Alpine Carputer - Part 01

I am originally posting this project on the Overclockers Australia (OCAU) forums in this thread:
Specific Hardware Topics > Modding > Alpine Caputer. This is post #1.

One of my mates recently blew his Alpine V-Power MRP-350 monoblock amplifier. At first, when he told me, I didn't think much about it but over the next few days I was looking around a few car sites and several carputer projects caught my eye. This got me thinking about how I could get one in my car. Well, not my car, but my next car which is probably about a year away.

The first thought was "What do I put it in?". Looking around, most people seemed to have made custom-built cases or standard cases that had been modified. Most of them seemed to be installed in the boot of the car. None of the mounting particularly grabbed my attention though. They also stood out as something other than car audio equipment. This got me thinking: amps are usually fairly easy to mount (well, if you know what you're doing... I did my first install a few weeks back and it took me all day but that's another story) and should be big enough to contain a mini ITX sized setup inside them. At this point I remembered my mate and a few SMSes later, the dead amp was mine for the taking. I picked it up from him a few days later and the first order of business was to take a few pics:

After that, it was time to take some measurements before deciding whether or not to go ahead with the project. It would be kind of pointless to continue if the parts are not going to fit.

From what I understand, mini ITX boards are 17cm x 17cm so it looks like it will fit! Just... I'm not too sure about the height yet though. I will have to do a bit more research on that one but that can wait! IT FITS! I'M EXCITED!!! So, the next order of business is to open up the thing and figure out how to remove the existing inards.

Under the back cover:

Seems that the sides are held on by screws on the side:

Whoops... The screws on the side near the connectors also hold the side plates on:

There's lots of screws to get the existing circuit board out... Including some holding down some heatsinks which might be useful for something... someday... maybe...