Who would have thunk you cannot buy modern 2009 Winter stuff in the Spring of 2007 ? Stupid me for not waiting 2.5 years to use modern stuff.
Seems to me that you are not quite with either the Subaru or the "carpc business" intimately. Each car has unique installation challenges.
Freeware/Opensource like RoadRunner is FAR from being the finished product of Centrafuse / Street Deck. Certainly at the time. I did not like Road Runner; Frodo etc and I paid for the licensed software that actually fit my liking.
There is NO SUCH THING as Wi-Fi OBD-2 modules that work on Subaru. Been there, tried that with ELM-2 based readers. Subaru uses SSM-3 monitor and that is that. Generic OBD-II readers/cables may work and read several parameters; Tactrix cable allows me to pull almost 100 different parameters; from RPM to AVCS; tune the car; clear codes; read trouble codes; data log; bump up idle RPMs; and did I say TUNE the car ? I would never tune it myself but these days you either do Open Source (so you need a tactrix cable) or you do Cobb Tuning Accessport (and I got one of those too).
http://www.romraider.com/RomRaider/Screenshots
Of course, I would NOT tune my car (1) myself or (2) using the CarPC. But i can datalog any parameter in case I image things or indeed something is wrong. I was in Wisconsin a few weeks back and I blew a coil. I got my misfire P0103 code - cyl # 3 by the turbo; I reset my ECU; code repeated; changed the plug; still misfire; changed 2 coils among themselves; misfire moved to a different cylinder P0101; diagnostics done I could sleep knowing that 128 bucks later my car will be working properly. All within 1 hour before sunset on a Saturday night near La Crosse.
Running 2 USB's or 5 is NOT the problem: the problem is when they want to use the same COM port. You'll have to see it to believe it. And manually assigning COM ports is NOT always going to work. Have you ever installed a serial-to-usb com port ? But have you ever had problems with COM ports when resuming from hibernation ?
As for Audio my friend, you speak as if the 2005-06 Legacy GT came with an auxiliary input just waiting to happen. In fact it did not. More so, the climate control and the CD changer are all a common body and it required nimble fingers and out-of-the-box thinking by one of the engineers on the forums to create an aux input. Later by 2008, a company claimed to have successfully removed the CD-player from the integrated climate control circuitry [don't get me wrong, you could always remove the components but you were stuck with the common circuit board] but I have not heard of them marketing it successfully.
You know, we've all helped friends do this and do that. It is when you are away from home and in some shady place and your CarPC GPS refuses to acquire signal when you realize that chasing every possible upgrade on such a money pit is just not worth the trouble.
Touchscreen monitor complicated - yes, unlike others I created a frame and bolted it since I did not want my monitor to become unglued when running hot air thru the vents
Seen that happen to others.
As for the engine power. That is why for 400 whp you buy a Corvette. Not a Subaru. Every car is a money pit once you start modifying it. If you do it in moderation and know what you are doing and use only reputable vendors established in the industry then you should still be able to enjoy the car while keeping it reliable. I do not have every possible mod under the sun and I keep the power at levels that have been shown to be very safe over the years. And knock on wood, the car has been reliable and I intend to keep it slower (than its potential) but reliable.
There are automotive DC-DC regulators and I surely have one. It is
the easiest thing to set up of ALL the carpc stuff; whether you use a battery/UPS (and do it via software) or use the options built in to send a turn on-turn off signal.
