Case Mod - In Progress Project: "L3 - Liquid Lan-Li" Lian-Li V1000 Mod, HUGE MOTM UPDATE: 31st MAY 2008.

Hi everyone and welcome to my project log!

I have been in to modding for a while now and have done a few little mods here and there, having taken much inspiration and ideas from the many talented modders on this forum and others.

Unfortunately in Australia the modding scene is nowhere near as developed as it is in the Us and as such it has been really hard to source many of the products that I would have liked to use is some of the mods I’ve done.

Things have been getting better in recent years and so I’ve decided to do a proper full case mod.

The victim I have chosen for this mod is a Lian-Li PC-V1000 that I picked up second hand of EBay. I chose this case because I really like the look of the case and the interior layout, for the most part anyway (you’ll see ).



Plans for the case are as follows:

Exterior: Re-spray most likely in red with chrome accents
RESET BUTTON (what were you thinking Lian-Li!?)
Carry Handle
Radiator grill
Stealthed bays (likely mirrored front panel)
New side window (likely mirrored)

Interior: Re-spray black with chrome accents
Better cable management inside the case
Create better division in interior of the case
Water cooling with triple radiator (all internal)

These are the things that I really want to achieve. Keep in mind that some things may change due to my A.D.D modding style where I tend to move from one thing to another and come back to things later on. I tend to let the mod take me where it needs to go rather than have to many set goals as it tends to be both a lot more fun and usually ends up a better mod because it’s evolving as you go along.

Thanks for taking the time to read this rather long Introduction and plan and feel free to voice your opinion or suggestions.
So here we go!!!




First thing to go will be these series of holes which will Impede airflow.


So I taped The back fan grill up and began sketching out the cuts.






I used my mobile phone to light up the holes so I can see where the holes finish.



Not to bad...





After testing all possible mounting positions the only place that I was going to fit the radiator internally was the top of the case.
Not a massive ammount of room but it fits. The only setback to this is that I will be losing a couple of PCI slots.

If you look I you look closely you can see the back grill has already been cut out. I did have a pic but some how between me taking the pic and me uploading it, it went missing

Here's a picture of the cut out after 3 Afternoons of sanding through the hard anodized coating on the case. I used oven cleaner which supposedly eats though it but affter repeated coats and 30min sit times before sanding it still took a lot of effort. Please If anyone knows a better way please let me know!


Much better if you ask me. I'll be making a customer grill to cover that up later on.

I have a bit more done that I'll be uploading over the next few days as it's real late at the moment. I just had a huge day modding and couldn't wait to start sharing my results and ideas with all of you.

 

Sounds good so far

 

UPDATE: 15th April 2008


Thanks for the encouragement Beesbees, there's not much there just yet but this update will have a lot more content to it!

I thought about the design of the case a bit further and decided to go with a flame theme throughout the case.

I know, I know, "flames again!?" I hear you say. I know it's been done a "couple" times before but I think I can add to it and hopefully make people think of different ways to use flames in a mod, rather than just painting on some flames and saying "Tadda, done!". Not that there's anything wrong with that but I want to take it a bit further.

So... Now that I've settled on a top mounted radiator and a flame theme, what better way to start than with a custom grill to stop fingers and other objects hitting the fans.

I went online and found an AC Ryan triple grill template and went to work and after a few designs settle on this.




As we all know things can tend to look different on paper so I decided to make a cardboard version of the grill to get a better idea of how it will look.
I did this by using some carbon paper that I picked up at the local newsagent and tracing over the grill design.


One the image was transferred I cut it out using a sharp blade.


And here is the finished cut out sitting on top of the case.

Now that I had a physical object I found that I was not 100% satisfied with some of the flames on the bottom and top in particular, so I went back to the drawing board!

After a few more hours of re-design I came up with a slightly tweaked version as you can see on the left.

I think it looks a lot more balanced in comparison to the first design.

Hope you all enjoyed the update and look forward to any comments. More updates soon!

 

UPDATE: 16th April 2008


Radiator fitting:

I decided to cut the hole for the radiator next. I placed another template on the top of the case making sure that it was completely centre and once again used some carbon transfer paper to transfer the image across to the case.



As you can see there were some minor changes done to the template so that the flames completely cover this hole.

I then proceeded to cut out the radiator hole with my template using some small discs that I had laying around because I was in a hurry to start cutting and didn’t want to have to run to the shops to get the heavy duty ones. After about 25min and around 6 discs later this was all I had to show for it.



LOL ok so this was clearly not going to work as the aluminum used by Lian-Li was obviously too thick for the small discs. So I finally got frustrated with the situation and went down to my local hardware store and bought some heavy duty discs. Here’s a comparison of the discs.




Slight difference

Anyway, 1 and half discs later I had the whole thing cut out.



Just goes to show that I shouldn’t have been so eager to start without the right discs in the first place.



Cuts all sanded back.

Once I had smoothed out the edges it was time to see how it would fit. I screwed on a couple of the stock 120cm fans that came with the case just to get an idea of how low the radiator will end up sitting.




Starting to get a better feel for how things will turn out.

I thought I’d also put on the cardboard cutout of the grill to see how it would all tie in.



If you look closely you can see that when I was designing the flames I took the location of the centre of the fans as well and the walls in to consideration to minimize the both the impact the grill will have on airflow whilst still covering the fans as much as possible.



One more from the front.


Ok that's that's the end of this update. Next up will be the radiator grill, stay tuned!

 

Sick man, that grill looks great!

 

whats with all the mazda stuff, your in Australia you should be driving a holden!

but cars aside im looking forward to this project and i to have a love for that Lian-Li case.

 

no technically if he is in australia then he should be driving a toyota hilux

 

but a holden is an Australian car even tho its a general motors. Toyota is japanese

 

Very nice flame layout. You'd be surprised how many people totally screw up flames and make an otherwise awesome design look 'off'. Very clean work mate.

 

I used the service book to get the light a bit closer to the back grill as it was the closest thing to me at the time. And as for aussie cars, your both wrong... VL Turbo commodore, canary yellow with intercepter rims hahaha (long story, If you know anyone from Melb ask them. They'll shake their heads and laugh)

Thanks, it literally took hours to draw up. I went through a fair few version before I finally finished first grill because of getting it all to look right aswell lining everthing up with the fans. The second one was obviously a lot quicker as it was the same as the first with only minor tweaks.

I know exactly what you mean. That's why I took my time to get it right and also cut it out of cardboard to make sure.


As promised though update with the top grill cut out later tonight. Meeting up with some mates and will post update when I get back home.

If you liked it in cardbard wait till you see it in aluminum

 

UPDATE 17th April 2008

As promised I went back to the grill. I used the same process as before to transfer the image on to the masked aluminum and used a mixture of jigsaw and dremel to cut out the flames.








After I transferred the image I proceeded to drill holes just about everywhere so I could better manage the direction with the jigsaw.





The jigsaw was great for the larger open areas but the little areas were a huge pain even with the dremel so…



I got a new toy



I put tape over it as to not scratch the bottom of the grill too much
Then slowly but steadily I started to get a nice feel for the whole process. The key was to cut a little and file it back straight away because of the thickness of the aluminum if I went too far and tried to file it after it’d start to bend.










In these areas the dremel router table came in exceptionally handy and made my job a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.






And finally...



I've left the edges unfinished and a little longer than needed until I finalize the handle which I will also be making.

I was so nervous going in to this as I had never attempted to do anything like this before but it turned out exactly as I had pictured it in my head which was fantastic

More updates soon.

 

As always any please feel free to comment.
BTW do you guys want pictures to remain this size or would you guys prefer smaller?

 

Woot more flames! Are you happy with your investment into the dremol mini table? The picture size looks fine to me btw. How about a quick pic of this crazy ride of yours?

 

i second that, i have a dremel but no atatchments as fancy as that. and the second gos for the whip as well

 

VERY Nice!!!!

 

The Dremel came in very handy and probably saved me half the time it took as it wouldn't have been possible to do too much with the jigsaw becase of how thin the aluminum is and all the thin flames, secondly cuting it with just the dremel would've taken ages withough the right attatchments.

So for $70 AUD it did me well and will do me just aswell for the other (yes there will be more) grills.



@ MrWizard, Thanks mate


More Updates later tonight, got a late shift so no modding but I do have some stuff that I haven't yet shown

 

Pics are fine.
Flames are great too.

 

yes we all know toyota's are japanese, its just aussy is such a hard place in area's only landcruisers and hilux can survive. i was told once if you what to go out into the sandy hell hot bits, take either a land rover or land cruiser, if you wish to return from the trip take the land cruiser.

note, iv been designing for toyota for the last 6 months. great fun!


oh and great work chap! when i find time i might kick my v1000b into life!

 

@ Burnout21 It's been an awesome case to mod and it's real sturdy and think aluminum too, hope you get around to modding urs one day!

Bit busy of the weekend but will try to get an update done with some of the internal work and reset switch.


Teaser: Next update will have plenty of cuts and bends

 

Nice start, looks great so far.