I am doing the act same thing, since I am a nerd and want a tablet in my car. How much shaving did you have to in the back of the metra for the Nexus? Also, is having a Nexus worth it? Because I was waiting for the new one to come out, and from a nerdy guy's perspective, its a bitching tablet, but not sure if I should throw $250 for a tablet to sit in my car =/

Either way, crazy setup. What DAC do you have? And if I go this route, will a DAC setup be fine to the stock Bose amp?

 

Actually, I didnt shave anything of my metra kit to fit it. It *almost* fit, but I could not place the tablet perfectly behind the front plate because it was a couple of millimetres too high. So I had to place it somewhat angeling downwards.

However I have seen the specs of the new Nexus 7, and it is supposedly a few millimetres smaller. I'm not sure, but this might be enough for it to fit perfectly between the warning light switch and the heater controls.
But one good reason to place the tablet a bit downward angled as I have done now, is that you wont get glare from the back window.

My main reason to use the Nexus 7 is that is has a custom kernel that makes it possible to both charge and have usb devices connected at the same time. There might be other options, but none that I'm currently aware of.

I used this DAC:

I had it lying around, and didnt specifically buy it for this project, but it worked like a charm on the Nexus 7
I'm not sure about connecting it to the Bose amp, its probably possible, but I have no idea how much hassle it is to figure out the harness. In my setup I just removed everything and built the entire system from scratch.

IMO its really worth it to have a tablet in the car, you have a lot of cool possibilites like: updated navigation, streaming music from spotify, youtube, digital instruments from ODB2 connections and a lot more.

Sorry about poor language and metric units, as I mentioned earlyer, I'm from Norway

 

I just finnished up the last part of my subbox, the port vent outlet.

 

Attached below is a poor, low-light shot from my old-OLD phone of my Rockford Fosgate amp and matching speakers. Nothing special, stereo-wise, as these are running off the stocker, which I prefer, as I don't want the aesthetic of the R3 interior to be disturbed.

I'll try to get better pictures if I remember.

I stream all my music from my Galaxy S3, since I have the Google Play Music All Access.

I have one of these in the middle of my armrest, hooked to the aux jack and power outlet in the console:
^I just touch my phone against it to connect/disconnect, though I am planning on using the Android app AutomateIt to create a rule where it just connects/disconnects automatically when the Mazda phone BT connects/disconnects.

 

Nice man! I'm the same way, I love the look of the stock head unit so I used a preout from my speakers to hook up the amp.

 

Yup.

And here's a better picture of the setup:



The simple bluetooth unit sitting on my armrest:



One of these days, I'll find a better way to mount this, but I am very reluctant to cut into anything on my car. For now, it works great. And like I said, I only have to touch my phone against it to connect/disconnect my phone from it, so it's in the perfect spot.

 

That looks great! I just have my AUX cord coming out near the cig lighter. I took the bulb out from there and ran the cord through the hole. Nice and hidden!

 

Are you guys creating your own custom fit boxes? If so, what materials are you guys using exactly?

I used to have 2x 12in Kickers powered by a single amp, and replaced all factory stereo components with kicker ones and powered those speakers by an additional separate amp. That was on my Cavalier though.

I have never actually made my own box to place the speakers in though.

 

I've made boxes before but not for this car, I had it professionally done. But you can do some research online, there are different types of material you can use depending on how you want it to sound/how much power you're running. Just remember that each subwoofer needs a certain amount of airspace to sound how it should and a box cant just be some random size.

 

hello, i have been looking everywhere and can't find the answer, or come even close to a solution.
Help please.
I went to my local shop that does all kind of stuff with electronics.
i asked him if he could install me an aftermarket touchscreen radio.
he said he could do it, and has done to the rx8 before.
i also asked if i will be able to keep my factory navigation system properly working. he said no that i would lose it totally. is this true, or is there a way of keeping the factory navy with aftermarket touchscreen radio?

 

I successfully installed mine plus the steering controls and everything is working perfectly fine. but I'm having a BIG situation... The Manual included with the kit says to plug "the factory" LCD display cable on the back of the axxess unit but the cable end plug is BIGGER than the axxess port where it's supposed to fit.

Does anyone knows if there's maybe an adapter or something??? I can't stand not having the LCD screen display anymore!

 

1x 8" Square Kicker Solobaric sub sealed in passthrough (custom install, I'm not sure the volume)
1x 400w JL Audio amp for speakers,
1x 600w JL Audio amp for Subwoofer with bass control ****
JL Audio Speakers
JVC Mirrorlink DD headunit with iPod in glovebox

https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-multime...keover-234609/

 

Wow that looks really clean!

 

Yeah it took the guy almost 12 hours, but I was really impressed by how he did it. He was really nice and let me "help"/watch. The only problem was he glued the faux leather to the outside panel and when I put some Black Magic leather cleaner on it it really screwed it up (It made the glue underneath show through), so I took that piece down to an upholstery guy who stuck a little bit of foam under it which made it squishy and stapled/glued the material on the back for 20 bucks. I also had the subwoofer grill professionally painted to match the color of my car.