Okay so I am brand spanking new to the forum and I feel kinda bad cause I generally don't like to make a forum feel like a cheap whore and use it when I need something but I have kinda exhausted some other routs of information so here I am. I kinda start in the beginning, I bought my 2004 3.5RL last June at a Acura dealership in Scottsdale, AZ. I have been in love with it so far, its only my second car so far (as I am only 19) but the ride is so damn smooth and comfortable to drive that it has made me into kinda a car guy, since I wasn't before. Well here I am almost exactly a year later, its summer and I finally have some free time on my hands (except for working full time at best buy) and I really wanna do some work on my favorite car . Well I do a lot of driving usually cause I commute to college 3 times a week and its an hours drive each way if I don't get caught in traffic, and my work is 30 mins from home also. Being a big music guy, my first thought was to do some audio work. Well yeah after doing a little internet searching and not finding much, I finally stumbled upon this treasure trove of information, and well the news didn't really get any better. After spending the last couple days going through almost all 25 pages of threads I really haven't found much of what I am looking for, other than finding out that this car is kinda a pain in the ass to work on? Especially the 2004 navi? What I am going out to accomplish is an eventual fully new system. I cant say that I am knowledgeable on car audio in any way (don't worry I am a Geek Squad agent and am going to school for a double major in Computer Science and Physics, specifically quantum based applications, so you will never have to deal with me as brain dead best buy employee who doesn't know what they are talking about). I do however like to learn and do things my self, so I have been getting a few books and perusing the internet trying to educate myself on car audio. I am starting with installing two 10" Infiniti kappa 100.9w subs and run them off of a KappaOne 800 watt amp, I am then going to make some custom boxes with fiber and fit them in the corners of trunk. I think I pretty much know what I am getting myself into here, if I am not mistaken after reading a thread on here I found out that I will have to tap into my 6x9 wire right before they reach the Bose amp? The speakers will come eventually and correct me if I am wrong, but those should be fairly straight forward. I guess my real question is about the HU and everything it encompasses. Since I have the Navi I know that that throws something a lot bigger than a monkey wrench into the situation. So down the road here when I really wanted to get everything out of my system, I should be replacing the stock HU. Is it really even possible though? I mean without spending a lot of cash and doing it myself? Cause the A/C is all routed through the navi and someone said that by removing the head unit it would pretty much screw the navi over and I would lose the navi and A/C controls and pretty much all other functions of it. I don't care about the navi cause I just use my phone for that anyways, but the A/C is defiantly what I am worried about.

So please anyone with some experience on any subject involving aftermarket audio in one of these bad boys, if you could just throw your 2 cents at me I would be very appreciative. And if there is anyone in AZ who wants to ever give a guy a hand or need an extra pair and doesn't mind teaching me a thing or two about anything involving the RL, I am always down.

Thanks a ton guys, I'm pretty excited actually to have made my first post so now I can actually get involved.

 

Wow excuse me that was all actually quite rambling :| but I have never quite been as excited to be an Acura owner tell now

 

I've messed around with the RL's audio systems and I have a spare 2004 RL headunit. From what I can tell physically and from the shop manual, you will lose the navigation audio prompts as well as the voice recognition setup if you use an aftermarket headunit.

I have a Kenwood x994 in my '02 RL and it sounds great, includes bluetooth integration and a USB plug. The main issue you'll face is getting a trimplate to cover up the missing space around the aftermarket headunit.

 

No kidding Ken? Thats all? hmmmm wow I may have been making this out to be a much bigger deal than it was, cause I was under the impression I would loose A/C too and that would have ruined life for an AZ resident like myself.

 

As long as you keep your stock navigation unit/display and stock climate control unit, you should be fine.

 

^agreed

 

Wow that make my life so easy then I guess. Hmmm I guess I wrote all that out for something so simple. Well I knew it was the right idea to post here. Thanks a ton. I guess the thing now then is, do you guys have any words of wisdom about car audio? Anything sweet that you have seen or would like to do to your rides audio wise?

 

Car audio on this car can be a pain at least at the "level" im at. Do you plan on amping your speakers? I doubt youll be able to run new wires to the front doors, so on my car(1996) i cut into the harness behind the rear seat where the bose amp is. I have a build log in the off topic section, under audio if youd like to check it out and maybe get ideas.

 

oh and i dont know if this will be of any help, but its worth a read

https://acurazine.com/forums/audio-video-electronics-navigation-22/d-i-y-retain-your-navi-prompts-w-aftermarket-headunit-338089/

 

Hey thanks Jimmay. I actually read quite a bit of your stuff over the time I was scrounging around the site here. But yeah I am not touching the speakers for the moment, I just got tired of riding in friends cars who had subs and feeling the big while in my otherwise amazing car. Bu trust me the speakers are coming really soon, maybe at the end of summer when I get a little more money made. I also am toying more and more with the idea of replacing my HU now. I just looked my accommodations I get through best buy from Sony and I get their XAV62BT for 190 so that's pretty tempting cause another guy at work has one and it is a pretty sweet unit.And as I am writing this I just received my KappaOne amp! But no subs gahhhhh I hate waiting for parts of the same order! Anyways ill be sure to check out your log on the speaker harness. Thanks again everyone. I know its over done but ill probably post some pictures when I get my subs installed.

 

Wow I have been trying to find a way to get my power line through just the front of my car, I guess I dont even see where I would drill through my firewall. Im going to search the forums again here but if you guys all have a recommendation or know a thread off the top of yours heads that would help.

 

DON'T GO THROUGH THE FIRE WALL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
there a hole on both sides behind the fenders you might need to loosen some screws to get to the wire from the inside were the fuse box is.

 

Hey bro to get my power wire through, I drilled through a spot in the fire wall with no probs at all. I think I have pics on photobucket, If not I will take some and post them. Hit me up at s.grant82@yahoo.com to remind me in case i forget.

 

Okay so I actually just got everything installed (except my subs, they are still in shipping!). And well sorry bigmo85 but I just went ahead and went through my firewall, I found a very comfy little right off of my steering column. I actually think it is a great little spot. I then just ran my wire down in the crack next to my center console tell I got it by my seat. Then I just made a nice little slit in my carpet and ran the wire back and up my back bench under the seat and into the trunk. And then came all the hooking up of fun things. L.O.C was actually a little confusing at first but I think I got it right. All that is left is to get my subs put in the box and I still have to run my remote wire to my amp. Where exactly should I be hooking that up to? Im sure I can figure it out but just in case anyone wants to tell me really quick that would be great.

 

Oh and I put a grommet around my power wire and in where I cut the hole. It fits so great that I was actually kinda proud of myself even though anyone with half a brain would think that's common sense

 

Alright I got everything in and running! Its sounds fricken amazing! These Infinite's are so damn clean I love it! The only thing is my dang amp is getting all kinds of hot, to the point were it is untouchable.

 

Hey bro how about some pics. Im always interested in seeing others work. I have a photobucket page set up to show my progress on my RL.

 

do you have it mounted on the box it self? if you do it needs to breath so try puting spacers between them and like he said pics i wanna see them

 

Alright yeah, tomorrow after work ill take some pics and post them. But right now I just have the amp chilling on some aluminum risers I made cause I cant make up my mind on where to mount it. Its such a pretty amp I don't wanna just hide it. I also think I am just thinking about making a nice cpu fan deck for the amp to minimize the heat

 

Here is what they look like right now. not to impressive and nothing no one hasn't seen before. But one day this car will be glorious!
Forgot to take pictures of the powercable coming throught the firewall. Ill get one up of that here soon too. I also think I am going to put a new head unit in sooner than I planned...like monday if I can get my hands on the deck I want from work soon enough. So am I in the right thinking that all i really need to get a new head unit bumping is this http://www.pac-audio.com/productDeta...&CategoryID=26 ? Thanks. They bump by the way, and I realized why my amp was getting so hot, it was just because I had it ran at 1ohm by accident. But my amp is 1ohm stable so all it did was bump ish hard haha.