So I've decided to take the plunge into the Car PC world again. I did this once with my toyota supra back in 04-05 but it had a lot of power issues. Now that I think about it, the power issues were probably due to a bad battery as I did end up replacing the battery shortly after.

Anway, I'm always looking for a stock oem look/feel to things so I've decided to go with the stock bose system and use a PAC unit to hook in the car pc. Today I use an ipod nano into the PAC unit and the sound is crystal clear. Started off with a whining noise when pushing the gas but I upgraded to an Optima Yellowtop battery and that is now long gone.

I have gotten my hands on the old mp3car g35 04 housing for a great price so I'm going to hack it up to fit an 05 dash. This will prove to be the hardest part of this project. I don't like the aluminum look of the screen bezel so I'm going to sand it down, prime and paint it with text flat black paint. This will hopefully still give it the OEM feel to things.

Originally I had planned on using an ITX dual core atom motherboard but after doing some testing, it was way too slow even with an SSD hdd. So now I'm going with a fast, but still low powered unit. I have yet decided whether I'm going to upgrade the screen to a transflective sunlight readable one or live with a little bit washed out screen that is also sunlight readable but definitely not as good/bright.

Here is my setup:
7" Samsung LED LCD touchscreen w/auto AV switching in mp3car g35 04 modified housing
i3 2120t low power CPU
Asus P8H61-I Rev 3.0 Mini ITX motherboard
4gb ddr3 memory
120gb OCZ Vertex Turbo SSD SataII hdd
80gb Seagate Environmental ready 2.5" sata hdd
GU-353 GPS receiver
Linksys USB wifi
M2ATX automotive power supply
Palm-Sized Mini 2.4ghz RF Wireless media keyboard with mult-touch
Boyo backup camera
Windows 7 with Centrafuse 4.x and bluesoleil for BT connection
Garmin Mobile PC for navigation
PAC NAII Aux in adapter

Still to consider:
Microphone for bluetooth calling
ODBII device
T-Mobile 4G Sonic hotspot for mobile connection
I've also seen people use their ipod touch to connect through adhoc using VNC to their carpc. Pretty cool because the passenger can either touch the screen or use the vnc connection and use the ipod touch to control the carpc.

So there it is. I'm going to start this project very soon and will update with pictures and anything that may be causing me issues.

There's a lot of work to do but I'm a techie so it excites me to get this going.

 

Just a few updated pics. These are pics after priming and painting the aluminum bezel. The textured black look is so much nicer!

Anyway, I just set this up to see how it went with the rest of the interior. It will pretty much look like this when it's finalized and installed completely.

 

The ***** on the side of the bezel will obviously be hidden once installed completely

 

Looking good!

If tablets weren't advancing so fast, I'd be considering doing something like this, but when it looks like I'll be able to throw a 3G android device in there and have streaming audio, maps, voice control, interwebs (outside of the car, not while driving) all from the same device, I'd be interested in doing something similar.

 

Ya, there's been a lot of tablet installs lately which are great as well. I debated on putting in a Blackberry tablet to begin with but didn't want to remove my stock head unit. I wanted the install to look as OEM as possible. Also, I have more functionality with having a full computer in the car and having a unit with AV inputs (backup camera).

Having said that, there are still some slick looking tablet installs and if that serves the purpose for most users with less headaches.

 

Here is a pic of the LCD/Touchscreen I am testing. Sorry for the blurry pic.

I am testing the unit with Garmin Mobile PC that is still lingering around on the internet. Looks great so far!

 

looks nice.. bro good luck with the install/mod

 

 

Just a few more progress pics.

 

Piece of tape sticking out of the lcd was just temporary to hold the lcd in place. When closed it isn't flush and sticks out a bit but i'm not sure if i'm going to bother trying to get that perfect. Either way, it's coming together nicely!

 

Hacked up my non nav upper cubby today. Just went to town on it with my dremel. Lots of cutting to get things just right! Anyway, here are some pics. We are getting closer to a finished product.

Next couple things i have to do is find a way to re-route the lcd cables out the screen bezel. as it is right now, I won't be able to put the lcd down because of the vga end. I tried purchasing lower profile vga ends but that turned out to be too big still.

Also, I need to start running the power from the battery to the M2ATX power supply. Hopefully the firewall is close to the passenger side and easy to find. I have yet to get to this stage so I haven't even done a search for its location yet.

Hope everyone enjoys the progress.

 

Dang, can't see the dropbox photos at work. It makes this thread less exciting.

 

lol sorry.

 

Finally installed this week. Need to work on some cosmetic things around the screen. I'm also thinking of adding a cover to where the pc goes into. Considering cutting a piece of plexy glass and drilling a few holes for ventilation and also mounting the power button and kill switch on it.

Also going to buy a Boyo backup cam soon and get that installed. Other than that, this thing works great! I keep going into my car and watching the sucker boot up within 15 seconds.

Here are a few pics of the 90% completed project.

 

forgot to mention that this setup with the 2120t cpu is completely silent. This was a big worry of mine when it came to putting the pc up front but you can't even tell it is on which I am happy about.