching your project, I've got an SC300 and I'm about to get a carputer in there. Interesting what you're doing with the climate control, is the plan to control the climate from the carputer itself? I'd be interested in knowing if anyone has 'hacked' the climate controller yet and replaced it, considering the LCD bleed problem these units normally have (including mine).

You mentioned 5 SC carputers, whom are the others?

Yeh... another SC owner

Its a good thing that you took the time to find, import, and legalize the sc300 in canda

I wish my car was manual, but those are too hard to find and carry a higher sticker price

Yeh, I'm going to be going digital with the climate control. I've taken the controller apart (just the thing with the LCD and buttons, not the thing in the tan casing). I've figured out that the power is the 4 pin cable with 3 pins. But when I was trying to test the buttons by hooking up to their points of contact, I got that they are connected, and that nothing happens when I press the button. I'm going to have my grandpa, an electrical engineer, look at the thing. After I figure that stuff out, I'm probably going to use 2 phidgets 8/8/8 kits. There are 10 buttons on the controller, so one phidgets kit isn't enough. And then there are a few status LEDs that I will need to monitor. Also going to hack the rotary knob and interface that.
When I get done with the thing, I'll hopefully sell the software to SC owners for $50-$100.

About the other 5: There are like 5 on clublexus.com alone. And then there are atleast three more person on the boards, if you count a soarer as an sc300

TO_SC300 · 03-10-2005, 12:01 AM

Yeah, I took the time, cost a pretty penny tho. The car was built in Japan so I got nailed with 6% duty, on top of 7% provincial sales tax and 8% goods and services tax, 21% total! That, in a nutshell, is what living in Canada is like

Hey, when you fall in love with a car... you do silly things.

Wow. Hacking that climate control is going to be intense. I was just looking at the Lexus electronic wiring diagram for mine and it looks daunting. In any case, if you'd like, I can photocopy these pages from my wiring manual if it'll help the cause. I'm pretty sure 95 has the same climate control unit as the 92.

I'm going to jam a liliput in the double din radio space with a slot load optical. Computer in the trunk.. not that we have much space back there. I'm a bit concerned on the length the usb and vga cables have to be to reach, it's a longish car. Are you doing this as well, or is the computer going in the sadly small glove box lexus gave us to work with?

0l33l · 03-10-2005, 12:18 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by TO_SC300

Yeah, I took the time, cost a pretty penny tho. The car was built in Japan so I got nailed with 6% duty, on top of 7% provincial sales tax and 8% goods and services tax, 21% total! That, in a nutshell, is what living in Canada is like

Hey, when you fall in love with a car... you do silly things.

Wow. Hacking that climate control is going to be intense. I was just looking at the Lexus electronic wiring diagram for mine and it looks daunting. In any case, if you'd like, I can photocopy these pages from my wiring manual if it'll help the cause. I'm pretty sure 95 has the same climate control unit as the 92.

I'm going to jam a liliput in the double din radio space with a slot load optical. Computer in the trunk.. not that we have much space back there. I'm a bit concerned on the length the usb and vga cables have to be to reach, it's a longish car. Are you doing this as well, or is the computer going in the sadly small glove box lexus gave us to work with?

Yeh, taxes suck

even though I don't have to pay any, the advantage of being 17

Yeh, the CC is not the easiest thing in the world. But I want to be special

That, and my LCD is bleeding

The diagrams would be great. But the controllers are a tiny bit different. The panel with the LCd is the same, but the boards in the tan casing are different. You can swap the LCD board between all years, but 95-96 cars had different boards

The diagrams would be good though

My email is 95lexus@gmail.com

I'm going to be going with a Xenarc. Time is money, and repairing the lilli will take a lot of time. So I'm going to spend more money now rather than spend 1.5x as much later.

Before I opened up the car, I wanted to shove the computer behind the radio area. This is impossible. You COULD shove a VIA behind there, and have the opus in the glove box. Another great idea is to have the slot load be in the flipout cupholder. I wanted to go with this route until I figured out that I didn't want to spend $200 on a new CC unit to chop up.

I don't know how much space there is under the glove box. I also though about cutting the bottom of the glove box, but I'm afraid that there are filters there. I think that's the place of the AC filter.

About cables: use high quality shielded cables, and run the power cables on one side, and the audio cables on another.

Are you going to be using the stock amps? How are you going to wire into them? My idea was to throw that crap away and install a good amp in the trunk, and to run less wires

My computer is probably going in the trunk. Maybe ontop of the gas tank. I have to check how much space I have to work with. Or maybe I'll put it in the side instead of the dead cd-changer and stock amp.

TO_SC300 · 03-11-2005, 01:04 AM

Yeah, those taxes took a chunk of my soul with them

My LCD is bleeding as well, if you do map out the CC ins/outs properly, I'm sure clublexus members will love ya for it, myself included. I didn't know that 95-96 has a different CC, odd. I will scan the diagrams once I get back from the US, flying down to Virginia in the morning, but I'll email them to you when I get back.

I was thinking of jamming the computer in the radio area as well, I was waiting for the Nano-ITX but hell's frozen over at least twice since I started waiting. My idea is to jam it in the trunk, for the additional space and also because my amps are back there, less distance for a (possible) rca interconnect wire = less interference. Cupholder idea is a great, but there's no other spaces for cups! Can't give that one up

Under the glove box there isn't much space. There's a large pipe that's part of the frame. The filter for the AC actually goes in from the bottom of the passenger footwell, straight up. Just remove the lowest panel and look up. You'll see a white plastic rectangle held in with two screws. It's not in the way, but a whole heck of alot of wires, air conduits and chunks of frame are.

It's annoying really. There's isn't many 'cubby holes' in this damn car to hide things. The trunk space is ridiculous. The cupholder situation makes me laugh out loud. It's that damn smile I can't wipe off my face when I see her parked in the driveway sporting her 18" summer paws. She's like a girlfriend. Great to look at, but slowly drives you nuts.

I chucked the stock amps within the first week I had the car. I did the ole' make two MDF shelves above the gas tank. It's been discussed on clublexus, works well. I have two amps in ther, one for a 500 watt free air sub in the rear deck (replaced the old one) and one for the four speakers. If you're thinking of replacing the rear deck subwoofer, don't do it with another subwoofer in the deck. At high power, there is not way in hell you can stop all of the rattle, I've dynamatted the entire rear of the car, still rattles at certain frequencies. Mostly the brake light/woofer cover. Do a woofer box, if you can spare that ample trunk space we have

So I'm thinking of putting the computer right where the CD changer was in the trunk. Keep the metal base it's attached to and bold the case right to that base. Then SB live pci card or sb extigy connected to SPDIF output from the motherboard. Don't want to load the usb bus with audio, sounds like it slows down the CPU a fair bit.

0l33l · 03-11-2005, 01:42 AM

I was hoping that the clublexus members would help me map the ins/outs...

Its really weird. I supposedly connect to the two terminals behind the buttons, but they are already connected. When I press the button, it doesn't disconnect them.

I'll have my grandpa figure this one out.
I originally wanted to hack right into the cable that goes from the board with the LCD to the controllers, but I'm fearing that an interface chip for the LCD and buttons is connected there

You can shove a VIA EPIA behind the dash, its been done on clublexus already

And the EPIa is bigger than the Nano-ITX

About the cupholder in the console (not the one that you click to open). I'm talking about the one that you pull out. Its useless anyways because cups tend to FALL OUT of it! It would be more of a safety precausion, that way no sodas will fall on your LCD display.

Thanks for telling me how much room I had there. I didn't think it was a lot, so I didn't even bother to check

Yeh, the trunk space is inadequate to say the least. I haven't been on CL in a while, too much homework and stuff. But when I was there anyways, I never visited that section

what's your ID on it?

When I was removing the 3rd brakelight to replace a bulb, I broke off one of the clips. I'm gonna guess that its gonna be making a racket, even with the stock system

I do think I know what's causing the racket. There is this plate behind the rear seat. Maybe this will help get rid of the rattle...

I just ordered some Goodyear GS-D3s... so now I won't go sliding in the rain

Almost took out a few poles with the old tires

I'm probably gonna mount it instead of the CD changer. Plus, you won't hear the fan noise inside the car! Kill two birds with one stone.

I'm going to be going with probably a first get Audigy PCI. Look for the kXProject drivers, its like having a digital processor right in the sound card

Quote: Originally Posted by TO_SC300

Yeah, those taxes took a chunk of my soul with them

My LCD is bleeding as well, if you do map out the CC ins/outs properly, I'm sure clublexus members will love ya for it, myself included. I didn't know that 95-96 has a different CC, odd. I will scan the diagrams once I get back from the US, flying down to Virginia in the morning, but I'll email them to you when I get back.

I was thinking of jamming the computer in the radio area as well, I was waiting for the Nano-ITX but hell's frozen over at least twice since I started waiting. My idea is to jam it in the trunk, for the additional space and also because my amps are back there, less distance for a (possible) rca interconnect wire = less interference. Cupholder idea is a great, but there's no other spaces for cups! Can't give that one up

Under the glove box there isn't much space. There's a large pipe that's part of the frame. The filter for the AC actually goes in from the bottom of the passenger footwell, straight up. Just remove the lowest panel and look up. You'll see a white plastic rectangle held in with two screws. It's not in the way, but a whole heck of alot of wires, air conduits and chunks of frame are.

It's annoying really. There's isn't many 'cubby holes' in this damn car to hide things. The trunk space is ridiculous. The cupholder situation makes me laugh out loud. It's that damn smile I can't wipe off my face when I see her parked in the driveway sporting her 18" summer paws. She's like a girlfriend. Great to look at, but slowly drives you nuts.

I chucked the stock amps within the first week I had the car. I did the ole' make two MDF shelves above the gas tank. It's been discussed on clublexus, works well. I have two amps in ther, one for a 500 watt free air sub in the rear deck (replaced the old one) and one for the four speakers. If you're thinking of replacing the rear deck subwoofer, don't do it with another subwoofer in the deck. At high power, there is not way in hell you can stop all of the rattle, I've dynamatted the entire rear of the car, still rattles at certain frequencies. Mostly the brake light/woofer cover. Do a woofer box, if you can spare that ample trunk space we have

So I'm thinking of putting the computer right where the CD changer was in the trunk. Keep the metal base it's attached to and bold the case right to that base. Then SB live pci card or sb extigy connected to SPDIF output from the motherboard. Don't want to load the usb bus with audio, sounds like it slows down the CPU a fair bit.

Blackrazor · 03-15-2005, 05:26 AM

Nice wagon. I'll post pics of my Toyota Soarer 4.0GT (which is pretty much the same thing as a Lexus SC400 with extra gizmos and etc) as i go once i start building it

Boot space isnt an issue as the back seat is disappearing to make way for an aperiodically loaded sub enclosure

BTW, i dont find the Soarer is THAT bad on gas, i get about 9.6L/100km which is (does the maths, ruddy Imperial measurements) 24 miles to the gallon... a full 78L tank gets me about 600kms (about 375 miles) which isnt too bad. The secret with the Lexus V8 engine is to run it on 96 Octane, which even tho it costs more seems to use much less

BTW, you gotta have a chuckle, you've got the same issue with the aircon control that mine has

0l33l · 03-15-2005, 07:37 PM

Wagon

Its a coupe!

Does yours have the stock navigation?

I actually use the backseat on occasions. Its one of the reasons that I got the SC300 over an MR2.

I find the car awful on gas. Its pretty ironic that the v8 gets better gas mileage than the inline-6. I've gotten around 300miles for a tank of gas, and I use the highest octane rating they have here in Cali, 91

I think the climate control issue was a problem on all models. Its just that the LCDs crack because of heat

Quote: Originally Posted by Blackrazor

Nice wagon. I'll post pics of my Toyota Soarer 4.0GT (which is pretty much the same thing as a Lexus SC400 with extra gizmos and etc) as i go once i start building it

Boot space isnt an issue as the back seat is disappearing to make way for an aperiodically loaded sub enclosure

BTW, i dont find the Soarer is THAT bad on gas, i get about 9.6L/100km which is (does the maths, ruddy Imperial measurements) 24 miles to the gallon... a full 78L tank gets me about 600kms (about 375 miles) which isnt too bad. The secret with the Lexus V8 engine is to run it on 96 Octane, which even tho it costs more seems to use much less

BTW, you gotta have a chuckle, you've got the same issue with the aircon control that mine has

TO_SC300 · 03-15-2005, 11:26 PM

Yeah, can't help you with the mapping, except by sending you the diagrams which I just did to your email. Good luck with that, let me know if some email filter stops the zip file somewhere. It's a 3MB zip file.

That cup holder does, well, suck ***. Definately designed before the Japanese witnessed the 'super gulp' phenomenon

I'm going to jam the computer in the trunk because all my amps are back there, not sure I want to run the audio cables back, think I'd rather run the VGA and USB cables 15 ft... might regret this decision at some point.

My ID on CL is the same, TO_SC300. Haven't been on in ages either, spent so much time on my car, had to take a break... but it's time again (carputer!) As for that thread RE: rattle, I dynamatted that entire plate in the rear just so I wouldn't have to take it out, thanks for the tip tho. I pounded the system with the rear seat out, it's definately the third brake lite and, after some time, other things loosen up! I'm going in with a big tube of threadlok when I install the carputer.

Good call with the better tires. I swap between true winter/summer tires, needed for rear wheel drive cars... ESPECIALLY if your car doesn't have a limited slip diff (LSD) like the 92 SC300 (imagine my surprise...)

Inside the CD changer.... interesting idea. Perfect case! Not sure if an EPIA board will fit in it tho!?

Thanks for the tip on the audigy. Might go PCI for it, need to figure out the power requirements. I'm having a hell of a time deciding on what to get for a PSU. Too many choices!! M1-ATX, Carnetix 80W, wait for Carnetix 1900, Opus 90W or Opus 150W. The biggest hassle is the ALL mini-itx cases come with PSUs it seems! So if I go Opus 150W, again for future expandability, I'm throwing away the DC-DC PSU in the case any paying $140 for a case (thinking C137, dual PCI). What a PITA.

BTW - About Gas milage... yeah. Isn't just you. That 3.0L sucks back gas like a Ford 5.0L engine... of course, that could be because of the constant launching at the lights... haven't slowed down long enough to figure it's true MPG

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