Depth issue for headunits?

[omarq]

I have 04 Trix and had a question for you guys. I have 2 Din sized units I installed in the dash, and they barely fit. I thought the opening was going to be not tall enough, but the heighth is not the issue. Also the opening seems to be larger than the "Din" sized JVC KD-SH909 and Sony Full-din EQ i have.First let me say that I hate installation kits that want you to sleeve mount your CD player and have this cheap plastic look to them. My other pet peave is that the radio "nose" should not poke out of the dash. So my problem is this, my radio nose sticks out of the dash so that the radio is no longer flush with the gray radio/AC buttons trim piece. Has depth been an issue for any of you guys? Is there any way to make the thing look neat?I'm almost tempted to be the factory deck back in and use line level converters with to run my amp (every speaker in the car is run through my 5 channel JL amp). how bad would that be?

[lazytiger]

I don't know what happened with the depth of your dash; mine seems pretty cavernous (it's a Vibe, but I doubt there's any difference). Have you tried the Metra 99-8205 dash kit? It fits completely behind the gray trim piece, at least as installed with a single DIM head unit. Installed very smoothly for me, and Metra makes as high-quality parts as you're ever going to find, unless you want to fabricate something yourself.

[Jahntassa]

Going from an aftermarket headunit and EQ to line-level converters will probably suck. The sound is only as good as your weakest link.

[cohocarl]

I found a pic of my panasonic h.u. in the Vibe which shows pretty well how flush it fit. (Same h.u. is in my new vue now )

[Jahntassa]

Also, rereading your post...I believe the opening is slightly wider than standard DIN size.. As for how far it sticks out, that depends on how you screw the radio to the factory brackets, as well as the design of the radio itself. Some radios simply stick out farther in the front than others as part of their design. I'd suggest double-checking which holes you used in your radio when you screwed it into the brackets. There're generally two depth positions, maybe you need to move it back?

[omarq]

Woohooo!!!Thanks guys... After seeing your pictures and John's post.. I took everything back out and realized that it I still had in inch of room back there but I couldn't push the deck any further back due to the mess of wires (including the Metra double-harness GM->Metra, Metra->JVC) that were all jumbled up. So then I moved the mouting holes to ones further forward on the factory brackets and zip-tied everything in place so I I could take advantage of the entire depth. Put it in and everything sat pretty flush with the dash. I then made a custom trim spaces to fill the gaps between the side of the radio and the trim peice, and hot-melt glue gunned them to the double-din trim ring I already had and put the face back one. It looks really good. My only complaint is the one I had even shen I had this setup in my old car. That is that my HU is brushed aluminum JVC- KDSH909 (they only sell the black ones overseas), and my EQ is a standard black Sony XE-744. But no big deal... It looks alot better than it did. I'll post pictures later tonight.Thanks a bunch,OmarPS Anyone got any frequency sweep wav's so that I can make sure my crossover's are set correctly?

[omarq]

PS for the spaces in the sides of the radio.. I was looking for some black plastic with a finished edge...I found that a black plastic (like the ones the dealers tack on your car) license plate frame sides work excellent. Durable plastic with nice curved in edges. The top and bottom aren't much use since they have writing on them... but the sides are good and they are slightly bigger than the DIN sized opening

[omarq]

Here's a picture...

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