A little b-day bling for my Crewzer

[robmir]

Originally Posted by 98 SNAKE EATER

I'm actually working on a fix for this

There's still a bit of room behind the HU, so I'm gunna weld a center section onto another set of OEM brackets and drill new holes about half inch back to pull the HU flush with the trim

Hope yo are right, cause as I recall it taked me an arm and leg to fit my XAV-7W all the way down (which seems to be deeper than the XAV-1W because of been the slide out type). I am not sure but believe the upper end has less clearance than the lower end at least on my older dash model.

I don't know about yours but mine has something that not many people know, a small OEM side fan, which blows air to cool the HU, ours didn't came with the power amp under the glovebox, meaning that the OEM high powered indash unit get's hot when keeping the volumen high.

What's your review regarding the HU display location and how the sun reflect on it ?

[98 SNAKE EATER]

Yes, it has the little cooling fan behind it

I'm guessing it's heat activated cause when I did a bench test it didn't turn on

As for the screen, the position is fine and I sometimes tilt it up one notch on angle adjustment if I'm sitting upright...

Don't have any problems with glare, but then again, I'm running limo tint on top of the factory tint

[robmir]

Originally Posted by 98 SNAKE EATER

Yes, it has the little cooling fan behind it

I'm guessing it's heat activated cause when I did a bench test it didn't turn on

As for the screen, the position is fine and I sometimes tilt it up one notch on angle adjustment if I'm sitting upright...

Don't have any problems with glare, but then again, I'm running limo tint on top of the factory tint

The fan should work only with the switch at the ignition position but not at the accesory position, as I guess you tested. It's very quiet but you can feel when on.

Please let me know if you were capable of moving it deeper inside the dash and post a picture.

[98 SNAKE EATER]

Originally Posted by robmir

The fan should work only with the switch at the ignition position but not at the accesory position, as I guess you tested. It's very quiet but you can feel when on.

Please let me know if you were capable of moving it deeper inside the dash and post a picture.

I bench tested it on a jumper box with both the power and accessory wires connected and didn't notice the fan spinning


It's definitely possible to move the unit back, but because the stock mounts has a cutaway in the center and not much meat around the edges, they give very little to work with

If they had been solid, I would've just drilled new holes in them and set the HU back a little

Once I find another set of mounts to play with, I'll rip her out again....

[Brian Macgyver]

I love it!
The back seat video is worth its weight in gold. I have just one in the rear "peanut gallery" so I use the portable, laptop DVD unit. With enough movies and a DVD unit, the "peanut gallery" is quiet.
I ran from the coast to northern Arizona one day, 14 hours of drivers seat time, without one peep from the "peanut gallery".
The only advantage of the single kid and portable unit is that I can plug the unit into hotel TV's and wear it out faster. I have used up three of them in three years, and don't regret any of them! They are priceless.

[latinoguy]

speechless...

[98 SNAKE EATER]

OK, since the HU has a karaoke mode with a mic input, I wired up a flush mount 1/4" input jack so we can sing along to Simon and Garfunkel







It also doubles as a guitar input, so I can plug in my axe and jam to buckethead while driving

[powdahbonz]

Who is the maker of the flip downs you installed? I really like that idea-you said $100 each on ebay?
I really like the rack as well-the vid on youtube w/ the horn blasts makes me giggle-the neighbors must love you on fourth of July

[98 SNAKE EATER]

Originally Posted by powdahbonz

Who is the maker of the flip downs you installed? I really like that idea-you said $100 each on ebay?
I really like the rack as well-the vid on youtube w/ the horn blasts makes me giggle-the neighbors must love you on fourth of July

They don't have any specific maker stamped on them (just says TFT LCD), but I must say the picture quality is excellent and I still have yet to pull the protective skin off the screens

Mine were $199 for the pair, but I've seen the same 9" screens go for as low as $149

Checkout Ebay seller "starbuck246", he has them in 3 colors (tan/gray/black)

If you don't mind going a little smaller, they also have 7" screens with BIN listings as low as $118

As for my neighbors, they love the homeade fireworks show I put on every year (candles + hairspray + air rilfe = FUN!!)

The best is when the ball drops on new year's eve though (I empty the tanks on the rack lol)

[98 SNAKE EATER]

OK, so yesterday I was messin around with the guitar in the shop and one of our bodymen walks over, grabs the guitar and starts jammin out of nowhere

YouTube - Rafi's Cuban Cruiser Jam




After that, he grabs the mic and kicks it with some karaoke

YouTube - Rafi's Cruiser Karaoke jam

[PDoyle]

Dude! I'd sell my house and live in the 80!!!

[JML403]

Threads like this bring out all sorts of crazy ideas! Thanks for sharing all the details and what not. Looks good

[vladi80]

now thats BLIIIING !!!!! GOOD JOB

[robmir]

Originally Posted by 98 SNAKE EATER

OK, so yesterday I was messin around with the guitar in the shop and one of our bodymen walks over, grabs the guitar and starts jammin out of nowhere

YouTube - Rafi's Cuban Cruiser Jam




After that, he grabs the mic and kicks it with some karaoke

YouTube - Rafi's Cruiser Karaoke jam

Yesterday I had the pleasure of sitting in the non USA 200 series of a friend who replaced it's OEM head unit with a Kenwood DNX8120 and I realized I wasted my money in the Sony XAV-1W which I had not installed yet and already hate !!!!

This unit is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING, and he got it for about $1200 through amazon with absolutely all the required accesories including the rear camera, the ipod control cable, the GPS antena, etc.

It has a SD slot on which he downloaded to it's internal GPS all our country Garmin maps including addreses to our local restaurants and voice guide you to them through the drivers left speaker when the remaining speakers still play music for the passengers, he hooked his 160 GB ipod classic, he paired the bluetooth to his Blackberry 8320, dial numbers, review all his calls log, his contacts, and from which he can send music via bluetooth and pause or play it from the Kenwood touch display which take control of many of the Blackberry functions, he hooked a rear camera just under the third brake light without opening any holes keeping it concealed, and the cherry on the top of the cake is that he could interface the OEM steering wheel buttons to the Kenwood code learning steering wheel input control so now he can do almost everything from the steering wheel when he is too lazy to do it from the touch display. And he has not yet hooked a rear monitor to it's dual zone output @#$%^&.

The unit also plays DIVX movies !!!!!!!!

[98 SNAKE EATER]

Nice, but even though it's lower than the normal price, $1200 is still quite a bit of cheese and way more than what I'd be willing to throw down on an HU no matter how many gadgets it has

We got the Sony for just a little over $500 and it fulfills all our needs and then some

[robmir]

Originally Posted by 98 SNAKE EATER

Nice, but even though it's lower than the normal price, $1200 is still quite a bit of cheese and way more than what I'd be willing to throw down on an HU no matter how many gadgets it has

We got the Sony for just a little over $500 and it fulfills all our needs and then some

He didn't purchase the Sirius, XM or HD tuners nor the TV tuner, since any of them make any sense here.

Unfortunately the way I see it, is that they are not just gadgets, because if you add the cost of a GPS navigation unit, a full featured bluetooth handsfree unit, a DVD / monitor HU and a rear camera, the sum of the parts is a lot more that what he paid and everything is so smootly integrated, there is not words to describe it, of course all in a plush 200 series with the kinetic suspension crawling option which makes me feel my 80 as an old and way outdated SUV.

The ipod control is lightning fast as I never saw in any vehicle HU, the bluetooth section is par with my top of the line Parrot handsfree(which Kenwood licensed) and a GPS to guide me to my favorite spots in the rain forest once I copy the waypoints from my friends which recorded them previously on their expensive Garmin 276C's, an all in one box with a very easy hook up makes me

The only subject I am quite dissapointed is that his 200 cruiser came with the 4.7 engine instead of the bigger available in the states, bearing that this cruiser is heavier than our 80 series, so it feels like a very soft and nice brick.