Hi All,

love the forums and have been reading them for a while now, really helped with some of the mods I have done.

Any way, I now have a beautiful 98 DL LTD with the 5L V8 Windsor with only 115,00km on the clock. I love the luxury of these things but wanted to add some personal touches, so here is what I have done:

Blue LED's for all dash clusters
Custom cluster background
Touchscreen DVD player (kenwood)
XBOX Media Center and 500Gb HDD
2x rear headrest monitors
2x12in subs
All new interior speakers
2x 800W Amps to run it all
35W Bi-Xenon headlight conversion
LED stop/tail/reverse/blinker lights all round
Fitted my Tomtom 910 GPS
New rear springs (removed SLS)
New rear shocks
Lowered the front a little.










More....
http://jamesgid.homeip.net/ltd/100_2394.jpg
http://jamesgid.homeip.net/ltd/100_2399.jpg
http://jamesgid.homeip.net/ltd/100_2401.jpg
http://jamesgid.homeip.net/ltd/100_2402.jpg
http://jamesgid.homeip.net/ltd/100_2403.jpg
http://jamesgid.homeip.net/ltd/100_2405.jpg
http://jamesgid.homeip.net/ltd/100_2407.jpg
http://jamesgid.homeip.net/ltd/100_2408.jpg
http://jamesgid.homeip.net/ltd/100_2412.jpg
http://jamesgid.homeip.net/ltd/100_2413.jpg
http://jamesgid.homeip.net/ltd/100_2415.jpg
http://jamesgid.homeip.net/ltd/100_2420.jpg
http://jamesgid.homeip.net/ltd/100_2423.jpg
http://jamesgid.homeip.net/ltd/100_2435.jpg
http://jamesgid.homeip.net/ltd/100_2436.jpg
http://jamesgid.homeip.net/ltd/100_2438.jpg
http://jamesgid.homeip.net/ltd/100_2440.jpg
http://jamesgid.homeip.net/ltd/100_2446.jpg
http://jamesgid.homeip.net/ltd/100_2447.jpg

The XBOX and the Bi-Xenon conversion I just finished. The XBOX install was tough but I managed to squeeze everything into the glove box. I just need some wireless gamepads to finish it off. It boots straight to Xbox Media Center and starts playing audio straight away. It takes about 15 sec to boot up and start playing. Considering it is packed with music and video files, it is performing great. I used an M2-ATX to power it, and these is no noise interference and very little video interference.

Now I just need some tint and some nice rims......Mmmmmmm

Anyway, if you have any questions - ask away.

Cheers.

Holy Crap, very very nice

Wonder how long it would take the battery to run flat with car turned off at a party or somethin?

Very nice looks awesome at night

very nice, bet it turns a few heads!!!

like wat u did with the xbox

Tell me more of the Xbox.

Looks awesome man.

Tell us more of the Xbox setup, F**k thats awesome.

(Do the LTD's have the option of coming with an I6?)

People do not believe me when I tell them I have an XBOX in my car! Having 300Gb worth of songs and 200gb of movies on hand is really great! No more cd's!

Battery does not last real long. I have a high cranking deep cycle battery (new product from SuperCharge batteries) that I have not fitted yet. I will fit it and let you know how long I get out of it. Also note the M2-ATX PSU used in this install shuts down when the battery drops to about 11.5volts. So you can use that as an indicator for when you should maybe shut everything down and still be able to start your car!

The XBOX mod:

- Start with one un-modded xbox.
- Mod the xbox. The only thing to be weary of here is whether the mod chip can handle booting the xbox without a DVD drive attached. Normally you get a boot up error, but with any new mod chip, this error gets ignored. I used a 2.6ce Xecuter chip from Xecuter Australia. Obviously this is not a problem if you plan on installing a dvd drive, I just did not have the room.
- Add a bigger HDD drive
- Use the "Auto Installer Deluxe" software to load the xbox with Xbox Media Centre (found in the usual places, if you do not know where that is, search for xbins in google and follow your nose!). Using this software makes it really easy to intall XBMC as the default dashboard (the first thing that loads). That way the xbox will boot straight into XBMC and then start playing music immediately with NO USER INPUT required. btw, having nice visualisations on my screens is so wicked! The DVD player by itself never did anything like that.
- Copy all your music, movies, photo's etc to the xbox (you can install game copies also, there is a file browser in xbmc from which you can load your games). NOTE: This is done over 100mbs FTP connection and is SLOW. I filled my hdd and it took almost two days!

That's the easy part, now the difficult stuff.
- Buy a M2-ATX (I got mine off ebay, USA somewhere)
- Hook up the M2-ATX to the XBOX. WARNING: this is not a plug and play thing. Although the xbox has an ATX PSU connector on the mobo, the associated voltages etc do not follow the ATX standard! You will need to do some research and find the pin-out of the ATX connector for your xbox. Then match these with the pin-out of the M2-ATX. DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS WITH A V1.6 XBOX IT DOES NOT WORK. The above involves first working out what version xbox you have, then searching the net for a pinout of the atx connector and double checking it is the same as what you actually have on your xbox (match the colour codes). Then draw a diagram of two ATX connectors on a peice of paper and work out what has to be connected to what in order to make the M2-ATX connect with the Xbox ATX. Once you have this sorted out, you need to make it! So start cutting, joining and soldering and after awhile you will have a custom made ATX cable ready for your installation.

Then grab a 12v Car battery and test that it works.

- If it works - INSTALL IT AND HAPPY TIMES AHEAD!

ONE MORE REALLY DIFFICULT PART: Installation
- I did not want to mount mine in the boot as it gets to hot for an xbox (my opinon). So the only other option was under a seat which was immediately ruled out because I have electric seats. The only logical place left was the glove box. There was only just enough room to fit everything in there though.
- However! I had to remove the bulky video plug and hard wire all those really small wires straight to the xbox motherboard - not a fun job!
- Then I had to mount everything inside the glove box. I decided to flush mount the game ports on the facia of the glove box, so this involved a lot of cutting, moulding and sticking. I cut a hole in the back and mounted an 80mm fan for cooling. I also cut a small hole in the bottom of the glovebox that lined up with the network port. This allows me to run a network cable out to the car and the xbox and I can transfer new songs etc.
- The only bonus I found to installing the xbox in the glove box was that I was also really close to all the required power sources etc I needed, and it was really easy to run the video and audio cables to the back of the kenwood DVD player. There is enough vacant channels in and around the dash that the original video/audio cable reached the head unit with about 1ft of cable left over. This would also reduce the loss of audio/video quality as I did not need to install long extension leads that easily pick up interference.

I use the xbox dvd remote to control mine, I prefer those buttons than those on a controller. I am going to add some wireless controllers soon.

Hope that helps. I found all this information around the net so go and google and you will find what you need.

BTW, there is alot of people that debate whether an xbox is better as a carputer, or if a more traditional style computer installation is better.

My Opinion: Xbox is a very cheap way to do it (not exactly easy, but neither is modifying a computer for car use). The Xbox is small, easy to work with and XBMC makes for a great all round entertainment system. It boots really quick and is easy to use, even on a small 7" screen.

The only thing I find that you really miss out on is the opportunity to do more than just music, photo's and video's. What's left you might ask! GPS navigation. An XBOX CAN NOT be modded to also be a GPS navigation system. While some people like having everything integrated and contained within one system, it is just not possible on a small budget. Go and by DSE $150 budget GPS! Simple.

Comments welcomed...

Wow that is allot of mods in one car looks great, i like the Xbox mod and the Screens in the head rests.

The car looks like a sleeper from the outside.

(QUOTE REMOVED)

Thats pretty awesome, you tried getting any games going on the Xbox? It would be a bit hard on a 7" screen i reckon though. With an Xbox being $80 pre-owned now, its a pretty damn good idea.

Also just out of curiosity, how much did your car set you back if i may ask? The LTD's are rather nice cars.

Last edited by Daymoe on Sat Mar 29, 2008 12:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

^^ was it necessary to quote half a page, in order to comment about his xBox?

It doesn't look that big to me, less than half a page. But then again i'm running 1680x1050 res. My bad. I'll remove it.

Got the car for $10,000 in November last year. Had 115,000km on it. It's the V8, leather interior, very straight body, sept/98 so towards the very end of production. Just an all round nice car. Even nicer now!

Cheers.

vnice, an xbox cleverly disguised as a glovebox! nice job

Aren't you worried about static inside the glovebox?
I'm interested to hear more about your xenon conversion tho

Very impressed, espicially with the xbox mod... thats a great media storage centre. s**t all over the "ipod jack"
Should have a crack at a 360! Everything's already wireless... But then again, who wants to pull apart a 360 at $500 a pop.