OK folks, here's my submission. First the 'essay' portion, then links to the pics. Let me know whatcha think about my story before I send it in - too much, not enough, etc...:

Building Rusty

I sat at my computer desk one day and listened to the BIOS alarm on my main machine going off. I realized that the new machine I had just built to run my website, FTP site, and act as software router that I had placed under the desk right next to it was causing cooling issues with Big Dawg. So, looking around, I tried to figure out where I could put the new box to keep Big Dawg happy, and still be able to use my KVM switch between the two. Nothing looked good, and then it hit me – build a machine that looks like a NASCAR race car and put it on a shelf above my desk so it looks like it’s part of my Rusty Wallace collection of die-cast race cars.

I was a big fan of the GTR-PC I saw on the internet a few years back (I’m still apalled that someone actually stole that machine), and that served as a huge part of my inspiration to create the machine you see now. Except that he had used a 1/8th scale remote control car body for his machine, and there were no NASCAR bodies in that scale – I’m also into R/C cars as a hobby. So I realized I had to go smaller scale in the 1/10th range, which would give me quite a selection of bodies, wheels, tires, etc, to choose from.

I scored a sheet of 4mm aluminum, the Parma 2001 Taurus Super Speedway body, some Pro-Line Green pre-mounted foam tires, and a couple of NASCAR Taurus decal kits. I cut a test chassis out of cardboard to fit to the body, then began my measurements. Not just any motherboard would fit into the chassis and tuck under the body, so I went with a Gigabyte K7 Triton Micro ATX mobo, since it was only 190mm X 243mm – which would fit in there nicely. I also decided to go with a laptop CD-ROM, Micro ATX power supply, and elevate the mobo on some extra brass stand-offs so I could stuff the hard drive under there. There wasn’t much room to put stuff on top of the mobo and have it all still fit under the body. I also decided to exclude a floppy drive, since there wasn’t much room for it, and who uses floppies anymore anyway, right? My other big problem was how to get two NICs necessary to run as a software router. One was already on-board the mobo, so I snagged a 90 degree port-adapter card and laid the NIC down across the board. And it just barely clears the hood.

After several test-fittings, I cut the chassis out of the aluminum sheet with a jigsaw (after I saw what a plasma-cutter did to the sheet aluminum, I figured I’d get a cleaner edge doing it the old way. After several hours of cleaning up the edges with a file and Dremel, I found some 1”x1” aluminum L-channel stock and made the wheel mounts, which I pop-riveted to the chassis. I also had to cut a square hole in the back for the power supply fan to hang out of (literally) for ventilation. I also found the need to bend the chassis upwards of 15 degrees in the back to stay tucked under the body. The power supply barely fits under the ‘trunk’ now.

I had to custom-fab a bulkhead for the power switch & LED and the reset switch and hard drive light. For that, I used the same 1”x1” aluminum L-channel I used to mount the wheels to the chassis with. After that, I located everything and drilled the necessary holes to mount everything. I hand-polished the chassis, since I wasn’t smart enough to polish it before I pop-riveted the wheel mounts on. I also discovered that the power supply’s power cord would’ve come out of the body in a bad place, so I took it apart and hard-wired the power supply cord to the power supply.

Now it was time to put everything on the chassis. Surprise! Everything fit. I mounted the hard drive under the mobo with its interface towards the driver’s side so I could fold the cables under for a cleaner look. The laptop CD-ROM was mounted using double-stick ‘servo tape’ – which I thought was fitting since so much other R/C car tech was used on this project so far.

I painted the wheels and body and realized that the NASCAR Taurus decals were not the ones I needed to use. Plus, nobody made a decal set for Rusty Wallace’s #2 Miller Lite Special. Imagine that – I’ve had a hard time finding any good collectible stuff for him, so why should this be any different? So, between MS Paint, PaintShop Pro 6, and PhotoShop 6, I was able to make the decals and print them out on adhesive-back photo paper – a few were scanned or ripped from actual pictures of the real car, but the rest were drawn by me. Getting the decals to fit was tough and took many attempts, but I think I got it worked out fairly well. Plus, it looks like it’s part of my Rusty Wallace collectibles and most people that see it can’t believe that it’s a computer.

System Specs:
· Gigabyte GA-7VKMLS mATX mobo
· AMD 1300MHz Duron
· 512 GB PC2100 DDR
· Toshiba 20X laptop CD-ROM
· Maxtor 40GB HDD
· 3Com 10/100 NIC
· 250watt mATX power supply
· Parma 1/10th 2001 NASCAR Taurus Super Speedway R/C body
· Pro-Line Green 1/10th (premounted)racing foams
· Win2K Advanced Server
· WinRoute Pro 4.3
· Custom Chassis
· Custom paint
· Custom decals

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Pic 7

Pretty cool mod there.... I guess you've got it back & running Eric.

That is one of the best custom rigs I have ever seen Eric, it looks fantastic. Let us know if you win

Great job Eric. If you win next month I will have the issue, otherwise I won't get another issue until August.

just about the neatest thing i have seen sence viraga!!

It's ABOUT TIME!!!!!!

Still lookin' sweet! And now he has a win behind him!!!

And - it's outta here and on the way. Wish me luck.

heh very nice!
PC on wheels

Max PC one of my favorite mags....would be nice to see you win rig of month....good luck 4by.

Any word yet Eric? Latest entry went back to total lameness - a chicken wire PC. <shakes head>

You've come a long way since your "Egyptian PC", and I thought that was impressive. Man, that's a good job. Guess the only way you'd be able to come up with any more innovation is to use an R/C control to operate the comp! (uh oh, I'm giving ya ideas. . .)

Not a word from the Maximum PC folks. Another forums that I entered my junk into went T.U. at some point. So I have no idea if I won any laser cut fan grills or not.

I could kill Maximum PC if you like...

Hold that thought...

Holy crap thats good!!! I am impressed.

way cool man, i hope u win

Still waiting to hear anything. Of course, the rules of the Maximum PC contest state that the entry deadline is May 1st, 2004 and will remain valid until 6 months from then or the actualy entry date, whichever comes first (April 22nd for mine... makes October 22nd).

Final winner will show up in the July 2004 edition of Maximum PC magazine.

What does that last line mean? Final winner for this year's contest? Or final winner period? Either way, I guess the next issue will be the deciding factor. It'll either be in there or not. I'm just wondering if 'not' means that it's done and I missed out. I sure would hate to have missed an opportunity and especially have lost to the likes of the Wedding Cake and Lego machines.

Oh well. Keep 'em crossed a little longer, I guess.

And what about the "Chicken Wire" POS?

I kinda like the chicken wire thing... it's not too bad. Much better than Legos, and much more stylish than the wedding one - although the wedding machine concept was at least imaginative... if nothing.

Not as nice as the Frank Lloyd Wright inspired case this month though.

My axe is sharpened and oiled, just let meknow and the butchery begins.

Well, bummer. I'm thinking what they meant by 'entry is good for 6-months after date of receipt or May 1st - which ever is earlier,' is that the contest will be ongoing throughout the year. We'll see though.

I need to pick up this month's copy still. The subscription I had this past year was through my company, and still shows up downtown in their office. But I sent in for a new subscription and it should start with the August issue.

So, I guess we'll see if it hasn't been considered by the November issue... then we'll get a lynch mob together. Especially if we see another wedding cake or chicken wire machine.

Now I'm interested to see the Frank Lloyd Wright machine.

Now THAT'S a Damn case mod. Except that the pictures suck. And WTF is up with that crap download speed?! You shoud've made a 'Junior' car though... Rusty's washed up.

What did Maximum PC say? Of course they wouldn't know a good mod if it bit them in the ass too.

NOO the pics dont work for me :'(

wow , thats from 3 years ago

The pics still work. They're on a home webserver with ADSL (with 128u/l)... so just be patient.