TakeaShift

Howdy to anybody that likes Gen3/4 v8's, F-Bodies, T56's, and in their spare time speakers+amps+wires

4th Gen Camaro SS LS1 6spd, it's been so fun driving the last few years I was able to get along with (aka ignore) the Monsoon 'system'.
The headers, Y-pipe, & Hooker exhaust just turn my insides to jelly

Eventually fate caught me, and I had to change audio components. Last fall, while swapping rear shocks, I damaged one of the rear 4" speakers. That got the ball rolling, eventually I had a closet full of Infinity & Alpine-R 6.5" & 4" speakers taking up space ... along with some 4" Infinity replacements to address the 'problem', as it were And a new 4ch MTX Amp

In the name of economics, and the fact that I liked the setup from my previous car, the Alpine-R 2ohm 10" sub will be re-used, as will it's accompanying Rockford amp. Need to find the 'birthsheet' but it's around 500W bridged 4ohm, & jumps to >1000W 2ohm.. the Type-R eventually blows-out (medic!) at the amp's 2ohm power output, so it gets 4ohms for now.

The last straw to damage the unloved camel's back was the headunit .. those big brassy buttons on the AC-Delco were much appreciated by my gloved hands in the iced winter months. But no longer. Couldn't pass up a deal on a clarion 7" touchscreen, so that's the new interface. A definite bonus is 2 A/V inputs, RrCam input, A/V output, and a solid display & IC chipset. Was also very happy to see Metal gears for the motorized action system.. nylon is a wonderful material for women's stockings, but all too common and unwelcome for parts requiring repeat usage ... without Wanting to be torn apart

Put up more pics as things progress ..

Fosnot

iTrader: (15)

You designed a system really similar to the one I've been thinking about putting together, very nice.
Tell us all how that clarion HU performs, is it the NZ409?

TakeaShift

Was 'warm' (above freezing ... high 40s / low 50s ) got lots done today

All power, RCA A/V, remote turn-on, etc wires run under carpet & trim. And *finally* carpeted the sub box ... could've turned out better, but blends in with the surrounding rat-carpet better than bare birch wood! thought it would've took 35min, naturally, it twas more like 2 hrs :/

May rain tomorrow, but if not, shouldn't be long before those amps get to be installed Had the pleasure of listening to music all day today from the car stereo, with the reliable 15A charger juicing the battery have a feeling that 650CCA's on its way out !

TakeaShift

wow amazing eyes Fosnot! It's actually the vz509, main reason went with that is b/c of the very-low-profile while closed.
http://www.onlinecarstereo.com/CarAu...ion_VZ509.aspx

I'm an optimist.. so we'll start with the good things. Never mind, life is never so rosy .. 1st the negatives looking for songs via USB, it only displays 16 characters. so if you have many songs by a band with a long name, aka 'Social Distortion', you will not be able to view any of the song names.. because the artist name is long. Alas, you may not even read the full artist name. oh well.
The 2nd gripe is no visualization ... winamp, WinMediaPlayer, etc, anything from 1999+ has had flashing lights, bouncing prizms, fluttering butterflies and anyother eyecandy that dances with the music. This Clarion, and upon calls to Clarion tech-support - All Clarions, don't do this. They are dark, grey, cold and unflattering.. so if you want something that looks cool get a Kenwood or Pioneer.
After sustained use, if the volume is low, you will hear the cooling fan in the rear kick-in. It's quieter than the F-Body's A/C blower on low, and if one has a modified exhaust you can't hear it. But for quiet sessions with fair-breasted women, it can be a distraction..

if that hasn't made you completely sick & strongly opposed to Clarion, then you may enjoy the following:

It plays DVD's very well - short access times, very sharp picture [no ghosting, excellent color, variable control of Hue-Color-Contrast-Brightness].
Selecting menus in Radio/CD/DVD/USB mode is very responsive. Typically instantaneous, or within <2sec for large folders/4GB USB drives.
The internal amp has better clarity & output than the stock F-body ACDelco Monsoon amp.. while swapping head units, I re-wired and compared back to back "clarion" vs "Monsoon". it was not a huge difference, around the 15-25% scale. But verified by me & 2 'blind-taste-test' others .. so I left the Monsoon in the garage. Not of significant value, since within days a MTX 4ch amp will be installed for this purpose

Will put more headunit info up as I use it... things I haven't used in detail yet are the rear camera [it doesn't come with one, i ended up getting a QSee http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0314128 haven't rigged it up yet.. stay tuned] , IR remote, equalizer - custom sound settings .. also need to read the owners manual.
For exmpl, there is an AC mode i wandered across - when the touchscreen is up it semi-blocks the A/C vents. If you hold a button, the screen will 'crouch' a pre-determined # degrees, or even go flat/hide, for a set # seconds. Not sure what other features it has, TBD.

TakeaShift

Rained all day today , so no progress on amp installs ..

Really looking forward to seeing how the Infinity's handle the higher power output. They're rated to >70W, and the clarion internal-amp is only about 18W. No rush really, and it's supposed to clear up later this week. Then it's just a 'quick' (1-2 hr? optimistic guess ) of mounting the amps, and extending the monsoon wiring harness to the speaker hook-ups.

Pics of the 6.5" speakers here .. the rear seat speaker grilles are very easy to pop-off to adjust the tweeters. Wish the front-door grilles came off as easy, somewhat of a pain. Even so, better than having to remove the entire door trim for access It's not enjoyable re-installing, accurately, that rearview mirror adjustment cable.

and the old 6.5"s ... seems the previous owner had JL's in the front ! Maybe i'll wire them up to the old ACDelco Monsoon headunit, with a 120->12v power inverter. Setup a nice little garage system. Better yet, build a small box to house them, with internal batts (dual 6v motorcycle/lawn tractor )
Now I've already gotten ahead of myself,.. first things first, finish the car audio!