Megane Sports Saloon...a bit different...CarPC inside

[Cris]

They should work now.

[TheFinn]

Yes, seem to work fine now.

WOW!!!

Now that's a NICE "wedge"! You got the stance spot on! Did you have the rear raised, the front dropped, or both?

The wheels are not entirely my thing but other than that, the car is perfetto!!!

[Paddy]

As owning the same car, this is what i aspire it to look like... come on student loan...

P

[Cris]

Finn...you got me. The front was lowered around 5-6mm, whereas the rear raised just about 2mm or less...although they had summer tires on the day the pics were taken, these are actually the winter wheels with winter tires. Next spring 19" will follow.

Ulrich, thanks a lot mate! Maybe you could help me out finding a nice rear bumper for the Saloon...

[Cris]

Well...how about it Ulrich?

[Paddy]

Chris,

I would love to give you a hand but I’m at a loss myself, The one in my picture was from some polish website, from what i got from the translation was that it was custom made by the owner. As to have seeing any on the market i am yet to. I have looked right across the web German, French, Polish, Australian websites and have had no luck. I did see a 225 bumper made for the CC but nothing said for the saloon. I am wondering if dimensions were taken into account could a bumper form a similar sized car be moulded into place, would be some work...

A couple of questions if i may...

The Centre screen you have... was that a development from the standard ren GPS... ie there mechanism and casing? Do you have a 'how to' guide?!

The GPS you have between the dials... i take it you had to remove the whole dash?

Where did the 'i control' come from? Do you have a wiring diagram?

Thanks in advance

P

[Cris]

Ulrich, sorry for the late reply...but as you will see below, I've been busy.
The center screen is a custom made, one of kind unit, made almost from scratch and it has nothing to do with the OEM unit.
The GPS was explained in the earlier pages how it was done. Onlt the clock have to be removed.
The iControl is a SpaceNavigator from Logitech with a special software downloaded from the Logitech forums.


In the mean time...a small glimpse at the world's first RS rear bumper for the Megane Sports Saloon.

[wanda]

The car is a 2007 Renault Megane Sport Saloon 1.5dci Lux Privilege.

It's a little different from a stock one especially on the inside, where the main attraction is the fully integrated carpc. The basic idea was to integrate almost everything so that in the end the car would have a stock look...

The computer consists of a 1.8Ghz Celeron CPU with 1GB DDRAM, a 260GB HDD and loads of USB devices. The computer is mounted in the glove box. For that I needed to modify the Travla C137 case a little bit so that it would fit in there. Everything is powered by an Opus 150W PSU.
The "cool" thing about mounting it in the glove box, is that the carpc is cooled by the AC at all times. Also in the glove box we can see the IR sensor from the cordless notebook size keyboard.



The screen for the computer is a 7" Hitachi custom mounted on top of the center console. The console is custom made, and it's based on the X3/Z4 OEM navi, custom modified to match the Megane's dashboard and it's a motorized fold in/out type of monitor.











The entire PC is controlled from one single point...everything from mouse movement to volume adjustment is made from the SpaceNavigator located just above the handbrake.
Some of the functions like volume control next/previous song or play list shuffle are also available on the modified steering wheel control, where we can see the Griffin Powermate integrated in there as well.





There are a lot of USB devices hooked up to the CarPC, like:
1. DVB TV Tuner with the antenna hidden away in the stock tweeter location.
2. FM Tuner
3. GPS BU 303 mouse also hidden in the same location
4. The 2.7" Mio H610 custom navigation located in the clocks is also permanently hook up to the PC through an USB port. It's antenna is also hidden in a stock tweeter location.
5. Griffin Powermate in the steering wheel controls
6. USB joystick for the actual steering wheel controls
7. USB DVD player - mounted just below the factory CD player
8. USB Wifi stick - also hidden in the dashboard
9. USB GSM modem for Internet connection
10.Bluetooth for phone connection and for a mini Bluetooth Keyboard.
Future plans:
11.USB Rear Parking sensors - coming soon
12.USB Tyre Presure Monitoring Sensors - coming soon
13.USB Valetine One radar Detector - coming soon

Of ocurse navigation could've easily been implemented on the carpc, but the fact is the pc is handling so many devices and it can do so many things, I just didn't want the screen to be always showing the navigation.
That's why I decided to have a separate navigation system. Custom mounted inside the clocks it's a 2.7" Touch screen Mio H610 navigation system. You can see in the first pic the factory clocks that come with the Megane. I also changed the background foil with a black one, sprayed with black the inner plastic rings, and added two chrome rings that really give the interior a premium touch.
The key and STOP light have been also relocated in the left/right of the trip computer.











Hooked up to the front monitor is also a rear view camera mounted in the rear badge of the car.



One of the most interesting things the CarPC does is the DSP feature. I have no head unit, so the sound commes out of the PC directly into the 3 amplifiers mounted in the trunk.
So the sound is processed by the PC with the help of the Audiotrack Prodigy 7.1 HiFi Sound card (made by ESI) and a few very smart bits of software.
The sound system is a 4 way active system and it consists of the following:
- tweeters: Helix RS801 Competition custon mounted in the side mirror supports
- midrange: DLS Iridium 3" custom mounted in the front doors (the design is not yet finished)
- midbas: Focal Polyglass - will soon be changed with Helix RS806
- Subwoofer: Phase Thriller 15” in custom case inside the trunk
- amplifier for the mids and tweeters is a Helix DB4
- amplifier for the midbas is a Helix DB2
- amplifier for the subwoofer is a Phase Linear RS1 monoblock
Again, the sound install was ment to be as low profile as possible...that's why the subwoofer and amplifiers are hidden away for the untrained eye...

A few pics of the sound system:
















As for the car, the exterior is almost stock, only the bumpers and side protections have been painted to match the car and a window chrome strip has been added. Also the rear lights and the side repetears have been smoked, an Eibach Pro kit has been fitted to lower the car just a bit, and the 17" Wolfrace wheels.
There also little details like the interior ambient light, LED mirror turn signals, mirror ambient lights, spray window washers borrowed from the Laguna or high beam HID lights (the low beam is HID from factory) were also fitted.

wow so how much do i have to pay for you to do that for my car?

[TheFinn]

Nice work there again, Cris! Can't wait to see some better pics of the whole bumper

@wanda: Please don't quote whole messages with all the pictures......

[wanda]

Nice work there again, Cris! Can't wait to see some better pics of the whole bumper

@wanda: Please don't quote whole messages with all the pictures......

No I have to show it off again

[Cris]

Thanks The Finn and thank you Wanda!

Still a lot of stuff to do (like fitting the R26 exhaust securely, not just for pics) but never the less I had to post a couple of pics with the only RS rear bumper for the Saloon in the world. The bumper has all the fixings like the original one, even the tow bar is fully functional.
The trunk lid was also modified to be at the same level as the bumper on the lower part, and is also received a little spoiler.

[wanda]

Thanks The Finn and thank you Wanda!

Still a lot of stuff to do (like fitting the R26 exhaust securely, not just for pics) but never the less I had to post a couple of pics with the only RS rear bumper for the Saloon in the world. The bumper has all the fixings like the original one, even the tow bar is fully functional.
The trunk lid was also modified to be at the same level as the bumper on the lower part, and is also received a little spoiler.

I am sorry but that makes your bum look big

[TheFinn]

The bumper has all the fixings like the original one, even the tow bar is fully functional.

So does it mean it's an amalgam of the original saloon rear bumper and an original RS lower part, the two plastic-welded together? Or is it glassfiber?

Any pics of it in the making?

The trunk lid was also modified to be at the same level as the bumper on the lower part, and is also received a little spoiler.

I'd have missed the spoiler if you hadn't mentioned it. Just goes to show you're taking the route I like: as the Germans say "Tuning erst aufm zweiten Blick" which roughly translates to "It takes a second glance to realise it's been tuned".

The car's really shaping up nicely!

[Paddy]

Thanks The Finn and thank you Wanda!

Still a lot of stuff to do (like fitting the R26 exhaust securely, not just for pics) but never the less I had to post a couple of pics with the only RS rear bumper for the Saloon in the world. The bumper has all the fixings like the original one, even the tow bar is fully functional.
The trunk lid was also modified to be at the same level as the bumper on the lower part, and is also received a little spoiler.

As i also have a black saloon, my jaw has just hit the floor, could you please give me some more detail as how you fitted this bumper to the saloon. Is this the modified bumper for the CC as a starting point?

Thanks

Regards

P

[Cris]

Wanda...you have no idea!

Thank you The Finn! That was the idea with this car...to make everything to look like it came from the factory, and only when parked next to a stock one to see the actual differences.

The bumper is based on an original RS bumper, and it's all made of ABS plastic just like an original bumper. Only a little piece on the lower part had to be reconstructed from fiber glass. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it as it's the only one in the world. I'll have to sort through my pics, and I'll post some construction ones soon.
Thank you all again for your appreciations!