club.liberty.asn.au

Hey guys,
Since purchasing the car early last year I've always wanted to upgrade the sound system.
I knew that the double din fascia unit was probably my best bet but I didn't want to "wreck" the factory look so, I did a bit of research and thought that the re-locator kit and a double din HU in the cubby hole's place could also be an idea.
These options were both a little too costly for my liking and wasn't a fan of the idea of changing the info panel's location.
So I was left with the idea of customising the original cubby hole while keeping the info display unit there to fit a single din head unit. I hadn't seen anyone do this so I thought it would be a nice little project to attempt.

The first step was to get another cubby hole to mod, so thanks to THERB3 (Hazza) I had one within a week.
So I started trimming the edges and filling the damage the cubby hole had.
Here are some pictures of the progress:

The start: Damage can be seen the left of the Cubby hole

Close up

The side trimmings

Both side trimmed

Filling the damage

and test fittings




So basically I had to trim both sides of the Cubby hole to the aircon vents which is about 3mm on each side.

Still to come:
-Final touches of the repair
-Sand again to achieve perfect fit
-Painting the Cubby hole
-All the wiring!

In near future...Amps, Speakers and a Sub

...Stay Tuned

Looks like a good start. What hardware are you looking to install???

I picked up a Alpine CDA-105e today from JB Hi-fi... mainly for the price I got it for it was on there for 498 ended up getting cost $250 as it had a small scratch,

the 3 qualities it had to have were:

-Mainly a red display to go with the colour theme
-3 RCA Outputs
- rear USB input for tidiness

I haven't decided on the amp and the sub yet, I'll have a monoblock and a 4 channel or a 2channel amp,
not sure whether to run the rears off the headunit and grab front splits and a 2 channel or upgrade speakers all around and a 4channel amp any input will be welcome

Bit of an update, returned the H/U today for a Kenwood KDC-X016BT more functions, current model, a remote, dual usb and no scratches for $20 more

Forget about the rears. Power them off the head unit, buy a 4 channel amp and bridge the channels to run your front stage.

garbo41610 wrote:Forget about the rears. Power them off the head unit, buy a 4 channel amp and bridge the channels to run your front stage.

+1. I'm still running my stock rear speakers and some choose not to even run rear speakers. Not much point to be honest.

If you want you can swing past mine sometime and have a listen. I'm only a few suburbs away from you.

Ive got essentially the same setup as you. Headunit + 4ch + mono with front splits and a 12".

For an awesome example of what can be done with that cubby hole space see viewtopic.php?f=10&t=9573&start=30#p144620

There are more pics further into that thread of the finished install too.

rooby wrote:For an awesome example of what can be done with that cubby hole space see viewtopic.php?f=10&t=9573&start=30#p144620

There are more pics further into that thread of the finished install too.

Good plan, however he said he doesn't want to relocate the info panel.

The method of integrating the face of the cd player with the cubby hole with the body filler for a professional looking finish is still valid here though.
Although Sedstr might have already been doing that anyway.

It'll be good to see how it turns out with the single din unit.

I've seen the in car pc, its amazing but something I don't need, also as I said before I won't be relocating the info panel.

The headunit I got does everything I wanted so I can't really complain and I will be filling up the remaining parts up for a professional finish with either a filler or might make a small box to hold the ipod

@mihai .. I might actually swing past one day to have a listen and see how it goes I will most likely go for a very similar setup to yours

so I ran into some trouble today hence the update in the title...I took out the cubby hole to see the depth in there to see if the headunit would actually fit with out and modification, I found out that there was some sort of a bracket that wouldnt allow the headunit to fit...

Pictures:





Is it safe to just cut the 2 thin parts in the middle? than the head unit should fit in comfortably?




EDIT:

Found this on legacyGT forums - Looks like it worked for him

double post

An extra spot for the iPod would be pretty useful.

How will you be wiring it all in? Are you just going to disconnect the stock headunit but leave it there?

mihai wrote:How will you be wiring it all in? Are you just going to disconnect the stock headunit but leave it there?

yup, wonder if its possible to still run power to it to keep the red buttons lighting up, I'll be getting my auto elec mate to do all the wiring