grgcombs

<center><img src="http://www.swampzombie.com/car_audio/headunit.jpg"></center><p>This is the install that I did over the course of about three weekends. I'm proud to say I did it all myself. And now that everything is in, and closed up, you'd think a professional did it (at least everyone I know does).

I'll give you a little teaser of the head unit, which is a RioCar (www.riohome.com) MP3 player ... this is before I obtained the red face lens which better matches the dash lights.

The dash fascia was made from 1/2 MDF, and black textured vinyl to match the rest of the dash. The front door adapters were made from the same MDF. Any woodwork was done with a Roto-Zip and hours and hours of manual rasping.<ul><li><a href="http://www.swampzombie.com/car_audio/">The remainder of the pics are here...</a></li></ul>

CryptoTurbo

Nice job! What size is the hard drive?

RedX311

hey, can you tell me how to design the HU adapter, mine sucks!

grgcombs

It takes up to two laptop drives. With IBMs new 48Gig drives, you can really get it up there.

I've got about 2100 songs on there now, and I'm at 7.5Gig. If I add another drive, it'll be a 30gig ($250?) for a total of 40gig.

I opted to go with the cheapest drive, you really hurt yourself by buying anything bigger than that, Rio is really ripping you on the bigger drives.

grgcombs

It's 1/2" MDF .. cut to the shape of the exterior dimensions of the Symphony head unit... I measured all four sides, plotted them out on paper, did a quick cardboard cut out to make sure it would fit, cut out the MDF, aligned the four sides against the Symphony to double check ... had the Audi dealer "loosen" the Symphony ... unplug the wires, remove Symphony....

Then the fun part. I shaved a little off the sides and top so that it would allow spacing for the thin vinyl. Also I had to angle (by hand) the exterior sides front to back to allow a more secure fit into the dash.

Then I slid in the adapter and began locating problem areas where it wouldn't allow it to slide all the way in ...

<img src="http://www.swampzombie.com/car_audio/dash-adapter.jpg">

Here you can see where I had to shave the top-back-sides to fit around the rubber guards ... and at the bottom, the angled slots, to fit around a plastic bracket in the dash.

After everything fits smoothly, spray with adhesive, slap on the vinyl, and staple around the back...

RedX311

this saturday has a new mission

RedX311

is the HU centered, cause i want it down out of the factory holder, so i can get gauges

octane 93

bad ***!

grgcombs

It's centered, but it doesn't need to be, there's room.

grgcombs

<center><img src="http://www.swampzombie.com/car_audio/rear-deck.jpg"></center><p>I think the paint job on the tweeters matches pretty well...

I was a little scared about rotozipping the upholstery on that deck, but it worked out fine.