Try to overlook my grammar. The sight of my new radio is bringing me to tears. Maybe that was the credit card statement. Either way, it is here. I ordered a new Eclipse 8454 8volt Head Unit, Eclipse 7504 dual voice coil 10 inch woofer, new titanium tweets for the componants, and a set of three way eclipse point source 6x9's. The Head unit and sub came in today. The others are due in between September and October (new models). I will be taking some pics of the install this weekend. I made a aluminum adaptor plate to hold the head unit and seems to work great. Some info for 2003 owners with xm. The head unit will loose chimes but that is all. I have been driving with the radio out for almost three weeks. No other problems in that area. I hope this HU sounds as good as it looks. It is insane what they have placed on these things. Three sets of preouts. Optional aux or digital input for audio sources. A normal and pro mode for the DSP. In normal one parametric and 13 graphic eq's are available. In pro mode ten parametric and 13 graphic eq's are available. 45 seperate frequencie ranges to choose between. Time alignment. A three way crossover with optional 12 and 24 db slopes allows for tweets, mids and lows to be used in a band pass fashion. Mp3, wma, ATRAC3 decoders. Optional voice control and navigation. E-iserve that uses a out board mic to adjust your eq and dsp settings to your car. Good God, if it cooked and cleaned.... well I won't go there. I don't need to sticky it before it ever reaches the car. I am curious to see how my laptop funtions with the aux in. My laptop has a audio card with digital out. this could be cool. :D

holly crap dude...hurry up and get sum pics...especially of that sub...eclipse 10 inchers are insane!!! :thumbsup:

That is a super nice deck. I saw 1 at the local sound shop. It nuts all the thngs that it does. To rich for my wallet though. I'll stick with my Clarion.

Eight years of work has paid off. 300 bills for the deck, not bad. The sub is nice as well. It is the new hybrid models. Only 300 watts RMS, but this puppy is as big as my old aluminum 88 series.

You got that deck for $300. That's a hell of a deal.

my thoughts exactly...clarion's good too...

I'm sorta pissed off now because I paid more than $300 for my Clarion. :pissed: I coulda got that Eclipse for less.

true there too... :offtopic: what clarion u got?

nice deck...model year better then mine..i got the DXZ735MP...

I got it a couple of weeks ago because someone stole all of my old stuff.

Now I feel kinda bad because we completly whored up this thread.

Don't worry about the whoring. I have been doing plenty of that since I brought the little lady home. I work for Fujitsu so I get the dealer prices. Pays off at times.

single DVC 10? nice bro.

what kinda box u putting it in? where in your car?

great for rock music! if u like that, that is.

Looks cool. :thumbsup:

What does the sceen look like when hooked up? More pics when your done please :thumbsup:

those subs are insane man...great choice on selection :thumbsup:

Not a bad sub for sixty nine dollars. I have done the fifteen inch and moved beyond. It was a hard choice between the 12 and 10 but tens seem to a have more balanced sound. I used winisd to design a sealed box. I plan on making it this weekend out of walnut. The dens woods reduce alot of the resonance associated with boxes. I have found cherry and walnut to have the best sound to it. I did get the radio in the car after work. Good god why does something so simple have to be so hard. Since the aleros need a 12 volt constant I was planing on taping of the fuse block. What the hell is the plastic cover over the plugins? I couldn't ever get it removed. Eventually I used the meter to find a 12 volt constant on the air conditioner. This is where some help is needed. Where have others taped off of to get the 12 volts? Has anyone used the airconditoner. After I plugged everyting in the radio runs but my air button won't come on. I had the hoses disconected as well. Will the air conditioner need to be repressurised if disconnected? Otherwise it works. I need to cut out the plastic to get the HU to sit back another 1/8 of a inch. That will be a weekend project. Thanks for the info and pics will be up friday or saturday.

Are you talking about the yellow constant wire coming out of the headunit? If that's the one than you should have just connected it to the yellow wire on the plug-in wiring harness.

The 2003 doesn't contain a switched 12 volt. There is a constant 12 for memory but the new radios use a CAM system to turn on. The CAM uses a bus signal to comunicate to the radio. If the signal is not there the CAM won't come on. The harness came with a extra wire and stud for the fuse block. My problem was that I couldn't get into the fuse block. After that, I hooked up the radio to the air conditioner 12 volt acc. Everything else inside was giving me a 12 volt constant. I either shorted the air when looking for 12 volts (doubt this because there was no power anywhere else in it), did not put all conections back, or undoing the hoses caused a problem. I am curious if anyone else has removed the face plate entirely. If so, was there a problem with unplugging the hoses? Thanks.

the hoses for the HVAC u mean?

Ok, this is what I get for attempting to install my stereo after work and running on about 3 hours of sleep. No matter how excited you are to get the radio in, I suggest sleep first. I took my stereo out after work and figured out my problem in about sixty seconds. My AC was not coming on due to the fact that I had plugged the xm antenna connector in to the HVAC connector. They were the same connector except for the fact the one had two wires and the other had six. This was the first brain fart. The second brain fart was trying to understand why I did not buy a fuse tap. But, after running my switched 12 to the fuse block via a fuse tap and taking the handy dandy dremel to the back of the alero, I have a finished radio.

Here is the radio display on normal. The top had a scrolling image of eclipse as a screensaver. Notice the two inputs under the HU. On the right is the aux line. On the left is the Digital Aux line. In back is a digital out as well. Connect these to a zapco amp via digital link and say good bye to analog.

One last pic. Here is the little lady showing off her memory stick. They just do the cuttest things.

taking the handy dandy dremel to the back of the alero

What did you have to cut? Looks hella nice man

:offtopic: but i guess you just have to remove the plastic behind the deck... i guess ill see it when i get in there... dermal will be my fiend.

I like how you did the aux inputs nice...

mine has a regular AUX input. only reason i got it, for ipod and can play mp3 cd's
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-jYI8xMBBbiK/c...fo&i=055cdcx504

Thanks. You won't have much of a problem. If your HU's internal amp uses mosfets then the radio may fit fine. The mosfets allow the amp to run cooler and won't require the large heatsink normaly found on the rear. My eclipse almost fit. I was about a 1/16 of a inch too large. I think that was more from the extremely large, circuit city antenna adaptor. I would not suggest it. It runs a fourty five degree angle at nearly one inch behind the HU. If you do need to use the dremel just pull out the sanding disk. It goes right through the plastic. Just be carefull not catch it on fire. The plastic gets real hot, real quick.

i cant seem to get mine flush... did you trim part of the radio bezel? The black piece around the whole thing, so it would fit more flush?

Props on selection of components and clean install. I got the Eclipse 4 way 6x9's and I love them. I want that deck! Do you have a zapco amp hooked up via digital link? Also you should make and sell a few of those aluminum mounting plates to pay off your system.

very nice setup man....

oh, and what year is your 'ho? your hvac knobs look funny :P

I had to notch the radio bezel. I used a dremel and recessed the radio in. My last step (not shown) was to use a rubber compound from work to fill in the void. There was about a half mm that was visible from the sides. The rubber is a two part mix that I added die to. It made a nice seal right around it.
My car is a 2003. I won't doubt that the HVAC nobs are different from older models. I found out the HU varied greatly as well.
I recieved the new three way point source a week ago. they were on back order. My unfortunate problem is that I got burned on ebay for another amp. I have a 2 channel eclipse that was going to be hooked up to the sub. My A/D/S amp was sold in the previous car so I bid on a four channel Nakamichi. When I got the Nak I did not have a aftermarket radio to test. So I took it to work and hooked 12 volts up to it. It powered and put out a signal so I thought it was ok. When I hooked the thing up to the eclipse there was little output and alot of distortion. Two channels are ok, but 3 and four have something seriously wrong. One good thing with working for a radio manufacturer is good technical support. I should have just waited on the amp until placing my order from work. Live and learn I guess. A Zapco amp would make a nice addition. I am very curious as to what a fully digital system would sound like. I am just suprised that eclipse has not introduced it on one of there amps. The digital input has been on the top decks for two years. They have dvd and cd changers that utilize it. I imagine that when I buy one they will put out a updated model right after it.

What looks funny about the HVAC knobs, sme as mine ion a 99??!! :blink: