My 2�¢:

This might be a little late, but modchipped xboxes are perfect for what you need--they're cheap, extremely easy to fit behind the dash, powerful, upgradable storage wise (160gb hard drive in mine), take shocks well, and you can remotely locate the dvd drive outside the xbox--like say, the din hu slot, or under the hu. If you have any questions on what these things can do go to: Xbox-Scene & browse around. They will play Nintendo/Snes/N64 games, switch to movies, mp3's, etc... Enough rambling on my part.

There were a few concerns about heat. However, for any in vehicle computer a couple hurdles need to be overcome:
1. Condensation--it must be dry, & well ventilated. When you breathe, things fog up. When the temperature changes at night, things fog up.
2. Temperature extremes--operating temps are huge for any computer to work right. You can't just expect your computer's hd to work right in bitter cold, or the cpu's heatsink to do anything if the interior temps of the car skyrocket. I understand that you want to use liquid cooling, but when the summer/san diego sun--you b@stard--j/k--beats down on your car, it gets hot. With the car off, the liquid for the cpu will heat up. The cpu then starts off at 120 degrees or hotter, and bad things happen.

If you can think of something great, much props. I just went to the junkyard and picked up another glove box, cut it up, and fabricated a jack to plug my xbox into my car's av when I feel like it.

I think, I tinker, I play around, I build. '99 Contour W Ztc, ATX, HID Fog, mesh, A6, B LED, Big 3, Alpine cda-9827, Memphis lvs12 1200w, Alpine 1241, 4xInf K 6x8, Xfire 400/4, 7.2 LCD, glv box "xbox jack" mod, interior horn alarm mod