Choreo

You make me tired.

Great Job! I am guessing that you REALLY did not want the mounting plate to come loose!!!

Pack Leader

Nice job, bet it sounds great....

Patches

Today I mounted the rearview camera. I'd been thinking about coming up with a fairly stealthy mounting scheme. The wife and I finally agreed on "The Eye of God" approach.

I measured where I wanted it and transferred that dimension set to the license plate holder. I measured the camera head (which is a one-inch cube - weird form-factor to mount) and cut a hole in the holder just large enough that the camera head was very snug.





I modified the bracket that came with the camera by lengthening the slots and bending the end of the legs 90 degrees. I found the appropriate hardware for the bracket and marked and drilled holes fot its screws and pre-threaded the license holder holes with the bracket screws.





Here's a trial fit of the camera bracket on the license holder.


I ran the camera and reverse trigger wire from the rear hatch area to the inside of the rear fascia, hooked the trigger wire to the reverse lamp, dremeled a little clearance for the camera bracket in the fascia material behind the license plate area and mounted the holder and plate back in place.

Here it is all put back together.




Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to test it since the battery was kaput. I took it to the parts store where I bought it 2 years ago and got a free replacement. It's an Optima Red Top that hasn't shown the stamina my 8-year-old Red Top in my other C5 has. I'll be installing it in the morning and testing the camera so I should have more pics then.

Vegas Vette

Nice job ED thats pretty trick I kinda did the same thing with my rear view camera.

Its in the middel of my my plate.

pentavolvo

awesome, so hows it sound

MSO4

Looks great!

Let me know how the images turn out, especially at night. I heard some people get glare if the license plate light shines on the camera. Also I notice a lot of OEM cameras are mounted slightly off centered and usually not in direct exposure to the license plate light.

Patches

No glare - the camera lens is slightly behind the plane of the backup lights. Here are a couple of shots I got this morning after installing the new battery.

This one is a bit washed out from the flash.


A little closer w/o flash


As a comparison, here's the OEM rearview on my Hummer.


It's mounted on the left side of the bumper ~1/3 of the way from the end and angled to compensate.

Patches

Tremendous! Hits incredibly hard! The tuning how-to you sent did wonders! Thanks, Greg!

Lancejoker

Can you send that tuning how to to me please? Lancejoker@yahoo.com

pentavolvo

curious where u ended up with the gain on all ur channels, the tweeter attenuation, and what kind of equalization levels.

Patches

Fronts are at ~60%, rears ~40%, sub is all the way but the remote controller **** I vary from 3-8, depending on the type of music. I'm running the tweeter att on the xovers at -3dB and the higher freq. on the EQ are toned down a bit also. I will be playing with these settings quite a bit as I get accustomed to the system and as it breaks in.

Love the remote sub level control - that is a good idea.

MSO4

Talk about being creative. I like it.

Unfortunately CA plates are mostly all white so a black hole in the middle would definitely draw some attention. And glad to know you don't have glare.

Originally I picked up a license plate camera but I don't want to get rid of my CORVETTE frame. Also, it might draw too much attention. And I'm thinking if some idiot tries to steal it I might drive off not knowing my plate is on the ground. Either that or keep checking my plate every time I get into my car.

So I picked up another square camera made by the same company (Farenheit CCD-4xs). It's 3/4 x 3/4 x 1 in so slightly smaller than the Kenwood. The C6 has very little room to mount anything back there so I might need that extra 1/16 to 1/8. Although it's a 160 degrees wide view camera so I hope that's not too much.

0TheRadioFlyer97

very nice. Quality install and well thought out.

My only suggestion is to move the tweeters to the a-pillars to raise the staging.

Patches

Still considering that as a separate mini-project. I was pretty much out of time by the time I finished this install. Obviously, I'd want to do it properly and that means molding them in the pillars which I have read a few threads on. Not a simple job but doable. Figured I'd wait 'til it warms up a litte before I tackle that one.

The tweeters for the factory Monsoon system in my Hummer are in the A pillar and you can definitely notice a nice improvement in the staging in that setup.

Jacks2002

You are a modding god, my friend. Just one question:

What do you do for a living? Rocket Scientist? Neurosurgeon?

Your attention to detail is mind-blowing!

Patches

Engineer - transplanted from Atlanta area 4 years ago. Last lived in Canton, GA.

pentavolvo

just curious mechanical engineer?

Patches

Yep.

pentavolvo

Im sure you could have guessed, but EE here.

nearwater

That's an incredible installation you did there. Almost to the point where I find it hard to believe it's your first time doing a full custom setup.
I really should learn how to take things one step at a time and not to rush into things.
I was so eager to listen to the system that I didn't pay enough attention to little details.

Now that I've spent some time listening to my system, I feel the need to redo the sound deadening.
I didn't do any of the hatch area or the cabin floors and without those, it's hard to listen to clean music at speed above 45.(I have Corsa sports on my C6)


Let me ask you all experts this; How much of a difference would it make between no sound deadening(except the doors) and an installation like Patches did above?
Would it significantly cut down the road/wind noise so that I could enjoy the music even at highway speeds?

Dan