Carputer on a Budget: 2002 WRX ver. 2.0

**SnowDrift** · 11-10-2006, 08:07 AM

Hello everybody. I'm another newbie with another WRX(but it's a wagon this time) with another first time install of a carputer. Actually that's not entirely true, but I'll get into that later.

First, a thanks goes to all of you carputer pioneers out there. This project could not happen without the info and help you guys and girls provide.

LaxPlaya8513 showed me this forum a little over a month ago, and I've been on every night, doing research and looking at my options. The main hurdle I have with this, and anything else in my life, is funding. That's when Ebay came too the rescue. The most expensive item to get me started would be the touch screen. All the other stuff could be pieced together from what I already have or bought rather inexpensively(the DC-DC power supply is the other big purchase on my list, but that can wait until later).

Goals of this build:
Most important: Not get yelled at by the wife for spending a fortune. (Almost) anyone can spend over $1000 and buy the bolt-in kit for the WRX and an tiny itx mother board or a macmini or any other small form factor pc or laptop and put it in there car. Not me. Ain' got no cheese. But doing it this way is more fun and rewarding, that's what I keep telling myself.
Second goal: Keep it clean. Forget JDM, I'm starting a new fad: OEM style- Modifying without looking modified. Who's with me?
Third goal: Get a working carputer setup. This project will undergo continual upgrading, modifying, fine tuning, whatever. It will probably never be done in a sense that I will ever stop working on it, that's just the way I am.

That's it for now. Tons of pictures to come

**Tankist** · 11-10-2006, 09:22 AM

i'm on the same page as you as far as my project progress and funding situation. interested to see what you'll come up with.

**SnowDrift** · 11-10-2006, 10:24 AM

A little bit of back history...

In 2002 I got the bright idea of incorporating a laptop into my car(Lexus es300). I need one for school, it could handle gps(I really hated getting lost in Boston) and it would be perfect. This is looong before I even heard of a carputer. So I got a "small" sony 12" laptop and a Joto desk. The desk is great in vans and suvs but cumbersome in reg cars. I gave up, up graded to a 15" desktop replacer and was happy...but the dream never totally went away. In 2003, I got my rex wagon, a 10.4" ultra portable or whatever you call it and a new plan. I disassembled the joto, stuck a piece of it out of the single din pocket on the dash and mounted the computer to that, with (reeaally strong) velcro. It worked and the 10" screen was niiiiice but it had a few drawbacks.

1). Assembly and disassembly was a pain and took mins. I didn't dare leave $1000 + laptop in plain view of greasy thieves.
2). I got weird looks from people. I was waiting for a cop to pull me over too. Mass outlawed cell phone use while driving, saying it's a distraction? What do you think they'd say about laptop use?
3). No touch screen and not front end = pain to navigate.
4). I had a chunk of metal sticking out of my dash when the computer was not there. It was ugly and hurt when I hit it.

Fast forward to 2006 and to Mp3car.com. So, that's why this is ver. 2.0.

**SnowDrift** · 11-10-2006, 10:32 AM

I don't have any pics of the mount in the dash, but here's more to show what I was talking about.

**SnowDrift** · 11-10-2006, 12:25 PM

I guess I'll start by showing you the car part of the carputer. Because I'm poor, it does not live up to its full potential. But who needs 500whp anyways?(me) Maybe someday...

But for now, I just did a few up-grades:
sti turboback pipes
front strut tower bar
new yokohama rubber
slotted cross drilled rotors
u-tec
titanium shift knob(ooohhh)
hks bov
(water-proof)blue seat covers and matching child seat(the seat covers saved the day when my wife puked in the car. I don't like them, but they stay in for now)

I've tried to keep it simple and clean(read: non-riced), but I couldn't resist the bov. That's part of the fun of having a turbo. After 2 years, it still makes me smile.

No real system in it. Just a 5 yr old h.u. left over from the lex and alpine type s speakers in the doors(not much room in there for anything with a big magnet). I had subs but took them out after less than a month. I'm dancing with the idea of one 10" in a small fiberglass box. I had sat radio and 12 disc changer but took them out after the ipod took over. That's about it.

**SnowDrift** · 11-10-2006, 03:01 PM

For the "puter" half, I picked up a Dell optiplex gx150 at a local computer show for $65. It has a 10gb hd, dvd drive, 256mb ram, 800mhz cpu, umm..., a case and psu. It's thinner than average pc's so I thought it would fit under the seat or above the spare tire until I got around to building a case, but I was wrong on both accounts. But with a $65 computer, I can up grade the cpu, add ram, or go with whole new mb and cpu without regrets because I only spent $65. The one thing that worries me is that the on board video/cpu might not have enough processing power for the constant refreshing of maps in some navigation software or the graphics of some fancy front ends. The dvd drive worked, but was old and noisy, so it was replaced with a spare one I had lying around. The harddrive was replaced with a 120gb one I pulled from my external that I'm not really using. And I bought a usb2.0 pci card for $15, but still not sure if I really need it.

**LaxPlaya8513** · 11-10-2006, 07:24 PM

looks good! keep the ram to only necessity though, the bootup time will be quicker.

Btw, that's a great goal

not get yelled at by your wife

**Tankist** · 11-10-2006, 07:43 PM

this is a dell machine you working with so pay attention to how you are going to power it. it has propriatery power connection so you will not be able to power it with DC-DC PSU's without some modification.

**SnowDrift** · 11-10-2006, 10:46 PM

Thanks for the tip tankist, I'll try to remember that. The dc-dc psu is at least a few months away, in stage II. For the time being, I will use a 300 watt inverter I picked up a few years back at Walmart.

To get the project off the ground and keep the finances managable, I've divided it into stages and the stages into steps. Nothing is really set in stone because it is all a learning process for me. Even with the wealth of knowledge offered in this forum, not everything will work the same for everyone. So the planning only goes so far, I just got to go out and do it. I'm taking things slow, so if anyone else has tips or sees things out of place, drop a line.

And don't worry, I have been working on this for about a week, just haven't had time to resized the pics. And this is my first post on any forum, so I'm learning about this too. More progress to come