# 99 Trans Am - My 1st real audio install



## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Warning my story is most likely too long and boring as I've been told I use too many words. Pictures start in April 2013 so feel free to skip ahead lol. This is my first somewhat real install other than replacing factory speakers and throwing in a sub box with some amps bolted to it. I bought my car used and abused about 8 years ago. The driver’s side door hinge is shot and the door has to be lifted to close it. The body is dinged and dented and in need of paint. The engine compartment looks as though it hasn't been cleaned since it left the factory. The interior has miscellaneous scratched and broken parts. The windshield wiper blade appears to have fallen off and was never put back on. Both driver and passenger side window felts are shot and the windows are scratched to hell. I've been working on it slowly, money and weather permitting since March 2013. It’s also my DD so I can’t really have it off the road for too long a period at a time. I’m putting my entire log on here to present so I have it somewhere and to get some input and pointers.

I welcome any ideas, opinions, critiques or anything anyone thinks may be a better idea than the ones I have. 
My goals are, and in order:

1. Audio Equipment
Head Unit: Kenwood KDC-x997
Processor: Rockfor Fosgate 3sixty.3
Amp 1: JL HD600/4 tweeter and mids
Amp 2: JL HD600/4 bridged mid-base
Amp 3: JL HD750/1 sub
Tweeters: JL C5-075ct
Mids: JL C5-400cm
Mid-Base: JL C5-5.5cw for now, eventually I will go to ZR800s
Sub: Dayton 12” Reference HF for now and eventually a JL 12W6v3-D4
2. Interior
New Ebony carpet
Re wrap all interior parts and seats in ebony (not sure the material yet)
3. Motor & Drivetrain
4. Chassis, suspension, breaks & wheels
5. Body

2009
The original Audio system was a 10 speaker monsoon. 6.5 and tweeter in the doors, 6.5 4ohm DVC in the sail panels and 4” and tweeter in the hatch. Some type of multi-channel amp in the quarter. Some speakers were 2ohm and some were 4ohm. Some fed from the HU and some fed from the amp. The sail speakers blew so I replaced them with ID ctx 65cs components leaving out the tweeters hooked to one set of speaker wires for the DVCs, that worked out well but I lost the little base the car had and the stock amp wasn’t powerful enough to push them. 

2010
The CD player crapped out on me so I picked up a Monster Cable iPhone FM adapter for my 3GS for $80. That worked for a while.

2011
Next phone was an iPhone 42 and that cable no longer charged while it was being used. So new cable time and another $80.
I lost my license for 2 years due to a trooper with no sense of humor and an extremely heavy foot lol. I should have learned the 1st 2 times. This is when I should have started the install.

2012
Next phone was an iPhone 5 bam new cable needed. I said forget it and it was radio only for a while.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

End of April 2013
I lasted a few months on radio but it was bad. I went to look for a new head unit that had a USB input or took an external HDD. I prefer a single din just because I can’t seem to warrant a DVD player I can’t watch while I’m driving and didn’t need a touch screen I figured would eventually go bad. I picked up the x997. 
Oddly enough this was one of my favorite cars I’ve owned and the only one that did not have some sort of aftermarket audio system in it. So I decided to look in the amp/speaker room. After looking at equipment I got the itch. The owner of the shop had me interested in a JL XD amp and C3 components. The amp had good power and a small foot print and the speakers sounded good in the show room. I still wasn’t sure. But just incase I left with a JL 2awg dual amp wiring kit, Stinger 4000 RCAs, A bulk pack of STP silver sound deadener and Dlink 12awg speaker wire. That’s some purchase for an I’m not sure yet lol.
I went home, installed the head unit, harness and dash kit. I wasn’t too happy with the way it sounded but it was definitely noticeably better than the stock HU. Even the stock speakers sounded better and I was getting a little more from the IDs. I needed some base to replace what was lost with the IDs in the sails. I did some research on the LS1 site since my car is pretty tight and there isn’t much room for anything I figured I get an idea of what others with the same car were doing.


I’m bad with taking pictures after something is done and working so I’m going to try to do this from memory until I get to now.
I pulled the interior. It was a mess. 





The previous owner had a hard time hitting the ash tray. 




She had a long hair animal of some type that appears to have loved car rides. Hopefully a dog.




I pulled the carpet and brought it to a local guy to shampoo. He did the best he could but it needs to be replaced. I’m going to change the interior color to I think Ebony anyhow.





These are the IDs


She wore heals that destroyed the carpet and started causing rust on the floor pan. 



I removed the rust from the pedal area and by the back seat. Prepped with rust inhibiter and primed it. 




I then began to install the STP. The car has a lot of nooks an crannies and was still a bit noisy when running so I picked up a 2nd bilk pack of the STP silver.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

May 2013
I found the box for the remote start that hasn't work since I got the car. It works now. I won’t use it much in the winter but it will be great for the summer.


I picked up 4 more Sqft of STP silver to finish the doors. And more speaker wire. I still have some more areas to deaden but its so much quieter now. I will finish the rest of the STP and add CCF and MLV once I order my new carpet. 


I installed the wires. I pulled the power through the existing boot which is pretty large. I used scraps of the STP to hold the wires in place.


 










I start to build a fiber glass sub enclosure to go into the drivers side quarter which will allow me to store my T-tops. Most stealth enclosures you can purchase have .5 cuft of space. I managed to get .789 measured with water so it’s pretty accurate. I planned to put a 10 in it.



Had to do the top of the trim panel that covers the cubby hole also




Started lining it up



Put it together. I ended up trimming a bit off that was interfering with the C3s.





Put a coat of Rondo on the outside to seal up any pin holes



Cut and patched some air pockets and thin areas inside.


Rondo on the inside


I made some MDF rings with T-nuts and 3 coats of resin and relocated the IDs to the doors. I hid the xovers in the kicks. 



I picked up C3-570s for the hatch and JL 6w3v3s for the sails. Neither fit so I had to do some hacking .It started sounding better but still not there yet.
Sails



Hatch Side panels




I drilled holes in the abs and coated it with JB Weld then put some ¼” MDF fings on it with T nuts.




Only issues were the grills no longer fit back on.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

June or July 2013
I installed (2) 8” 8ohm pinnacle speakers from old house speakers in a homemade MDF box to see if I could get some base lol. I got power from the sails 2nd set of inputs that weren’t being used with the 6w3s. It actually worked somewhat so I picked up a logic DBX1002 amp from the used clearance table at a local shop for $40. That was working much better till I blew one of the woofers apart . 

August 2013 
Back to the clearance table and I picked up an Oxygen O2 spiral 10.1. Built a box for 2 in the event it worked out and now I had some base. It was sloppy, crappy base but it was base none the less. I was still lacking mids and highs do to the power of the stock amp.


To try to get the sub to sound better I finished up the sub enclosure and installed the O2 in that. The base actually sounded slightly better.











I built a quick amp rack so my amp wasn’t just sitting in the bottom of the trunk well. 




In the car


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

September 2013
Back to the stereo store and I came up with a plan. I was going to use (1) HD 600/4 for the fronts and rears and (1) for the hatch. I didn’t like the IDs so I was going to go with C3 components in the doors. I went home and looked at some installs on DiyMA and things got silly. I ended up going with (2) HD 600/4s and was going to install 2 sets of C3s one in the doors and one in the sails omitting the hatch speakers. I went on line and ordered some techflex, heat shrink and Stinger HPM 1/0 and 4awg power wire. 

I ordered new distros to handle the 3 amps.


Made some rings for the 6w3v3s



Installed the 2 HDs next to the logic. I ended up with a constant clicking in the front left tweeter. After swapping around amps, changing RCAs and speaker wire and multiple other things it turns out it was a firmware update in the radio for turning off the HU internal amp and some other updates.
Soldered up the HU harness. 



Tried out the techflex on a ground wire.



Now I was getting happier with the sound. It was louder and much cleaner. It was still lacking though.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

October 2013
I switched up the C3-570s to mount from the bottom so I can fit the grills on but now the gas fill hump made the panel stick up. 




Got me some more techflex. I originally had a different color for each wire but it would have looked like Rainbow Brite went on a bender and puked in my car lol.

I measured and techflexed. 











I found this stuff which is pretty cool and used it to seal the ends under the heat shrink for a more air tight seal




Battery to fuse

Bridged the terminal strip for the remote turn on wires





Heat shrink & techflex designation.

Printed up some labels and put them on the clear heat shrunk over them. Should have bought a label maker.


Picked up a Dayton 12” HF and had to cut and modify the enclosure a bit to make it fit. I managed to get it up to what I’m figuring is about .8 or .9 Cuft. I couldn’t check the volume with water since the MDF was on it now. 

















I picked up a HD750/1 for the sub and C5-650s for the doors. Made some new rings for the C5s. 









Speaker gasket tape I used on all speakers


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Set up my tweeters.







I mounted the amps and xovers to the board. No carpet this time since I keep changing my mind. Began working on a new amp rack. At some point one of the HD600/4 channels crapped out so I brought it to the store and they had JL send me a new one.

Started working on my new amp rack design






And changed the rack again



4awg to amps






Working on amp rack sides


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

November 2013
Tuned everything with the amp cross overs and the HU DSP and it was sounding nice now. Then I decided it wasn’t nice enough. I need to go active 3way front. I figured JL hasn’t let me down yet so I ordered C5-400cms. 


I began making rings for the mids and tweeter to go up on my dash. 








Got some stick on matt carbon fiber vinyl for the amp rack. 



Decided taking things out and putting them back in my car took to long so I found these quick release ends that are working out really well for me.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

December 2013
Got the fans installed in the amp rack sides. (3) pulling on one side and (3) pushing on the other. They will be hooked to the relay from the radio remote on.




I decided the mid/tweeter combo was going to be too big on my dash so I cut them in half.


My better half finally gave in to my new addiction and she got my a 3sixty.3 for Christmas. Time to rework everything lol.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

January 2011
New amp rack. Installed the CF vinyl on the bottom. Same shape. Its what fits.



Counter sunk the T nuts


Primed and sprayed the wire holes





Lid


Reworked my wires to go the amps instead of the xovers. 



Adding a back lip to the back after it was painted and wrapped of course.







Carpeted and stuffed my sub enclosure with .75 lbs of acousta stuff. I think it sounds a lot tighter now.





Modified my terminal strip so it was half hot and half ground. 




Put the ground block on the back but its too tall. For the plexi cover going on there.


Did a little drill patch and paint and ditched the rear speakers and put the ground block up front.



Installed a relay and wired it up. Also installed a disconnect for power and ground. 


What a wire rats nest lol. Im going to add a plexi back to keep signal and speaker cables better separated from the power. 




I’m working on a suitable hinge an piston to mount the cover and amp rack so I can pull it up out of the trunk and have it flip flat then hold the cover open. Also clean and tighten the wires up a bit.
Somewhere along the line the replacement HD600/4 crapped out. This time it was going into protection. They swapped it out for me no problems.

I was going through build logs again and learned about spheres and diffraction. So I had to build me some spheres. I figured if I hate them I can at least use them for aiming and placement.


















http://s742.photobucket.com/user/Jo...m Audio/2014-01/IMG_3672_zpsca826227.jpg.html


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

I made a laser aiming system for the mids and tweeters lol and taped them to my dash and windshield. 






They aren’t finished yet cause I’m still not sure if I like them and will be refinishing the whole interior eventually. I still need some warm weather to get the tweeter spheres in so they are still in the doors for now.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

February 2015
Put threaded dowels on the pods so they stopped shooting across the dash when I punch it and was able to aim them better lol. I may keep them or I may glass the mids & tweeters into the a-pillars and vent them into the dash. I’m not sure yet. I’m pretty certain I want them aimed out the way they are though. Just not with the one on the right cockeyed the way it is lol.






This is what I’m looking like as of now. Still have the temp wires in until I order the carpet. I get all antsy when I have the stuff and cant install it due to the snow so I’m waiting till the 2nd week of March or so to get the carpet, interior material, CCF and MLV so I can go full swing again. 




I used an imm-6 on an iphone5 and iPad air with UE SPL and audio tools to get some SPL readouts just out of curiosity. I’m pretty sure the last one isn’t possible with both the power I have and measurement devices I used but it was exciting either way lol.

Sept 2013 102db using UE SPL on iPhone. No mic


Jan 2014 110.7db using audio tools on iPhone with imm-6


Jan 2014 140.1db (this is the one I think is some sort of error) using audio tools on iPad Air with imm-6


For now I’m working on learning the DSP. I set up some starting cross over points on 3sixty3. I have some overlap set up for now till I get a handle on how this thing works and what the speakers like. I also set up the TA a bit but for center between head rests. I have the tweeters and mids each on their own channel of the 1st HD600/4. The C5-650s are on the 2nd HD600/4 bridged and the sub is on the HD750/1 bridged. I’m getting really happy with the sound. My only complaint is the gains are all the way down on the amps so it’s not as loud. I tried to set them with a voltage meter but they were all beyond recommended voltage. I guess it’s a setting on the gains of the 3sixty.3 I have to figure out. The HU max volume is 35 and the 3sixty.3 says it doesn’t distort till you pass 33 which I guess is good. Next step is get the tweeters in the spheres and on the dash and work on learning the 3sixty.3 and tuning a bit.
For fine tuning I’m in the process of getting a calibrated EMM-6 through CSA as well as an external sound card and pre amp. I haven’t decided on the sound card or pre amp yet any input would be greatly appreciated.
One of my many future plans is to install a Windows tablet in the dash over the radio and HVAC controls. I’m thinking I will set the HU back into the dash and either set the HVAC controls back also or relocate them. I’m waiting for AT&T to release one with cel service so it’s useful. I figure I can use it for NAV and I wouldn’t need to drag the laptop into the car to adjust the 3sixty.3.
I’m also thinking about running wires for a Rydeen 360 deg 4ch DVR system when the carpet comes out again.


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## Coppertone (Oct 4, 2011)

I've read through your hold build log and all I can say is whew lol. You are doing a great hob so far and are the epitome of what Diyma stands for. My only concern seems to be in the fact that these 600/4 seem to be biting the bullet on you. I am glad to hear that they were purchased authorized so that repairs can be made, but sad to see it occurring as such. Please keep sharing with us not only the audio but what you've done in general with the car to bring it to this level. My best to you, and your audio endeavor.


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## colled96 (Feb 2, 2010)

Ahhhhhhhh....F-bodies..they bring back such fond memories....


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

The good ol days right. My last one was a 79. They were much better when they were made of steel


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Coppertone said:


> I've read through your hold build log and all I can say is whew lol. You are doing a great hob so far and are the epitome of what Diyma stands for. My only concern seems to be in the fact that these 600/4 seem to be biting the bullet on you. I am glad to hear that they were purchased authorized so that repairs can be made, but sad to see it occurring as such. Please keep sharing with us not only the audio but what you've done in general with the car to bring it to this level. My best to you, and your audio endeavor.


Thanks man I appreciate it. It's going to be a long work in progress but it keeps me busy. I'm a bit out of practice. Last time I really worked on anything was in 98. I had a 80 Cady Hearse. When my son was born I had no where for a car seat so I stripped out the back and put a white leather limo interior in it. Then swapped the engine for a 502HP/502 crate engine with 72" long 4" dia side pipes. That was a fun project. I wish I had a digital camera or camera phone back then.

Both me and the shop owner I got the HDs from were surprised since they are solid amps. At first I thought it mas my issue and I was killing them so I checked and re checked all my wiring but everything all though a rats nest was tight. The latest replacement has been holding on strong. AI'm thinking the replacement may have been a refurb that had issues or something.


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## Coppertone (Oct 4, 2011)

It's funny that you should mention that as several of my friends have purchased their JL amps refurbished to save some coin. I look at it like this as long as it comes with a warranty, I totally agree about buying it. Knock on wood all of my JL amps have been good.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

All three of mine were NIB when I got them. The one went bad after about a day or so. It seemed to work. The speakers had sound but it was in protect mode and the voltages at the speaker outs were all crazy on the one channel. They actually sent me the replacement before I sent them the bad amp. Unfortunately the replacement was bad the day I put it in. It just lit up red. Again they sent out a replacement before I sent in the bad unit. It seemed to also be NIB but I noticed the knobs and numbers on the crossovers were different than my original so I just figured it was an older refurb unit they sent me. But so fa so good. Good to hear you haven't had any problems with yours. The fact they shipped new units before I sent in the old made me feel good about them. It wasn't all that useful for me since they didn't work but I figured the intention and good customer service was there.


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## Coppertone (Oct 4, 2011)

I applaud the fact that they took such great care of you and that speaks tons of their customer service. I seen where some people have sent back an amp to be repairs with nare an eta to be found. Alas that picture was of a set up long ago, I currently run two Mosconi amps in my system.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

I agree. You can't go wrong with good customer service. I also buy my big equipment like speakers and amps and whatnot from a local authorized shop. I'm sure it helps and no need to ship and wait if something goes bad.

I see a good amount of people eventual end up with Mosconi amps. Especial on the SQ side. Are they cleaner or more powerful or something?

The JLs are the most high end amps I've had so far. My old stuff was Pyramid gold, MTX and Kenwood back in the 90s


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## edzyy (Aug 18, 2011)

Very nice.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

edzyy said:


> Very nice.


Thanks. It's getting there. I don't think it's very nice yet though. I still ahev a lot more install work, tuning and cosmetics to do.

I toned down my driver list from my last thread you posted in. It was getting crazy with speakers everywhere lol. Less is definitely more, it sounds much more put together and cleaner. Everything's starting to come from the same place now not 6 different directions. I'm also finally getting used to not having the rear fill.


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## sinister-kustoms (Jul 22, 2009)

Nice work. Pretty cool to see the progression in both equipment and your fabrication skill set. Keep it up!


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

sinister-kustoms said:


> Nice work. Pretty cool to see the progression in both equipment and your fabrication skill set. Keep it up!


Thanks. I've never dealt with fiber glass before so I'm working on a learning curve. The sub box was the first thing I did and first try but it was easy since its hidden so it didn't really matter what it looked like. That's why I didn't bother sanding it or anything. I'm happy the spheres turned out looking more like spheres and less like sloth from the Goonies than I thought they would. 

I've also recently went from an 18v jig saw and dremmel 3000 to a router and table. Got myself a small 1" table top belt sander and an 8" 5 speed drill press. So hopefully fabrication will just get better from here. All I need is a circle jig for the router and I'm all set up.


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## KyngHype (Sep 7, 2009)

Great read, great work


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

KyngHype said:


> Great read, great work


Thanks man. Much appreciated.


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## cnut334 (Oct 17, 2009)

Excellent work and attention to detail!!


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

cnut334 said:


> Excellent work and attention to detail!!


Thank you man, I only hope it keeps getting better.


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## Afronaut (Apr 27, 2010)

This looks interesting...subscribed. 


Jemal


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Afronaut said:


> This looks interesting...subscribed.
> 
> 
> Jemal


Thanks man. With any luck it will stop snowing and the temp will go up so I can get something done.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

I managed to get some stuff done today. I was going to work on getting my tweeters in their spheres and in the a pillars but snow and cold prevented that. So instead today I started whats actually a trial run for the Windows tablet I will eventually install in the dash once my cell provider has one.

First I had this useless cell phone holder. It's bulky, the phone falls out and the suction cup doesn't stick to anything in my car including the windshield. It also has a vent bracket which doesn't mount to the flexi wand but to the phone holder itself. My vents are too small for it to fit so it lived in my glove box since the summer. When I use the map or nav on my phone I stqnd it up on my ash tray and it usually falls. I decided to fix this. The phone holder itself has the female end and the 2 pieces to attach it to the car have male ends.


I plugged the vent attachment into the phone holder and began cutting.



Then I went to work on the suction cup wand attachment. Turns out the suction cup works great on everything but my car. The wand is extremely stiff. It bends wherever you want and doesn't move unless you want it to.


I dremmeled and sanded down both pieces then beveled the edges



Took apart the phone holder and cut the female end off that. Sanded it and then tried to figure out how to do what I want to do.




I notched the end on the wand and trimmed some more of the female end.


Got a good fit.


Now how do I attach it. I never had much luck bonding plastic to anything but my fingers. I decide I'm going to make a tinfoil funnel, use the plastic I trimmed off, melt it with my small torch and pour it on.


After the fumes almost killed me and the tinfoil and plastic caught on fire yet didn't melt I decided that was a bad idea. The I tried using the torch to melt the 2 pieces together and ended up melting the female end a bit and still didn't bond the 2. 


Finally I put the soldering tip on the torch. Spot melted the plastic together then added plastic and melted it in.


That worked. But it was ugly and slightly melted. Strength test. It was a strong bond. If it can hold Jack it can hold an iPad. Coincidentally the suction cup that doesnt stick to my car even stuck to the Jack label.


Masked it off and roughed it up a little


Trimmed off the melted parts


Apply JB Water Weld. Its pretty much JB weld but it sets in 25 minutes and sticks to anything. Even under water.


Peal off the tape and let it set up


I'm going to make a mount for the wand to go into the hole under the radio. The radio and HVAC controls will eventual be set back a half inch and a Windows tablet the folds out will be molded into the dash. I'm going with a windows tablet so I can control my 360.3 without my laptop.


Scuffed, masked and ready to prime


Now the fun happens. I saw this done with an iPad mini on a youtube video one day. It took the guys like an hour. It took me most of the day. If I do this again which I may I will use spandex for my first layer.
Saran Wrap


Tin foil


2 layers fiber glass


That was a disaster and didn't conform to the shape of the phone. I scrapped it and did it again with strips this time. I also left the smaller sides open.


Better


Trimmed it up a bit and sanded the high spots





Bondo is not my friend. It either solidifies in 2 minutes or 2 hours. There's no in between. I bondoed and sanded about 5 times and its still lumpy. It also seems as though it shrunk. As the phone no longer sat it correctly



I trimmed the area the buttons were hoping it would help but it didn't.


I said screw it I may as well prime it and see if I even like it.


While that was drying I made a plug for the hole where the wand will go.



Went to test fit and it turns out the hole is tapered in and slightly rounded in the front so I fixed that.


It sits nice now


Turns out the reason the arm is so rigid is because its a solid aluminum rod. I cut the suction cup off and drilled the plug.



Filled the holes with JB quick wood and went to step 2. The ipad air. I wrapped it with saran wrap, tinfoil and tape this time. I also cut the corners of the first layer of mat. It kind of helped but not really. It was much better then the phone though. I put a 2nd layer on but not on the small side edges. I will do those tomorrow. I put the 2nd male mount on this.



Quick wood dried.


Phone mount on it


Trim up the FG on the ipad



Pop it out. Much better than the phone but still has issues.


This is it unfinished but together and in the dash. I'm going to take the radio mount out and flip it so the hole is on the top. That way it wont interfere with the radio controls and I wont have to look down when using the map. The pic is taken with the phone so its not in it and its night now since I took forever lol.
Phone

iPad. Having the maps open on the iPad will be like having a Hagstom hanging from the dash.


All in all it went well. It took forever though. Probably a lot longer than it should have. Glassing in the house has made me high most of the day so tomorrow will be another day.

Tomorrow I'm going to put bottom corners on the iPad holder and make a cutout for the lightning cable. Ill probably run it down the wand and wrap the wand and cable in techflex. I have a USB charger I will wire to my keyed 12v power socket and just hide it inside the dash somewhere.

The guys I saw make the ipad mount used magnets on the top side of the ipad mount but I got strong magnets and they just fall off. For the phone they work. So I'm going to try and find stronger magnets for the ipad or try metal because they are supposedly magnetic. For the phone I may use the magnets I have and cut the top lip off so it fits properly again. Once I get them working the way I want I'm going to clean up the finish work, spray them black and put black felt on the mounting areas.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Well after a bunch of bondo and sanding I almost finished the iPad and cell mounts. They both need some felt and the iPad needs magnets on the top edge. They both need a small amount of smoothing and sanding then finish paint. It works pretty good and will be much better once I flip the HU adapter so it sits on top rather than in front of the HU. I ordered a 2nd dash bezzle to see if I can't integrate it in there and have it pull out and slide up.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

March 2014

Today I finally got out to the car and put the tweeters in the spheres and got them on the dash temporarily with some tape to see if I like them better than in the doors. I haven't done any TA or anything yet but I think they will stay up there. I'm going to try different locations by the mid before I aim them and put mounting rods on them. If I decide I'm not feeling it I'm going to put the tweeters back in the doors and try to get the mids in there also. Once that's all square if I decide I like the spheres I will paint em or maybe try to wrap them and the pillars in the same vinyl or suade I'm going to do the interior in and put sleeves on the rods.


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## The Dude (Mar 24, 2007)

Hell of an install. The wiring is very clean, love all of the Tech-Flex and the quick disconnects that you used. I work in the telecom industry, where we try to do very neat wiring, and this job is a step above. Is this a WS6 T/A ?


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Thanks man. I'm finally going to throw all the techflexed wires in that have been sitting in my basement for months. New carpet is only about a week away. The quick connects make my life so much easier while I'm still wiring and rewiring. Trying to pull the speaker connectors out of the HD amps is PITA as well as juggling 3 different allen keys for the power distros.

I do some network and security camera cabling on the side. Nothing worse than trying to pull 50-100 data cables over a ladder rack and have them line up in straight rows not like a spaghetti mess lol. That's tough work.

It's not the WS6. However the girl I bought it from got it through her uncle who was a manager for a Pontiac dealer. He managed to get all the WS6 upgrades on it minus the rims, ram air hood and badge since its an automatic. So it has the better suspension, front sway bar and a couple of small engine tweaks. Once I start on the suspension and motor next winter I'm pulling mostly everything but the block out anyhow.


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## The Dude (Mar 24, 2007)

Nice. I will keep following this build log, looks great.


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## mrmill (Feb 11, 2013)

excellent build....i love the ipad/phone mount, i've been thinking of doing that in my truck, but laziness wins everytime. 

big up for the quick connectors too....i'm a tech in the navy and yes proper organization makes life volumes easier.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Thanks guys. I looked at a lot of mounts but nothing really did what I wanted it to and I need some glass practice before I mess with the dash and door panels so I figured what the hell. I'm going to try to figure a way to put magnets on the side of the ipad mount and phone mount so I can stick the phone next to the ipad. I've been slacking a bit till the carpet is in but I worked on the mounts some more.

I flipped my 1-1/2 din kit upside down. I had to do a little grinding to get things to line up since nothing is centered up and down on the mount kit. I also filled the mount between the sleeve with hot glue to keep it from shaking around.



Now the mounts on top so the radio is visible. It also cuts down on the glare on the face. The x997 is horrible to read when the sun hits it. I put some speaker gasket tape on the bottom to hold it in and stop vibrations but keep it removable. I'm going to put a female USB soldered to a 12v charger in the right side of the mount sou I can charge my iPad and phone.


I also re worked both mounts a bit. The iPad sits in facing the other way now due to the magnetic areas on it so I had to fill some holes and make some new ones. I added magnets to the top. Some are reversed polarity so I had to flip them over and keep them from launching each other. It was a hassle. The holes are much better looking now that they down go all the way to the lip around the mount. I also trimmed the bottom stop piece to make it thinner. This was really for ease of spray gluing the material to it after the nightmare I had with the phone mount material. Both mounts still need finish sanding, paint and clear.









It still needs material on the inside. I used cozy flannel on the phone mount but I hate it so I'm going to try micro suede on this. If I like it ill redo the phone mount material.

I changed the phone mount a lot. I added a magnet but it wasnt stong enough to hold the phone so it slides in now. I also added a charge cable.







I have a huge lack of pictures. But basically I cut the ipod cable and soldered it back together. I covered the connector with masking tape and bondoed around it. Then hot glued the hole where it came out and the wire on the bottom of the mount. Then I bondoed that to make it even. The cable reaches the front of the head unit so I can play music but it doesn't seem to charge. I'm not sure if its the head unit or the phone cause I'm having a jack issue with the phone.




Now to some good stuff. I worked on the front stage mounting a bit. I finished off the sphere mounts so you don't see the threaded rod and got them closer to the pillar covers. I also mounted the tweeter pods. After measuring about 5 times before drilling an mounting I realized my a pillar covers are not symmetrical. The drivers side dash is higher so the pillar seems to be wider and shorter than the passenger side which is why the drivers side mid is on the dash and the passenger side is above. The tweeters also seem to be in different spots lol. I have to work on it. If I decide I like them after a couple more weeks of listening I'll finish up the body work on them and either spray them or wrap them in whatever I'm doing the interior in.

Im still working on grills. I will probably bend some thin metal grill around the back end of the sphere to get the shape then add magnets inside the mid ring and mount them that way.

I put pex on the threaded rod and it fits so tight I had to thread it so now its like a pex nut allowing me to get rid of the metal nuts I had on there.


Some heat shrink over the pex


Set up the tweeter pods. I had to relocate the holes


I also filled the inside with quick wood to keep the tweeters flush with the edge


Mounted. Looks much better without the masking tape and wires zip tied to the vents lol.




My next step Is, if I can find .15 cu ft on each side of the dash without hacking things out is to mount my (2) 6w3v3 subs on either side of the dash firing down to get some front base. If its warm enough out tomorrow I'll be messing with that.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Yesterday I decided to start on the rings for 6W3s I want to try and fit in my dash. I usually use a jigsaw or dremel with a hole cutting jig that came in the kit. Neither really work well and take forever so I decided to make a router jig. Now I've only used the router about 4 times. Personally it scares the hell out of me. Being a commercial builder who has used pretty much every tool I find it odd lol and other than a table saw its the only tool that makes me nervous.

I searched the net to get some ideas and really didn't like what I saw. Most of them don't make small circles so I made the standard jig but modified it to make holes from about 4' down to I guess technically 0" in diameter.

First I started with some scrap 1/2" birch I had laying around then drew some lines and I set up my precision cutting system lol. I made a nice straight edge down the board which would ultimately be 6" wide.


I squared the top 6"x6" portion and drilled a 1-1/2" hole in the center of the square. I used this size since thats the size hole in my router table. I set up my bar on my router table and routed a 1/4" deep 1/2" wide groove down the center of the board from one end to the center hole. Then I routed a 1/4" slot down the center of that stopping 1" before the end and 1" before the 6'x6" square that will be my router.


I then cut a piece of 1/4" MDF 1/2" wide x 8" long. I sanded the ends down till it slid nice in the track but was still snug.


Then I figured on recess and gluing some T nuts in it.



One of those holes should be on the other side lol.


T nut ground down, mounted and glued in the hole




I then used the plastic router table mount as a template to make the router mounting holes


I botched one up so I puttied it and moved it over. It happens


Mounted the router. Traced it and cut it down to give it a shape.


I used a washer and screw to tighten it up temporarily to see how it would work. I will eventually replace it with a T handle or something. For a pin I used a #6 screw I ground down to a little point that screws into the T nut. With the pin mounted like this 6" away from the tightening screw. Now I can slide the pin all the way under the router to the bit without having to lift it off the project and still tighten it with out problems. I can also pop it out the back end for 4'6" holes.


Mounted it up



Now to try it out. I anally laid out rings for the 6w3s with the dims from the JL site. I made sure I measured twice cause it was my last piece of 3/4" I had laying around so I would only be able to cut once.


So far so good


Still looking good



And Bamm they don't fit. I through a world class baby fit. I cursed JL for about 10 minutes for putting the wrong outer dims on the site. Then I read the specs for a 10th time. This time with my head out of my ass lol and realize JL did not mess up of course. Although the outer dim of the driver is "A", the first dim in the list is the nominal dimension with "A" underneath it, So these rings are useless. They don't even fit the C5 6.5s.

I also had a tool malfunction. The slide broke when I took it out of the 2nd hole. I assume the extra recess and putty didn't help its strength lol. Version 2 of the slide will be a solid aluminum bar with threaded holes and I will grind the threads off the screw a bit better or try and find a threaded spike to use.


So with any luck it will stop raining by Tuesday like they say and I'll have the aluminum bar set up to re-cut and see if these things will fit under there somewhere.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

April 2014

Over the last few days I got my amps voltage set and I am becoming happier with my xover frequency settings so pretty soon I will start to TA and tune. I'll be picking up my new alt this week and installing that and the big 3 so my voltage is stable before I start tuning. I also ordered a stinger voltage meter so I can see whats going on back at the amps real time from the dash.

I did some more work on the iPhone/iPad mount. I added a 5 watt charger to the base and when I was done I found a 24volt charger on line that will work a bit better for the ipad so when it gets here I'll pull it apart and install that.

I'm going to take some measurements and see if I can't rework the whole HU mount to fit the HU, charger, iPad/phone holder stem, Volt meter and 3Sixty.3 remote.

But for now this is the charger installed.

The charger


The important parts


Some dremelling


Fits good


Trimmed up the cover plate


Soldered a power and ground lead


Mounted and hot glued in


Face plate on


All together


Quick connects


And of course no picture of it in. But I'm sure I'll pull it apart and rework it before I take the pic.


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## plcrides (Mar 21, 2014)

all i can say is wow man,attention to detail A+++++ awesome work on everything and even taking the time to upload all the pictures is work,thats so cool that you cleaned up the car that someone never cleaned.i own a truck like that,I've had it for 13 years now a 1995 z71 i got it in 2001 and they wrecked it,smoked in it,burnt everything with cigarettes and i buy it and replaced just about everything.you just don't see that model trans am anymore ANYWHERE I'm always saying where did they all go to.well anyways i love what your doing ,keep posting cause I'm digging it.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

plcrides said:


> all i can say is wow man,attention to detail A+++++ awesome work on everything and even taking the time to upload all the pictures is work,thats so cool that you cleaned up the car that someone never cleaned.i own a truck like that,I've had it for 13 years now a 1995 z71 i got it in 2001 and they wrecked it,smoked in it,burnt everything with cigarettes and i buy it and replaced just about everything.you just don't see that model trans am anymore ANYWHERE I'm always saying where did they all go to.well anyways i love what your doing ,keep posting cause I'm digging it.


Thanks a lot man. I'm working with what I have laying around and trying to learn and get better by doing little obscure things till I feel confident enough to glass my dash and door panels. I actually just had to make another hole in my iPad mount to plug in my iMM-6 which I'm using for audio tools till I get my good mic and RTA software. I'd rather forget something on that then when I start the door panels and dash lol. I think the little stuff is making me look closer at what I'm doing through my screw ups.

I picked up a sheet of ABS today. When my voltage gauge comes this week I'm going to start a new mount/bezel for the HU, HVAC controls, charging port, 3sixty.3 remote and the iPad arm so it's recessed in the dash and I can begin figuring out what I'm going to do to get a slide up tablet in front of it. That should be fun.

The 4th gen f body's are really hard to find around me in NY. None of the junk yards have any parts. So I have to try and find everything on line. I guess it's cause it was the last 4 years of the model before they stopped making them. I've replaced a bunch of broken interior parts already and the parts that are shot but not broken are going to be covered once I wrap the interior in vinyl or which ever material and reupholster the seats. Luckily the dash is in good shape other than the broken vents and what not that I replaced already. It's a fun project car. I'm going to be working on the interior, suspension and then the motor and drivetrain this summer. Once everything's done ill deal with the 3 scratched up windows, body, rims and paint. I figure ill do that last cause I'll scratch it up anyway doing all the work I have planned.


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## plcrides (Mar 21, 2014)

haha na your doing a great job man,i never see any of those around these parts,back in the day around 2000 their were tons of those cars and they were fast,and now you don't see a single one.i do know that a lot of people like to get the motors and tranny's out of them to install in different ride's hell i myself had a 1996 s-10 and installed a 1996 corvette engine in it.it was a LT1 and i had a manual and i raced everything on the streets,mustangs,camaro's,trans am's ss impala's all of them.it was a blast.i think since I'm in texas a lot of cars end up in mexico to be honest with you.so I'm glad your saving that one.if you have any problems figuring out stuff on that car theirs tons of forums for them to get help.well nice talking to you.my name is Lance and i'll talk with you soon.keep on working,oh yea,where are you getting all your wire parts?like the wire cover's and fastener's they really look good.
later Lance


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

plcrides said:


> haha na your doing a great job man,i never see any of those around these parts,back in the day around 2000 their were tons of those cars and they were fast,and now you don't see a single one.i do know that a lot of people like to get the motors and tranny's out of them to install in different ride's hell i myself had a 1996 s-10 and installed a 1996 corvette engine in it.it was a LT1 and i had a manual and i raced everything on the streets,mustangs,camaro's,trans am's ss impala's all of them.it was a blast.i think since I'm in texas a lot of cars end up in mexico to be honest with you.so I'm glad your saving that one.if you have any problems figuring out stuff on that car theirs tons of forums for them to get help.well nice talking to you.my name is Lance and i'll talk with you soon.keep on working,oh yea,where are you getting all your wire parts?like the wire cover's and fastener's they really look good.
> later Lance


Thanks again. There was a lot running around right until they stopped making them. Now that its getting warmer I'm seeing more come out. Once they patch our ridiculous pot holes the lowered ones tend to come out. It's definitely fast and its stock. I've decided to build a LSx427 to put in it so I should see about 750 RWHP when I'm done on natural horse power. It should be a beast. When I was a kid we put an LT1 in a small 2 door pick up that had a front wheel drive 4 cyl in it. I don't remember what the truck was but I remember standing in the engine compartment slamming the fire wall with a sledge hammer to get the tranny to fit lol. I'm a member of LS1tech also which is pretty much all about the F Body's and anything with an LS motor in it. It's a pretty cool site. Has a lot of info on the mechanical end.

I got all my techflex from wirecare and all the ends, heat shrink and sub came from Parts Express. The quick connects I put on the speakers are actually ends I used on my RC cars that I found to be better than deans plugs, I get them from amazon. Sorry to the powers that be if someone I listed isn't approved but I'm pretty sure I found everybody but PE through here lol. My bad.

I get all my big equipment from a local place Cartunes, The guy is great and usually talks me out of some of my crazier ideas which would sound like crap and prevent me from spending a bunch of money I didn't have to which I thought was great. He also guaranties all the stuff so if something blows I walk in and he swaps it for me. I like spending a few extra bucks local and being able to walk in and leave with a replacement no questions asked. It also keeps the local places going so some more people might get into the hobby.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

KyngHype said:


> Great read, great work


Thanks man. It's tasking forever and I'm learning as I go so it's going to end up being long lol.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Today was one of those days where I worked on stuff and it looked exactly the same when I was done. I hate that ****.

I decided to start prepping for the voltage gauge that should be here on Thursday and does not yet have a home. I'm going to put it in the dash under the HU with the 3sixty.3 remote and iPad/iPod charger which will be set back and a windows tablet FGed in front of it that slides out and up to get to the other stuff. Sorry I keep repeating that but I feel like if I keep repeating it will happen lol.

Today I tried my hand at using sheet ABS. I'm really not a big fan. I think I like the FG better but the ABS doesnt have the smell. I think FG is easier to cut and work with though. And if I mess up I just put some more FG on and try again.

This is what I have now. I think its a metra mount but I reworked it upside down. The HU sticks out too far and it wastes a lot of usable space.


My bezel



I made a cardboard template cause the mounting posts make it pretty hard to trace right on the ABS.



I don't really know how to cut this stuff and Google was oddly useless so I used a dremel with a cutoff wheel. Put the speed on 4 and didn't really have much melting and what I did have peeled right off.

Rough cut


I taped the template to it and used the drum sander on the dremel to get it close


Its getting there


Rough cut for the HVAC controls.


Drum sanding again


Time to test fit


This is how the HU and HVAC controls are mounted. A couple of simple brackets.


Plenty of space in there.



I'm pretty sure that plastic and metal stop in the back have to go 



Its a bit to tight. I find and I guess its from doing 3D technical drawings that everything I do is a little too exact and I don't leave any wiggle room. The same thing happened with the iPad mount.


After hand sanding and test fitting about 25 times its better but still needs more on the sides and corners to stop the bowing. The blue area is the height of the 3sixty.3 controller at the lowest spot it will clear the HVAC controls.


I put everything back together so a buddy of mine can hear it tomorrow then Ill be back to work on it tomorrow night.

I have to make some brackets to mount the HU. I'm going to make them out of steel I think so I can hold the face panel on with magnets. Option 2 is going to be Velcro. I'm just going to mount the remote, voltage guage and USB charge port on the face plate rather than make brackets for them. They are pretty light.

I was also thinking about adding a switch for the amp rack fans since I have to run a wire to the back for the voltage gauge anyway. I keep bread tying all these wires down the sides of the car above the carpet till I get the CCF, MLV and carpet its starting to look like a fire hazard lol.

Another thought was wrapping the new face panel in vinyl to match the new interior color or maybe carbon fiber vinyl to match the amp rack. I don't really know what i'm doing the interior with yet so I will just leave it for now. I wanted to give it more shape with some FG to match the old bezel better but I have to leave room for the tablet mount which will match the contours so we'll see what happens. It would be nice If I can get them to flow together when the tablet is in the up position.

The stinger voltage gauge will be here Thursday so I can start cutting the holes and get it mounted up.


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## plcrides (Mar 21, 2014)

one thing i really like is your like me you think outside the box,i can come up with some great idea's and can be done but unlike me,you actually have the skill's and patience to do it.i get into a huge hurry,i don't know why,i just always have and mess things up.im not doing too much on my new car,my last car,i destroyed it,i took the back seats out and everything,and i am not doing that again,but your bringing a car back to life,or giving it a new life.yea LS1'S are the bomb man,damn good engines.i have a 1995 z71 and i installed a crate engine in it from summit,its called a chevy 350 HO and it has a really nice loud cam in it.those LS1 trans ams sound good with a borla exhaust and cam.well keep up the fun work dude.im just waiting for my components to get here,damn i hate waiting,haha no patience remember lol late bro


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

plcrides said:


> one thing i really like is your like me you think outside the box,i can come up with some great idea's and can be done but unlike me,you actually have the skill's and patience to do it.i get into a huge hurry,i don't know why,i just always have and mess things up.im not doing too much on my new car,my last car,i destroyed it,i took the back seats out and everything,and i am not doing that again,but your bringing a car back to life,or giving it a new life.yea LS1'S are the bomb man,damn good engines.i have a 1995 z71 and i installed a crate engine in it from summit,its called a chevy 350 HO and it has a really nice loud cam in it.those LS1 trans ams sound good with a borla exhaust and cam.well keep up the fun work dude.im just waiting for my components to get here,damn i hate waiting,haha no patience remember lol late bro


Thanks bro. I don't really have any skills and I'm about as patient as an 8 year old with a new Lego set. That's why I keep redoing everything rather than wait till I have it all lol. I'm learning as I go and this forum is a great resource. My fab skills aren't the best but I like to think they're getting better.
I'm looking to replace my LS1 with a LSX 376. It should fit right in. I'm going to do a new intake, cam and heads on my car for now but I'm trying to find parts I can swap over to not do it twice lol. First I have to do my suspension, it's shot to ****. I'm most likely going with QA1s. For my exhaust I'm looking at 3" true duals with hooked headers. I like borla and stp. I haven't made the decision yet. My 79 had a 400 putting out 525 rwh. I had a 3" exhaust with super traps. I don't think they even make super traps anymore.


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## plcrides (Mar 21, 2014)

your so humble,haha hey if only that girl could see the trans am right now huh lol she wouldn't even recognize it,or better yet after you get done,you should track her down and drive by her place with a big ole cam thumping and light em up errrrrrkkk c-ya haha

i did a cold start crank up video of my truck and i used to make tons of video's when i had a pc but my sister talked me into getting this stupid mac mini and i don't know how to do squat.ive been on youtube since 2005 back then their wasn't anything on it.i figured out how to put the video of the truck running,but i took a bunch of pic's too and wanted to add them to it but can't figure it out.i hate this mac,but i like that it starts up fast.

well i just got finished installing some ground zero uranium components in my car and i was doing some work and i was like no,thats not how home dude in long island would do it,so i slowed down and made it look better,their hows that ? lol 
later lance


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

plcrides said:


> your so humble,haha hey if only that girl could see the trans am right now huh lol she wouldn't even recognize it,or better yet after you get done,you should track her down and drive by her place with a big ole cam thumping and light em up errrrrrkkk c-ya haha
> 
> i did a cold start crank up video of my truck and i used to make tons of video's when i had a pc but my sister talked me into getting this stupid mac mini and i don't know how to do squat.ive been on youtube since 2005 back then their wasn't anything on it.i figured out how to put the video of the truck running,but i took a bunch of pic's too and wanted to add them to it but can't figure it out.i hate this mac,but i like that it starts up fast.
> 
> ...


That was the first idea I had for when I'm done. Leave a long strip of wheel down her block lol.

All my old pics of my stuff were on film, I wish I had digital or a cell back then. I take a **** ton of pictures now so I can go back and say oh man don't do it like that anymore. I've been trying to find pics of my 80 caddy hurse. I up a 501/501 crate engine in it. 4" dia 72" side pipes. 2 15s, 2 12s and 4 6x9 run from a kenwood deck which I don't remember what it was but when you turned it off the face sucked in and a metal plate came out and hid it. I'm pretty sure all my amps were MDX. I had some type of white crossover box with a lot of knobs lol. When my son was born I needed rear seat belts so I cut the interior out and put a white leather limo interior in it. I had to custom make the door panels though since the car was made longer and taller. I never should have got rid of it and I keep looking for another one but everything I find is newer. I really liked the 80 body style.

You have a build log of what your working on id like to check it out. Sounds like your going in the right direction. I'm glad I inspired somebody, that's cool. Once I learn more id like to give back since I'm still in my learning and absorbing phase and don't have a whole lot of experience.

Man I try to take it slow but I'm impatient. The amp rack I have now is like the 3rd or 4th generation and I must have done my door baffles 4 times. I still have to make them better but I'm trying to be more patient with everything. So I'm waiting for the Ccf and mlv before I put my wires under the carpet. As of right now the monitoring cable for my voltage meter, the entire front stage and the Rockford controller wires are bread tied together and sitting ontop of the carpet. It's horrible and kills me everyday. I'm trying to fine 1/8" CCF and the thinnest MLV I can find. I figure thinner is better than none. As it is with just the STP silver my panels aren't fitting too well. I'm thinking when all is deadened where I want it I'm going to trim about an 1/8-1/4" off all my interior panels so they fit like they originally did. It's mostly by the door gaskets and the sills. I've decided I also need to put something on the inside of my panels cause right now I'm running for team rattle box.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Man have I been slacking. The face plate is pretty flat and needs some shape. The parts for my car are getting increasingly harder and harder to find on the island so I didn't want to mess with my original bezel. I did however find a 2000 that just made it to a junkyard last week so I have to get over there Monday and pull some interior parts off it including the bezel before it disappears. Then I can do some real work on it. It's unfortunately a base firebird so only the interior parts, windows and doors can be used on mine but that's a start. 

Here's where I'm at. This is the mount I got for the HU that sucks. Its loose and the HU pops out since there's nowhere for the bend out fingers to properly grab. Even after I used a ton of hot glue.


I made a box with scrap 1/4" MDF



Attached the plastic brackets from the other mount



Installed in the car. Now its nice and tight to the top of the opening and the RF remote barely fits under it.


I felt I needed to trim about an 1/8" thickness off the bottom to make things fit better and for some reason I decided to use my chop box. Don't do that, it sucked a lot lol.


Stopped being lazy and mounted my router back to the table and routed till the strip that was left wasn't holding it up anymore.


I finished that off with the dremel drum sander and some 80 grit paper


Now we have room. and the stinger voltage meter fits.


Made a card board mock up and laid all that stuff out


Dremel rough cut


Taped the cardboard to the ABS as a guide for the dremel drum sander again


Getting there


In the car. Right now its held in by the dash around it and the face of the HU. I have the stinger gauge duct taped to the back lol. I lined it up with the bottom of the remote in case I decide to cut out the Stinger logo.


This will be temp until I get the spare bezel and work on that. For now with this though the HU needs to go back about 1/8-1/4" to be even with The dash mounting area. I also noticed that the dash is set in deeper on the bottom than the top so I'm going to get some flat head screws to hold the HU brackets rather than the big ass hex heads that are there now which should get me a little closer to flat. I may bring the HVAC controls slightly forward to meet it or add to the back around the controls and bevel it. The voltage meter needs some work. I'm going to get thin smoked plexi to put in front of it in the hole and find a better mounting solution. Maybe make a bracket that can slide down into some plastic tabs or something. Then the whole piece will be wrapped either in the new color or maybe carbon fiber. I don't know. I'm still up in the air on it.


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## sbcaprice305 (Jan 17, 2012)

You do outstanding work. Love it!


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## quickaudi07 (May 19, 2010)

Very nice, my car next?


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## sbcaprice305 (Jan 17, 2012)

quickaudi07 said:


> Very nice, my car next?


My car first, wait your turn.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Thanks guys I really appreciate the good words but I would wait till I get better at it. I'm finally feeling more comfortable with things though and found a set of door panels as well as a dash bezel so I'm going to see if I can glass (2) C5-650cws in each door and work on the HU surround. I need more loud lol. Even with the 300 watts to each 6.5 and only 150 to each mid and tweeter. The tweets and mids are overpowering the mid-base in the doors. I would assume it's since they are up on the dash pretty much in your face and I'm not a big fan of turning things down. Not sure how I'm going to work out the 2nd pair on the 360.3 but I want to see if I can fit them first. It could also be that I haven't really tuned it properly yet. I'm still trying to grasp the xover types, slopes and frequencies and what not.

I picked up a new toy today.




Ignore the wires they will be under the carpet soon. I went with the W6 over the W7 do to enclosure size. I'm at about .9 cuft plus 3/4 lb of Acousta-Stuf in the enclosure and the W6 is looking for 1.25 cuft. I'm going to email the guys over at JL and see what they suggest as far as the amount of stuffing. Iv'e found them to be extremely helpful. Even with the enclosure being slightly too small there is such a difference between the W6 and the Dayton HF 12". The Dayton sounder great but this blows it a way. Its much tighter and hits much lower. It actually made my ears ring after a while. During break in I was listening to a Dream Theater song and i swear my back window was moving. I didn't keep it loud for too long due to still breaking it in but I'm going to try it again tomorrow with something a little more rumbly and deep. I put the Dayton in my Infinity home theater enclosure. It's a down fire enclosure with 2 ports in the back. I blew the amp in it months ago and replaced it with a Yung SD200. I wish I had the idea when I got the amp cause I would have gotten a SD300 or 500. It sounds much better than the Infinity did so I won twice. I'm going to have to turn that up tomorrow also and see what it can do.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Happy Easter everybody. So now that I have all my for now equipment where it goes I'm trying my hand at tuning for the first time till i get the rest of my needed stuff for install. I'm working on slopes, types and frequencies and I know every install as well as cabin gain is different. I'm looking for suggestions on better starting points then I have now. I used JLs parameters on the web site first but feel like I had too much over lap. I feel like it's lacking something just not sure what. My mid base in the doors are pretty low volume wise even getting double the wattage of my mids and tweets. I realize the mids and tweets are in my face and handle most of the sound. I'm also getting my TA measurements more precise since I have a helper today. Hopefully that will help some of the in my faceness. Also is there too much of a gap in frequency between the sub and mid-base? I'm thinking I have a good sized hole in there from 75Hz to 150Hz.

Tweeter - high pass 5000Hz butterworth 24db
Mid - band pass 400Hz - 5000Hz butterworth 24db
Mid-base - band pass 150Hz - 400Hz butterworth 24db
Sub - low pass 75Hz butterworth 24db


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

So nothing major lately. I made the new brackets for the head unit and got it situated so I can do something more permanent with the dash. I hit a pot hole today and the dash face fell off so I figured its time to get it done.

I cut up an old PC PSU case since the metal was pretty thick and was already at 90s. I went through 4 dremel cut off wheels.


I made it a little longer than the originals so I can get a 2nd screw in it to hold the HU more stable than it was with 1 screw.


Mounted up and it sits nice and flush in the car now and no more tilt from the weight on 1 screw. Once I paint the whole thing it will look nice even though it will never be seen.


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## sprocketser (Apr 18, 2014)

You re pretty good ! 1st car ! Hard to beleive !


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

sprocketser said:


> You re pretty good ! 1st car ! Hard to beleive !


Thanks a lot man. I like to think I get better each time I mess something up. So far I'm getting lucky and things are coming out pretty good the first second or third time lol. I'm jonesing to get the rest of my install stuff so I can burry my wires and get them situated a bit cleaner, begin my door panels, and finish the dash and pillars. If it wasn't for this forum I wouldn't even have been able to start. I read all the threads/build logs I can about what I want to do 3 or 4 times then try it. Hopefully one day someone will read one of mine to figure out how to do something so I can give a little back.


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## plcrides (Mar 21, 2014)

damn joe,i heard you drive by my place late last night i could hear TREBLE super LOUD and LOTS of IT too.you weren't kidding when you said you were going for SPL and not SQ
with your highs,thats a first huh.ROFLMAO just kidding their buddy,told you i would get you first.oh yea,you do have a big time glare don't you,geez,try doing what you said you were going to do haha
later Lance AKA the thread killer i guess i don't know,oh well


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Lol. Could you imagine SPL with only highs. I was actually talking about this the other day to a friend of mine cause a song came on and I had everything pretty loud and the tweets felt like they were drilling a hole through my head and eyes. I wish I remembered the song but I hit skip too fast. It's on my thumb drive so I'm sure it will pop up again. I wonder what that would do to your ear drums. I'm pretty sure I read high freq at high dbs are worse than lower for your ears but some low freq sounds are bad for your organs at high dbs.


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## plcrides (Mar 21, 2014)

lmao could you imagine a van walled off with hundreds of tweeters and play something like phil collins in the air tonight.hell in the early 80's they started off basing in the hood with early model buick regal's with a wall of 6x9's and it actually would rattle your house when they went down the road hitting the hydro's then the rich kids with mini trucks started putting like 12 fifteens in the bed


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

That would cook your ear drums fast. I remember the 6x9s. I'm redoing my girls car for our 8 year anniversary. She has a sentra, stock 6x9s so I'm doing the last model of the kenwood nav unit cause I like it better than the latest ones, a ken wood excelon 5 channel amp, alpine type r 6x9s all around and a 12" kenwood sub in the stock kenwood enclosure it come in. Nothing major but better than stock.

On a side note I got my 12w6 grill yesterday. I really like how it just pops on and now I have no fear of the sub smashing into the amp rack. I have to take a picture. I still have to shorten the amp rack up and possibly make the sub enclosure bigger if I get an answer to my other thread. I may just say **** it and give it a try. If I hate it or it makes no change I can always cut it off and close it up the size it was. I may pick up some mat and try it out today if it's not raining.


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## kjvsop (Apr 13, 2014)

Good job! You have given me a few ideas. Thanks!


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

kjvsop said:


> Good job! You have given me a few ideas. Thanks!


Thanks man. I glad to know my mess has inspired lol.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

In an effort to get some more output from the new sub I tried miniSQs suggestion and put the sub in a 1.5 cuft enclosure and it sounder much better than it does in my .8 or .9 cuft enclosure. So yesterday I began making an addition to my existing enclosure. Hopefully it will work. I don’t think I’m going to get much space out of it but I figure any more space I can add is better than what I have.
The space I’m adding to is under this trim panel. 

The pink to the right is the enclosure


Masked off and matt laid out. I screwed up and rushed so I didn’t coat the tape in wax first which has been making getting the tape off the fiber glass suck



First layer down. The 2nd mistake I made is, I usually put resin on the tape before the matt on upside down areas and let it get a little tacky so it holds the matt in place. I didn’t do that this time and that also made things suck.



For the 2nd layer I go with cloth insteaqd of matt to make it easier to tell what has a 2nd layer. Then I go back to matt.


Masking the trim panel


Layout the matt


First layer done


Checking the fit


Trimmed it up




Screwed it in place and cut a hole out of the center to help get it into position




Hot glued some sticks in to keep the two pieces aligned


Time to join the two pieces and test fit some more






This is where I'm at. I have to put a couple more layers inside and do a little grinding to get that tape off. Then I'll close it up, add some rondo inside and join the addition to the enclosure. Once it's together Ill sand the outside a bit better, rondo that then coat it with some bed liner maybe.

Before I join the two I'm going to fill the addition with water and see what my additional volume will be then fill the whole thing to see where I was at before. I'll probably use sand instead of water in case I missed a spot on the MDF with resin.

I'm wondering if there's something I can brush onto the inside to add layers like kitty hair or something rather than use matt since it will probably take forever,


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## plcrides (Mar 21, 2014)

I've seen people use those shipping peanuts to do what your doing,measuring instead of water.not sure how accurate it is.

hey joe,btw i got my red led lights in tonight they look pretty good,i was out their in the garage at 1.30 a.m.installing them under my dash.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

plcrides said:


> I've seen people use those shipping peanuts to do what your doing,measuring instead of water.not sure how accurate it is.
> 
> hey joe,btw i got my red led lights in tonight they look pretty good,i was out their in the garage at 1.30 a.m.installing them under my dash.


I would say waters probably the most accurate since there's no empty space then sand cause it's a smaller grain so there's less space between the sand than there would be with peanuts. To start with I have a jug measured to gallons, when it gets close I switch to a measuring cup that has ounces then I just convert the gallons to ounces add the ounces and convert it all to cuft. It sounds like a hassle but it's pretty easy. Since it's fiber glass it works. MDF would just swell into a mess. It takes 2 other people to hold my enclosure though cause the back sides not flat and it gets pretty heavy. I tried propping it in an empty box on my kitchen counter once and the sides if the box blew out then the enclosure rolled over and it was pretty bad lol. It was 5+ gallons pouring out and it was before I had the face on so it came out quick lol.


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## plcrides (Mar 21, 2014)

lmao 5 gallons of water haha trial by error .know not to do that again.so when will it be playing again? since you added another 4 gallons of water to it ? only you dude,would someone say how big is your box,oh its about 15 gallons,hum do what ?


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

plcrides said:


> lmao 5 gallons of water haha trial by error .know not to do that again.so when will it be playing again? since you added another 4 gallons of water to it ? only you dude,would someone say how big is your box,oh its about 15 gallons,hum do what ?


I hope I get another 4 gallons. That's .53 cuft. That would put me pretty close to 1.5 cuft which is where I want to be but I don't think it's going to happen.


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## sprocketser (Apr 18, 2014)

Joenaz2003 said:


> Thanks a lot man. I like to think I get better each time I mess something up. So far I'm getting lucky and things are coming out pretty good the first second or third time lol. I'm jonesing to get the rest of my install stuff so I can burry my wires and get them situated a bit cleaner, begin my door panels, and finish the dash and pillars. If it wasn't for this forum I wouldn't even have been able to start. I read all the threads/build logs I can about what I want to do 3 or 4 times then try it. Hopefully one day someone will read one of mine to figure out how to do something so I can give a little back.



Lol , part of the learning process right ! 

ou re better than me , haven t started yet , got some patrs , for the Big# basically , slow but sure .

Good luck with the project !


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

sprocketser said:


> Lol , part of the learning process right !
> 
> ou re better than me , haven t started yet , got some patrs , for the Big# basically , slow but sure .
> 
> Good luck with the project !


I'm still working on getting the alt and the new battery for the big 3 so I can start on it.

You should start a log once you start your build


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## JayinMI (Oct 18, 2008)

I picked up a HUGE bag of small round styrofoam balls (like they use in bean bag chairs). It was like $15. I feel like using the peanuts leaves alot to be desired as a volume estimator. It might not make a difference, but I feel better about it. lol

Jay


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

JayinMI said:


> I picked up a HUGE bag of small round styrofoam balls (like they use in bean bag chairs). It was like $15. I feel like using the peanuts leaves alot to be desired as a volume estimator. It might not make a difference, but I feel better about it. lol
> 
> Jay


I agree with the peanuts. Especially in my funky shaped box and the airspace between them. It would give a good estimate though. 

I filled my addition today with water and it holds slightly more than 1 gallon which is only 0.13 cuft. But I built it so I may as well add it on. Any more space I can add is better than nothing. I'm nervous about filling the whole thing with water when I'm done since it has a MDF face. Even though I coated it with resin, its still not a chance I want to take. 

I was trying to find something other than sand which could be a ***** to get out and had 2 ideas. Airsoft bbs which are pretty small and the other idea was these little plastic balls that I saw once in an orthopedic plastic ball pillow. They were clear and smaller than a bb so they would pack in the best after sand but i have no idea what they were called or where I can find them.


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## JayinMI (Oct 18, 2008)

You could get a bean bag for cheap and use that. I saw tons of them for around $15 at the local discount store. Water is definietly not the way to go in this instance. The styrofoam balls I got are about the same size as BB's.
Way lighter too.

Jay


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

JayinMI said:


> You could get a bean bag for cheap and use that. I saw tons of them for around $15 at the local discount store. Water is definitely not the way to go in this instance. The styrofoam balls I got are about the same size as BB's.
> Way lighter too.
> 
> Jay


I like that idea. Somebody told me also to try a garbage bag in the box and fill that with water but all it would take is one sharp FG point in there. I'll most likely run out this weekend and pick up a bean bag chair and use the balls in that. I know some have large ones and some have those really small ones. For 30 bucks I get a volume measurement tool and storage container to keep em in till I need them again as well as a new video game chair lol.


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## sprocketser (Apr 18, 2014)

Joenaz2003 said:


> I'm still working on getting the alt and the new battery for the big 3 so I can start on it.
> 
> You should start a log once you start your build


Great .

Yep I should on a later day , I m in a slow purchasing mode for now , but much more in the learning mode .


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

sprocketser said:


> Great .
> 
> Yep I should on a later day , I m in a slow purchasing mode for now , but much more in the learning mode .


That's cool man. I'm like an impatient child on Christmas. I get things one at a time and have to put it in lol. I installed my new sub in my enclosure on the counter at car tunes when I got it lol. He said I'd have something to do when I get home and I ran outside and pulled the box out lol.

Unfortunately that's led me to do things two or three times and I could have save a ton of money. I used the JL 2awg kit then had to go up to 1/0, and a bigger distro. That would have saved me some coin. I decided to techfelx after the fact so now I have more wires to pull. Doing the ccf and MLb is an after thought, so now I'm waiting till I have everything I need to pull the interior again. I used the stp silver and covered the whole interior door skin, not to put move on the outer that all has to come off. My amp rack has been rebuilt with each new piece of equipment added lol.

Your doing it right man. Plan twice, install once. If I've learned anything on here it take your time and hold off till you have everything for a proper install. Speakers are easy to change out it's all the stuff you don't see that's a pita to do twice. Especially ripping the interior out and putting it back in a daily driver.


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## sprocketser (Apr 18, 2014)

Joenaz2003 said:


> That's cool man. I'm like an impatient child on Christmas. I get things one at a time and have to put it in lol. I installed my new sub in my enclosure on the counter at car tunes when I got it lol. He said I'd have something to do when I get home and I ran outside and pulled the box out lol.
> 
> Unfortunately that's led me to do things two or three times and I could have save a ton of money. I used the JL 2awg kit then had to go up to 1/0, and a bigger distro. That would have saved me some coin. I decided to techfelx after the fact so now I have more wires to pull. Doing the ccf and MLb is an after thought, so now I'm waiting till I have everything I need to pull the interior again. I used the stp silver and covered the whole interior door skin, not to put move on the outer that all has to come off. My amp rack has been rebuilt with each new piece of equipment added lol.
> 
> Your doing it right man. Plan twice, install once. If I've learned anything on here it take your time and hold off till you have everything for a proper install. Speakers are easy to change out it's all the stuff you don't see that's a pita to do twice. Especially ripping the interior out and putting it back in a daily driver.


Lol , that s cool , I ll have a helping hand since my lower back & shoulder s screwed up big time , he ll do it the way I want it . 

It must be bad reinstalling , but when you want some stuff , it looks like the way to go .

Will follow this thread !


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

A helping hand is always good. It would make things go a lot faster. I'm figuring to pull my interior, finish my deadening, techfelx the wires not done yet, get everything installed and ran nice nice its going to take me about 3 or 4 days if its not raining.


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## sprocketser (Apr 18, 2014)

Lol , you work too much mate ! lol

It s your dd !


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

sprocketser said:


> Lol , you work too much mate ! lol
> 
> It s your dd !


You might be right lol.

It is. It only comes off the road for e few months when it starts snowing.


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## tokye (May 27, 2013)

beautiful work!!!


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

tokye said:


> beautiful work!!!


Thanks man. Much appreciated.


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## sprocketser (Apr 18, 2014)

Joenaz2003 said:


> You might be right lol.
> 
> It is. It only comes off the road for e few months when it starts snowing.


Hey cool , do you have a Winter beater also ! I had one but had to put too much money on it for what it was worth .

Might have another Winter Beater later on . Hopefully .


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

sprocketser said:


> Hey cool , do you have a Winter beater also ! I had one but had to put too much money on it for what it was worth .
> 
> Might have another Winter Beater later on . Hopefully .


I try not to go anywhere in the winter lol. But if I do venture out I have a 2012 Focus that's hardly ever used so I use that.


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## sprocketser (Apr 18, 2014)

I would like not to have to drive with my ride on Winter time , would like it to be the last Winter . lol


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

sprocketser said:


> I would like not to have to drive with my ride on Winter time , would like it to be the last Winter . lol


The cars not mine but its available to me when I need it. I only use it if there's snow on the ground though. But not having to go anywhere when there's snow on the ground makes it much better lol


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## sprocketser (Apr 18, 2014)

It s a good thing , lucky guy .


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

So I've been slacking a bit. I have been working on my sub enclosure extension which is just about done and I put it in the car for testing today.
Some more pics of the progress.

Glassing all the openings




I filled the inside with a rondo milkshake to fill any air holes that may be there


Sealed the cutout back on. I ground all the tape off then put a 2nd rondo coat inside and one outside.



I started this around 12:00 this afternoon and it took about 8 hours, stopping to eat once. I’m sure it shouldn't have taken that long but man was it a pain in the ass.
I pulled the acousta-stuf out of the enclosure and cut the end off.

Put down some tape and glassed the bottom first through that little crack on top


I didn’t take any more pictures at that point since I was covered with resin and fiber glass lol. But I made one more connection at the top to keep it stable then pulled it out. I kept adding glass through the sub hole and slit till I got a solid single layer inside, then filled it from the outside. Once done I ground the inside best I could with a dremel drum sander then did a lot of grinding outside. I poured 2 coats of rondo at the splice point inside and one coat on the outside. What a ****ty ass process this was. If I ever had to do it again I would just build a whole new enclosure.



In the car


Good news is the body panel fit back on. Bad news is it squeaks like mad now. That will be tended too eventually. For now I’ll just make it loud enough to not hear the squeaks.


So I tested it for about 15 minutes tonight and from what I can tell the sub seems louder at the same level I had it at. The lows seem to be lower when listening to Cypress Hill and Flux Pavilion but I think it might not be as punchy as it was when listening to Godsmack and Dream Theater. The addition held 1 gallon of water before I put it on so it’s only like .13 CuFt added, I did take the stuffing out though so I don’t know if that did it or a combo of both. Also the enclosure is a little more than ¼” thick but the addition is thin as this is a test. So it only has 2 layers of matt. That may also have something to do with it. I’m not sure yet. If I end up keeping it and not just reverting back to the original size I will sand all the rondo off the outside and give it another layer of matt, a layer of kitty hair, a layer of rondo then spray it with bed liner. I'm going to add the to my other thread about the enclosure and get some opinions.


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## plcrides (Mar 21, 2014)

dude you made me come and look at this ??? at this ??? haha kidding, you like those rondo milkshakes huh.i have an idea dude,i did it to my kick panels get you some sound deadener and wrap the enclosure with some of that stuff,or is that what you keep say your waiting on.i don't remember.i got that from you.you need to take a picture of the back of your car with everything in place,it looks good joe you cleaned it up awesome man.
talk to ya later Lance


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

plcrides said:


> dude you made me come and look at this ??? at this ??? haha kidding, you like those rondo milkshakes huh.i have an idea dude,i did it to my kick panels get you some sound deadener and wrap the enclosure with some of that stuff,or is that what you keep say your waiting on.i don't remember.i got that from you.you need to take a picture of the back of your car with everything in place,it looks good joe you cleaned it up awesome man.
> talk to ya later Lance


Thanks man. I started putting this 1/8" foam blocks I found at all the panel connectors and it'd helped a lot to get rid of the rattles in the hatch. I'll eventually coat the enclosure with bed liner once it's thicker and sanded nice.

The wires are still a nest. I'm not going to be able to deal with them till the interior comes out for the rest of the deadner. I'm still trying to find it local. The CCF aint bad but the MLV is heavy ****.


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## sprocketser (Apr 18, 2014)

Nice work with pics mate ! Keep it on .


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

sprocketser said:


> Nice work with pics mate ! Keep it on .


Thanks. I had to do some maintenance work to the car so the audio system slowed a bit. I have to do the alt and the suspension as soon as the parts get here but I'm going to pull the interior and start up again in a couple weeks. My mic has been shipped from cross spectrum and now I'm deciding on a pre amp so I can get her all tuned up.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

June 2014

Getting some more stuff done. Slowly but getting there. I'll be working on the power today and tomorrow.

I got this bad boy in the mail on Saturday. It's a Mechman 270amp G series alternator. 168 Amps at 800 RPM and 280 amps at 1800 RPM. I should no longer have a voltage issue as I do with my stock 105 amp alt and stock wire which looks smaller than 8awg. My car is known for having cables that are too small for stock as it is. So with the new alt I'm finishing up my big 3 with the same stinger HPM 1/0 I'm using to power my cool toys. My fingers are crossed that the car will no longer stall at red lights with the stereo at full tilt at night. I still need a battery upgrade but I'm deciding what to go with. I know with slight battery trqay modifications I can get a Diehard Platinum 34/78 to fit.

Here's the alt


It's tested specs


So far for my big3 the battery to chassis ground and the battery + to alt is done. For the battery to alt ground and engine to chassis ground I have one end crimped soldered and sealed with liquid electrical tape to keep any elements getting to the wire to a minimum done. Once I drop the alt tomorrow I will remove the existing cables to get a measurement and finish up.
Alt end


Battery end


Liquid electric tape. I use 3 coats to make sure theres no air holes. This also gives the techflex a good gripping surface.


Measuring out the techflex. To make things easier to figure out under the hood I went with a 4 color techflex scheme for power and ground:
Positive to amps and any other audio/video related positives are Blue
Ground to amps and any other audio/video related grounds are Carbon
Positive to Alt and any other car related positives are Red
Ground to Alt and any other car related grounds are Black


Labeled and heat shrunk


Hopefully I'll finish the alt and wire swap tomorrow and will have more pics.


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## _Nomad_ (Dec 11, 2012)




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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

_Nomad_ said:


>


Thanks man. I like all the positive replies. Makes me feel like I'm doing something right.


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## Madcow (Apr 30, 2013)

Some reason ^ this picture reminds me of my old Gunney. Lol


Sent from the future via a wifi time portal.


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## jpsandberg (Jun 12, 2008)

Joenaz2003 said:


> Also is there too much of a gap in frequency between the sub and mid-base? I'm thinking I have a good sized hole in there from 75Hz to 150Hz.
> 
> Tweeter - high pass 5000Hz butterworth 24db
> Mid - band pass 400Hz - 5000Hz butterworth 24db
> ...


First, great job on the build!

Second, I prefer my mid-bass to play much lower. I personally would play them down to 70 or lower and have the sub pick up from there. Keep up the great work!


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Thanks man. I ended up lowering the mid-base down to 75 Hz a few weeks ago and It's blending much better now. I wanted to see how they would handle all the different music types I listen to before I go down to 70 Hz since I turn it up pretty loud when I have the windows down and tops off. I'll be dropping it to 70 Hz this week to it out.

On a side note the new alt is in. I'm at 14.4v at the amp distro (on the stinger dash gauge) while idling with lights and AC on. I do notice it eventually drops to 13.8 even when I'm doing 70 and the lights still dim ever so slightly. So I'm thinking it's either the battery, a ****ty connection at the battery or the gauge. I have to check it against my DMM again to see if the POT just needs adjusting. Once I make a bracket and mount my fuse holder permanently and tuck/tie up my wires a bit nicer I'll post some pics. Next will be a new battery. Stock for my car is a group 75/25 but I found a write up where someone managed to fit a Diehard Platinum 34/78 with slight modification to the tray and a little finesse so that's what I'll be going with. 

I also got the eMM-6 from Cross Spectrum last week and decided from what I've read to go with the Fountek Scarlett 2i2 USB pre. It has a low noise floor and is local to pick up in case there are any warranty issues. I was going to go with an M-Audio but as somebody told me in my other thread they sold a good amount of equipment to another company and no longer have support for some stuff.

I ordered my OBD2 interfaces last week. One USB (OBDLink SX) and the other is a wifi on pre order (OBDLink MX wifi). The USB came and I put the software on my laptop till I finish collecting parts for an in dash car PC and it's pretty cool. It's from scantools. The software is OBDwiz Pro. I believe the pro version allows me to tweak stuff a little bit but I'm not sure, I haven't really dug into it yet other than to make sure it works. Either way I'll finally be able to check my own codes and get more than my guesstimate at how much gas my car actually burns. I have an OD and a trip OD.


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## plcrides (Mar 21, 2014)

still working huh joe


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

It's never done man


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Nothing interesting going on. My dog had 6 seizures on Friday the 30th so I've been on 24 hour dog surveillance since then. Just posting some more pics of the alt and Big3 install. I still have to take a pic of the old one, it's tiny compared to the new one. Please pay no attention to the disaster that is my engine compartment. After the suspension and audio that will be next on the list to tackle.

I put together the 1/0 ground wires


This is where the fuse holder was for the last year lol. So I relocated the battery to chasis ground and the ground from the harness to mount the fuse holder there.


The frame ground lug was a wreck so I shined it up with the dremel and didn't take pictures of course.


New location for the ground. The metal is kind of thin there so I'm going to have to get a welder and learn how to weld so I can tack it into place.



Grounds relocated


Fuse holder mounted for now. The screw holes in the car and in the mount lined up perfect. The screws I had were less than perfect however so I have to pick up shorter ones that are slightly larger than a #8 and get it mounted nice. It doesn't move at all though. The blue wire that feeds the fuse holder which looks like it has a big bare spot is actually covered with the clear heat shrink. The outside jacket is too fat to fit in the hole so I'll have to work that out when I resize all the wires.


I didn't remove the old wires yet which I should have to get exact measurements. The wires are a bit long so I zip tied them up till I get the new battery and terminals then all will be trimmed up and installed nicer. I also have a run of 1/0 to replace the 2awg to the amp distro.


The wires by the Alt from the top of the engine comartment


So all in all it didn't go too bad. I had to bend some power steering lines out of the way and loosen the sway bar to get the new one in. I just realized I did a big 4 not a big 3
Bat to Alt Positive
Bat to Alt ground
Engine to chassis ground
Battery to chassis ground

There's 3 more wires coming off the battery that I didn't do but I may end up doing them when I start working on the motor. Or at least the battery to engine ground.



So I was going down to pretty much stalling at idle with the lights on and the voltage would drop to between 11 and 12.3 on the stinger meter and lower on the DMM. Now at idle I'm at 14.5


And with the headlights, wipers and Max AC I'm at 14.4. I also noticed that my bass hits a little harder and my all around volume seems louder. I'm usually at around 28-30 but was very happy at 24. It could also be the placebo effect though. I'm not sure.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Oddly though my head lights still dim or maybe flicker very slightly to the bass lines when I have it cranked up. Its almost hard to notice but I was looking for it. Also since the install my normal driving voltage seems to be around 13.9-14.2. I have to reset the dash meter with the DMM again just to get it more accurate.


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## plcrides (Mar 21, 2014)

no your not just tripping joe it does help,i noticed it when i did it,some people even ground the trans to the frame.so then you could have the big 5.and nice disco lights inside btw.lol


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

plcrides said:


> no your not just tripping joe it does help,i noticed it when i did it,some people even ground the trans to the frame.so then you could have the big 5.and nice disco lights inside btw.lol


I may eventually just upgrade every wire coming off the battery. Maybe all the rest will go to 4 or 8awg and the last ground from battery to engine in 1/0 so the electrical system is fully done.


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## dengland (May 25, 2014)

I came across your post in the 3Sixty.3 thread and followed the link in your signature. I am still working my way through this thread, but this is an incredible build and well told story. Very nice job.

I came across something the other day, not sure if it was here or another forum. the OP in that was laying out the case that fix the wiring under the hood was one of the most important items to tackle. I will try and find it tonight and post the link.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

dengland said:


> I came across your post in the 3Sixty.3 thread and followed the link in your signature. I am still working my way through this thread, but this is an incredible build and well told story. Very nice job.
> 
> I came across something the other day, not sure if it was here or another forum. the OP in that was laying out the case that fix the wiring under the hood was one of the most important items to tackle. I will try and find it tonight and post the link.


Thanks for checking it out man, glad you like it. I've slowed down a little bit while I'm waiting on more install stuff. But will hopefully pick up and have the audio install part pretty much complete in the next couple of weeks. Are you going to start a build log when your upgrading the equip in your Ram?

Are you talking about the Big3 upgrade wires? That made a huge difference for me since the stock alt and wires in my car are known to be undersized to begin with. My dimming problem is just about gone now almost unnoticeable unless it's real loud and I'm listening to something bassy. It has also gotten slightly louder and I think better sounding. The bass even seems to be deeper and has more kick now. Less boomy. Hopefully when I get the 1/0 power to the amp installed (that's the only one I haven't switched over yet, waiting to do my deadner before I gut the interior again) it will be even better and more stable. I'm going to work on getting my Pillar spheres mounted better so the trim doesn't stick out and they stop falling off over big pot holes. I just have to extend the threaded rod a bit and make a new rod cover. I'm also going to take a FG mold of the dash area to see exactly how much equipment I can fit and how it all lays out.


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## dengland (May 25, 2014)

Joenaz2003 said:


> Thanks Are you going to start a build log when your upgrading the equip in your Ram?
> 
> Are you talking about the Big3 upgrade wires? That made a huge difference for me since the stock alt and wires in my car are known to be undersized to begin with.


It was the Big3. No need to find the words to convince you.... 

Not sure if I will chronicle the RAM or not. It won't be anything too exotic. 3Sixty.3 to flatten the response and the EQ capability. Amps and a replacement sub.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

dengland said:


> It was the Big3. No need to find the words to convince you....
> 
> Not sure if I will chronicle the RAM or not. It won't be anything too exotic. 3Sixty.3 to flatten the response and the EQ capability. Amps and a replacement sub.


Yea I'm pre convinced on that one. I actually had the wire and the techflex ready for months but was waiting on the new alt as to not have to mess around with it twice. The alt is on the bottom of my car and sucks to get out. The power steering lines and sway bar are in the way. Once it was out I measured everything and hooked the new wires up. I still need to trim them up and lay them out a little neater but it's working great.

LOL that's what I said and why I didn't start my log for almost a year after I began my install. I was just looking for a HU that took a USB drive and a small sub and amp to go with my existing monsoon amp/speakers. Then it just blew up from there.


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## dengland (May 25, 2014)

Joenaz2003 said:


> Oddly though my head lights still dim or maybe flicker very slightly to the bass lines when I have it cranked up. Its almost hard to notice but I was looking for it.


Did you consider adding a big cap?

(I hear you about things spiraling beyond what you planned)


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

I'm one of those guys that won't go the cap route. I have (2) kinetik HC600s I can throw in the back somewhere if I still see the dimming once I replace my battery and the 2awg presently feeding the amps. I'm going with a diehard platinum 34/78. If that doesn't do it the kinetiks will definitely do the trick for the extra voltage pull during the more obnoxious listening sessions lol. I'm just really surprised the 270 amp alt isn't handling it completely. Especially when I'm driving. I'm at 1950 watts and asked for something that would handle a 3000 watt system and that's what they suggested.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Here goes the build of the Car PC. I got my first delivery today which are only the PSU and OBD2 extension but I'm excited none the less. Below is my last post from my MOBO and screen info thread http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...-me-about-your-touch-screen-monitor-mobo.html. I'm still looking for any insight on what I have overlooked or may be missing if any of you seasoned car pc guys have any. Or something cool I can do just cause I can do it is always fun too lol.

Damn internet shopping. Between what I have laying around and what I ordered today this is what I will have and a list of future items.

EQUIPMENT
MOB - MSI Z87I Gaming AC
CPU - Core i5-4590S
RAM – 16GB Patriot Viper Xtreme DDR3, 1600MHz
PSU - M3-ATX-HV 6-34vDC Smart DC to DC Power Supply
SSD – OCZ Vertex 3 240GB
ODB2 - OBDLink SX Scan Tool
ODB2 - Right Angle OBD II Extension Cable 2'
ODB2 – OBDLink MX WiFi (On pre order for August)
DISPLAY - Chalkboard 7" open frame universal HDMI LCD with capacitive multi-touch
GPS - GlobalSat BU-353-S4 USB GPS Receiver (Black)

SOFTWARE
OS - Win 8.1 x64
DSP - 360.3 software
OBD - OBDwiz Pro
MEDIA - MPC-Home Cinema x64
MEDIA - iTunes x64


FUTURE SOFTWARE & HARDWARE (I'm sure this list will grow)
Rydeen RDV360 4 cam DVR (this may change to iSpy with 5 USB or IP cams)
AT&T Beam 4G LTE
Mic 
Voice Recognition software
Joycon EXR
Fusion Brain 6 & Relay
REW & Focusrite Scarlett 2i2


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

So far I received the:

PSU - M3-ATX-HV 6-34vDC Smart DC to DC Power Supply and
ODB2 - Right Angle OBD II Extension Cable 2'. This will allow me to keep the OBDLink SX hooked up all the time till the MX WiFi unit comes in August. Unless I end up just keeping the SX. I always prefer wired over wireless.


This is the ODB2 - OBDLink SX Scan Tool


And the reason for the 90 deg extension. The Scan tool sticks out 3.5" once its plugged in. The 90deg adapter is 1".


This is the Dashboard shot of the OBDwiz pro software on my laptop


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## Ultimateherts (Nov 13, 2006)

On a side note, Who makes Duralast batteries?


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Ultimateherts said:


> On a side note, Who makes Duralast batteries?


According to these guys who makes duralast batteries « Batteries | Compare Reviews and Trusted Advice from Battery Experts Johnson Controls.

I couldn't imagine why you asked that then I scrolled up and realized I have one lol. It's an Autozone battery. Mine died, I had to go price a PC install and they were in walking distance. I'm not positive but I believe its about 2 or 3 years old now.


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

pics of carpc


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## sszyma (Feb 7, 2013)

I had 95 Z28 I just sold and this install brings me way back. That car has a ton of room behind the spare tire. I mounted a alpine mrv-1000 and mrv-f250 and was able to retain the spare. I had a sony es XKR-100 feeding a alpine ere-g180 eq, with a mini disc changer!


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

req said:


> pics of carpc


It's coming. There will be pics today even if it's just the stuff unboxed.



sszyma said:


> I had 95 Z28 I just sold and this install brings me way back. That car has a ton of room behind the spare tire. I mounted a alpine mrv-1000 and mrv-f250 and was able to retain the spare. I had a sony es XKR-100 feeding a alpine ere-g180 eq, with a mini disc changer!


It's my toy, also my DD. Before this was an 80 Caddy Hearse with a 502/502 HO crate engine and White leather limo interior, before that an 80 Z28 with a 450rwh 350 and before that my favorite a 79 Trans am with a BB400 750RWH and a NOS MIX OF big shot plate system with some other type of solenoids. It was insane, pulled the front right off the ground. 

The space behind my spare is limited. I would love to take the spare out and try to give my sub some proper airspace but I would end up with a flat everywhere I go. There is the stock amp mount to the left of it but I was trying to keep everything together audio wise.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

I've been thinking about the PC install locations. I also realized I have no useful pictures of the interior or panels to look at for reference. I have to take more when I pull the interior for the PC and deadner. The 3 or 4 options I came up with are:

The interior panel where the rear seats are. There's a speaker grill there for air flow or fan to draw air in if needed. The 6w3v2 aren't there anymore. So I can run the GPS antennae through the hole and to the roof inside if it gets signal through the metal.



The black plastic plate is where the monsoon amp was. The area to the right is a spot above my spare that I don't even remember being there until sszyma post made me look at the pic again. So I'll have to check it out. To the left above the wheel hump is another speaker grill where I could get air flow. Maybe a small fan sucking air in through the grill (either one) blowing across the MOBO.


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## sszyma (Feb 7, 2013)

I knew had the picture link somewhere. This is prior to the alpine install using xtant amps. The metal bar was used to secure the spare tire hook.









And the fuse holder where the Bose sub used to reside.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

That's also 4th gen so I should have the same amount of room. Camaros and Trans-Ams all had the same body just different shaped body panels more or less. I like that though it keeps everything well hidden. All my crap wouldn't fit there though. It would be great if it did though.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

More stuff came today. Woo Hoo. Only thing left is the MOBO & GPS receiver. FedEx is giving me mixed signals. It says it's in my neighborhood but scheduled for tomorrow. It would be great if it showed up today. 

Now I'm deciding if I should use the 480GB SSD to replace the 240GB in my home PC (only used for OS and software) requiring a **** ton of time and effort doing the re install and set up which sucks. Do I clone the SSD in the home machine and just move it to the bigger drive. Or just throw it in the car and I could store all my software plus my entire 340GB music collection on it. A music collection I probably listen to an 1/8 of but it would be cool to have. Though as it is I think the 64GB thumb drive that's loaded up sucks. It's too much music. Something comes on but I know there's something better so I spend most of my time hitting skip and never actually listen to anything. What to do , what to do.

Here's some more stuff in the mean time.
CPU



Stock heat sync. I'll most likely get something smaller yet more efficient or a liquid cooler. I may actually have an H60 or H90 in the dungeon somewhere.



SSD that is up in the air


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## nittanylion64 (Oct 3, 2007)

That's a relief, I thought I was the only one who keeps fast forwarding through their mp3 collection, while thinking the next song will be BETTER than whzt I am listening to. ?.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

nittanylion64 said:


> That's a relief, I thought I was the only one who keeps fast forwarding through their mp3 collection, while thinking the next song will be BETTER than whzt I am listening to. ?.


I can drive for an hour and only listen to 2 full songs. It sucks man. It's a 64GB stick and has 9000+ songs on it.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Holy ****. FedEx for some reason dropped my MOBO off at the post office at 6am this morning. Then passed my house at 1PM. I think he did that **** on purpose lol. My mail guy wont be bringing it till tomorrow it looks like.


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

put the big one in the car and put it all on there.

thats what i did


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

req said:


> put the big one in the car and put it all on there.
> 
> thats what i did


Yea that's what I decided to do a little while ago. I sat in front of my PC and said hell no. I'll just wait till it runs slow and get another SSD for it. Maybe by then the 1TB SSDs will be down in price. I'm gonna be stalking the mail man tomorrow. My regular guys on vacation and this temp guy don't get here till like 1:00.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

So we have some good stuff going on today. The MOBO, cables and GPS Receiver cam today so it's go time.

The MOBO




GPS Receiver



RAM. I'm going to use both


Misc long USB extensions and the USB to USBmini fir the touch screen. The HDMI ti mini HDMI still hasn't come yet


It's nice to see everything comes with a steal me sticker now. But the MOBO even came with an I'm not getting any doorknob sign lol.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

I started putting it together and booted it up. Excuse the poor working conditions. I'm not working on this in my dungeon of peace and happiness. My dog has been having seizures on and off for the last 30 days and they are trying to get her meds correct to control it so I've been on babysitting duty in the living room sine May 29th. I'm doing the build on my coffee table which apparently wasn't designed with this in mind lol.

Shes very unhappy with the Valiums. They also shaved her legs for IVs and it hasn't grown back yet. It looks like bracelets and she hates bracelets.


So first which I thought was interesting the CPU doesn't have pins just flat spots. The MOBO has the pins. This may be the norm now a days but I'm used to AMDs. I'm really glad its like this cause I bend the frigging pins all the time.



CPU installed


Giant ass heart sink that need to be replaced for a smaller nicer model or liquid cooler. 


The long ass fan wires had to go



So this is how I was working. I forgot a DVD drive BTW. I knew I forgot something so I dug up a BR drive I had in the dungeon.


BIOS up


I started the windows install and it keeps stopping mid install. I'm not sure why yet but I'm working on it.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Awesome turns out it didn't stop mid install it was done. Windows was already in by the time I got back from my cig and must have missed the reboot. Once I restarted it came right up. I'm going to time it next reboot.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

So it's going well. Windows is in, I'm installing the MOBO drivers, windows updates, 360.3 software, OBD2 software but so far every time this thing reboots I have to shut off the PSU and turn it back on. I'm hoping its due to the amount of updates going on right now.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Wow from when the power button clicks to the Windows start screen is 9.30 seconds. Thats without the fast bios or quick start turned on. This thing powers up faster than my HU and thumb drive. Its still not starting up on a reboot though but it may be my spare monitor.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Bamm bios updated reboot issue solved.


Hey req I have that M3-ATX-HV 6-34vDC Smart DC to DC Power Supply which I may have ordered a little too fast. It has the 24 pin but not the 8. What do you do for the 8 pin power connector?


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

This is going well. The machine boots and runs crazy fast with nothing disabled, no speed boosts enabled or anything. I can't get the GPS receiver to connect to a satellite but I can't get a cell phone to work in my house either so it's ok. The 360.3 and OBDwiz Pro are on.

I'm going to plug the SSD into my home PC dock tonight and drag the music over. Hopefully it will be done by the time I wake up.

I'm also going to fabricate a case for it. Just not sure if I'm going to make it out of ABS or aluminum. I have time till the screen comes unless the spare monitor gets hung from my rear view with some picture hanger wire. That's actually not the worst idea lol.

Oh and a power button because that PC case face is not going to go with my build scheme

I Have more software questions.

What kind of NAV software do you guys use? I was hoping that something like google maps would work with it but it doesn't appear to be that way. I have MS streets and trips 2013 and mappoint 2010 and believe one of them if not both work with the receivers. I'm still looking into it.

Anybody put MS office on their carPC. I guess I wouldn't use it in the car but I was just wondering.

You guys use iTunes or windows media player or something else? I'm a fan of MPC-Home Cinema. It playes any kind of audio and video files.

Here's a couple more pics. The background. That has fanboy written all over it lol


The testing phase


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

im trying to remember when i put the power supply in... the motherboard i have has a 24 pin molex... when i tested it on my work bench, i used the power supply from my computer while i was waiting on the pico powersupply to come in. this is the one i bought (at least the one that i linked to in my build thread)

High Voltage M3-ATX Smart Automotive Grade DC to DC Power Supply
http://i1191.photobucket.com/albums/z466/asranger/photobucket-5469-1335880920719.jpg

i cant tell from this picture what is the deal with the other pins - but it looks like from the website that its a 20pin connector on the pico power supply...

honestly i dont remember 

im not sure what you mean by [not the 8]?

i do remember that there are jumpers on the side with pins that determine what the switched input causes the power supply to do. i set mine so when 12vdc+ was removed from the (i think) white trigger input, it put the PC into sleep mode - the same thing as closing the lid to a laptop.

if i were you, id still disable all the boot options when you are all said and done.

also, see if there is an option to change the bios boot splash screen. either change it to <blank> or change it to your automobile logo (pontiac?) or something cool.

as far as the power switch goes - just put a momentary switch somewhere inconspicious. the pico powersupply should put it into sleep mode whenever you remove the accessory voltage. put the power (reset?) switch under the dash or something.

i didnt bother with M$ anything as far as word processing - i doubt youd need it in the car.

nav software - at the moment i dont use it at all. i have not really gotten that far. i got everything back together and im just happy to have my seats in lol. i heard gMaps (windows metro app) works, and bing maps is baked into windows 8 - but i dont know how the F we are supposed to input GPS data while on the move - because those apps use internet data - and thats not going to do jack **** while on the move.

i use centrafuse for my media playing front end - there are plenty of front ends out there. just pick one that works well with touch buttons because its hard to prick your tiny finger on a little list of songs while you are driving if you know what i mean.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

req said:


> im trying to remember when i put the power supply in... the motherboard i have has a 24 pin molex... when i tested it on my work bench, i used the power supply from my computer while i was waiting on the pico powersupply to come in. this is the one i bought (at least the one that i linked to in my build thread)
> 
> High Voltage M3-ATX Smart Automotive Grade DC to DC Power Supply
> http://i1191.photobucket.com/albums/z466/asranger/photobucket-5469-1335880920719.jpg
> ...


I bought the same one not really thinking the mini board would have the 8 pin cpu power connector and also didn't look to see if it was a 20 or 24 pin. That power supply has a 20 pin but not an 8 pin. My excitement got the better of me on that one. The other connectors are SATA power, a molex and a mini molex. The only thing I've seen with a mini molex is a floppy drive. I'm going to have to shoot them an email and see if I can return it and get one with the 24 and 8 pin or if that will work for me.




req said:


> if i were you, id still disable all the boot options when you are all said and done.
> 
> also, see if there is an option to change the bios boot splash screen. either change it to <blank> or change it to your automobile logo (pontiac?) or something cool.
> 
> as far as the power switch goes - just put a momentary switch somewhere inconspicious. the pico powersupply should put it into sleep mode whenever you remove the accessory voltage. put the power (reset?) switch under the dash or something.


I'm going to shut all the extra crap off I usual do at home also to get the extra umph but man is this thing fast. I'm almost tempted to throw CAD on it to see how it runs and then might have upgrade the home PC or just work from the car lol.

I'll work on all the skins and boot screens and what not once I work everything out. I have a nice background from KIT. Not sure if that's too cliche for me or not lol. That JL dude is pretty cool though. I've never seen it before.

I keep forgetting once it's installed it will be on the switched power of the car. That's a good idea like you said I'll just put a reset switch in somewhere for emergencies.



req said:


> i didnt bother with M$ anything as far as word processing - i doubt youd need it in the car.


I was only thinking about it for excel. I have all my settings, TA alignment measurements and all my other info on a spread sheet. I'd like to get all things car related off my RTA/360.3 laptop and onto that since it will always be in the car. It would also be nice to have Outlook on there to remind me of all the things I don't have to do lol and get my email notifications about my threads. I'll have to wait it out for now and see how many times I actually look for it while I'm in the car. Do you or anybody put virus protection on your car PC?




req said:


> nav software - at the moment i dont use it at all. i have not really gotten that far. i got everything back together and im just happy to have my seats in lol. i heard gMaps (windows metro app) works, and bing maps is baked into windows 8 - but i dont know how the F we are supposed to input GPS data while on the move - because those apps use internet data - and thats not going to do jack **** while on the move.


The NAV was one of the 2 main reasons I wanted it. I didn't want a NAV HU though cause I hear they still arent all that great. Luckilly not counting the stuff I had laying around I'm still under what I would have paid for a NAV unit so its cool. Everything else like integrated controls and the OBD is just blowing up from there. I get most of my software for free so it's just a matter of selection. That's the one good thing about iPads and tablets which I was going to originally wait for a windows tablet on the AT&T network so I could just add it to my plan but I will get more functionality out of the car PC. AT&T makes that USB 4G LTE modem I will eventually get so google maps will work and for now I'm just going to get the Garmin software or something that will work with the GPS receiver.



req said:


> i use centrafuse for my media playing front end - there are plenty of front ends out there. just pick one that works well with touch buttons because its hard to prick your tiny finger on a little list of songs while you are driving if you know what i mean.


Is a frontend really necessary? I could understand not wanting too scroll through itunes or another media player while trying to drive like you said. That would suck. But other than a nice and easy to see interface for music does it do anything else?

Scrap that, I just read this on mp3car . It does a lot.
Centrafuse™ is a complete software frontend for Windows XP and Vista-based mobile PCs such as the CarPC and the Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC). Centrafuse seamlessly integrates entertainment, navigation, and communication functions into an intuitive user interface designed specifically for easy and safe touch screen and voice control. 

With Centrafuse™, you have quick and easy access to all of your music, pictures and video, as well as GPS navigation*, AM/FM radio & Satellite/HD radio with pause/replay, DVD playback, Handsfree Bluetooth phone integration, a Wi-Fi manager, touch-friendly web browser, integrated email, engine diagnostics and much more, all easily accessible with the touch of a finger.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

This updates not all that interesting. I'm freaking out about a screen. I check the chalkboard every day and they still aren't in stock. I looked at some others today but the native resolution wasn't there. I've been working on some backgrounds and skins for the carPC. I worked on the actual car a little today. I have to redo the threaded hollow rods that hold the spheres on the a pillars. They are too short so they are causing the pillar covers to flex and constantly try to pull out. I hit a barrage of pot holes and the front left mid ripped out of the pillar and did a stage dive lol. For now I was just cleaning things up. I'm also trying to decide on one of these 3 to use while tuning and listening. I would like to get something that will allow me to listen to it all out for a few songs. I have a thread on this but any input is still cool.
CTEK 56-674 Battery Charger Multi US 25000 - 12V
POWERMAX PM3-100 12 VOLT DC 100 AMP POWER CONVERTER CHARGER WITH 3 STAGE AUTOMATIC SMART BATTERY CHARGER
NOCO Genius G26000 12V/24V 26 Amp Smart Battery Charger and Maintainer

I put the car PC in here for now and I'm going to start on an ABS case for it tomorrow. This case was too small for my home equipment and carPC swims in it lol.


I worked on this monstrosity. I still have to replace the last 2 temp speaker wires with the techflex batch, Swap the 2awg power for the techflexed 1/0 I made, trim all the wires to size and run everything permanently. Still working on the CCF and MLV brand decision before that gets done.



Cleaned it up a bit and used some zip ties. Much better now.


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## dengland (May 25, 2014)

Car alarm with glass break detectors? I am just thinking of all of the hours you have invested ....


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Security upgrades are something else I'm putting together. Luckily other than the mids and tweeter spheres you can't tell there's anything in there. Most people think they are gauges when they look from outside. I also don't turn it up until I'm a few minutes from the house and turn it down when I'm a few minute from where ever I'm going. I've always found car alarms useless. They make a lot of noise and nobody ever looks to see why. At the moment I have the stock alarm and 3 cameras that stare at the car all the time while its home. I run them on a system that sends me a text as well as emails me a still of whatever gets within 15 feet of the car. I click the still and it opens the live view of the cameras. Combined with my dog who hates everyone and barks at anything within a block, its pretty safe when its home.

As soon as I do the deadener I'm going to put in the alarm, I think audiovox makes it. It has glass break, a bunch of vibration sensors, GPS tracking (this was an add on) and all the other good stuff. It also links to the remote which has an LCD screen and shows you where it was touched as well as your smart phone. In addition to the alarm once the carPC is in I will hook up the 4 camera system (like the raydeen 360deg) plus 1 inside and run the same security software I have for the house so I get screen shots and text messages. I'd rather see who does it so I can hunt them down and beat the hell out of them. At one point I even thought about opening the equipment and putting pet trackers in them.

Something else I've been tinkering with is a 140,000v taser circuit. I was thinking about running it to my door handles and trunk lid or the outside of my equipment rack. I think it would be better to prevent the theft than to be alerted it's happened. It would also be funny as hell to watch the guy breaking in twitch around on the floor lol. There was a guy many moons ago that did all sorts of Spy Hunter/James Bond stuff to his car. I found the taser very amusing and it disarmed along with his alarm. He also had tailpipe flames, smoke, oil slick, fake machine guns that popped out the fenders. It was pretty cool. I have to see if I still have the magazine.

I have a lot to do I keep leaving until I decide on the CCF and MLV. I'm going to be busy for days lol. I took the interior and carpet out once and really don't want to do it more than one more time lol.


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## dengland (May 25, 2014)

I was mostly thinking of the physical damage of someone trying to rip something out versus recovery and identifying the thief. Taser video does sound like must see TV!

I am really starting to consider the MS-08 for the Ram mostly because I thing I could do the upgrade in stages since it has some meager amplification. with the 3sixty.3, I am in all in (buying 5 channels worth of amplification and replacement speakers, mounting several pieces of gear), or all out mode factory).

I guess MS-08 vs 3Sixty.3 is sort of religious argument. Did you consider the JBL before going with the RF?


----------



## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

I'm going to start with the alarm and work it all in from there. 

I looked at all the DSPs. 6to8, MS-8, miniDSP, Bit10, alpine whatever it was. I researched all of them for months. Read all the threads, watched all the videos. I't wasn't really any 1 thing that made me choose it. I'm not a fan of Rockford amps or speakers. I know the size was an important factor since I'm really tight on space. I also wanted to get the DSP from a local authorized dealer. The remote and Bluetooth dongle were all included. It had 4 presets which I have set for 1. driver seat, 2. center between seats, 3. passenger seat and 4. flat no TA or crossover for adjusting the amp gains. It had 4 inputs one of which being optical. It doesn't have auto tune but I don't like anything that happens auto so that was OK. The GUI is simple and easy to understand even though I've never used a DSP or anything like it. It has a ton of settings and adjustments. And it looked like it would eventually have an iPad app to tweak the settings rather than a laptop. The miniDSP, 6to8 and bit10 were also high on my list but the size of the 360.3 and input/output locations had them beat out.

I usually get my equipment at a local shop for warranty and ease of switching things out if I blow anything. I don't like waiting for mail. I walk in, hand it to them, they give me a new one, I go home and put it in. No questions, no waiting. They don't carry any DSPs but one of the installers was trained on the 360.2 so he had a grasp of how it worked if there was something I couldn't figure out which also helped the decision. Then they pointed me to another good shop they knew of which was an authorized RF dealer. So that's how it went.


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## dengland (May 25, 2014)

Thanks Joe for the detailed response. I still have some more planning to work through before I have to decide. I am really good at procrastinating.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

No problem man. Happy to help if I can.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

July 2014

I worked on the case for the PC this morning. It was a trial and error thing.

Scrapped idea 1. I was going to use an old dell case and just cut the MOBO tray and I/O slot to the size I wanted. Then I noticed it was riveted and clipped together so by the time I was done making it what I wanted it to be it would have fallen apart. A newer case where it's not put together stupidly would have worked.





Scrapped idea 2. The MOBO fit perfect in the top portion of the case cover. So I was going to cut that and us it as a case bottom then make a top out of plexi or ABS. That idea sucked too. Not too mention a pain in the ass to cut.


Finally I just went with ABS. I have to trim the sides, fix a blown out corner and sand the edges then bond it together but it came out OK. I made OD 7.25" x 7.25" x 3". This will allow space for the SSD and 1 or 2 of the 1.5" fans I used on the amp rack. The top will probably be clear plexi.

Layout


Fit on the first try. That's a first.


Holes for stand offs. Also lined up perfect on the first try


Stand offs screwed in


MOBO in the box.



That's where I'm at now. I have to sand the sides and base edges then pick up some acetone to make the liquid ABS to bond them together. If it's ugly when I'm done I'll just wrap it in the carbon fiber vinyl I did the amp rack in. I was thinking about how to hold the top on when I get to it. So far I have come up with using stand off extensions to hold the board to the base standoffs instead of screws then screw the top into the extensions.


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## quietfly (Mar 23, 2011)

I just went through your entire build thread today!!!! Looks really good!! whats your plan for the display for the carpc?


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

just a tip bro. see if you can find some Methyl Ethyl Ketone










this stuff works loads better than acetone, but its known in 57 states to cause colon cancer or something, so dont be stupid with it lol. it is usually used as a stripper, or a paint thinner for automotive use or something like that.

the case looks great man. keep it up


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

quietfly said:


> I just went through your entire build thread today!!!! Looks really good!! whats your plan for the display for the carpc?


Thanks man. I'm still deciding if I will use 1 or 2 screens. I have to wait till they get here to see how they fit. My plan is to glass the opening where the head unit is so the HU sits recessed into the dash centered vertically and horizontally but tilted or toed slightly to the drivers seat. The voltage gauge and RF remote will stay in there also. I'm going to mount the screen so it pops out about an inch and goes up so I have access to the HU. The final goal is going to be 2 screens. One will go up and one will go down and kick out at the bottom slightly. If all goes well with the research I'm doing on the fusion brain I will be able to eliminate the HVAC controls and control that, windows, door locks, hood, trunk lights pretty much everything from the PC. If not, the HVAC will also be recessed. It really all depends on how much space they take up and how much I can do with the brain. My HVAC is electric, vacuum and cable driven so it's going to be a little difficult but I have faith I'll figure it out eventually.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

req said:


> just a tip bro. see if you can find some Methyl Ethyl Ketone
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks I think it's not too bad for my first attempt and 2nd time working with sheet ABS. I've been cutting it on my chop box with a 100 tooth hardwood blade. So far just that one corner blew out and it was because I wasn't holding it down tight. Then a dremel for the holes. That can looks familiar. I think that's what I used when I stripped the crap off my girlfriends spindles. I may have some left. If not I picked up acetone and a little squirt bottle earlier. I'm going to sand the parts to get a better fit and prep them to bond. Before I bond them I have to figure out where to put some more things. I want to add slots for:
-Power, ground, switched - I think I'm going to use the same connectors I used on my speakers unless I can find something that's 3 pin so it handles the remote or switched also.
-Slot for the power and SATA cables to the blue-ray or DVD (haven't picked one out yet). I also have an eSATA port. If it's powered I'll use it instead.
-Slot for additional USB ports. I want a couple at the dash and maybe 2 more on the box. I have a 3.0 and 2.0 header which will give me 2 more of each.

Back of the MOBO
USB3 #1 OBD Link
USB3 #2 GPS receiver
USB3 #3 RF 360.3
USB3 #4 AT&T 4G LTE receiver
USB2 #5 Touch screen 1
USB2 #6 Touch screen 2

USB Headers
USB3 #7 In dash
USB3 #8 In dash
USB2 #9 In box
USB2 #10 In box


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Moving right a long. I used my extremely accurate and high tech squaring and gluing jig to bond the box together. I couldn't find the stuff in that can but I know its somewhere. So I used the acetone. I put a bunch of shavings I kept from making the temp face plate on my dash and put it in a glass jar. Added the acetone which is made by Klean-Strip. Capped it and went up stairs. Went down a little later and now I have a jar of liquid ABS.

I put the sides on first. The jar in the middle is the ABS. I applied it with a wood stir stick so it's ugly but it works. I used straight acetone on the edge before putting it together then the mixture on the seam like a weld joint.


Then the I/O port side. At that point I noticed it was upside down. 


It actually started bonding pretty fast. I had to give it a good pull to get it separated. Going on the correct way now.


Got the back or front side on


I double coated all the seams with the mixture then the outside seams with straight acetone. Filled in the corner I blew out with the saw. Had to do a little sanding to get all the edges the same height but this is the MOBO in and screwed down. The SSD isn't permanently attached yet. I'm trying to decide on a good place.



I'm debating on installing that small fan to suck air in or Make a tunnel from the CPU fan blowing out of the case top and just putting some fresh air vent on the bottom of the box. I ordered the optical cable and USB 3.0 & 2.0 headers. I'm going to mount the USBs to the box above the I/O ports and run some USB extension cables to get everything to the dash that I need there. I still have to order the Blue Ray or DVD and figure out how I'm going to wire it to the PC in the back of the car. If I can find a slim unit I saw a guy with my car on a forum somewhere that put the DVD drive in his visor. I thought that was pretty cool and out of the way. Unless I delete the visor one day lol.


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## quietfly (Mar 23, 2011)

that looks pretty sexy!, I always prefer to pull heat out of the box and work with convection. the heat will help move itself.....


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

quietfly said:


> that looks pretty sexy!, I always prefer to pull heat out of the box and work with convection. the heat will help move itself.....


It's getting there. That's what I do with the home PC to cool all the HDDs. I have 3 fans pulling air through the HDD stack.

First I'm going to try it with only the CPU cooler blowing out the top of the case using slits of 1/8" in the lower portion of the case for fresh air inlet. If that doesn't work I will add an exhaust tube to the CPU cooler and if that doesn't work then I'll add the small exhaust fan somewhere on the side or top of the box.


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

looks boss man. great job with the ABS case.

how do you plan on mounting it to a surface?


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Thanks man. The ABS wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It's pretty sturdy. I ordered 2 momentary push buttons to use your idea and solder them to screens for firmware updates.

I have 3 ideas for mounting locations. My first choice is behind the rear seat side panel if there's room. I'll have to put some ABS or metal tabs on the box then screw it to the metal inner skin of the car. There was plenty of room under the arm rest and behind the speaker grill but I'm not sure now with the box being 3" tall. It would also be a hassle to get to if I have to do anything to it.




Next 2 choices are back where the stock amp was mounted or under the hatch speaker grill on the passenger side. I don't really like this area cause it's where the power wire runs but it is easily accessible and shouldn't pick up any noise. I can mount it to the stock amp plate or just Velcro it to the carpet.



The area at the top middle of this picture has a flat plastic plate that bolts on to hold the stock amp which is pretty much the same size if not a little bigger then the PC.


Thinking ahead for once I ordered USB extensions, an optical cable and HDMI cables long enough to go to either place.

On a side note I was going to order the CCF & MLV today so I can finally finish my deadener, pull the RCAs to tech flex them, replace the last run of speaker cables with the techflexed cables, get all the cables on top of the carpet under the carpet and get the car PC wires run but it's about $800 in materials to finish. Unfortunately I just had to replace my Living Room TV last friday and bring the dog back to the neurologist for more seizures using my fun money so the deadener will be on hold for another month. I don't think the screens will be here for a couple of weeks anyway they just finished the clearance process in Hong Kong. When I get them, depending on the size I will decide if it will be 1 or 2 screens. Then figure out what to do with them and how I'm going to motorize and glass them in. By then I should be ready for the deadener. I'm going to have to get some carPC specific colors of techflex for all those cables now so it will all give me time. I'm trying to keep each wire (type at least) a different color for easy identification. For the ones that are grouped I used the same color techflex with I different color heat shrink every foot and on the ends with labels to mark them.
FL tweeter - white with white heat shrink
FL Mid - White with yellow heat shrink
FL Mid-base - white with green heat shrink

FR tweeter - Gray with white heat shrink
FR Mid - Gray with yellow heat shrink
FR Mid-base - Gray with green heat shrink

RCAs will all be snake skin with the same color code deal. I have 3 sets run and with my DSP can get away with 1 set but I'm using fronts and sub out. I'm going to leave the set I had for rears as spares just in case.


----------



## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Hey req about how long did it take your screen to get from Hong Kong to you? It looks like mine left Hong Kong today at 1pm.


----------



## req (Aug 4, 2007)

there was some wonky **** going on with shipping. i think it took a few weeks. it would have been sooner, but once it got to the states things went stupid. i live in VA. i saw that it was in richmond, about an hour and a half north. then all the sudden it was in IL, and i was like WTF. unfortunatley, USPS is a ****ing joke and they told me just to wait.

no wonder why they are loosing money. so another week and it came in. i would say 3 weeks is a safe bet. customs is terrible and it is the other side of the planet.

if i were you, i would make the pc accessable. weather its to plug a usb cable in, to fiddle with a part, to do a hard reset - i fiddle with mine now and again, and im glad its just behind the glove box door with 4 screws. for what its worth.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

req said:


> there was some wonky **** going on with shipping. i think it took a few weeks. it would have been sooner, but once it got to the states things went stupid. i live in VA. i saw that it was in richmond, about an hour and a half north. then all the sudden it was in IL, and i was like WTF. unfortunatley, USPS is a ****ing joke and they told me just to wait.
> 
> no wonder why they are loosing money. so another week and it came in. i would say 3 weeks is a safe bet. customs is terrible and it is the other side of the planet.
> 
> if i were you, i would make the pc accessable. weather its to plug a usb cable in, to fiddle with a part, to do a hard reset - i fiddle with mine now and again, and im glad its just behind the glove box door with 4 screws. for what its worth.


Oddly enough it was in Hong Kong Yesterday so I checked again just now. It's been through OH and has now left the NYC gateway. I'm in NY about an hour away from JFK which I believe is where things come in so with any luck it wont get lost in the 2 week shuffle. It kills me when UPS drops at the USPS and it takes an extra 2 days to get here. Screwed up system.

July 16, 2014 07:51 New York City-Gateway, NY - USA Departed from DHL facility in New York City-Gateway, NY - USA

I decided on the hatch area just in case I have to get to to it. Looks like I'll have everything but the CTEK 25000 by the weekend. I ordered that on Amazon and it still hasn't shipped. It says 21st-24th. I have some stuff to do so I probably won't get to anything till Sunday or Monday but I can work on the screen with the laptop and finish up the PC. I did some research and if the M3-ATX doesn't work I may have to go to the M2-ATX which is a bit larger and would be outside the PC case.


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

bummer about the power supply 

i know what you mean. i ordered some parts for my car - mostly maintenance stuff. my new wheels should be here in a week or two, hopefully soon. im itching to see these things. im waiting for you to get the light sensor before i take the LCD out so that i dont have to do it twice (once for the firmware and once for the light sensor) and also im going to hook up my joycon steering wheel controller at the same time. ill also test out the LCD back light via headlight switch as well i think.


im looking forward to how you put this in the car tho man


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

req said:


> bummer about the power supply
> 
> i know what you mean. i ordered some parts for my car - mostly maintenance stuff. my new wheels should be here in a week or two, hopefully soon. im itching to see these things. im waiting for you to get the light sensor before i take the LCD out so that i dont have to do it twice (once for the firmware and once for the light sensor) and also im going to hook up my joycon steering wheel controller at the same time. ill also test out the LCD back light via headlight switch as well i think.
> 
> ...


The power supply still may work. I'm going to try it out when the CTEK gets here. I'm also waiting to hear if they will take it back for the M2 version if it doesn't work. If not I'm going to modify it a little to do what I need it to do. The voltage and amperage is fine its just the connectors. I'll have to add a 20 to 24 pin adapter. Then thicken up the other power wires for the drives and add an 8 pin to that.

The waiting is horrible but its been raining and wont stop til tomorrow some time so that eases my wheres my stuff tantrums lol. That's why I like local stores but shopping on the net gives so many more options. I'll get that sensor to you as soon as it gets here. I keep waiting for everything before I do things but the cars becoming a mess. I'm going to break down next week and pull the interior to get all the wires under the carpet before I finish the deadener. As for the screen install I have no idea. I keep throwing things around but wont know what I can do till I have the screen/screens in hand to see what kind of space I have. Then I have to figure out the motorizing part. There's a lot of room in that part of my dash but its tight at the same time. I'm trying to keep everything in the indent so it looks somewhat factory and not hack.

I was looking at the joycon but I think I may be able to integrate my stock steering wheel controls with the fusion brain. I'm up in the air with it. I disconnected the steering wheel controls because where they are now I tend to hit them when making tight turns. I really like the touch pad on the steering wheel idea though. I'll work on all that after the PC is in and running.


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## quietfly (Mar 23, 2011)

wow you guys are making me jealous with all this car PC talk


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

LOL it's time for you to build one.

Look what I got today to my surprise after finally coming to terms with a possible 3 week time frame.





And a bunch of cables I will probably never use lol.


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

oh dang!!

must be nice to live so close to the station that recieves overseas packages LOL.

awesomesauce!


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

req said:


> oh dang!!
> 
> must be nice to live so close to the station that recieves overseas packages LOL.
> 
> awesomesauce!


I was sure it was going to be a couple of weeks. Now I'm behind lol.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

More boxes came. Nothing interesting but more parts

The USB 3 and 2 headers. And a molex to SATA connector I didn't need. Not sure how it got in the order but I have one now.



I also got 10 more cat6 connectors for the home network (I hate wifi) and some cables for the new TV I ordered from PE. The optical cable is a 25' to replace the one I have now which is going to connect the PC to the 360.3. It will be the most expensive cable in my car at $70 for 12' since I had to get it local and that's all they had. I had to post them cause I never saw an HDMI cable this thick before lol.
The small cable is a regular HDMI cable. The left one is a 25' and the right one is an 18'. I have other 25' HDMI cables and none are even close to this monster.


Now I'm going to connect one of these screens to the laptop and see if I like it.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Firmware updated and i'm typing on the screen. This is awesome. I have to work on the resolution. it is at 1920x1080 and ****s real small lol.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

When I change the resolution the image shrinks in the screen so I'm going to have to play with the make things larger settings once it's connected to the carPC.

But this is the 360.3 software


My last message. The keyboard pops up auto which is pretty cool. I can squeeze out on web pages to zoom like an ipad. I haven't tried it on any applications yet.


Putting the additional USBs in the box I came to decide I may need a bigger box. The hardware fits in fine but the wires are killing me.


I used the USB mounting brackets as a dremel template for the holes


MOBO fits but the screws on the 3.0 header were too short so I have to make a hardware store run now


There's more wire than board lol. The green thing is the temp on off button. But I still have to do the SATA data and power cables, The 8Pin 12v cable and the 20-24 pin adapter so it's going to be a train wreck in there. I was thinking about adding a false floor below the case so I can run the cables behind the MOBO like I do with the home PC.


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

so it does work with the touch gestures with the firmware update??

MUST HAVE VIDEO!!!!


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Yes it does. Give me a few and I'll set the 2nd one up to do the firmware and take a video


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Let me know if this works. I have no idea how to upload a video.


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## quietfly (Mar 23, 2011)

DAWN thats sexy... i want to do a car pc. however i have to wait for the new car. choices are being narrowed down. 15 WRX or 11 Forester XT with a few goodies


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

YouTube 

sign up with a google account, and upload a video.


//edit

i was able to download the video and watch it.

thank the lord that it works!!! im so pumped hahaha    


//doubleedit

any tips for flashing the firmware?


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

quietfly said:


> DAWN thats sexy... i want to do a car pc. however i have to wait for the new car. choices are being narrowed down. 15 WRX or 11 Forester XT with a few goodies


Start building the PC now. Then it will be ready for the new car. Nothing like planning ahead lol.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

req said:


> YouTube
> 
> sign up with a google account, and upload a video.
> 
> ...


I actually think I have a youtube account from the Halo 3 days. I gotta see if I can remember the login.

The firmware was real fast and easy.

I downloaded the boot loader (HIDBootloader (Windows)) and the firmware (7-of-mt-ab-v1-5.hex).
I unzipped the boot loader.
I plugged the screen in while shorting the 2 pins. ( the 3rd and 4th pin on the bottom row)
The 2 lights on the left board start to blink you take the tweezers off.
Run the boot loader. The window had 3 buttons on the button bar. Left, middle, right I'll call them.
I hit the left one then selected the firmware.
After it's done hit the middle button and it flashes it. Then tells you to reset.
I unplugged the USB then connected it back up to the laptop with the HDMI also and it worked.

It looks long but it takes not even a couple minutes.


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

awesome. ill be doing this as soon as the light comes in the mail ;D


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

req said:


> awesome. ill be doing this as soon as the light comes in the mail ;D


Your not too far so it should get there quick. I walked it to the mailbox which got picked up at 5pm yesterday so it probably went out this morning. I wonder if I can use 1 light sensor for both screens if I split the wires. Also does this have a contact somewhere for a backup camera? I really like the 360deg DVR system so I may try to get something like that hooked up to the PC with iSpy software instead of it. I may need some additional USB ports lol.

I went out to see if both screens would fit. Not a chance in hell without some major modification to the bottom of the dash/console area. I have plenty of space left to right but not top to bottom for both. I'm pretty sure a 10 or 11 inch screen would fit no problem, maybe even a 12. But now that I know it wont fit the 2 7s I'm hell bent on getting them in there lol. I'm going to put them in place with some masking tape tomorrow and see what i can come up with. I'll post some pics too to see if you guys have any ideas.

I found some stuff out today. The M3 should power my MOBO fine. I got a molex to 4pin 12v adapter to go to that 8pin 12v. Turns out a 4 or 8 will work but that powers the CPU so I need it. I also found out the 20 pin plugged into the 24 pin will also be fine. After I get it all running and test it for a few hours if the wires from the M2 get hot I'll have to solder a heavier gauge on but other wise I'm good to go.

The CTEK 25000 I ordered on Amazon when I ordered the screens is not coming. I got an email today they were out of them and I'm getting a refund. I hate Amazon so I ordered it from another place. The DVD drive, SATA cable, Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, and some more misc cables will be here tomorrow. I'll be able to see how everything fits in the case tomorrow night.

I wonder if there's a downside to installing the RTA pre amp in the car so I don't have the XLR wire slammed into the door or out a window. I know seeing the screen on the dash through the window would suck as well as a need for a wireless mouse and keyboard. I guess I just answered that lol.


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

the dayton omnimic is awesome fyi 


why didnt you just order the 10" screen from chalkelec?

the light sensor is just a resistance circuit. i think it should work fine if it is split.

i dont know if there is a backup camera turn on circuit in the LCD. i dont *think* there is. afik there is only one HDMI input, so youd have to get some kind of external switch box for that i THINK.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

req said:


> the dayton omnimic is awesome fyi
> 
> 
> why didnt you just order the 10" screen from chalkelec?
> ...


I have the emm-6 from cross spectrum. It's just taken me forever to order the pre amp. I research things too much and other things not enough lol.

I was thinking about the 10 but I really want the 2 7s. It would allow me to keep 2 things open at the same time with the separate screens. I'll figure it all out.

I'm still trying to find a manual for the screen and the board. If I do I'll dig into it and see. If I use the iSpy software which I want to use for security anyway I can put an unlimited amount of cameras in so that will cover the rear view. I saw this rear view mirror though that was cool. It's from the same company with the 360deg DVR system. It has a screen in the right side of it. When you go in reverse it shows the rear cam, Left blinker brings up the left cam, right blinker brings up the right cam and drive brings up the front. The thing I like the nest is the top view when parking. It uses all 4 cameras and gives a top 360 deg view so you can park GTA style lol. But I'd be driving like that, it would be bad lol.

I just started adding receipts. Oh boy, I know better and I should just throw them out. Including the PC parts I already had (figured I paid for them at some point) I'm at $1660.98. That's for every piece, cables and added accessories. With the pre amp, mic cable and ctek which I don't count. They go into the over all car audio addiction spending list, I'm at $2056.94. I better buy my girlfriend something soon lol.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

More boxes came today. I think this is the last of it. I have to look at all my orders. Now I have too much to do. All the parts for the PC are here as well as all the stuff I need to tune. I'll work on tuning between layers of fiber glass or something lol. I may have come up with an idea for fitting the 2 screens. 1 in front of the other and have the back screen raise up and the front screen stay stationary. Maybe.

We have USB extensions, 6" SATA for the SSD and the slot load DVD drive


The pre amp and mic cable


To go with the mic I got months ago from Herb at cross spectrum


The CTEK 25000. Which is a bit larger than I imagined


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

So I have the Car PC connected to the screen sitting on the dining room table. The switched and positive wire are connected to the CTEK 25000 positive and the ground is connected to the CTEK ground. Anyone think something is going to blow up when I plug the CTEK in to the wall? Just figured I check before I do it.


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## diy.phil (May 23, 2011)

yes.... it's a charger (may pulse, shut off and on, etc) and not exactly a full-time power supply. If you have a spare big-block of car battery in the middle of the circuit you're fine. have fun!!


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

diy.phil said:


> yes.... it's a charger (may pulse, shut off and on, etc) and not exactly a full-time power supply. If you have a spare big-block of car battery in the middle of the circuit you're fine. have fun!!


Thanks for the reply as always diy.phil. So is that a yes, its gonna blow or yes it will work?


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## diy.phil (May 23, 2011)

yes it's going hurt your new Car PC! (not necessarily blow up but injure it badly)
(don't turn it on.)


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

diy.phil said:


> yes it's going hurt your new Car PC! (not necessarily blow up but injure it badly)
> (don't turn it on.)


Thanks again. That's what I figured from the first yes post but I figured I'd try again lol. I'm trying to avoid the mosquitos that seem to love me. Tomorrow I'm going to hook the CTEK to the car then run an extension cord off the car battery into the house where I can test and work on it mosquito free without a dead battery or 1/2 tank of gas.


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## dengland (May 25, 2014)

Joenaz2003 said:


> The pre amp and mic cable
> 
> 
> To go with the mic I got months ago from Herb at cross spectrum


I have missed something. Why did you buy a mic with an analog interface instead of a UMM-6 or a miniDSP UMIK-1?


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

dengland said:


> I have missed something. Why did you buy a mic with an analog interface instead of a UMM-6 or a miniDSP UMIK-1?


I was going to go USB but after some reading, speaking to Herb, the techs at PE and a couple of recording engineers I decided the analog route was better than USB. I weighed the pros and cons of both ways.

USB is simpler to set up but has a slightly higher noise floor and you get more accurate readings the analog way. The analog has more parts and wires and is more of a pita to set up and lug around. I've never seen a side by side comparison of the two measuring the same things so I don't know if this is true or would have even been a noticeable difference but that's what I got from it. I figured if I'm going to do it, I'm going to go with best stuff I could afford and figure out how to use. 

Since my car isn't the best choice for SQ with all the reflective surfaces, exhaust noise, road noise and engine I need all the help I could get. Before the STP silver it was like driving a train. You couldn't even have a comfortable conversation in the car. Once I do the CCF & MLV hopefully it will be much better.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Here's the latest batch of questions I have if anyone can be of assistance. Normally the charger/supply would go in the engine compartment and hook to the battery allowing me to tune and listen with the engine off. This things big and apparently Pontiac didn't figure on it going in the engine compartment.

Would it work if I installed it in the trunk somewhere then hooked it to the power wires coming off the battery before my distro or hook it to the 2awg I am replacing that is coming from my battery. I only have the battery under the hood at the moment. 

So with those 3 options I would have:
1. CTEK - Battery - 1/0 - distro (Under hood and only hook it up when I want to use it. hassle)
2. Battery - 1/0 - CTEK - 1/0 - distro (In trunk on existing power wire between battery and distro)
3. CTEK - 2awg - Battery - 1/0 - distro (In trunk before the battery with 2awg)

I'm guessing option 3 would be the way to go.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

I actually got my self outside and did something over the last 2 days. Nothing major just getting ready for the PC install but I think I have an idea of what I'm going to do with the screens now. First I had to move some things around but while I was doing that I fixed a few things.

Most of the tabs on my console were broke so I used the acetone to bond them back together and some acetone/ABS mix to make it stronger. I can't wait till tomorrow so I can see if that got rid of my console buzz.




This was the first broken part I fixed before I learned about acetone. I used JB Weld on this one


I also fixed the ashtray lid finally. That was giving me a lot of rattles. Turns out it wasn't just the broken lid hinge and spring. The console was missing a chunk as well as being melted. So I bonded some ABS slices on there and it works fine now. The 360.3 remote will soon live in there to free up some dash space for the screens. For now it's just floating in there.



I had to shrink up the stinger voltage meter a bit. It's mounted above the ashtray next to my traction control where the lighter was. This was the fun part and the part I didn't take many pictures of.
This is the original

I cut most of the extra plastic off the bottom so it was the size of the meter only and fixed the parts I broke.




I cut the sides off the cover, removed some material then bonded them on and filled them with ABS.



Since I didn't have the mounting fingers anymore or a way to mount it, I made it so the base would fit inside the cover. I also had to add 1/4" to the height so the meter and base would fit inside. I used 1/8" sheet ABS. It still needs more sanding and filler but I want to make sure it will work the way I want before I finish it.



I didn't take any pics of the stuff installed so I'll do that in the morning and post them up. Tomorrow I have to rework the HU a little and measure the space for the screens. Hopefully both will fit. I'm going to install one for now that will come out manual until I design and build a mechanical slide out housing for both.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Some more re configuring and figuring lol.

This is how the reworked voltage gauge looks. If it stays put I'll finish it up and paint it to match the console and also the 360.3 remote very professionally installed lol. I have to work on an angle for the remote that clears both the lid and shifter parts under it. Like everything else in the car, it's real tight.


Now for the screen ideas. This is where I was yesterday with the stock trim panel back on. Much better than that temp ABS I had on there which fell of over big enough bumps. I would really like to fit both screens in that hole and have them slide out with one flipping up above the HU and the other flipping down. I don't think I have enough room for the mechanics to make that happen. I can trim up the trim piece a bit and get some more room which I have seen done on other TAs to accommodate double dins. I can also relocate the HVAC to the glove box or console which I have also seen done. If all goes well with research on the Fusion Brain I may be able to get rid of the HVAC all together. Then I will have plenty of room for whatever.


This is where I am at now. I lowered the HU so the screen will fit on top, that way I can at least get something going and I will be able to actually use it rather than talk about it.

Screen where it will be in the hidden position.


Then this is where it will be when it is out. It will be manual for now while I work on the 2 screen plan. I figure if I get all crazy and make it mechanically come out and up I wont want to take it all apart again to work on the 2 screen plan.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

OK, this is what I came up with. I'm going to put the screen in a box and put that box inside another box in the dash hole with tracks so it moves out then pivots up. 1st I started on the bezel box for the screen. Not sure if I went about it in the best way but this is what I did.

I laid out a piece of mat and resined it.


Then I cut it into strips with a straight edge and a razor and lined it up with the edge of the screens view-able area and taped it into place. This will be the front bezel that will be seen.


From there I added a second layer to hold the 4 pieces together.


Fits good.



Next I added some sides. I tacked them with hot glue then resined it together.



I added a 2nd layer around the sides and cut them down a bit.



So the game plan and next batch of steps are:
-Work on the sides to get them smoother.
-Sand down the resin dribbles inside so the screen sits tight to the face again.
-Make a back cover out of ABS that will fit over the sides and touch the face of the front bezel. The back box will have stand offs to hold the screen tight to the front. I will use screws to hold the ABS back cover to the bezel.
-Trim the sides of the bezel face to match the sides of the box.
-Add some filler to the face and sand it down.
-Start working on the box or housing that will be in the dash.

I may sand the opening a little wider than the view-able area and put some black vinyl on the screen up to the view-able area depending on what it looks like once I do a power on test with it in the box.


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## dengland (May 25, 2014)

Keep the posts coming, this is interesting to watch. I am not sure I can visualize exactly what the screen will look like in the space. But I am going to keep watching.


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

why dont you just use ABS plastic for the box?


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## thumperv2 (Aug 7, 2014)

this build is looking great! lots of cool little gadgets you are fitting in the console. Love it!


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

dengland said:


> Keep the posts coming, this is interesting to watch. I am not sure I can visualize exactly what the screen will look like in the space. But I am going to keep watching.


I didn't really explain it well but I'm working on it. I have the front frame pretty good now so I just have to work on the back half and I will get some more pics up.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

thumperv2 said:


> this build is looking great! lots of cool little gadgets you are fitting in the console. Love it!


Thanks man I'm working on it. I have decided though the little things and gadgets are me stalling on the bigger more important stuff lol. I think I do these things to avoid ripping the interior out again. What a pain in the ass.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

req said:


> why dont you just use ABS plastic for the box?


I was waiting for you to pop in here and throw out some ideas for me lol. I was going to go with ABS but I didn't have any sheets yet and the impatience set in again. I was also thinking, making the main front piece and inner box out of FG would make it stronger while keeping it thinner and smaller. It's also a hell of a lot easier for me to work with. The back box which will be the sides and back that are visible will be 1/8" ABS. The only FG you will see will be the face around the screen. Being I use a basic latchkey tool set as I call it I din't get things very square so I was working on that today with some sanding blocks. I have the basic size down and it fits in the hole now. My problem with the ABS is cutting it. I have a chop box with a 100 or 120 tooth hard wood blade I've been using but it brakes a lot of corners. I was too nervous to be messing with the small pieces I would need for the sides to use it. I'm still working on a slide and hinge system for it. I've been trying to look at the mechanics of single din flip out touch screens to get some ideas but finding good pics of the internals has been rough.


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## peenemunde (Aug 31, 2013)

sub'd!


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

I have some more pics of the screen to upload later. It's coming out ok but I'm going to have to order some 1/16" ABS and I'm probably going to take you advice req and use only ABS for it even though the fiber glass is thinner and feels more sturdy to me. I'm having issues using the 2 different substrates together. I have the mechanism figured out to get it out of the dash and up so I'm going to be working on that. 

I have a question though. Maybe you have some insight req or anyone else that pops in here. I hooked the PC up in the car for the first time this morning with the touch screen. Temporarily I ran the constant power wire and ignition wire to my hot distro with a switch on the ignition wire. I ran the ground to my ground distro. When I started it up the fan spun but the screen just blinked, blunk? Flickered lol. Windows never loaded up, it stayed on the splash screen then eventually started to do a repair disk, still from the splash screen so I shut it down and I'm going to hook it up to the in house PSU tonight to make sure I didn't blow anything up. I'm thinking that the PSU I have for it is in fact to small and need something with more juice. Any ideas if this could be the issue? If it is I'm going to have to find one with the 24 pin mobo connector as well as the 8 pin CPU connector. I don't think the molex to 4 pin (on the 8 pin CPU) is doing it.


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## LaserSVT (Feb 1, 2009)

What a journey! I just read this whole thing and now want to redo my whole system. LOL

Kudos man, great install. Will be following it.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

LaserSVT said:


> What a journey! I just read this whole thing and now want to redo my whole system. LOL
> 
> Kudos man, great install. Will be following it.


Thanks man. A journey isn't the word for it lol. Glad to be of inspiration.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

I got the new power supply Friday. It's bigger then the M3 ATX so I'll have to make an external box for it as well or rework the PC case to fit it. I'm also going to have to put some vents in the PC case and install a fan to suck air out. I thought the CPU cooler drew air out of the cooling fins but it turns out it blows into the fins so the 2nd fan is needed. I'll get some pics up tomorrow. As soon as my 4pin to 8 pin ATX power adapter get here I'm going to test it out in the car. It's getting to a point now where its getting exciting. I was going to put my entire 308 GB 61,446 song music library on there but as it is I can't decide what to listen to with the 64GB I have in the car now lol. So I put a bunch of music on there and will be able to weed through it while listening to it and delete things on the fly which I can't do with the HU so that's cool. The screen isn't done yet but I have pics of where I'm at and already have an idea for a new design to fit both and get them to mechanically do what I want them to. I'll probably start working on that during the week.

I had to take a break to from it to get some data transfers done. I had (5) 90% full 3TB HDDs shoot error messages up all at the same time. Luckily they are still under warranty so Seagate will have the new drives to me on Monday to replace them. 3-4 days to move all the data to the new drives and I'm up and rocking again. Funny thing is out of the (10) 3TB drives in my machine the (5) that went bad were all put in in the last year the oldest one 2 years. The other (5) without any issues are all between 3 years old and how ever long ago they started making 3TB drives. Goes to show you they just don't make **** to last like they used to.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

Here's some of the pictures from the past couple weeks. Things are still going slow. 

We have the backs sides



It's tight in the slot. Once things are worked out with thinner screen frames I'll move the HU up and put both screens in between the HU and HVAC controls. I think.



I made this for the M3 ATX PSU thinking it would work for the CPU 8pin power but it didn't have enough juice.


The new M4-ATX PSU. It has a 4 pin CPU power cable so I'm waiting for a 4pin to 8 pin adapter to come.


It's a lot bigger then the M3 was.


This will one day be the top for the car PC case. It needs a little cutting, bending and painting first. I will try to attach it with magnets or Velcro.


Here is the screen in the case, still not finished but it's getting there.



That's all I have for now. I'll be working on it some more this week.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

I've actually made some progress in the last 2 days. Req your gonna find all this amusing. But I know for next time. I may just buy a screen with a bezel that does what I want it to do. But in the name of DIY and using what ever I have laying around the house so I don't spend money I think I finally worked out the screen. Here it goes.

Not related to the screen being in the dash I put some screws in the bezel so I can get rid of the blue tape and added some stick on felts to keep the screen pushed to the front.


First what didn't work but seemed like a real good idea at the time lol. I cut a piece of the piano hinge from the cover to the amp rack that still isn't installed. Then I notched it for the HDMI/USB cables.


We've got clearance Clarence.


Added a piece of ABS which will be part of the sliding mechanism, drilled some holes for the screws holding it to the screen to recess into and added a magnet to keep it in place when flipped up.


Flip up and stay test passed. What a great idea.


Wait a second. wheres the wire gonna go?


2nd attempt. I'm going to insert plastic 1/4 spacers on screws then screw them into the screen. Then I will put a 1/4" slot in the center of a piece of 3/4"x1/4" shelf molding. That will be my track. Then I will add a 2nd track to the inside of that one to get it the rest of the distance out of my dash.

And we have router fail. I have decided that the router much like a table saw, scares the **** out of me.


3rd and hopefully final idea.

I made 1/2" x 1/8" slots in the 3/4"x1/4". I put it into the dash and made it as long as the dash would allow.


Then I cut some 1/2" pieces of 1/8"ABS which fit into the slots.


So far so good.

Marked everything up and put tape in all 4 corners of the screen box 5 layers high to give me some sliding clearance. All said and done I should have put it on the screen side but it is what it is. Also marked the center where I will cut a chunk out of the rail.


Cut the ABS rails and rounded the edges to make them look nice and make it easier to slide it into the channel.


Attached the top rail with acetone. I left a little hanging out of the rail then used tape to hold it in place.


Slid it further and added a 2nd piece then took it off and added a 3rd piece. Now to let it bond.



While it's drying I lined up the bottom rails, drilled them then countersunk the holes.


This will be the in dash position.


Slid out of the dash


and flipped up


Made a top frame out of some 1/4" ply I had laying around. Glued it on and used my trusty pill bottles filled with screws clamps to help it stay put.


This is where I'm at. I'm going to have to use thin metal for the bottom of the channels which is how I will attach it to the MDF sleeve my HU is in. That's still not fully worked out but I am getting happier with the progress and keep telling myself it's only temporary till I figure out how to get 2 screens shoe horned in the dash and have them come out auto magically. I'll figure it out eventually.

Also @Req or anyone else using the chalk 7" screen. In my search to make the screen boxes thinner to fit 2, I asked Andrew at chalk if they had ribbon cable extensions to get the controller off the screen. He gave me this link (5pcs 150mm Length 30PINS 0 5mm Pitch FFC FPC Ribbon Flat Cable Forward Direction | eBay) to the wider of the two but hasn't come up with anything for the brown one though.


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

I have some questions. The PC is in the car and the screen is working as figured. I have plenty of pics I will get up later but I'm trying to use the daylight I have left in the car for a change lol. 

Here it goes. I can't get the PC to power up. First I ran the ignition on the PSU to my remote turn on relay fed from my HU. One of the guys at MO-CO-SO said that should work fine. Then I scrapped that and ran a wire from my ignition and still no power. Both ways the PSU has a green light. So in my search for what my issue may be I was looking at M4-ATX pictures and noticed none of the ones on line has glue holding the caps on. So I'm thinking what I have is not glue but blown caps which could be my issue. mo-co-co thinks it may be potting compound since they aren't bulging. I have no idea what the issue is.

This is a picture from the day I received the PSU. Anybody have an opinion on this?


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## Joenaz2003 (Sep 25, 2013)

OK, the panic is over. It works. It isn't "installed" yet it is kind of just existing in the car for the moment lol. For science. It's really hard to do things inside windows with the resolution so high on such a small screen. Unfortunately when I make the res lower the RF 360.3 software doesn't fit in the screen. I'll have to work on that. I downloaded the centrifuse trial to see how I like it. For now here are some things I noticed so far. 
The sound is much louder than it is from my HU so it's going to require some tweaking. I don't have any music software installed on it yet so I was just using Windows Media Player to mess around with it. 

I lose the 360.3 remote while it's plugged into the PC so I'm gonna have to leave the USB out during normal use and plug it in when I want to tweak it. That sucks though. I'm going to check with RF and see if there's a work around or setting. I was thinking about disabling it in the "it's safe to unplug your USB device" thing.

I have the OBD link set up and OBDwiz and it's pretty cool. I can actually see how ****ty my gas millage really is and what all my error codes are. I can now see how many miles I have till empty. It's like a future car now lol.

I installed MS Streets and Trips to use the GPS with. My GPS dot doesn't move as smooth as it does on my iPhone or iPad. I also have the receiver sitting in my hatch and not on the top of the car yet which I'm sure doesn't help. The map is pretty small but that's due to the resolution. I didn't use the directions or anything yet but I will give it a try tomorrow.

The WiFi isn't working for ****. So no surfing the net while driving. Probably because I have the box buried in my trunk hole sitting in a pile of wires surrounded by amps and a DSP. The AT&T 4G receiver will help that also.

I will definitely need the 2nd screen now. I keep switching through apps like mad lol. I think I'm going to run a small speaker somewhere to hook up to the PC for the NAV to talk while I listen to the radio or talk on the phone through the HU.

All in all I like it, it's pretty cool so now I'm going to have to work on getting 2 screens in there and re working the radio sleeve and everything in that area of the dash really. But for now here's some pics of the mess I created. As well as my extremely innovative PC case. I thought long and hard about what I was going to do for a temporary mounting location for the PC.

Here's what I got. I don't have any pics of it in the car, it was already dark by the time it turned on, I'll take some tomorrow.

This is what I will use for a temp case for the PSU. I really need to work that out. It's going to need an external box or the PC box will have to be made bigger.


These are the wiring harnesses, I had to cut and paste a little with them which is what all the white heat shrink is. Now that I'm thinking about putting everything in one box I'm going to be cutting all of them and shrinking them up now.


When i went to hook it up I realized my 8pin is a female and needs to be a male. After I was done throwing my baby fit I found a male to male from my home PSU extra wires.


Adding a fan to blow out. The fan incidentally burned up as soon as the PC started and filled the hatch with black smoke. It still smells. I haven't figured out why yet. My guess is I soldered the wires on the fan in the wrong places or order.


Making some holes for an inlet. I thought I took pictures after the holes were drilled but I guess not.


On to the screen mounting. I had no idea how I was going to attach it to the car so I decided it was getting attached to the MDF HU sleeve and still didn't know how I was going to do it. So I pulled it out of the car and found some great pre drilled tabs from when the HU was mounted up higher.



I glued a small piece of ply on each side which filled the gaps, gave me something to screw to and centered it.


This is what it looks like with the wood trim colored with a sharpy and in the dash trim. I'm going to have to make some sort of face to go over all the wood and blend with frame. The ABS I have is too thick so Ill have to find something else. i was thinking about using the left over carbon fiber vinyl I used on the amp rack. I also need a face for the top of the screen box. It's going to have to have a finger recess or something to pull it out by. If I push it all the way in flush I can't grab it to pull it out. Maybe one of those flush mount cabinet door latches that you push in and it pops the door out will work instead of a finger hole. I keep reminding myself the better I make it work and look the less likely I am to do the double screen I want to do. But it's all practice and learning.


Now for the ultimate PC and PSU case. I know it's sturdy cause it got my sons micro quad copter here from Texas in one piece lol. Some painters tape to keep everything secure and in it's place. (this pic just won't rotate for ****)


Air outlet and power input


Air intake and the holes I drilled n the case.


It came out very good and I can even close it to fool would be thieves. Who steels a box with antennae right. I'll get some more pics up tomorrow of the screen in the dash, some screen shots of the software and the ultimate PC case in it's nest of wires.


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