I've been hanging out with 1337ssei to do a medium-level audio install, a brake pad change, and an idler/tensioner pulley change. I was told once that modifying a working car is bad not only because if it isn't broken, don't fix it, but also because Murphy will break something else in your car. Not believing this, I set out on a multi-day process of gathering tools and changing out parts, and the explanations for the turns of events preceed each set of pictures as necessary. This is exclusively a picture documentary of 1337ssei and me screwing around with goods except for two pictures somewhere near the middle. Enjoy!

Head unit swap! He bought a 1.5 din Alpine on ebay.





We tore out the amp and rewired the new head unit wiring harness to go straight through to the front speakers. The rear speakers are amped by a 450W (peak) Lightning Audio 2-channel amplifier. It'* pretty good.







Here are some pictures of cathode lights and various other things:




12" Alpine Type-R subwoofer! That magnet is huge! Random crap was shown for comparison.




As it turns out, the head unit had a grounding problem. We took it apart to redo the ground wire, but it skipped nearly every time 1337ssei'* car hit a bump regardless of our efforts. We're still trying to fix it, though. In these few pictures, we set up a PC power supply to run its 12V line into the head unit to power the speakers as we messed around with it all.






Stock speakers from my 94 SSEi:



No screws at the top:






Oh no! The hand of death has touched the head unit!


So, here are the two strange pictures. My friend drives an 86 Olds 98 Regency, and its crankshaft sensor had fallen out. He jammed it back in and drove the car until one night when I needed to go to the bathroom and the car broke down on a country road. Maybe I'll explain later. But 1337ssei'* dad just so happened to be passing by from remodeling a house, and he had a plunger handy to hold up the hood of the car.


From left to right are a Dodge Dakota, driven by my friend'* friend who came to help, the broken-down Regency, and a Dodge Intrepid R/T, driven by 1337ssei'* dad. This was taken care of very quickly. Strange.


So, the next day, 1337ssei and I jacked up his car to do brake work.




Squished suspension:










Resurfaced rotors and some 2AWG wiring:


We tried out the Alpine Type-R in a sub box.




Look at the shine on that amp'* heatsink:




The box:


1337ssei didn't have a drill and unfortunately had to be awesome enough to screw in each screw by hand into the brand new pine:





A formerly clean install:





I have a feeling someone may have a few questions about this:





Pulley work, with no finished product shown for some strange reason:




And now... Murray'* law made a transmission mount break. 1337ssei was driving his car and suddenly felt a severe loss of power as well as no feel of the transmission shifting. He'* looking into getting a solid transmission mount now.




So, what do you think? I think this is a whole lot of work, and though I should have posted it into my work whorage post, this is a different car and thus deserves a new post. Also, it explains the delay in my work whorage. I'm still waiting for a good time to do the door speaker wiring, and I need a few door pieces.

yea is ALOT of work but its going to be awesome

Have you had any problems installing the new mount? The weather is stopping me from being there, but I hope you have a digital camera with you.

I still need to jack up the transmission to get the old mount out I got all the bolts loose tho

Umm..Murray'* Law?

And Ohh, I spy an LG3. How many miles on that thing?

Looks like some good work done there.

The Murray'* Law thing is based on the idea that if something can go wrong, it probably will. Is this just an Indiana thing?

The LG3 has 94K miles on it with nothing done at all to it except for an added Optima red top battery and a 450W amp for a 10" Lightning Audio subwoofer right behind the driver'* seat. Nice car.

I hope 1337ssei is taking more pictures... I'm tempted just to get up and come over at 1:30 am if you're still up just to keep up the whorage. Then again, you need to come over tomorrow and help me out with my car. It'* been thrown to the wolves of carelessness. There'* some trim work to be done (you can see the trim in the background in the speaker pictures). Let me know when it'* a good time for you to come by.

Work Whorage awaits!

Nice setup but a small bit of information. Installing an Amp on the sub box is not always a good idea. The vibrations coming straight from the box into your amp could rattle something loose inside. and if say someone breaks into your car, stealing your sub and amp is a lot easier for them now since they are one unit. Unless of course you bolt the box to the floor. Making a false floor under the box is always a great idea. Just my opinion

Very good ideas there. Since the screws didn't puncture the enclosure, we could always relocate the amp. I figured it doesn't matter since the amp will shake no matter where it is, but maybe it will shake just that much more when on the sub box that something bad may happen...

If the amp were small enough, or if we were to take off the bracket for the bolt that holds down the spare tire, we could fit the amp in the spare tire area. That may be pretty good. Does anyone have any suggestions for the wires? I thought we might put the wires under the carpet and cut holes exactly where the wires should come up. Is this a pretty good idea? I don't think 1337ssei wants holes in his carpeting, though.

don't put the amp in the spare tire compartment. it needs to breath because it gets hot when used a lot. running wires under the carpet is what most installers do. The amp can also be bolted to the back of the folding rear seat.

What I had in my grand am boxes bolted to false floor


amps raised so neon tubes could fit behind and wires run underneith and through a hole in the door. Some of the wires you can see in the first pic above on the left



how i did some of the install for an idea



Battery was later replaced with a capacitor, other cupboard stored booster cables (definitely needed them a couple times)

Nice, I'm loving the trunk stitch. The temps are finally getting cooler here, which means less will to do stuff.

Radimir and 1337 keep meeting when I'm busy..it'* a conspiracy I tell you, a conspiracy...lol