Matfan

Similar yes! The only other thing you have to buy is a OBD-II adapter. For those of you who don't know, any vehicles sold in america after 1996 had to be "obd-ii compliant". basically it was so work shops only needed 1 diagnostic tool to diagnose problems with any car. There are a few different protocols for it so you have to be careful which one you buy but google is your friend. Now the main advantage for us is that we can use this adapter and appropriate software (centrafuse has a plugin) to display / log ANY information that the cars engine management system monitors. So if you want a gauge showing water temp, oil pressure, front tourque split etc you can customise it to suit. Another bonus is that if your engine warning light comes on, you can check what the error is and clear it if you want. This is valuable if you happen to disconnect the battery on some overly sensitive vehicles. Adapters range from USD80 - USD150 Anyway... it's all easy.......ish. Anyway, on the topic of carpc's in skylines, I'm mid way through installing one into kesiums v35 as we speak. I've just got to sort out the dc-dc psu and a/c controller (thanks chris) but it should be up and running by the weekend. I'll let you all know how I go.

Has anyone on here heard of the KISS method? Keep It Simple Stupid. Ok bare with me now, I know a Suzuki Sierra is not exactly a 35 skyline but I just put a new Carputer in mine and it is a universal thing. I used an aftermarket touch screen (obviously suzuki didn't have an LCD as a standard option in 1992.... or 2009 for that matter) so this step will be replaced by the overlay or addition of a touch screen. It took me 2 hours to upgrade the standard 40 amp alternator on the zuk with a 110 amp ford falcodore one. (not required on the skyline) 45 mins to install xp(ish) and centrafuse, drivers for bluetooth, gps etc 15 mins to wire up the screen 30 mins to wire up the pc 3.5 seconds to realize that anyone who can install a car stereo and install an OS can do this. total cost for carpc, cables, screen and alternator - $1300 So for you skyline owners... either get one of these overlays or rip out the oem stereo using methods/products outlined in previous topics and install a touch screen. Get yourself an amp from JBs/carsound etc and let your pc control everything job done... why re-test systems that have already been tested. If anyone wants any advice as far as carputers/gps recievers etc I'd be happy to help.

oh yeah.... forgot to mention why remove the factory stuff when it can just sit there... that way when you sell your car you can take the carputer and you haven't got any holes anywhere. The only part you would leave behind is the overlay. Unless you're going to add a new touch screen monitor to the centre console there isn't much point making life hard for yourselves

ok if you want a oem look... just do the following 1) carpc in the boot where the amp/tvtuner sits 2) video/audio input adapter from chris 3) touch screen overlay with long-ass usb cable 4) "buy" centrafuse with aussie maps... i think demonoid "sells" it... or maybe demonoid isn't a shop 5) get distracted at 110 kph playing with pretty new carpc and crash and die (step 5 is optional)

You just love those imports don't you!

To be honest... i'm a little bit scared.....

A civil engineer unfortunately, so if I could build this out of asphalt or concrete I'd be laughing. I am, however a car/computer nerd and over the years have done carputer installations in my own 32, 33 and 34 skylines (and my awesome suzuki sierra!!!) and it's usually been a case of trial and error.... and error.... I'm less razor blade and more sledge hammer if you know what I mean. Anyway, The plan is to replace the existing screen with a 7 inch-ish touch screen with d-sub & rca inputs The rca would (hopefully) be used for the existing hardware and the d-sub used for the carpc the carpc would be a mini-itx job with e6300 processor and solid state hdd with m2-atx psu i actually agree and disagree with your thoughts on XP however, I've found that using modified versions like lastxp v20 solves a lot of the usual I NEED TO REBOOT XP problems. The front end would be centrafuse or similar. So it would be a case of mount the pc in the boot/under seat/glovebox etc run power and ignition to the m2-atx run audio and d-sub to stereo and new screen. One other option is to use a touch screen overlay for the existing screen... food for thought.... Oh and the oem buttons... i prefer the sledge hammer approach. Basically you buy a $10 usb gamepad, rip it to bits and use the gamepad buttons under the skyline buttons. Assign keyboard values to the gamepad, setup short cut keys for the front end and bob's your uncles lover. You can get a bit more technical and use a usb joystick controller like the BU0836 but that is just throwing good money away. I've got a similar system working brilliantly in my Sierra... To put things in perspective, after 3 days of stupid driving at moreton island the wheel bearings gave way (perhaps because of the amount of time the car spent in the air.... or perhaps the hard landings) but the carputer is still going strong. Basically my whole point is; Why settle for patch up jobs? Why spend thousands of dollars modifying a system that wasn't that great to start with? Touch screens are the way to go. They're more precise to use than buttons, switch's and remote controls. Why have a 6 stack cd player when you can have thousands of songs, movies and pictures on a HDD? While everyone except me has an IPhone, most don't realise they can tether it to a carputer or laptop to have internet on the go. Carputers are awesome, absolutely awesome. Anything less is just... boring.

Wouldn't you guys like this?

NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!! It needs to seem like a OEM installation...

Seriously guys, The car pc is the way to go. It offers a far cheaper alternative to modifying the existing stuff. No translations disks (which are still apparently coming) No expensive GPS mods No band expanders No replacement tv tuners why not just ditch the existing system (apart from the volume knob) there is nothing (as far as I can tell) that the standard set up can do that a carputer can't do. A carputer will cost about $800 the screen about $400 GPS reciever about $80 OBD-II about $150 tv/radio tuner pci card about $50 Software... that's up to you! (read "eval" copies) Obviously there will be more costs involved for installation etc but i think it's clear that we should concentrate our efforts on coming up with a solid plan for integrating a new system instead of trying to make the existing one work

Risky? no.. Rediculous... yes! Kesium and I have brainstormed this for at least several seconds and have come up with no potential problems The only tricky part to this (maybe it's not tricky.. i dunno) is figuring out what touchscreen to use, and how to connect the existing hardware to it... does anyone know how the dvd-rom etc is connected to the screen?? The car-puter touch screen solution with custom front end is by far the best way to go about things. Positives HDD for music/movies etc Internet Nav - usb/bluetooth gps reciever and whatever nav software you want (plus you don't need to use the gay remote like the garmin) OBDII interface gives you all the info on what your engine is up to and can be displayed however you want it TV via pci tv capture card Negatives nothing As you can see, my logic and research is sound All jokes aside, as long as we can replace the oem screen and connect audio to the bose system... this is a piece of piss. Down the track, you could pull apart the redundant oem buttons and do some frankenstein magic to connect them to the guts of a keyboard to allow the oem controlls to control the front end. That may sound tricky but it isn't. I've installed carputers to a few cars now and they are awesome, affordable, awesome, upgradable and awesome.