Changes since Little Stealth

• 120mm air filter
• Wheels
• Front mounted USB ports
• big momma & associated case mods
• Wired pump into the power supply
• silver waterblock ?
• A7V133 
• TBird 750 
• Much more efficient hose routing (as seen here)
• Added air duct (as seen  here)
• 7/12v fan switch 
• Blacklight - a whole mod in and of itself.

Well, Since the first Little Stealth article, my system has slowly evolved. It's got many improvements in it now, some are new ideas, most are ideas I've picked up in forums and other articles and recycled for use in this article. I have managed to stay true to the "Stealth" part of mini-stealth.

Everything else doesn't really matter, just the usually parts  you'd find in the computer, and the hose was so cheap it doesn't matter either.  So I've got roughly $200 into this setup. Not too shabby. Well, without further ado, onto the meat of the article.

I installed a filter on my primary intake fan. Now that I have big momma, with all her many tightly packed fins, dust would very quickly clog her up. Turns out the filter was a very good idea, as the filter is usually  stuffed full of dust within a few days. I went with a black plastic filter  because they're alot easier to clean, just pop it off, run it under the faucet, dry, and re-install. The metal mesh filters that many people use may look nice,  but they can't be easily removed for cleaning.

Wheels

The wheels themselves have a story behind them. I've always  wanted to get a case with wheels, but I'm also a cheap bastard, so rather than  spending $100+ on a case with them, I'm sticking with my good old reliable $35  case. I had some goals in mind when I went out hunting for wheels, I knew I  wanted rubber wheels, rather than plastic. Rubber wheels will keep vibrations  from the pump from transferring to the floor as much, and rolling the computer around on rubber wheels will be quieter, and gentler on the components in the  case. Now adding wheels to this case wasn't just simply to please my desire, I  had found that the rubber feet I originally had, while extremely tall, just weren't high enough to allow proper airflow to my intake fan under the case. The rubber feet I had were 3/4" tall, and are generally the tallest rubber feet you  can get. Now came the hunt, I checked out the local hardware stores and was  shocked at the price of wheels. I found the rubber wheels that I thought would  be perfect. They would have held the computer about 3" off the floor, and were  really just big rubber balls rather than wheels, like a lot of chairs have.  Unfortunately, they were well over my desired price range. So I started looking  at the other wheels, trying to find ANYTHING that was in my price range. I ended  up going with cheap plastic wheels, just like I had hoped to avoid. Now came the problem of figuring out where to place them. On the right side of the case I have the motherboard tray to deal with, and the 120mm intake fan takes up most  of the front of the case. Let's start with the rear two wheels, they were easiest. I lined up the center pivot point for the wheels directly under the hole used by the original 1/4" feet that came with the case from the factory. I  then marked the 4 holes with a marker, drilled them, and fed the bolts down and attached the wheels.

The top of the two bolts on the right side of the right wheel have about 1/8" (2mm or so) of space between them and the bottom of motherboard,  can't get much better than that. That was pretty simple, and I had hoped to do  the same with the front wheels, but of course the radiator was in the way.  Besides, the original feet weren't far enough to the outside edges. These wheels raise the center of gravity in the case along with the case, so I needed to  widen it's footing to prevent the system from being top heavy and falling over.  After thinking it over for an hour, I found an ingenious way to mount the front wheels.

First of all, I only used 3 bolts on them, the front 2 bolts are  actually directly into the plastic faceplate of the case, and the 3rd bolts are  in place of rivets that I drilled out, and replaced with bolts. I wasn't sure if it was going to work at first, but after thinking it over, it was pure genius. The front faceplate is now very well secured, the feet are very well placed right at the front corners, and the case didn't lose any structural integrity in the process. Which was especially important later on when big momma arrived, and I had to take out a chunk of the front of the case.

Lets keep hack'n this baby apart