badtziscool.com - Automotive

It was actually a nice day today, which motivated me to install my head unit.  It’s the Eclipse AVN 5500.  I like it.  Yeah, it’s not as nice as the newest ones like the 6600, but all I really care about is improving my sound quality, and man, did it ever.  The factory head unit SUCKS BALLS!  There’s just too much equalization in all the wrong places to make it sound good.  I’m still not done with it.  I have all of the functions running, except for the navigation.  I just need to find the speed sensor wire and tap it for the navi system to work.  All else works beautifully, and I even modified it so that it will play DVD movies without having to be in park and with the parking brake on.  I have a bunch of pics, but I’ll put them up later as part of my How-To section.  For now, here it is installed in the bracket.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I know I need to make some sort of bezel to cover the gap.  Maybe something out of carbon fiber?  =)

Well, I finally got the stuff to redo my system.  The amp came in and the head unit came in.  It was a close call though on the amp.  It seems like DHL dropped the box at one point in time.  When I opened it up, I saw one of the feet was bent severely.  Then when I flipped the amp, I heard something like a metal rod flopping around.  I was not happy.  The sender was kind enough to let me return the item and get a refund, but this amp is so rare that I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to see it again for a long time.  So I opened it up, and luckily the bar was some sort of grounding bar in a compression fitting.  So I just lightly hammered the bar back into its fitting, reassembled the amp, and tested every channel.  It seems to work just fine.  Even the xovers worked.  So I told him that I’ll just keep it.  Hopefully, it won’t go bad down the road.  Perhaps this is a testament to the indestructability of these old school amps. 

Beautiful.  Isn’t it!?