SEBAR
New member
I am calling this mod project "Close Quarters" because I will be cramming in two 280mm Alphacool radiators into a Corsair 350D mATX case and as you can imagine space will be very tight inside the case.
The color scheme for this build will Jade and Copper. This mod will feature a full copper faceplate for the 350D and 10 mm copper tubing inside the case.
The hardware that will be going into the case is as follows:
Intel 2600K CPU
Asus Maximus IV Gene Z Gen 3
Corsair Vengeance low profile RAM
Undecided on final video Card, currently I have an MSI R6950 but think I will need to replace this with a short PCB card
Corsair AX850 PSU
Kingston HyperX SSD (120GB)
Water cooling components include
Alphacool XT45 280 mm radiator
Alphacool UT60 280 mm radiator
Alphacool XP3 light CPU water block
Swiftech MCP655 pump with Bitspower mod kit and D5 Mod Pump Top V2
Black acetyl push fittings for 10 mm OD rigid tubing
Bitspower Water Tank Z-Multi 80 or 150 depending on space available.
Now for the good stuff.
Unboxing the 350D.
Here are some initial glamour shots.
Here are some teardown pictures.
I may end up using this MNPCTECH 280 rad grill I got from Bill Owen.
Here I am removing the brushed aluminum from the front panel.
Here is the parts order that I received from Performance PCS.
I was messing around in Blender and came up with a couple rough renderings of the case in Black and in Jade.
Wayne Bullet Butler hooked me up with some excellent renders.
Now it is time for the real modding to begin. As you can imagine 45 mm and 60 mm 280 mm radiators will not fit inside this case without some modification. The first thing that had to go was the 5.25 in drive days.
This allowed me to get the UT60 in the front but the top radiation was just too thick to allow me to install fans inside the case. Here is a test fit with both rads, motherboard, and my bench PSU.
I had to reposition the motherboard to allow for the top mounted rad and fans. I lose the top PCI mounting point on the case but since this case has 5 PCI slots and I only really need 4 that is not a big deal. I cut a spare PCI cover to fill in the gap left in the IO cutout after moving the motherboard down. I still have to drill and tap holes for the motherboard standoffs to mount the motherboard.
I got an SSD to use in the build.
I also finished the motherboard tray mod and can now comfortable fit a 45mm thick rad with fans in the top of the case.
I got some copper tubing and started fitting some of the tubing.
Looking to see about getting a GTX670 SC video card because of the short PCB. This will allow me to use a larger res in the case and allow me to include the video card in the water loop.
I have a small update to the 350D build. I have been doing some experimenting with paint. I had a suggestion that I add some texture to the paint on the case so I started looking for ways to do this and have come up with a snakeskin texture that I think works really well with the Jade paint and flows nicely with the polished copper.
I am about half way done with the polishing and as you can see it looks nice but there are still some scratches that I need to get out. I was using Brasso and it could not give me a ice polished shine so I started experimenting. I had some 3M automotive rubbing compound and decided to give it a try. Works great, gives a much nicer shine to the copper and was a lot faster then the Brasso. I ordered some high grade polishing compound for soft metals and will see if I can get the rest of those scratches out.
I took some time off from modding the case to make a custom reservoir for the build.
Build log here: http://forum.overclock3d.net/showthread.php?t=56616
Now that I am done with the res I can get back to the case mods.
I have finally gotten around to some painting on my 350D build. Here is a cool shot of the top panel. I modded the case, removing the stamped mesh and replacing it with an MNPCTECH BIllet 240 rad grill that I picked up from BIll Owen on the Mod Zoo forum. I use epoxy to bond the grill to the case and sprayed it with some black plasti dip. I decided that the top panel had too much black so I took the rotating slotted inserts out and sprayed them with some copper spray paint. I still need to put the snake skin texture with the jade paint on the case but I thought it looked too cool to not take some pictures.
Here is the window mod in the side panel, still need to cut the acrylic but you get the idea. I cut the windowed section to show the Res, motherboard and GPU. I did not want to show off the entire internal compartment.
Here is a shot of the case with the front panel removed. I painted the front section for the I/O and the bay covers with copper spray paint to keep the look of the case when the front panel is removed.
Here is the case with the copper front panel installed. It removed using the same procedures as the stock front panel, push two sections on the front panel to disengage the snaps and the copper front panel comes off as one piece.
I sprayed the entire case with Black Plasti Dip and will be prepping the case for the snake skin texture soon.
I have finished up the snake skin texture on the paint. It makes the case look very different.
Don't mind the stainless screws, they will be replaced. I am just waiting on hardware.
I am hoping to get the replacement water block soon so I thought I would head out to the garage and continue with some of the things I still have to do. You know something is terribly wrong when spiders have decided to live in your mod project.
After I cleaned out all of the spider webs I started fabricating a simple GPU back plate. I will paint this to match the case and will attach it to the GPU with some double sided tape.
After having to drain the loop five times while I trouble shot the leaky CPU water block I came to realize that a drain system in this build is badly needed so I ordered a bitspower shutoff valve and a 90 degree rotary fitting to help me drain the loop. Now all I have to do is attach a drain line to the valve and open it up to drain the system.
I also got myself four of the Akasa APACHE BLACK PWM 140mm fans to push air through the radiators.
Here are some other pics of the system as it currently sits in my garage.
Some of the other things that I am working on is painting the GPU fan Shroud and possible the PSU to match the case. I have not decided if I will sleeve any extensions for the PSU cables yet. I have a set that I did up in Blue para-cord but it would be a pain to strip it back down to change the color. I will be running distilled water and have slipped a silver kill coil into one of the copper lines, hope this does not cause any problems in the future.
The color scheme for this build will Jade and Copper. This mod will feature a full copper faceplate for the 350D and 10 mm copper tubing inside the case.
The hardware that will be going into the case is as follows:
Intel 2600K CPU
Asus Maximus IV Gene Z Gen 3
Corsair Vengeance low profile RAM
Undecided on final video Card, currently I have an MSI R6950 but think I will need to replace this with a short PCB card
Corsair AX850 PSU
Kingston HyperX SSD (120GB)
Water cooling components include
Alphacool XT45 280 mm radiator
Alphacool UT60 280 mm radiator
Alphacool XP3 light CPU water block
Swiftech MCP655 pump with Bitspower mod kit and D5 Mod Pump Top V2
Black acetyl push fittings for 10 mm OD rigid tubing
Bitspower Water Tank Z-Multi 80 or 150 depending on space available.
Now for the good stuff.
Unboxing the 350D.
Here are some initial glamour shots.
Here are some teardown pictures.
I may end up using this MNPCTECH 280 rad grill I got from Bill Owen.
Here I am removing the brushed aluminum from the front panel.
Here is the parts order that I received from Performance PCS.
I was messing around in Blender and came up with a couple rough renderings of the case in Black and in Jade.
Wayne Bullet Butler hooked me up with some excellent renders.
Now it is time for the real modding to begin. As you can imagine 45 mm and 60 mm 280 mm radiators will not fit inside this case without some modification. The first thing that had to go was the 5.25 in drive days.
This allowed me to get the UT60 in the front but the top radiation was just too thick to allow me to install fans inside the case. Here is a test fit with both rads, motherboard, and my bench PSU.
I had to reposition the motherboard to allow for the top mounted rad and fans. I lose the top PCI mounting point on the case but since this case has 5 PCI slots and I only really need 4 that is not a big deal. I cut a spare PCI cover to fill in the gap left in the IO cutout after moving the motherboard down. I still have to drill and tap holes for the motherboard standoffs to mount the motherboard.
I got an SSD to use in the build.
I also finished the motherboard tray mod and can now comfortable fit a 45mm thick rad with fans in the top of the case.
I got some copper tubing and started fitting some of the tubing.
Looking to see about getting a GTX670 SC video card because of the short PCB. This will allow me to use a larger res in the case and allow me to include the video card in the water loop.
I have a small update to the 350D build. I have been doing some experimenting with paint. I had a suggestion that I add some texture to the paint on the case so I started looking for ways to do this and have come up with a snakeskin texture that I think works really well with the Jade paint and flows nicely with the polished copper.
I am about half way done with the polishing and as you can see it looks nice but there are still some scratches that I need to get out. I was using Brasso and it could not give me a ice polished shine so I started experimenting. I had some 3M automotive rubbing compound and decided to give it a try. Works great, gives a much nicer shine to the copper and was a lot faster then the Brasso. I ordered some high grade polishing compound for soft metals and will see if I can get the rest of those scratches out.
I took some time off from modding the case to make a custom reservoir for the build.
Build log here: http://forum.overclock3d.net/showthread.php?t=56616
Now that I am done with the res I can get back to the case mods.
I have finally gotten around to some painting on my 350D build. Here is a cool shot of the top panel. I modded the case, removing the stamped mesh and replacing it with an MNPCTECH BIllet 240 rad grill that I picked up from BIll Owen on the Mod Zoo forum. I use epoxy to bond the grill to the case and sprayed it with some black plasti dip. I decided that the top panel had too much black so I took the rotating slotted inserts out and sprayed them with some copper spray paint. I still need to put the snake skin texture with the jade paint on the case but I thought it looked too cool to not take some pictures.
Here is the window mod in the side panel, still need to cut the acrylic but you get the idea. I cut the windowed section to show the Res, motherboard and GPU. I did not want to show off the entire internal compartment.
Here is a shot of the case with the front panel removed. I painted the front section for the I/O and the bay covers with copper spray paint to keep the look of the case when the front panel is removed.
Here is the case with the copper front panel installed. It removed using the same procedures as the stock front panel, push two sections on the front panel to disengage the snaps and the copper front panel comes off as one piece.
I sprayed the entire case with Black Plasti Dip and will be prepping the case for the snake skin texture soon.
I have finished up the snake skin texture on the paint. It makes the case look very different.
Don't mind the stainless screws, they will be replaced. I am just waiting on hardware.
I am hoping to get the replacement water block soon so I thought I would head out to the garage and continue with some of the things I still have to do. You know something is terribly wrong when spiders have decided to live in your mod project.
After I cleaned out all of the spider webs I started fabricating a simple GPU back plate. I will paint this to match the case and will attach it to the GPU with some double sided tape.
After having to drain the loop five times while I trouble shot the leaky CPU water block I came to realize that a drain system in this build is badly needed so I ordered a bitspower shutoff valve and a 90 degree rotary fitting to help me drain the loop. Now all I have to do is attach a drain line to the valve and open it up to drain the system.
I also got myself four of the Akasa APACHE BLACK PWM 140mm fans to push air through the radiators.
Here are some other pics of the system as it currently sits in my garage.
Some of the other things that I am working on is painting the GPU fan Shroud and possible the PSU to match the case. I have not decided if I will sleeve any extensions for the PSU cables yet. I have a set that I did up in Blue para-cord but it would be a pain to strip it back down to change the color. I will be running distilled water and have slipped a silver kill coil into one of the copper lines, hope this does not cause any problems in the future.
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Love it !!!
