Clemson Sports Car Club

well, my car came with a harman kardon sound system that i loved. it had really nice highs and mids, and had boomy lows that made most people swear i had a sub hidden some where, but alas the amp went out, the amp that costs $930 new, or 200+ used and is plagued to fail (all of them do), so i decided instead of replacing just the amp with another hk, id replace the whole system (the hk amp is proprietary and the stereo wont work correctly if you just replace the amp with an aftermarket one)
so i went with
pioneer MVH-p8200 head unit
sony 4 channel (50wx4 rms @ 4ohm)
fronts are alpine r type 5.25" component speakers (1" dome tweeters)
rears are alpine r type 6x9's
so far the head unit and rca cables for the amp have shown up, and ive wired in the headunit and put in a SPDT 12v 1A relay to fool the parking brake sensor cable to think the parking brake is on when i turn the car on, the speakers and amp are coming in monday/tuesday.

stripped rear (~65lbs lighter with no speakers, seats or trim)

inside the doors


new wiring (the little black box is the relay i soldered in)


and the new head unit. the lighting can be set to 120 different colors, so i matched it to my stock lighting, but left the screen on white (screen will play ipod video as well, but can be set to 6 different color themes for the menus, the orange ofn those was a little too light)

no CD player here, but it works with all ipods, including 4th gen iphones/itouch and it has an sd card slot



will update as i install speakers

Not too bad, I remember that the amp on Fogles car went and it was back ordered for about 2 months. I guess it is a common problem.

I am more of an infinity guy myself. I am currently redoing/putting in a radio in the CRX.

What's with fooling the car into thinking the parking brake is up? Are some features of the head unit locked out if the car is not parked?

While you've got all those panels out I recommend doing sound insulation - makes a world of difference and as easy as it is to reach the door skin on these cars why not?

If you don't mind me asking, where are you putting your amp? Going with the under passenger seat method or in the trunk? If my amp goes out again I'll probably do a custom setup like this with the amp under my passenger seat just so I don't have to worry about covering the amp with cargo and it overheating (or causing milk / eggs to get too hot in the trunk on the way home from the grocery store ).

(08-15-2010 10:04 AM)zps2004 Wrote: [ -> ]Not too bad, I remember that the amp on Fogles car went and it was back ordered for about 2 months. I guess it is a common problem.

I am more of an infinity guy myself. I am currently redoing/putting in a radio in the CRX.

Mine used a different amp - I had a "dealer accessory" system as opposed to the factory option one (his original system). I think they had to order the amp for mine from Germany as long as it took. Apparently I'm told my system is VERY rare in the US. Technically, the amp was ordered in either January or Feb, a call to MINI USA got the dealer to take my car in and give me a loaner about 2-3 months after the part was ordered. Then another 2 months (and 5k miles) with the loaner before I got mine back. I do occasionally miss that loaner - the flappy paddle turbo Cooper S was fun and did rather well in the mountains . After getting it back I rigged up my own fan / cooling system to help keep the amp going - that was just over a year ago and the first one died after about 15 months, so looking good so far. I suspect the high failure rate for amps on these cars is because the amp is tucked away behind plastic panels where there's little / no airflow to keep it cool and it cooks itself. No evidence for this (other than noting mine got very hot after running a while), just a theory.