rtboy10

This car has quickly become a huge money pit which I expected but I'm not trying to pull any short cuts and the next step is audio/gauge installation

I currently have a basic alpine blue tooth head unit nothing to fancy a little under 2 years old. Im not to happy with it and plan on upgrading.

I have older Boston acoustics that have crazy specs and sounded great when I had an older pioneer head unit that just had horrible functions must have had a higher power output then the alpine. I plan to get an amp while doing all of this as well.

I would really like to have 2 gauges behind the radio door where the head unit would be mounted this to me looks the like cleanest easiest option for me. I really don't want gauges displayed on the pillar or dash.

I don't want to sacrifice my radio though, so I was wondering if anyone has mounted a head unit in the secret compartment or center console.

While searching I found a similar thread and someone suggested a marine radio or something directly ran to an amp. I'm just wondering if it's been done and if it's even worth it.

jetrep

If you won't have access to the head unit what's the point in having it? Years ago I think you had to but it seems like the technology now exists to do away with the head unit if you don't need to listen to AM/FM or CD. From what I've seen bluetooth adapters are cheap. If you plug into your phone that is even easier.

Why not power your speakers with amp sourced by an mp3 player or phone? Integrate a volume control into your gauge panel behind radio door. Just an idea

modifry

While it's only temporary (2 years so far ) I have oil temp, pressure, and A/F behind the radio door. I will eventually put them in the OEM cluster but that's a lot of work, hence the "2 years".

My Alpine HU is in the trunk and I use it for radio and MP3, with a USB cable run into the cabin so I can easily change the USB drive. Mine is mounted where the spare tire would go, along with a small sub box, but you could put the HU above the gas tank and not interfere with the spare.

Obviously that's a lot of wires, but hey, it's just wires, nothing magic there. I ran speakers, battery and acc power, plus the 2 dash control wires to the trunk (for the DCI obviously). And I had to re-wire the antenna amplifier since it won't be getting power from the OEM harness any more. And I had to buy a 6' antenna extension cable to connect the antenna amplifier to the HU, and fortunately the antenna amp has the standard connector so that was easy.

The only tricky part (for me) is cycling through the Sources because I removed the CD player and replaced it with an electronic cross-over so I could bi-amp the door speakers using the 4 amps in the HU. But the HU doesn't know the CD player is gone, so I have to remember to hit the MODE button an extra time when going from Radio to USB, but not when going from USB to Radio (or is it the other way around?). Fortunately, you won't have that problem.

Chiung

Here's my setup which is strictly bluetooth music/phone/nav with NO head unit:

https://goo.gl/photos/1NuAPR4YW4aEv2488

click thumbnail for bigger picture

The red button powers on a JL amp mounted where the spare tire was
The knob below it is a JL volume control also connected to the amp
USB charging ports
AEM gauges

https://goo.gl/photos/CR1wiWLBs3oKZ3JX7

in this picture you can see a Kinivo BTC-455 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hm6Dfa-0dA
mounted aft of the shifter, between the roof and hazard switches

This pairs to and remembers 2 devices via Bluetooth and has 3 buttons. 2 of the buttons are skip fwd and skip back track buttons, and the third answers or hangs up phone calls.

This solution is not cheaper than a cheap head unit with built-in bluetooth, but it allows for the gauges to be mounted (and hidden) behind the radio door. Since I don't listen to the radio and CD's have gone the way of the 8-track, I don't miss having a head unit at all. My phone goes on the Modifry bracket and provides music and navigation.