My first time taking this dash apart, kinda reluctant to do so for rear of breaking something, but here goes



Then I unscrewed the deck and pulled it out to disconnect the factory harness and was met with an unexpected surprise


That black plug had me worried, wasn't sure what it was for and my harness didn't have a plug for it. With a little research I was able to find out it was for the factory amp so I just left it unplugged.

Mounted the module for my Scosche GM09SR harness which allows me to keep all my chimes and message center warnings


Soldered the led's for my flush mount deck bezel to the remote lead off my deck and plugged in the antenna adapter


Kinda hard to tell, but the deck is butting up against the back wall inside the opening, I guess that's what happens when you recess it 3/4" more than it should be. But I'd rather deal with this and have a flush mounted deck than not have this issue and have it surface mounted



No more clearance issue!


Deck in, kit bolted up


Face plate of deck bezel kit bolted up

Disregard the rca's hanging, they were appropriately tucked away and hidden.

Finished product


And this is what it looks like lit up at night

 

i've been checking this all day and it is awesome!!! great work, you have pointed out everything extremely well!!

 

First thing I did at this point was install the battery. I had to remove the brace that runs above the battery, remove the radiator hose, unbolt the battery clamp, take out the old battery and put in the new one



Then it was all about installing the fuse holder and running the lead from it to the battery


I used XScorpion battery terminals


Now I need to clean my engine bay real good, it definitely needs it

 

I didn't build a custom box, I just don't have the skills or resources to do so. I decided to go with a solid prefab box made by SubZone. It's one of their Z-series boxes that has a painted baffle which was built to allow for flush mounting your subs. The only thing I did to the box was ran a heavy bead of Titebond III glue in every joint just to make sure I had no air leaks.

The subs have dual 2ohm coils so I wired the coils in series with KnuKoncepts 12ga. speaker wire to give an impedance of 4ohms, soldered the speaker wire to the terminals and bolted in the subs






Then I took the box out to the car, put it in the trunk and wired it up to the amp using KnuKonceptz 12ga. wire.


That was the end of it, for now at least. Now all I gotta do is tune it. My sound processing is done via my head unit which allows me to run a 3 way active xover network, it's got tons of tuning adjustments and an auto time alignment feature as well as auto EQ feature so some of the tuning will be done for me, but I still have to invest some time and dial it in just right.

I went to a SQ show yesterday, if that's what you want to call it, only 5 cars showed up, but I played it moderately and it *****! I can't wait to get it dialed in so I can really push it and see what it can do. But so far so good!

 

Dude, get them! They hit hard and sound good too. Right now I have them in a ported box and they sound sick, it can be a little boomy if I turn the bass **** up (normally have it at the minimum setting) but that's to be expected with a large ported box. I want to tighten it up a bit and allow for better bass response in the upper frequencies so i'm strongly considering building a small to medium sized sealed enclosure for them.

No need to wait, i'm done!

Thanks! I tried to keep it clean, and aside from the screws on the amp rack, i'm very happy with how it turned out. It was definitely a learning experience so hopefully my next incarnation for my amp rack will be even better.

I got a prefab box, not only don't I have the tools needed to build one but I also don't have the skills to pull of a ported one so I left that to the pro's at SubZone and they did me well!

Thank you man, I appreciate all the kind words. I always try to document things pretty good for those coming behind me who want to do the same, especially if I had a hard time finding this info when I went looking for it.

 

wow does that look familiar! lol i ran my sub wires the same way. through the console like that. i see its also a white monte! haha gotta like that. i have been looking into some component speakers for mine as well. currently got a 12" fosgate and a 1000 watt fosgate amp. fosgate 6x9's too. i needa get some pics on here of my sub setup its pretty nifty... nothin like yours tho i like that amp rack! and that cd player surround too how did you do that?!?

 

awesome write up!! i LOVE the way the HU looks. great great job!!

 

I have to say, that's a very impressive write-up and install. I'm not huge on systems, but this is really cool... I especially love this:



Out of curiosity, and you may have already mentioned it, but did you buy that some where, or make it? And if you bought it, where from and how much?

 

You have a lot of stuff hanging from your keychain. That can cause a problem with weight and your master lock cylinder. I would look into lightening that up a little, or getting a quick disconnect keychain where you can just disconnect the car keys while you drive but keep it all together as you walk around.

I know that's a weird thing to notice, but you don't want to mess up that cylinder.

Also, awesome work and a great great looking system you have there

 

Hey where did you get that side to top battery post, i find ones but they dont work like that, that is just the one i lookin for and would work great