Ok, bought my red 8 a couple weeks ago. Love it as a car, hate the Bose sound system. From my Probe I've removed the following:

JL 1000/1 amp
JL 450/4 amp
Kenwood KRC-X869 HU
2 Boston Acoustics 12" Pro subs in enclosure
Boston Acoustics 6.53 Pro components for the front
Boston Acoustics 6.5 Pro components for the rear
Sirius receiver
Kenwood 10 disc changer
Kenwood Keg.

Now. Obviously the RX8 is a bear of a car to work with in terms of electronic components. It appears that physically minimal work needs to be done to get the rear speakers in. Maybe an spacer adapter for the main woofer with a hole for the tweeter. Up front, it seems that the stock 9" woofer leaves enough space to fit the 6" woofer and 4" midrange, and obviously nearly a drop in replacement for the tweeter. Sound good so far?

No doubt about it, I need a new enclosure box to fit the subs in. Not my first choice, but not much alternative if I want a sub.

It looks like I can mount the amps along the sides of the trunk. Okay, it might look decent. Probably still space in there for my 1 farad cap beside the sub back there, and still have some sort of trunk space.

Connecting the amp and the rest is a little dicey. Looks like for the time being, the stock HU has to stay. No panel adapter for an aftermarker HU and I guess some display items are controlled by the radio.

So from my exhaustive search, I need to connect my amps from line outs from the Bose amp. To get the Sirius to work, a PIE adapter is my best choice and then run it through the stock HU (I am NOT going to spend more money getting another stock HU I don't particularly want that has a built in Sat function) So that means in terms of my changer, Keg and Kenwood HU that I am basically SOL for the time being, unless I want my HU in the glove box. Sound about right?

Does anyone think even going to this length is worth the cost and effort without the rest hooked up?

 

yes you can do all of that..
you can even bypass the HU audio.. you do need to leave it in the car hookd up .. it does controll other stuff besides the Music .. SO I would .. get a P.I.E. box.. send in your audio that way. then just by pass the bose amps with your own.. also swap speakers to.. and add a better tweeter system to the door panles.. i did this first and with my eq on my DVD i can deal with the Bose componets .. i will very soon swap out my rear cones for someting nicer.

 

What you say makes sense, but how do things run though the aftermarket HU? How do you mount it? If it has to go in the glovebox, well frankly its not worth it. Unless someone thinks its practical or cheap enough to have Tweeter or some other shop fabricate a face plate for the HU. Otherwise I get the feeling I'm losing something in sound quality if everything has to run through the stock HU.

 

take apart your HU...let the Core of it remain (it is a small pcb) make sure it is reinforced because if you break it you have to get a whole new HU. That will remain for ACC controls and the E-flashers.

Then install the HU and speakers you want...talk to devoid this is how his was done

there are a lot of wiring harnesses you will need and such and such and such but all of this you can get through PIE it is inexpensive and thew sells it anyway just tell him what you want he'll get it for you go to his site and then click on the PIE link and you can view their whole catalogue

otherwise have a 1-din in the R-magic pod that goes wheere the factory nav would go...see if thew sells those to...you have to import them from japan...I'll find a pic if you want it

also check out this custom install devoid had done: http://devoid.mine.nu

 

Many thanks. Nice to know this is doable. I guess the most difficult part is getting a single din panel for my HU. Difficult from a logistics standpoint. The rest should be relatively easy as running RCAs from the HU to my amps isn't a big deal, nor is installing the speakers. The other Kenwood stuff will plug right onto my HU with the cd plug.