I was off today and got bored so I thought I would flush mount my Excelon. Excuse the messy car.
Before:

After:


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What kenwood deck is that?

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Deck: Kenwood Excelon KDC-X911
Kenwood Excelon KDC-CX83 - 10 disc changer
Kenwood KGC-9044 Digital EQ

Amps: Kenwood Excelon KAC-X401M - 600watts RMSx1@2ohms
Kenwood Excelon KAC-X501F - 300watts RMSx2@2ohms or 150watts RMSx4@2ohms

Speakers: Kenwood KFC-6908 6x9's 4-ways
Kenwood Excelon KFC-XR60P 6.5"

Sub: RF Punch HX2 Dual Voice Coil- 300watts RMS per voice coil


If its not a camaro or corvette then what is it really?

 

615, last years model. I had bought it and then bought a 915 but my system got ripped so i had to put my 615 back in.

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That looks awesome. Good work!

 

Thanks it was really easy and I agree it looks alot better. You guys gave me the idea so thanks all.

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It looks good. I wish I took pics of my Excelon deck in my firebird. I had it flush with the bottom panel. Just like here in my IROC:



Here's what it looks like with my Alpine in there:


Since the alpine needed a bigger hole, after I put the kenwood in, I've now got a giant ugly gap around the radio. I'm getting a new deck over the winter, so I may make an aluminum flush mount plate. When I flush the Alpine into my GTA I'll take pics and do a tech article.

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I wish I had took some pics too cause I put like a shelf in there to help keep my CDplayer from bouncing. I took a small piece of thick aluminum about 6"x1" and bent the ends of it and screwed it in place. I went for a testdrive and it worked really well, It takes alot more for it skip. I've thought about swtiching to an Alpine headunit. Anyone had both and which one do you like best?

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I put a graphic equalizer under mine and it looks really nice. I got picsof it also

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91 Firebird .. 305 TBI .. 5 speed
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Check out my car please, I want her to be noticed on how nice she is...
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I have both. (duh). The Alpine gets my vote. My kenwood just doesn't seem to sound as smooth. I also like having a ****. The Alpine looks a little (a lot) out of place in my Camaro though. In my GTA with the digital dash, it fits right in.

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<A HREF="http://www.rit.edu/~jli4307/camaro" TARGET=_blank>
View the restoration of an 85 IROC</A>
Custom Thirdgen Subwoofer Enclosures
"I didn't know a bored out Ford could go so slow" -Shenandoah

 

Yeah, I like having a **** too...

Seriously though, that's a nice addition. And if it was easy to do, all the better. I'm going to be re-doing mine 'cause the first attempt was kind of a hack job. Seeing how good yours is just reminds me.

 

I have gotten alot of e-mails as to how I did this so I thought I'd throw up some pics. I did take pics as I did it but maybe this will help.


In red is what I had to cut out but I only cut enough so my headunit would slide far enough back in there.

Then I used a flat peice of plastic and cut as needed to use as the mounting plate. This piece of plastic I got at a local Stereo Shop. It's just a carbon fiber looking peice that goes around the headunit that's suppose to cover up the mounting kit. It worked perfectly. I had to remove my Stereo Console to do this and while it was out I installed some bracing in there to make sure my headunit was secure. That's it took me about 1hr. due to Mountain Dew and Cigarette breaks Could be done in about 30-40mins.

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[This message has been edited by jobryan26 (edited November 06, 2001).]

 

Hey Jim does Alpine have built in crossovers and alot of the features that the Excelons do?


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Ohhhh, I see now. So the carbon fiber part was the section you added and the outside part that goes over both the heater control and the receiver is the stock firebird panel? Geez, it looks a lot better than the stock Camaro piece. I decided to re-do that whole front panel on mine'cause it's just ugly.

For a simple change, it's really made the deck look classy. Nice job.

 

Hey man,
Nice looking setup...
The carbon fiber look fits right in with the birds OEM look.

You have given me hope! I wondered whether or not a headunit could be flush mounted in the 'bird.
I knew it was possible in a camar due to the depth of the console, but was curious about the firebird.

Did the mounting kit come with the adapters to mount it in the upper portion of the hole?

Mine did not.
I think that after 3 years, its time for a new mounting kit!

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92 Pontiac Firebird Formula 5.7/A4
K&N, nothing else yet!

92 Rs 3.1/T-5
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Yep you got it right. Looking at it with the Stock frame or cover on makes it look like it might have been hard but it wasn't. If you could find a Carbon Fiber Dash Trim and one of these plastic things I used (Carbon Fiber ABS) that would look really good together. Maybe a Mirrored type Plexiglass. I don't know if they make it but that would prob look pretty cool too. Just some ideas.

 

I had never seen one flush mounted in a firebird either but seeing like jim's pics above gave me the courage to try it.(thanks jim) No, there's no mounting kit used. The piece of plastic that I used is a decorative cover to go over a mounting kit. If you look at my first pic you can see the mounting kit that the headunit is mounted in. This plastic piece typically would have gone over the top of it to cover it but wouldn't have looked right because it sticks so far out. (the Carbon Fiber plastic replaced the Mounting Kit). The DIN size hole was already cut into the plastic I just decided on the postion of where I wanted the headunit in the opening. I then trimmed it and slid my headunit into the plastic and bent the metal things on my headunit so it was secure. This piece of plastic I used wasn't very thick and I've had a problem of my headunit skipping around even with the mounting kit so while I had the Stereo Console out I had all the room and access to fix that problem. With just alittle imagination great things can be accomplished. I'm glad you like it Anything I can do to help just let me know.

[This message has been edited by jobryan26 (edited November 07, 2001).]

 

I had this giant reply typed last night, but in typical fashion, my ISP decided not to function properly.

Anyway, on with the sermon. In terms of Alpine vs. Kenwood, I like my Alpine a lot better. The Kenwood has no built-in crossovers or any other stuff like that. The deck was designed as a competition-level deck, so it was realized that competitors wouldn't be using that crap in a deck. Of course, it didn't sell well, so on went the bells & whistles for the next year's model. My Alpine has all of the crossover junk, but I've never touched it. Since all of the crossover stuff is on one IC nowadays, I'd guess that they all sound pretty similar regardless of brand. Overall I found my kenwood to be a little on the harsh side, but it's impossible for me to do a direct A/B comparison, so it may just be the plecebo effect. In any case, I can't feed an aux input into the Kenwood without dumping over $100 on a multi-changer input selector, even though apparently every kenwood except mine can use a $20 adapter. Why mine can't use it is beyond me. They all use the same changer.

Anyway, I wanted to elaborate on Job's install procedure. To set the deck even farther back like I did, it's a lot of work in the firebird. You've got to cut a lot more away, including the heat-ducts, plus it's necessary to relocate the back L-shaped bracket that mounts the console to the floor. I also had to pound on the trans tunnel a little bit for more clearance. It was so tight back there that I had to tie strings to the wiring, and pull on it from the rear as I slid the deck in. The only time the deck would go all the way in was when the wiring was just right. It usually took me anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to get the wiring positioned right whenever I reinstalled the deck. I mounted the deck in a fairly non-conventional manner in the firebird (I blocked it up from the "floor" of the console), and I hot-glued the plexi trim piece to the radio/heater bezel.

On the IROC it was a lot easier. I had to cut the heat ducts and that was basically it. Then I just put the mounting plate in, shimmed it back to the right depth, and slid the deck in. Then I took the plexi trim piece and hot-glued it to the heater/radio trim bezel.

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The IROC Homepage
<A HREF="http://www.rit.edu/~jli4307/camaro" TARGET=_blank>
View the restoration of an 85 IROC</A>
Custom Thirdgen Subwoofer Enclosures
"I didn't know a bored out Ford could go so slow" -Shenandoah

 

Thanks Jim for the info on the "Kenwood vs Alpine". As for all the work you did to flush mount a headunit in that car. One word for my car is "easy". I dont know if you were going for a deeper install or what but the only thing I cut was the "L-bracket" as you called it. I didn't cut it all the way out but just enought to let the headunit slide back in there. Maybe you mounted the headunit lower in the opening? Which is why you had to cut the heater ducts. Mine cleared then. So I guess with mine being higher up I cleared the tunnel too. I put a bracket like this where the red line is. So between the "L-bracket" and this bracket I installed serves kinda as a pocket to secure the back of the headunit. I think that maybe you just mounted the headunit either lower or deeper than I did but no matter how you do it it's nothing a dremel couldn't handle. I could take my stereo console back out and take some more pics like of the bracket at you can see where I cut if you'd like.

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See my Ride:
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[This message has been edited by jobryan26 (edited November 07, 2001).]

 

If you look at my pics again, you'll see that my deck is flush with the panel yours is mounted to. My deck sits back at least 1/2" deeper than yours, plus I think my Kenwood is deeper than the rest of them.

The very back part of the console had an L-shaped steel bracket that bolted to the floor. Maybe yours doesn't have it.

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The IROC Homepage
<A HREF="http://www.rit.edu/~jli4307/camaro" TARGET=_blank>
View the restoration of an 85 IROC</A>
Custom Thirdgen Subwoofer Enclosures
"I didn't know a bored out Ford could go so slow" -Shenandoah