I gota give credit to some others who did an excellent job hiding their computer in the rear seat my desktop home built computer was a little big and i didnt want to gut my rear seat. my computer sits/mounted just behind the reart seats in the trunk area before the big drop. i have a rear louver so no one will see it but i have it covered in black felt so it blends in nicely with my black carpet you can only post 3 pics at a time. so i will try to load up as many as i can. As for the monitor. i got a 8icnh lcd touchscreen. i wanted my monitor to look as factory as possible without lookin like it took 5mins to bolt on. i also didnt want to lose my radio. sooo.... i bought a dash bezel and cut it up to make the frame for the screen. then sanded and painted bolted it in. wasn't as easy as that but thats it in a nut shell. also where the map pouch used to be. i cut into the whole side to make room for the screen on one half on the other half i put a drop plate that hides a hidden keyboard inside. its held up with a magnet on the top and hindge on the bottom. also i saw someone else do this they put a usb port in the ashray section i did the same i also put a thin dvd/cd drive in the car and had to gut a spare camaro console lid. i want it hidden. i havent decided if i like it but this is what i came up with. i took a upper console from a 94 oldsmobile bravada and used the drop cargo lid to slide into the middle of the center lid of the camaro console. i used springs from a two flashlights to make it spring loaded when i push the release button. ive sanded and painted a few times couldnt get it smooth and perfect so i resorted to texture paint. let me know what you guys think. there will be a copt of this with the rest of my car on a thread i add to for everything with my trans am. i'm only adding this to get more eyes since i think this such a cool addition to my car and anyone who wants to do the same. enjoy.

more pics

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i got gps software with a usb antenna

itunes with allllll my songs no more 20songs on a cd and few hundred on an ipod

playlist at my fingertips and i use a nintendo ds to click on the screen so i dont click five thigns at once with my fingers

i use my Auxillary port on my aftermarket cd player to input from the computer so all my songs and gps directions are heard through all car speakers

heres the link to the rst of all the work on my car and more pictures of the carputer

http://www.thirdgen.org/techboard/bo...-trans-am.html (My 1986 Trans AM take a look...)

very cool looking. where in connecticut are you located

thanks, looks better in person.

im in torrington connecticut where are you?

oh and check out the link to the rest of my car. so much work has been done.

but if you wana hang out at a car show sometime that works too you can the car for real. and i can see your ride.

i am in stamford but have some realtives in the morris and torrington area.

nice would love to check out your iroc sometime
i got a base 87 camaro v6 5speed with c&c t-tops white with carmine red interior

and a 1986 trans am customized v8 tpi auto

yea i have a 86 iroc that had a danko body kit on it but i ended up ripping it off and going back to the stock look. i also have a 88 vert too

I did something similar several years ago when no one knew what an MP3 was (before napster) I put together a computer and a old touch screen out of an old cash register monitor. Then all the hand held mp3 players started coming out and I pulled it out. I never integrated it into the dash, just kept the monitor lose in the rear.

One thing to look out for is heat.

Look at the "Eee box" by asus is a small self contained computer, they also make a small touch screen with a buit in computer. I got tired of the boot time since i only used it for mp3's. I thought about putting a radio tuner card in it also so it could do everything.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883220002

its the size of a Wii console or about the size of a cdrom drive out of a desktop.

Get an ultraslim dvd/cd drive and your touch screen, a usb radio tuner and you can replace the radio.

hey aviator thanks for your input.

i love how small that computer is on newegg.com but i might wait untill this computer dies or i get a feew spare bucks. i already paid for this one so i'll use it for alittle while

i almost did buy the all in one gps double din setup with motorized touchscreen but it was too big and heavy.

and i wanted the screen to look almost factory and like it belonged there. not just bolted on.

theres a fan on the processor itself and one on the side of the case i'll see if thats good enough no problems so far.


yes ive been hearing about tese computer radio plug ins and its alittle late now. i have a switch on my powe antenna. with itunes on my computer in my car now the radio will be used very lightly

aviator, any other cool gadgets you can recommend please do. im sure ill be updating or replacing my setup in the future. everything breaks and runs down eventually

I am a software engineer so I am always playing with some gadget. yea I know how many computer geeks drive a 3ed gen :-)

I hear rumors of a Eee tablet PC so its basically an 8 inch touch screen computer that is no bigger than your typical 8in screen.

If I ever do another in car computer I will integrate it with the ecm, but that will be after I scrape together the money and parts to do the LS1 swap since the odb2 computer is more robust.

yea i originally wanted to do a computer connected to my ecm but the 1986 ecm chip is not made for that

i tried hooking up a connector to my desktop in the garage and it made the engine rev higher with the 10k resistor built in

i orignally wanted to be able to do onboard diagnostic but i would have to upgrade to a 1989 chip

eh maybe in the future im not a tuner

Not into the tunners either, it would be more of a what the heck lets see if I can do it. As soon as I get my firebird back to where I want it I think I will be switching my hobby time/money over to building an airplane.

awesome skills dude

thanks kitt1983

check out the rest of my ride and please post a comment there. trying to keep it alive

http://www.thirdgen.org/techboard/bo...-trans-am.html (My 1986 Trans AM take a look...)
lots and lots of work done. it was too late to keep it original so i made it in my own image that felt right and cool to me.

it is your car do what you feel want to it. not what others think.

yea i know i make the car look how i want it but i hope others enjoy how it looks as welll

and i love hearing goodjob or even getting tips hey that looks good but try this next time etc.. ya know

That there looks mighty fine. Very clean looking install. How did you mount the extra bezel, and how did you get it to swing out like that? It looks like it was meant to be there... I was thinking about how I could fit a monitor in my car... so I searched, and here it is! Genius. I thought it could go there, but I didn't think of it swinging out! I am a mac user, so I was thinking about getting a mac mini online used for cheap and getting a 7'', but your 8'' fits the dash perfectly. Great job.

thanks for posting.

i took a spare hindge from a camaro console lid. it has a bend in it so i put it in a vice and flattened it out.

it already has bolt holes.

so i screwed into the bezel and then bolted the other half of the hindge to the side of the dash bezel.

bolt everytihng together and ta-da.

i'm glad you like. i honestly havent used it that much. i'm using the winter time to find a better spot for the computer and make it faster. to me it takes too long to turn on and load itunes.

but thats how i mounted the touch screen monitor. and i recommend using touch screen pen. our fingers are too big when it comes to a 8" screen. you try clikcing on one thing and click on 5 things with your finger haha.

i found a cheap pen in a starter kit they use for nintendo ds consoles. for like 5-10bucks

goodluck.

Ok, I think I see what you mean about how it swings out. I was going to get a normal (non-touch screen) monitor and mount a trackball mouse (something like this http://www.tech-temple.com/wp-conten...ball_mouse.jpg) just behind the shift plate. I wasn't going to have a permanent keyboard, if anything just one that I could take out of the center console if needed. Those new keyboards are so small now.

I hear you about loading times though... for windows you could go into the control panel and get rid of some of the things it does as part of start-up that you wouldn't need. Be careful with that though, you could seriously screw up your computer. I don't know much beyond that though. But could you leave the computer on sleep mode and the monitor off when the car is parked? I don't know how much current the computer would draw when asleep.

I thought I could mount the computer itself to the right of the screen (where your keyboard was), just in the open. It measures 6.5''x6.5''x2''. In the picture in my head it looks like it could work... but I don't have the money to try it for a while.