# 2000 Pontiac Grand Prix RE/Polk Sound system install



## Deathjunior (Aug 2, 2011)

So heres the selection of parts thats going to be going into the car








For the kick panels a set of Polk MM 5251 components, for the rear mids and highs a set of DXi 6900 6x9 coaxials, and a set of DXi 400 4 inch coaxials. For subwoofers I will be running RE Audio SEx 12D4's. The subs will be powered by a Polk Audio PA1200.1 PWM Amplifier, as for the speakers, they will be power by a pair of Polk Audio PA 660 4 channel class AB amplifiers.

So Heres the work I have already done, ill start with my stereo








This is my stereo a kenwood Excelon X994 single din. Mounted with a HUmount install and a PAC Swi Alp Steering wheel control kit. Theres also a custom ipod dock you can't see cause of the shifter, and a center control mounted AUX input for the stereo plus a switch to turn the light on and off above the deck.

Initially i had this stereo, my stock 2000 grand prix bose system, this stereo and my old RE RE10 d4, which was later swapped for the SR10 d4. But now i'm looking for a little more power. So i'll continue with stage one of the build. This was actually when I swapped my fuel pump and deadened the trunk floor but since I don't have photos of that lets just skip straight to the rear deck speaker build. 









So I started off by taking each of the speakers and soldering on some leads so it will be easy to install the the speakers later, The leads were made using rosin core solder and 12 gauge kicker hyper flex twisted pair wire. Then heat shrink wrap the ends lol








Added some XTC baffles to both stop the rattles and give a little more control to the bass on the rear speakers. I may lose some power but I'll gain a little punch. 








Next comes the fun part. And by fun I mean annoying. Gotta pull the rear seat, rear deck panel, MLV sheet and all the foam. Heres some of the panels just sitting lol. And heres the result.








A little bit empty lol, the bose were kindof decent really to bad the deck rattle to much. So now these little guys have gotta go.








They aren't to bad of magnets for my cabinet though. I was actually surprised with these. Paper cones, and a weird kindof nylon ish surround








Gonna start deadening up the pods a little bit to mount the baffles in them. These things barely clear the rear deck panel lol.








They managed to fit decently well, even the OEM screws worked just fine. Now I just need to deaden up the rear deck and throw everything back together.








So heres the deck with the speakers all installed baffles down and bolted in, this might have been more trouble than its worth and I won't even know how they sound until the amps are both installed.


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## Deathjunior (Aug 2, 2011)

Apparently im only allowed 10 pictures per post.... looks like i've gotta post another one lol.








Got the deck back in place you can just barely see the tweeters behind the panel lol. Looks good, just hope it sounds good when I actually get to power them. 

So with build day 1 finished onward to build day 2.









Gotta start pulling the seats and the interior so I can start deadening the floor. Seat 1 down only 1 seat and a whole mess of carpet and padding to go lol.








Two seats down, and a center console is left all by its lonesome I had to kinda learn on the fly how to take all of this stuff apart since I haven't pulled apart a grand prix interior before. I worry a bit when I install stuff on my own car. Does anyone else do that?








Got all the carpet out an most of the sound Raamat is in. Just need to coat it all in CCF. Damn its cold outside








Alright all the raamat is finally in easily 50% coverage, should be plenty. Soo thats it for day two, been at it all day so time to quit it and go play some football with the guys.


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## Deathjunior (Aug 2, 2011)

Let build log day three begin, gonna be another long day and long night.








Started out by coating my kicker 0 gauge power wire and RCA's in tech flex. 
So say hello to my new wires. The old stuff has gotta go.








Got the wire through the firewall, I have to say I kinda like how there was already a giant rubber grommet making it really easy to get the wire through.








Zip tied the power wire to the strut brace for now since I will not be powering anything for a little while, probably a month, maby two. Gonna be a while til I can use the shop again since its full of a land yacht Chevy Del Ray. 







Got my power wire and pair of control wires in the silver one goes to the speaker amps and the yellow its going from the ignition to the bass amplifier.








Time to make some speaker leads to go from the trunk to the front door and kick panel speakers. I'll zip tied these in with the power and RCA's.







Time to finally put down the layers of CCF and throw the carpet back in. Hopefully the floor will be a whole lot more quite once this is done.








Carpets back in now onto deadening some of the leftover panels such as the center console, the under panels and a few other things.








Top panel for the center console deadened. 








And heres all the leftover parts after this part of the build. Still have a few things left but day 3 is completely over


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## Deathjunior (Aug 2, 2011)

Let build day four begin. Today is all about putting in my 6.5 inch midbass woofers as well as getting the doors all deadened up.

So time to begin pulling the doors apart and get started. Step one is to get he 6.5's in the original 5.25 panels. Idea 1 consisted of two layers of 3/4 inch particle board. 








This failed however, much two thick and my chop saw wasn't big enough to make the angled cut I wanted.








Option two plywood panel 3/4 inch. This also failed, still two thick and I also discovered that I just don't have clearance on the close corner at all. It caused a puncture in my speaker.








Had to fix the speaker surround, sure wasn't fun knowing I hurt my brand new woofer. Breakout the ABS rubber cement and fix it all lol.








Well time for plan C, gonna use expanding foam to fill the gaps then mount the speaker using screws however best I can though theres not much space. I'm gonna break out the pop riveter for this when I take the door panels off to build the tweeter pods.








Got all the raamat on the door, gotta put a little more down to close the air gaps on the foam. Luckily due to the bose package the doors were already deadened fairly well. 








Got the CCF installed as well and notice the plywood baffle is in this photo? You can tell I honestly thought that baffle would work can't you. Notice the crossover block. This surprisingly helped my older hertz tweeters quite a bit.








Heres how the door speaker wound up looking. The grill you see is the set from my 4 inch speakers after cutting up the 6.5 inch grills to fill the hole in the 4 inch grills where the tweeters are supposed to go

So thats my build log up to today, next steps will be tweeter pods, big three, a new mech man alternator and then I can finally move on to the biggest part of the build. The trunk


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## silversound (Feb 5, 2010)

looks good, how do you like the Kenwood deck


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## KyngHype (Sep 7, 2009)

Nice build. I still like to see these kinds of installs..


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## Deathjunior (Aug 2, 2011)

silversound said:


> looks good, how do you like the Kenwood deck


I like it a whole lot actually. Its nice being able to do my time alignment and a bit of my EQing from the deck. I'll most likely be throwing in an MS8 next year sometime. The whole point of this system is to make it look like it could have been a plausible factory option. Thats why I picked such docile looking speakers and amps and why I went with the HU mount.



KyngHype said:


> Nice build. I still like to see these kinds of installs..


What kind of installs lol


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## trumpet (Nov 14, 2010)

Hi George. Looking good so far. Keep up the nice work.


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## birdman7389 (May 18, 2011)

Looks good, lotsa work. But dizzam....thats a GROSS center console and carpet! Steamcleaner, stat!


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## Deathjunior (Aug 2, 2011)

Yea my steam vac's attachments were to gunked up to use and its way to cold out to wash the carpet lol I mean cmon its snowing outside. Otherwise I was pretty disgusted with the carpet myself. As for the center console? what of it its clean plastic lol. I haven't spilled anything in the car since I've owned it. Doesn't mean I haven't found a lot of **** from the original owner. The carpet wasn't the half of the stuff the original owner managed to do to the car. I could probably write a couple pages about the sad way this car was treated

Heres how it looked after a week of me owning it though








1 Buegler pinstripeing tool, red strip paint, 1 can of red caliper paint, 1 can or torch red corvette paint, 1 can or red high heat engine paint, a vaccuum, armorall, a **** ton of aluminum polish, some paint work on the fender, a new overdrive gear, 2 new trailing arms, red pontiac overlays, and a **** ton of elbow grease later. This is what it looked like. The shabby state of those wheels and the interior disturbed me just a bit.... I dunno how cars can honestly get in that bad of shape. Is it so hard to go to a car wash every month or so?


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## Deathjunior (Aug 2, 2011)

Yea the most im gonna do if anything now that the winter has gotten real cold is gonna be the big three and the alternator install as well as a new intake gasket since mine has a slow leak. This is assuming that I can get some garage space. Cause my main shop is full of del ray and the side shops aren't heated and are full to the brim with 3 cars a gator, a lawn mower, and a tractor lol


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## PottersField (Mar 18, 2011)

I think what the other guy meant by "these types of installs" is the budget-friendly, real-world kind of stuff 

I'm diggin' your choice of amps. Of course, with a PA660 and PA880 under my front seats, I'm a bit partial  I recently installed that head unit in my buddy's Jetta and it's definitely a nice head unit. Took me a while to figure out the DSP menu, seems Kenwood doesn't like using silly names like "EQ" or "crossover" or "time alignment" to help people navigate through the menus :rifle:


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## Deathjunior (Aug 2, 2011)

Im not sure about budget friendly lol if you had to pay in store price for everything your looking at about two and a half grand for all my parts alone that doesn't include the 117 sq ft of raamat, 6 yards of ensolite, kickers 0 gauge wiring kit, the spool of kicker 12 gauge, kicker x series RCA's and so on..... I think i calculated the total value of it once and it was close to about 3.5 grand. Considering the cars blackbook value is 5 I would say its not exactly budget minded lmao least not for a broke college kid like me =P. Then again I have seen a lot of builds here stretching into the 20k and 30k for parts


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## Deathjunior (Aug 2, 2011)

*Day 5, more of a half day*

Soo now day 5 finally lol. Kinda didn't get started til late at now. So to start get the saw outside of the shop since I now have heat inside and don't want saw dust. Step two, get some lights.
IMG]http://i1181.photobucket.com/albums/x430/Deathjunior/Build%20log%20day%205/DSCN0148.jpg[/IMG]


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## Deathjunior (Aug 2, 2011)

Day 5 so heres how the sub box began








Started out by planning my measurements of what the box would be and how it would fit. I measure about how high it could be as well as how deep I could make it and tried to get the angle in the car just right








By the time I had gotten home it was almost dark, so I started burning the midnight out with my saw outside since I had a new little car sitting inside








Say hello to the 1981 fiat spyder turbo, apparently one of less than 700 in the states








Made sure to use my old box that I had in the back seat as a good judge of angle so I knew it would line up pretty well. Heres what the old box looked like but I only ran the subwoofer in this picture for about 5 months before I swapped it out for a more powerful SR10








The port mach was a little bit higher than needed on this build. This meant that the wind coming from the ports would blow almost as hard as my AC along my arm rest in the front seat lol








Eventually I lined up the subwoofer realizing it would be a really tight squeeze lol. After this part I kinda say my camera down and completely forgot about it, managed to build top panels, side panels, and make double thick walls for where the subs will be. I also got all of my paintwork on the box accept for the back panel done. So heres what i looked like when I last took a picture with my phone. 








This a picture aiming through the blowthrough port mouth. In this picture the floor, front, and sides are complete, as are the subwoofer mounting panels. The full box needs to be photographed. I'll have pictures up in a few days hopefully. All thats left now is to repair one of the subs since a clamp fell off and damaged it during a test fit. Look at the floor of the box by the way. As of now the whole box is complete. All I have to do now is disassemble it, put the main piece in my trunk, and break out the wood glue and caulking sealant. Build it inside the trunk, and wire it up. Cause once this thing is in the trunk it isn't coming out


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## Deathjunior (Aug 2, 2011)

Whilst working on the subwoofer box I would take breaks in shop office to work on the voltage meter that will be going where my ash trey used to be.








So started out by cutting out two pieces of masonite to fit the voltage guage inside of it.








Time to break out the bondo. Not going on an exterior application so im gonna slather it on lol. 








Soo now I just need to wait for it to dry and sand a bunch. Then put down some more filler. Then sand it some more. 








Finished sanding and priming, then sanded with progressive paper up until 1000 grit. After that I threw down a few coats of plastic/vinyl paint to give a sturdy malleable finish. And heres how it looks next to the old ash trey.








Once i got the grey on I realized it was much to light. I proceeded to cut the panel down some more and sand it some more, and then I painted it with a more primer and a black vinyl paint. More pictures of that later


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## brandontw (Jan 21, 2012)

Lookin good!


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## Deathjunior (Aug 2, 2011)

Got some more pictures to post for tonight. I had planned on having the box in today but it was much to ****ty outside to do so. So I guess I will just have to settle for these.








Soo this is what the final back panel looked liked. Its quite close to the original Bn'L logo. Tried to make it kinda cool looking using the silver stripeing.








This is how it looks, no subwoofers in the box since I still have to disassemble it again to put it into the trunk. I will also have to wire it inside of the car and decide where the wires will come out of the box at








this is what will be seen from the inside of the car. Though it will be lit up with red LED's and it will actually have subwoofers in it lol.


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## Deathjunior (Aug 2, 2011)

So in the initial build of the subwoofer box a large clip fell off of the box and landed on my subwoofer. This caused my sub to have a 2 inch crack in the dust cap. So I had to wait on my dust caps to show up so I could repair the subwoofer and then proceed to the install. Anywho heres the build as I put it together inside of my trunk.








Had to put in the top, bottom, and front panels inside of the trunk because the box is just a bit to big in every way to go through my trunk door. I should also mention I put new brake pads on it and had my rotors turned on the same day. The rotors will be toast next time, good thing I'll be putting 18 inch zinik's on it and 12.7 inch GXP brakes by then.








finally getting there. Looking a lot better, just can't wait to get some lights in it and man does it fit in the trunk pretty snug.








lights installed, and I have the wires running out the back two the other two lights which play in time with these and run off of the same microphone. I have jerry rigged the wiring for now while I wait on figuring out a new battery solution since my old audio battery is apparently toast. But heres a night picture for fun


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## Deathjunior (Aug 2, 2011)

Got a lot of work done over the past few weeks in my spare time but I figure I'll just show a couple photo's of the progress








So I took off my OEM sailpanels, drilled out holes large enough to fit the back of the speaker. Then I cut out a circle the size I needed from hard board that I happened to have lieing around. I super glued it in place after checking the angles on them with a laser pointer aimed just behind my sunroof. Once the rings were in place I built the side walls of the sail panel with bass wood posts until it was solid. The added some bondo for looks.








Once finished panel down and heres how the pair of them look








Textured metallic paint, looks pretty good in my opinion but I'll leave it up to everyone else








Then I built this panel for switches. The one on the right controls my speaker lights, and the one on the left controls my interior lights, and of course my bass knob is in the middle. With some bullet connectors for quick removal. I should also mention I swapped the blue LED for a red one on the bass knob.








Grill lights and voltage meter lit up. I really like how all of this turned out. 








And heres how it looks with the interior light system turned on as well as the grills.








So heres a bit of eye candy, all of the speakers are installed. Whats left is swapping out my door speakers for polk MM's later on as well as finishing off the trunk install with a few beauty panels
























Heres how the amps are set up, now I need to go through and find a better ground. This one seems to work but I know the strut tower brace isn't a good place for it. I'll either add a second ground to the D block or just move this one. As for the finishing panels I'll be making an MDF false floor around the amps and a hardboard back panel, then coating it all in OEM colored carpet. The couple loose wires you see are for my last 2 LED light beam's and for the red LED's I installed in the PA1200.1's heat sink.


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## JCoffey (Feb 8, 2008)

Great install. One thing I would point out is that the Blose setup on the rear deck used the 4" for highs, and the 6x9 for mids and lows. With the Polk 6x9s in there, the 4" arent needed, and may cause you to lose some SQ. Thats a lot of tweeters behind your head, not to mention the distortion from them playing to low, depending on where they are cut off at. My suggestion would be to remove them, plug the holes and just use the 6x9s. You'll have a lot less reflections coming off the rear window, 2 less channels of amp power (or HU power) to run, and your back wont overpower your fronts. 
But please dont think Im knocking your work. It looks like a solid build that will make you happy!


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## f5racing (Apr 9, 2012)

Do you have another fuse block at the battery? I see the one just before the distribution block, but I never saw one under the hood.


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## Deathjunior (Aug 2, 2011)

Thanks for the comments guys, I'll have the trunk figured out in a couple weeks as long as I get some free time, but working on this with a part time job, and full time college, plus taking care of my yard (its way to big for one guy) and helping with the dealership takes up a lot of a 20 year olds time lol.

Yea on the rear deck I have the gains turned down at the amp so most of the sound comes from the front and I have the 4's tuned with the amps internal crossover well above the 250 mark to keep the from distorting. I kinda wanted to keep every open slot full just so it was all there. Also it gives the amps symmetry, but you are correct with how the bose system was set up. I just didn't like the idea of leaving the gap empty especially not with how cheap I got those rear polks. However ever since its been turned on the tweeter in the back right one has a rear sputtering around 7K or so. So I'm going to wind up warranting them out soon enough anyway. I'll do some tests in the near future when I get the rest of it finished up. 

As for the fuse question I really don't see why I would need two fuses on one power wire. I already have 3 fuses on the subwoofer amp and 2 on each speaker amp for there internal guts so there safer. The big fuse on the main power wire is just to keep a surge coming back from the amps, when I already have one back there I really don't see a point in it, people say its smart to keep one close to the battery to keep it safe but the battery is old so I really couldn't care less 1, and 2 any surge would have to come back through the rear fuse before it could do anything. So to me it seems a waist much like 2 solid wood doors in one entrance way.


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## f5racing (Apr 9, 2012)

Deathjunior said:


> As for the fuse question I really don't see why I would need two fuses on one power wire. I already have 3 fuses on the subwoofer amp and 2 on each speaker amp for there internal guts so there safer. The big fuse on the main power wire is just to keep a surge coming back from the amps, when I already have one back there I really don't see a point in it, people say its smart to keep one close to the battery to keep it safe but the battery is old so I really couldn't care less 1, and 2 any surge would have to come back through the rear fuse before it could do anything. So to me it seems a waist much like 2 solid wood doors in one entrance way.


The fuse at the battery does more than just keep the battery safe, it protects your entire car. If you get a cut in your power wire and it shorts to ground, it will draw a tremendous amount of current. With the 1/0 wire you are running, if the car is running it will pull every ounce of power your alternator can produce, and heat up (just like when you short two terminals on any DC power source). The heat from 100+ amps running under carpet and foam will best case melt a few things, and worst case burn the car to the ground. 

You don't need the fuse in the trunk on the main line, but you can fuse each individual amplifier power wire so that you can power down one amp at a time, and isolate each amp from the other. The breakdown:

*Fuse under hood (<18" from battery)*: protect vehicle electrical system and main power wire.

*Fuse on each individual power wire*: protect each power wire run, and allow for isolation of each amplifier.

*Fuse(s) on each amplifier*: protect the amplifier's internal circuitry against too much current draw (shorted speaker leads, etc.)


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## getonerd (Jul 24, 2007)

looking good im tuned in


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## focused313 (Apr 19, 2012)

beautiful work on the voltmeter.


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## Deathjunior (Aug 2, 2011)

So I took some time and finished my trunk the past couple days, its taken me a while to find some time since I have had so much work lately. I have already worked 28 hours this week and I still have 3 shifts left and im a part timer lol. Can't wait to get paid overtime on saturday. Anywho, I began by pulling off of my trunk lid and painting all of the inside metal skin with textured metallalic grey paint. I also taped off all of the stickers and bolts so I could leave them to be used later. Then I sound dampened the lid in the crucial points and carpeted all of the painted metal that would be inside of the trunk seal. Heres how it came out. 










Once that part was done I moved onto the trunk. I started by making my center panel and routering out and carpeting the edges. I wanted to make one main center panel that way it would be easier to remove everything if need be. Heres how the middle panel looks with all of my fans and lights on.










Next I moved onto the side panels and the back wall. The whole floor is made of 3/4 inch MDF covered in color matched carpet. The right and left panels are routered on the edges for easy removal. As for the back wall I built the entire panel out of hard board and then cut my grand prix badge exactly to scale of my OEM door badges from 1/4 inch plywood. That way they would be strong and hold up. Then I attached them using nails and wood glue. Once this was done I carpeted the whole panel and put CCF on the back of it to keep it from rattling. Finally I bolted the lights to it and then bolted it to the back wall of the subwoofer box.










And heres how it all looks at night. 










Now I need to do a few final things to finish it all up to where I can be done for a while. Redo my door woofer mounts, new alt and a big three, and the biggest most annoying issue is solving the stupid amp hiss as well as the turn on pop. Only my rear speaker amp really has a turn on pup and my front doesn't. I find this odd since its all on the exact same distribution block. As for the hiss I am thinking its my ground since the existing ground is just my strut tower brace. I think I am going to drill through the floor and hit the unibody frame rail for a more direct ground and hope that solves a lot of the issues. Thanks for looking.


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## lostnocturne (Dec 22, 2009)

Very nice! I love the tweeter pods. Subscribed.


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## Deathjunior (Aug 2, 2011)

Today's update, first of all I picked up an audison bit 10 which is now running with high level inputs from my kenwood deck and runs RCA's to my amps. I knocked the gains all the way down to nothing. We have an SMD DD-1 on order for further tuning. Annoyingly enough a day after I got the bit 10 installed my front channel amp fried. So I pulled the rear channel amp out and put it on the front stage. If it fries as well I'm sending going to sell them on craigslist for a small profit and order some beefier polk amps among the series that my 1200.1 was built around. Then either a set of RE components in the doors or something else. It just has to match this color scheme. I'm really debating just saving up and buying all hertz on the front end.


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## Deathjunior (Aug 2, 2011)

So due to some ear issues I made a switch from SPL to SQL and now I'm just starting to get to work on it. But figuring since its been a long while since I was last on here I'd post a few things I didn't put on during the initial build and some stuff I have done during the time being.

I wanted to run my ipod directly into my stereo and be able to play whatever somone wanted in my car. So I did two things, 1 I bought a refurbished ipod classic for 100 bucks. Two instead of my old dock I custom built one from fiberglass wood. So far I am loving this I have had it in my car for a year now and its still my favorite ipod accessory.
The iPod soon got dropped at work last october so I decided I would mod and fix it. New 80gb hard drive 100 bucks. Compact flash card + ZIF adapter+rapid repair clear shell kit=110 so it was a no brainer. So I set out to modding my ipod.

Tear down was kind-of fun. I always find it interesting dismantling consumer electronics. Here's the finished product, seems to have 3 or 4 more hours more battery life and loads files faster. Plus if I drop it it won't quick working.

So I got an iPad mini last december and first thing I had to do? Aside from play random terrible games was bluetooth it from my dash. So I set out making a removable dash panel.

going to put it right above my air vents. Fiberglass panel and I'm going to put magnets in the dash and magnets in the panel so I can remove and add it whenever 

Started out by pulling the dash and place magnets on the inside of the dash using super glue, then attached magnets on the other side and fiberglassed them in place

Next step was to cover my ipad mini in tape as to keep all of the fiberglass off of it so I can make a pan for it.

Time for some glass, all I had left was woven but it worked fine for this purpose. Made the ipad pan and a sheet of exess glass for the rest of the build

Glassed the two together and starter trimming away the excess for styling and weight.

Getting smaller, time for bondo and primer

Test fit number one, I am starting to like this


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