glad someone thought it was funny.

 

i donno if you guys noticed, but scrolling down this site (fitfreak)
is pretty damn tricky.

not only do you have visble ads that you dont want to press
cause it'll just take you to the next celestical body of which
we dont know, but then you got the invisible ads that you
frikken warp to some other cosmos.

 

Heh^
Keeps us on the good servers

 

hahaha. yah, i know you guys are trying hard to keep this site running.

thought it was just kinda funny.

 

man... cant wait to get that new HU installed.
i think im going to just do the whole install tonight instead of
waiting for the weekend cause i never know wat might crop up.

like last night, after my biz conf-call with japan and china for a
couple of hours after work wife hands me a wired remote
walkin' flappin' dinosaur stuffed animal thingie for me to fix.
thing is like 12" tall and pretty funny looking. anyway, my younger
kid apparently tore the wires inside the cord and needed an
entirely new cord soldered on. thought i'd be a quick fix...

took me almost 2 frikken hours to fix the damn thing cause i had
to literally cut into the stuffed animal like doing surgery, then
pull out its mechanical gut while propping open the large 7"
gash to get to his harness. yum, robotic open heart surgery.

did some bypass surgery on this thing's main harness. then
glued everything back together to make it look as good as new.
and the frikken remote side was another joke cause the
2 buttons that control the walking and flapping was also
broken and one of the tension springs bounced out and fell
under my work bench. arrrrrr~!!! where the f- did you go
you stupid spring??!! finally found it after a long search.


so ended up taking me past my bed time (10:30pm) and on
top of that, wife was coughing due to her cold early morning
and i couldn't get much frikken sleep.

i apparently fell deep asleep AFTER turning off the alarm
at 5:30am (figures huh? ) and got up at 7am so i completely
missed my morning drive on my MINI. faaaaaack!!

so decided to vac the 1st floor of the house before leaving
for work so i dont have to do it tonight.


so you see, never know wat might crop up and so i should
just do the entire install when i know i can.


where's the UPS guy anyway???

 

so the UPS guy came and dropped off my box
from crutchfield opened the box during
my break to check. everything looks good.

checked out the crutchfield-generated install
DIY manual. hells, it's got nice picts and instructions
i dont have to do a DIY. lol or, i'll just say
"see crutchfield install manual" lol. it not only
includes the stereo install, it also includes how
to do the speaker installs as well. good stuff.

the bezel they included is the metra one and
looks to be high quality. can't wait to work on it.
from the looks of it, shouldn't take me more than
1-1.5hrs to do.

 

yah, yah, yah, 1hr for the install sure... NOPE.

more later... hahaha!

 

so last night i was doing the stereo install and everything went fairly
to plan... well, until i was done removing the factory unit from
the car. it's a very tight fit with just the 7 clips. This is after removing
the 2 HU screws. dang... i pulled. nothing. pulled harder from the
bottom. thing released. then pulled the top hard and pulled the
factory stereo out of my car. i thought...

i placed my factory unit on my workbench and i saw that i managed
to break the factory fan switch module when i pulled the unit out.
WTF. the word of caution is, BEFORE removing the factory
stereo/hvac unit, unplug the 2 very bottom harnesses going to
the hvac.



so, i removed the fan sw module from the hvac unit. the ball, springs,
internal rotary conductors all separated. actually, i noticed i was
missing the ball. . so went hunting in my car for a bb
sized metal ball. (i use to be a tier1 automotive parts supplier so i
kinda know this stuff). after a while, i found it...and used tiny screws
from my RC car days from the sides (3). one of 4 clips were still in
tact. here's wat it looked like after... you can see the 2 screws
i used (green circles) and the RED line shows plastic missing. ooops.




so after that ordeal, i transfered the hvac assy to the Metra install
din bezel, installed the din bracket, everthing was pretty decent.
but i have to say, these made in china POS metra install-kits are
just so piss-poor quality that i had to remove all the hvac decals off
the factory unit and move them over. otherwise it just looked
too shitty.


then i slid everything back into my car, plugged everything, tested,
pushed in the bezel and WALLA! ... so i thought.


after everything was back together i turned on the unit again and
listened to my MP3's. oooo~ nice. i switched over to my FM radio
since it comes with HD radio and scanned for channels. nothing.
oh shit, i didnt check the radio before putting it back together.

so i removed everything out again while telling myself i am
an IDIOT for not testing the radio and checked my connections.
everything was plugged in correctly. i turned on the unit to test
the radio...as expected, nothing. i pushed the antenna connector
deeper into the HU... nothing. i look at the radio harness crutchfield
gave me. and sure enough the terminal pushed itself out of the
connector from the backside when i plugged it in last night. so i
force the terminal back into the connector where it should be and
tested. yaay! put everything back together.

WALLA! well, so i thought.


im sitting inside my car trying to set the clock and i cant figure it out...
JVC's owners manual booklet does not even have a section for setting
the clock. waat?! i know it has a clock because i downloaded
their full manual a few days ago from their site. so i pulled out my
notebook to the garage and FINALLY got everything setup.

here's where you can download the entire manual for the JVC.
i HIGHLY recommend you do.
JVC Mobile Entertainment \ KD-AHD39 - KD-AHD39 \ Introduction


everything works great, the sound is 1000000xxxxx better than stock.
WALLA!!! well, so i thought...


the damn metra bezel looks like crap. i mean come on, i'll pay
5x the amount but please make a nicer looking quality product.


anyway, here's a pict of the finished product. the color match is better
than the pict, but the fitment does not meet my quality standards,
nor the finish durability either. but hey, at least the stereo sounds
pretty damn good. it was fun, but spent too much time on
tangents like a middle-aged japanese woman shopping at the grocery
store. kidding kidding... that was just my wife.

 

Congrats on the install, I think I was just thinking about this earlier, "I wonder if Ken got the new radio in yet"? I agree with you on the fit/quality of the Metra kit, ughhh. Oh yeah, the JVC manuals for their radio's suck, ask me how I know. It took me forever to figure out how to set the clock after installing the SSI intake last week.

 

hahaha, thanks davela. yah, it wasn't a smooth install
at all, but at least the finish was a pretty decent.


yah, for those that are considering a JVC HU, beware that
the manual sucks. it's like a computer geek writing his
essay about how to improve interfacing with Access software
or something.... YWAAAAAAAAWNN

but the downloaded one is pretty decent. at least you can
index and find keywords using pdf reader.

 

^^ and i english writing not so good today.

 

so anyway... the drive home was pretty damn awesome with
the new HU. the sound is incredible considering the stock
speakers. very nice tight lows and very nice clean high's. im
not a basshead so there's PLENTY of bass to go around the
car with my type of music.

which is mostly j-pop and plenty of contemporary jazz, some
top40 tracks, some R&B, etc. and the HD radio just sounds
so clean. hard to distinguish between MP3 and FM now...
but stating HD Radio FM sounding like CD's is not so true.

CD's have MUCH more dynamic range. FM is dynamically
compressed. but atleast it sounds clean.

 

happy november, guys....man, october went by in a flash.

remember to set your clocks back tonight before going to sleep.
yes, you get an extra hr of sleep. ... well, for us older guys.
you younger guys get an extra hr to party.


think im going to show off my HU to the wife later on today during
our errand to the stores.

 

washed my car this morning so took another pict of the
stereo. it's funny how you start to forget the details of
those pos low-end china quality imperfections after a while...
it actually looked pretty decent to me today.

never mind the wet a/s floormat... like i said, i washed the car this am.

 

well hello...

 

so tonight i drove my FitS to my favorite chinese place about 25min
from my house to pickup my carryout. paid for my stuff, lady
gave me my bag of chinese goodness and i place it on my a/s
floormat on the passenger side...hoping that it wouldn't spill over.

the bag was unbalanced and quite wobbly, but didn't seem to
tip over, but not knowing the threshold when it might tip over,
i felt like i was working for some tofu shop in japan trying not
to spill a cup of water in my hachiroku. lol

the drive was nice. my HU rocks mang...stereo sounds sooo much
better than stock, i luv the thing. JVC couldve made the track
skip buttons bigger, but oh well. even while listening to music
pretty loud not concentrating too much on my shift and clutch
engagement, the wobbly bag of dinner did not tip over. kinda
tells you how smooth the FitS's ECU map is.

got home, handed off the take out bag to my wife for her to
set the dinner table while i went back outside with my maglite
to inspect the floormat for any spills. there was a dimesized
oil stain on the mat, which appears to have been on the
outside of the bag from the beginning, so i took some alcohol
to wipe down the oil and lightly applied PrimaNero (50/50 dilluted
with water) on the mat for a nice matte finish. search "nero" at
www.detailersparadise.com

dinner was great.

 

updated my albums. not too many new picts, but just organized using
older picts i had.

https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/memb...an-albums.html

 

Ken, I still can't get over your garage, I'm jealous If you ever get a chance, take a picture from the outside in.

 

hahahaha. so you want to see 2 car butts, huh?

 

Haha, just like to see how everything is set up, i.e., shelving, storage, etc....