Oh, I agree 150%!!! I'm from the old school, I don't believe an engine has any business having a computer attached to it.

Having said that, having a computer mounted in the back with 5,000 CDs worth of my music collection on it and ready to play at my fingertips? Or a movie collection to keep the kids' voices down on a long trip? (Have you ever been in a vehicle with seven 10 year old girls in the back seats? Girls that age don't "talk". They scream at the top of their lungs, even if the person they're talking to is 6 inches away....) Well, that's where my inner geek tells my inner redneck to STFU and takes control over the decision making process....

 

count me in too with this whole engine computer and sensor nightmare. sure it's great to have all this technology running your car for you...for a while, but when something goes wrong, and something always goes wrong, i have to become a chrysler engineer and figure out what the problem is (or buy the $8,000 DRB III scantool...another computer).

The only computers i want in my car are the ones i made and installed myself because i know exactly how to fix it and don't have to go to a stealership to buy parts for it.

 

yup i agree with that, the co mputers have no place under the hood, however inside the cabin for EXTRAS that are not necessary for the vehicle to run properly, this way when something goes wrong it doesnt matter, you can still drive the car

 

Speaking of that I'm glad Dodge hasn't gone fully computer based yet. My parents had a 2003 Mercedes-Benz S500 that the computer got killed in the midst of the hurricanes in FL a few years back and they lost all electronics (entire dash gauges, radio, all engine power including ignition) and ended up being a $13k repair bill. That car was very short lived after that.

Hopefully Chrysler doesn't go that route however...

 

unfortunately widow, i think thats how they are all going to end up eventually

 

even with mine being a 1998 it was far ahead of it's time with the computers it has in it, but a factory service manual is your best friend when it comes to wiring, chrysler is awesome and believes in using junction boxes for every wire connection which helps a ton in troubeshooting, but adds like 3 more miles of wires.

Now i know the engine and pcm are best friends and all but personally i think dodge needs to get that thing out of the engine bay and put it inside the cabin, i deffinatly wouldn't install a carpc motherboard right next to my engine. but hey look at the bright side, the more motors and soleniods they add to every part in your car, more power to you, electric power steering, electric throttle control and brakes, well that alone is enough to let you make a life sized remote control car, add in the gps with that automatic speed limiter, lane keeping assist, park assist, and voice command, it can drive itself, command it to go pick up your dry cleaning or something.....now i'm getting more ideas for installs haha just kidding

 

you are nuts, i just priced out a carputer build using desktop parts, aroun 700 for a touchscreen unit w/ a 64gb ssd

 

that's not too bad considering all new parts, it's that ssd that really puts the price up there, touch screens aren't cheap either. my friend's installs were based around a dual core intel D41 board with an atom processor soldered right to the board 1.66ghz, and the board only cost them about $70. they bought 12.1 inch laptop lcd panels and put a usb touch screen overlay on them and had some vga to a laptop screen connector converter which i thought was pretty neat. i'm curious what kind of specs you were pricing, if it's just for music and video then even that intel board is probably overkill

 

umm let me see here

intel pentium D @ 2.88ghz
64gb ssd($120)
usb powered touch screen 9inch($200 on its own)
foxconn microATX board w/ onboard video/ethernet/usb
usb wireless N adapter
usb bluetooth adapter
2gb ram
500w APC inteligent power supply (like 15 min of power w/o the truck running)
power inverter
250w power supply (probably too much, but the smallest i could find)


and i have toyed w/ the idea of going w/ a regular 17" flatpanel since they go for like $60 at this point, and using a trackpad and cheap keyboard for input . . . just more ideas

o and the bluetooth is for my phone so that i can tether it to get online if i need to

 

very nice, looks like you're going with standard desktop parts which would make it powerful enough to game on haha, at least you'll be able to run windows 7 and the aero theme if you wanted. on ebay they have 12v input atx power supplies for carpc installs. then with that i wouldn't bother with a UPS, just use a battery isolator and connect it to the second battery which should give you hours of runtime.

good point about using an external keyboard/mouse, you can just connect those up to your bluetooth, or even integrate a touchpad mouse into your console somehow. I know they have media remote controls for PCs you can use to control all your media if that's what you're after. just more ideas for consideration.