February 2nd and 3rd Install Days

These installs managed to spread over a couple of days. Some of this would not be considered an install, but more a new Home Theater PC build.

Tinted Windows and Fender Rolling on the Mazdaspeed Protege:

Took the MSP in Saturday morning to Premier Window Tinting in Henderson to have Nick (Nixmixn) match up some blue tint. He did a great job matching it up. We also rolled the rear right fender to allow some more clearance between the fender and the tire. After spending $80 on the MSP, we then went to test drive an FJ Cruiser and a Honda Element. We left with a blue 2008 Honda Element SC 5sp. Expect to see some install info on this in the near future as I install the under car lighting, interior lighting and possibly even a double DIN Kenwood DNX-7100.

HTPC Build:

Saturday night after the wife went to bed, I finished up my Home Theater PC (HTPC) build. The specs are as follows.
 

Abit AN52 Motherboard

2gb DDR2 RAM

AMD 5000xp Black edition Processor

MSI 8500GT Video Card

Standard 52x CD ROM (to be replaced with a DVD Burner)

320GB Samsung SATA Hard Drive

Coolermaster case
 

Reused from my old HTPC are the power supply and TV Tuner Cards

Diamond Extreme PVR 550

Hauppage HVR-1600 dual tuner card.

The HTPC has been in use for about 4 years now and plugs directly to the TV. The Snapstream software allows me to use it just like a standard DVR. The two tuner cards allow me to record 3 things at a time, I have 2 analog tuner cards for regular cable and an ATSC card which allows me to record digital over the air signals (OTA). Since the purchase of our 42 inch Hi Def Plasma TV, the weakness of the old system stood out. It only had about 50 hours of show space for standard definition shows and now that we had a decent screen we could now browse the net much easier from the comfort of our couch. In fact most of our Christmas shopping was done from the couch. Also, we could record HD programs, but the old computer hardware simply did not have the power to play it back. Hence the new build.

Now we have about 20 hours of HD recording which is about 80 hours of standard definition recording. On top of that, I can also play Call of Duty 4 from the comfort of my couch.

Installed Short Shift and Shifter Bushings: This is a pretty straight forward install. Darin pulled out the shifter from above while I swapped out the shifter bushings down below including the rear shifter bushing. Once everything was bolted up under the car, Darin swapped out the shifter with the short shift and put everything back together. Jordan loves the end result, another happy install.

Removing a broken bolt:

ElJefe showed up in his wagon with a broken front swaybar bolt. Its the part where the swaybar bolts to the frame on the driver side. I crawled under expecting a battle to insue which included drilling and trying to work the bolt out. Luckily however with some needle nose pliers and some contortion ism on my part, I was able to reach the rear of the bolt and spin it with my fingers until it spun all the way out.

Fluid Changes : Route69WRX aka Darin. Changed the oil and the rear diff fluid. Pretty much uneventful as there was no metal on the magnetic diff plug or no piston rings in the engine oil.

Conclusion:

Another successful install day. No major drama but not a lot of work. I am however truly enjoying The ability for gameplay and playback of HD on my new HTPC.