American Muscle

[AceX]

um, budget... Whatever I can spare... I've got a car going to be painted very soon, so not much. MAYBE $100-$200.

Oh, painted the case today. Decided on Semi-Flat black from Krylon. Good color. Half my MR2 is painted that color... The "grills" that you guys see in the above pictures are now painted aluminum also, giving the face this whole silver/black scheme, plus, I've decided on red lighting for the case, so now I'm on a quest to find some red LED fans and CCNL at my local Fry's store. I also picked up some IDE cables that were sleeved in what appeared to be stainless braided line. Nice cables. Biught a second set, in blue, for my system that I'm using right now. I MAY buy the PSU sometime after friday, when I get paid.

I'm going to cut the Chevy logo into the side tommorrow, should be sick. I'm also trying to get ahold of the guys at ACRyan to try and get my hands on some of that "2-way mirror" acrylic that they have.

[OvRiDe]

Damn you AceX .. I wanted to see steel braided liquid cooling lines in that case!!! Just Kidding.. Thats pretty much why I havent pursued doing that in a case is it does get pretty expensive. Sounds like you pretty much got it going on track (heh get it on Track!! hah.. I crack my self up..) An idea that I thought would be pretty cool is have an HEI Distributor cap (or red Mallory would be nice but more $$) sticking out the top with Spark plug wires going out and back into the top of the case.. It would most likely be just for looks but it could be modified to be a blowhole.. That would be pretty sweet and definately fit the theme..

[AceX]

My only thing with the dist. cap idea is that now, all the cars come with a single coil per cylinder ignition system, meaning that there are no more spark plug wires in the cars... It's a dam shame too. I did get to thinking about making a custom box for the PSU and then using a dist. cap that I have in my garage as the "holes" in the PSU for the wiring.

I've also decided, that once I get a little money in my pocket, that I'm going to get a chrome license plate frame with a light built in and put it on the opposite side of the case form the plexi cut-out.

I have not given up the search for a cheap, small water cooling system. If I could put the whole thing together for about $120, I would, with Earl's lines and fittings, everything. If anyone knows of a half-way decent system that is VERY space friendly (compact/small), please speak up as I would absolutely LOVE to do this.

I will be running an ABIT mobo with a socket 754 AMD 3100+ Sempron Processor (not the best out there, but I got it for next to nothing). I already have a video card for it also. I think I may borrow one form my brother until I can get my hands on another x700. Wish Is till had my old 8500LE. God I loved that card...

So, yeah, if anyone can recommend a decent, cheap cooling system for my CPU, then I'll do it.

Also, can you paint a heatsink w/ hightemp paint?

[OvRiDe]

Also, can you paint a heatsink w/ hightemp paint?

I would think that the paint would insulate the heatsink and hold more heat in. I'm no thermodynamics major so the amount it holds in may be miniscule, and not even worth mentioning.

[AceX]

I've decided to bite the bullet and get a liquid cooling system. I found one for about $120 w/ tax, and it is almost exactly what I'm looking for, just too much green (coloring that is). I'll have to see what I can do to fix that... So, I think I'm going to pick it up this weekend and then start and see what kind of hoses I can get to work with it.

EDIT: How long does it usually take for the guys @ acryan to answer an email?

[SgtM]

Since you don't like the green liquid for the water cooling, go to your local auto parts store (Autozone if you have one) and check out the orange UV reactive liquid that they have. That could be your Chevy orange you are looking to incorporate.

[Xato]

Ya, UV coloring is easy to get.
And is it a 3/8 or 1/2 hose system?

[AceX]

I'm looking at a Cooler Master water cooling system. I'm still looking for the stainless braided hose. I haven't had much time these last few days, my grandpa's house almost flooded, so I spent a good portion of my weekend there, laying down sandbags ans such, then volunteering at the places where they were filling sandbags, trying to help other people out. Been busy..

I do have a cool little touch inside the case now... Waiting until I fine tune everything to amke it look good, but I promise that its cool.

[OvRiDe]

On the steel braiding.. you could use something like THIS..
Its not as good as the real deal.. but done right it could still look pretty cool in a case..

[AceX]

I've actually ditched the water cooling idea. As cool as it could be (no pun intended) I don't think I can either afford it, nor do I have the time/patience to play with it. I don't do any extreme over clocking, so why do I need it...?

On that note, I've started a crappy work log for the project.