Thread: Car PC install in my 02 Avalanche

UPDATE: In the past few months I've done a little bit of work on the carputer but have been focused mostly on the exterior.
Since this is not a forum geared towards the vehicle itself but more towards the carPC. I won't say too much about the car itself.



As for the CarPC I have upgraded the motherboard to the Zotac NForce 9300 ITX with wifi and that's it.
New mobo does have HDMI out as well as VGA so I am now looking into the possibility of an HDMI touchscreen monitor if I can find a 12 ft HDMI cable.

On to the car itself I have been doing a lot more work.
I have painted the body cladding black, painted the grill black smoked out the headlights, Got new smoked LED taillights and a lot of other stuff. Unfortunately I don 't want to post after pics until I am close to being done.

Would want to have a before, middle and after pic on the site.
Hang tight and I will add soon.

Hi
Excellent install
What skin are you using for centrafuse?
How have you embedded garmin (Using GMPC plugin?) if so does the skin allow for it to be embedded?
thanks

Over the past couple of months I have been more focused on working on the outside of my truck but I have also done some stuff inside as well.

So far I have added microphone for voice command and control. It is not working 100% yet but it is getting there.
I have also added 4 usb ports to the cpu for the exxtra devices that i am adding to this install

To the exterior of the truck I have done much much more.

I have repainted all the gray cladding on the truck as it was starting to fade.
On a whim I also decided one weekend to paint the rims as well since a new set of rims are stillabove my budget.
I did all the work myself and being the perfectionist I am I must say I am happy with the results.
Ialso had the headlights tinted. Originally I had planned on having smoked aftermarket taillights but some jerk tried to steal them.
Now I have just tinted the new set of aftermaket lights so they look like tinted stock taillights until they turn on.

Here are some shots:

Dirty streets I know.
At least my car is one clean thing there at the time LOL.






These shots were taken before I decided to paint the rims.

These are pics after I decided on a whim to paint the rims black.
I don't know how this will stand the test of time but for now they came out a lot better than I expected.
For those interested I painted the rims with duplicolor shadow paint.
This is not the actual effect it should have but I have to say it does look OK.
If these were actual chrome rims, and I was looking for a shadow effect and not a blacked out look , I'd be really ****ed.
If you are looking for a shadow on your rims like this is advertised to do, I'll tell you now do not apply it to your rims.

UPDATE: Paint did not last.

Part of it is from my doing the other is the idiots at Sears.
I took my car to have my tires rebalanced after rotating and I specifically told the guy at the counter that I would perfer that they not use the clip on weights rather they should use the adhesive version that are normally used on aftermarket wheels.
This must have gone through one ear and out the other because I got my car back with the stupid clip on weights which ruined the paint where it was stuck on.
To make matters worse the balancing machine must have had something sticking out of it and touching the rim as I now have a scratched circle in the middle of all four rims where as it was rotating this object scratched all four rims.
I did not notice this because they dropped the car off at work for me since I work next door and dropped it off during lunch hour.
When I took it back to complain the manger had the nerves to tell me that it did not happen there.
Like I could have scratched all four rims in a circular pattern while driving back there.
This really totally ****ed me off.
Never again will I take my car to Sears as this is the second time they have done shoddy work on my vehicle.
I only take it there because it was close to work and I could just drop it off and pick it up later without much inconvenience.
The convenience is definitely not worth the trouble.

For my part, I messed up my two front wheels a bit more when I accidentally sprayed brake cleaner on the wheel to get rid of the brake dust but forgot to wash off immediately.
When I finally got around to washing it , it had etched into the paint messing it up some.
From a distance you can hardly notice it but I know it is there and it irks me.

Guess I will either repaint next summer as I plan to use the factory rims and tires during the winter months and get some after market wheels put on later or take it to some shop to gt it painted professionally.

Audio

So many things to do and not enough time or money to get them done as fast as I want.

I decided that now will be a good time as any to upgrade my audio system to compliment the computer.

I scored a sweet deal on 2 sets of Focal VRS component speakers for the doors a few days ago.
I plan on adding some sound deadening material to the doors to get the best out of these.
At approximately $500 a pair retail, these are supposed to be great speakers so I do not plan on skimping on the rest of the stuff to connect them.






Last night I took the door panels off my car to install the speakers.
Here are some pics of my panels before speaker install.





My original plan was to install the tweeter for the front doors behind the side mirror housing. However in the case of the Avalanche and some other GM trucks the driver side dash completely blocks it.
I am no sound guru but I had previously put tweeters in the A-Pillar of another vehicle I owned in the past and I should say I was less than happy with the results.
For one thing it was sticking out and became an eyesore for me. Another issue I had was that I could practically hear the tweeter separately from the mid-range and it was so annoying I had to turn the treble down just to try to enjoy my music.
I was not sure how this would sound and I definitely did not want a repeat performance so I resulted to installing the tweeter in the door panels
you can also see by looking at the pic of the front door that the factory tweeter is right next to the mid-range speaker in their setup.
I therefore decided to mount mine as close as possible to the factory location to retain the imaging.

DLUVR22:

I am a ex car audio installer of 25 years experience and now work in tech support.
Your tweeters should be no more than a maximum of 6 inches away from the mid for best sound.
As for your rims if you want to have the best results for paint I would have them powder coated.
It will probably cost you less than new wheels and it will last the life of the vehicle.
FYI:
Hope this helps
Jon

Originally Posted by jontheinstaller

DLUVR22:

I am a ex car audio installer of 25 years experience and now work in tech support.
Your tweeters should be no more than a maximum of 6 inches away from the mid for best sound.
As for your rims if you want to have the best results for paint I would have them powder coated.
It will probably cost you less than new wheels and it will last the life of the vehicle.
FYI:
Hope this helps
Jon

thanks.
I'll be sure to keep that in mind when completing this audio build