Congrats on a great looking system...

 

I took the car to a custom stereo installation shop in the St. Charles area (located next to Elite Auto Body). They use high density foam to custom mold car parts i.e. dash, door panel, stereo bezels etc. The original design for the ipod storage area was to have rollers to slide the ipod in. The ipod would lock in and you would then have to push on the ipod and it would roll out. There was not enough room to make this work so I settled for the manual method. By using this process, the crossbars could be reduced to fit the double din and still leaves the door. The foam is very strong which allowed for the crossbar to be reduced in size. The door was cut down on the top to allow for some additional room as well.

The crossbars, ipod storage area and the material around the stereo was all pour with foam and curved into shape. The head unit was wrapped in a heat resistant plastic and the foam was poured around the head unit to get a very tight fit. Removal of some foam was required to allow the face to open.

The shop needs the car to make sure the head unit and bezel has a good fit.

You can do this same process with the abs, fiberglass material found in other threads. What is different here from the other installs is leaving a functional door and the ipod storage.

If you are interested, send me an IM and I can give you more info.

Jeff

 

Jeff
Your system looks good. The reason I was asking I tried to get someone to do something similar but could not find anyone I trusted
so I did it myself. How do you like the Z1
Paul

 

Nice work!

 

Nice work and a great job on the mods.....

 

Very nice!

 

Such a GREAT idea for the ipod!

 

Great Install ! !..That's having your cake and eating it too I have the Z1 in my Silverado and LOVE IT, so now to fit one in my C5

 

I had the same problem. I usually do the mods to my car. I did not have the time and decided to have someone else do this mod. It did not go smoothly for the install shop. They had my car for 4 weeks. I almost fired them but decided to let them finish. I am happy with the finished product.

As far as the Avic Z1, I really like it. I have the blue tooth, xm, backup camera and steering mounted remote control. Everything works great. If I forget to install my ipod before I leave, I have all my songs in the Avic's memory. I would recommend it to others.

Do you have a pic of your install from a distance? It looks like you did a similar install. I like the Corvette bezel you installed around your ipod.

Jeff

 

More pics

I have access to a CNC mill which made this project possible.

 

PK1 and JJK - Looks great. I especially like the one with the face plate to make the unit appears to be the same width as the climate control unit. Wish someone would manufacture a double din console for C5 with factory texture without costing a few hundreds of $$ to have someone modify it.

PK1 - how much did it cost to do the console? Are you making any extras?

 

Dude that ipod dock is the ****! I'm definitely going to have to look that up for my stereo install.

What speaks did you decide to go with? I'm kind of in a toss up with that right now.

 

PK1 - Nice install!!! You went all out on the ipod storage compartment.

Do you belong to any Corvette clubs in town?

 

Nice job!!!!

 

 

Thanks
It took me 6 weeks or more.
No clubs

 

Both setups look beautiful. Like the ipod holders

 

Cool!

 

Nice work, looks great.