So I used my break to upgrade the sound system in my 03 G sedan (which came with BOSE). I've done installs before into my Civic and RSX (now sold) so I had some experience coming in. I used some of the write-ups here in the forums but it turned out to not be as difficult as I perceived it'd be from reading the forums. Also much thanks goes to Gilley for his input. The goals of the system were for it to take up very little space but yet be plenty loud, and also to not lose any stock functionality (access to the spare tire). I don't like a lot of bass where it interferes with the rest of the music being played. (Hate setups where all you hear/feel is boom,boom,boom,boom,boom - how can you enjoy music like that). 300WRMS is enough for me. I'll elaborate more on the system and install from pictures to pictures.

The Pioneer Avic-D3. Great head unit but it in a sense forced me to upgrade the rest of the. The navi voice was not loud at all. Plus my music, even when I turned it up on the head unit (to 40), it was too quiet when going on the highway. I have some of the install pictures (where I mounted the GPS mouse,XM/navtraffic, and IPod) on a different computer so I'll post them later this week. But here's the finished product (with the Metra Kit):


Next was the amplifer. I wanted to mount it in a location that would not take away any trunk space. I decided to mount it above the spare, kinda where it is in a G coupe. I made a custom mount for it - first time ever I did something like this and it came up pretty good imho (yea the hole in not perfectly center but 1) amplifer is blocking its view and 2) no one will see it anyway when the trunk is open). Having the right tools makes everything easier.It was also the first time I put carpet on something related to car audio. Hopefully the pictures explain my train of thought with each piece. It came out very sturdy, and I'm still able to get to the spare tire in less than 3 minutes if need be (just need a screwdriver to unscrew the amp).












O yea I bought an Alpine PDX4.150 amplifer. Boy is this thing small. I wanted one amplifier to power the front componets as well as the subwoofer. This is a great amp and yes there is a cover to hide the front portion where the adjustable settings are.

Next up, the door speakers. Getting to them was very easy (I thinkI can do it in about a minute now, obviously it took longer the first time). I bought Phoenix Gold RSD6.5 components. If you don't know about these speakers, then check out the major car audio forums. They're currently known as the best "bang for the buck" speakers. I got them for, get this, ~$77 shipped on ebay. They are excellent, very bassy and feel like they're more expensive - I've had CDT CL-61A's before and they sound better than the CDT's. I also used Edead V1 to deaden the doors (first time for me too). Very easy to apply stuff. As far as the notorious task of running the wires to the doors, it wasn't bad at all. On the inside jam side, I popped the small grommet beneat the stock wiring harness. On the door side, I drilled a hole through the grommet carrying the harness. I drilled it where there'd be no chance of me drilling through stock wiring. Worked great. I used a wire hanger to run the cables through. The only trick was on the drivers side, I had to temporarily unscrew (3 bolts) the fuse box to be able to grab the hanger coming through.

Had to dremel out some plastic to make room for the tweets:

Glue melted:


Fuse pannel unscrewed:


All done:


Now all I got to do is get a 4080 box for my Alpine Type-R 10". I'll do that in a few months (spent a lot on the upgrade so far, so the box can wait). Also, this week I'm gonna replace the rear doors speakers to some generic Pioneer ones (4ohm). They will be powered by the head unit since they're only rear fill anyways.

Let me know if you guys have questions. Hopefully this writeup gives you ideas and encourages you to get in there and upgrade. My setup now sounds great and I'm too scared to turn it past 25 (out of 40) on the volume **** with the doors closed.
-Norbert

 

looks awesome, can't wait to see other pictures.

 

Nice job. Those alpine amps can fit in small spaces. The spare tire well is a good place for it.