Instead of using the FFR provided rear-view mirror I decided to use the Corvette rear-view since it has driver and passenger map lights built in. To utilize this lighting, I had to run a ground wire, and the white ‘dome light’ wire from the Painless fusebox up to the center of the windshield where the mirror will be. Not an easy task with the roll-bar padding/fabric in place! I ended up snaking a coat hanger down the pillar under the fabric with a hook bent on the end. Once I got it down behind the dash I was able to hook the mirror wires and pull them up the pillar. I then pushed the wires on top of the front halo bar (sandwiched between the roof and halo bar) and ran them to the center of the windshield. Tested the mirror wiring to ensure it will work – good.

Since my car stereo has a really great iPhone interface, I mounted a nice iPhone holster on the driver side for easy access. This holster is actually designed to mount on vents, but I just unscrewed and removed the mounting mechanism it uses and affixed it to the tunnel vinyl with heavy-duty double-sided tape. Perfect setup.

Lastly, for some reason FFR leaves a nice ugly gap between the engine cover and dash console. They don’t tell you to cover it, nor do they supply a piece to cover this gap. To fix this a cover has to be made. I cut a piece of cardboard and bent it to fit over the console and engine cover edges to get a basic measurement of the aluminum piece I would need. I have a handful of aluminum scrap left over from the build so I cut a piece to match the cardboard and bent it to match the tunnel sides. 1/4″ holes were drilled on each side, and then the tunnel frame holes were drilled out and rivnuts were installed. I trimmed the aluminum piece a bit more, then covered the top with some 1/4″ Dynamat for padding.  Left over suede from the build was used to cover it. Bolted back in place, the cover actually makes for a nice elbow rest since it’s padded fairly well. Not bad.

With the radio installed, shift box re-welded into place, wiring organized, and console trim plate prepped, I felt it was finally time to get the center console and passenger dash in.

First thing I had to do was rivet the passenger dash pod to the center console. It was previously held in place with clecko pins. With the passenger pod joined to the console, I then attached the trim plate to the console.  Before getting started on installing the console/dash I vacuumed out the passenger footbox, cleaned the aluminum panels that will be underneath the dash, and secured the wiper closeout box in place.

Everything cleaned up, I set the console into place and set to attaching the air ducts to the dash vents. Two above the radio, one on the passenger pod, and two defrost ducts. I found the trick to doing the dash vents is to pull off the foam that is glued around the outer edge of the vent that you have to push the duct hose over, and cut a line down the middle of the duct hose through 2-3 wire rings so that it can be pulled over the vent easier. With the hose in place, I pulled on some zip ties to secure it. Defrost ducts are a little easier to attach the hoses to. After attaching all the hosing I connected up the hazard and fog lights switches, plugged in the climate control wire harness, and mounted the ignition switch and window switches.  The console/dash was then pushed down into place and secured at the base with a single 1/4-20″ screw on each side. Tested all the switches and climate controls with success.

All that is left to do with the interior at this point is mount the driver’s dash pod, interior lighting, mirror (when windshield is in), gauges, and seats.

To make the door liners a bit more rigid without installing bolts across the top of the door liner, I decided to give velcro a try. I picked up some heavy duty 3m Fastener Tape (ie: velcro) and applied two strips across the top of the door liner. This stuff works pretty well – very grippy and the door liner feels sturdier and looks nice.

Starting to get ready to install the console and dash, so I prepped the console trim plate. The hazards and fog light switches were installed, and then the shift boot was riveted into place.  Pretty straight forward – pull about an inch of fabric underneath the trim plate on the ‘bottom side’ of the trim plate cutout, drill a 1/8″ hole and rivet into place through the boot fabric into a flat nut. With the first rivet in place it is quite easy to work around the boot, riveting into place. The trim plate is ready to be installed onto the console.

Josh made up some radio mounts to secure the radio to the tunnel. The mounts screw into mounting holes on the side of the head unit, and to the tunnel itself. I must have had the complete dash on/off 10-15 times to get a proper fitment so that the radio face can slide out and back in without any interference from the dash cutout, but I finally got it. With the radio in place and console trim plate ready, I am just about ready to install the dash ‘for good’. After the radio was mounted I secured the antenna under the front of the body beneath the windshield edge. I used a powered internal antenna from Dakota Digital, and it works great.

Shane @ VRaptor Speedworks made up a nice tunnel closeout panel for those of us that include radios in our builds. The FFR supplied aluminum closes the tunnel off, but does not allow for a radio to be installed at the same time. Shane’s closeout piece works great. To get it to fit with my double-din unit I had to cut out a square for the wiring harness to pass through, and a few holes for the antenna and camera inputs to plug in through. The camera/antenna holes were protected with grommets, while I covered the wiring harness hole with duct tape, then put some slits in it so the wires can pass through, while still keeping things somewhat sealed. With everything set in place, the closeout was screwed into the frame and the radio was plugged in. I then test fit the dash to make sure the radio fit well and actuated open/shut without interference from the closeout panel. Good to go!

Ryan also stopped out and re-welded the shift box into place so now I can get the switches and everything in without interference.

Today I set the console in place to test switch fitment before I have the shift box welded back in tomorrow. After I did that I put the radio in place just to test its clearance when it opens (to make sure it clears the AC controls). When I tried opening the unit I realized I did not have enough clearance cut out for the bottom edge to tilt out without catching the edge of the console cut-out. Pulled back the vinyl, again, and trimmed the top and bottom edges down a bit more, then put the radio in place and tested – good to go now. Just need to re-glue the vinyl and get the radio mounted to the tunnel frame. I also cut out the ignition switch hole in the console trim plate.

Silicone’d the bottom and sides of the front mesh to hold that in place. That should be good to go tomorrow.  With the mesh in place I installed the front camera. I attached the camera to the under-side of the hood mouth using a few left over black duct screws from the AC parts, then routed the cabling through the nose of the hood with some adhesive-backed wire holders. Once I get the car off its jack stands I will fine-tune the  positioning of the camera.

Today’s project was the speaker installation. I scoured the web for the thinnest 6.5″ woofer I could find for the doors since Ken (StreetRodPainter) modified the door frames and moved them inwards an inch. I ended up going with the Blaupunkt Thin Series 6.5″ woofers with separate tweets and crossovers. Once I cut the speaker holes I was immensely relieved to find that they just fit. Anything deeper would have been trouble. I decided to mount the tweets above the door handles a couple inches, as this is the best spot in the doors to place them – acoustically, and space-wise. The tweet mounts require a 1.75″ hole, so I drilled those out with a hole saw and mounted the tweets. Nice and easy.  I mounted the crossovers on the bottom edge of the door with some double-sided adhesive tape. I then wired up the speakers on the passenger side first and went to test them, but was distraught to hear garbled and static-filled metal.  Apparently the speaker cable I ran last spring was bad. Luckily, all I had to do was tape some new speaker cable to the old stuff, and pull it out through the door and it routed the new stuff into place. Re-wired the passenger speakers and gave them a quick test – Perfect!

With the speakers in place I set the door liners back in and drilled out some more rivnuts into the door frame to make the liner more ‘solid’ feeling. With the rivnuts added I finished the wiring on the driver’s side, then attached the liners. The black flanged button head bolts I received from McMaster-Carr look great.

Sat in the car a bit and listened to some tunes – I’m pretty pleased with this setup.

The head unit of choice (Pioneer AVH-4200DVD) arrived recently so I set to getting it wired up. Straight forward stuff – power, switched power, ground, and emergency brake ground meant to prevent watching video during driving. The vette e-brake breaks ground at the first ‘click’, which really doesn’t engage anything, so it’s not a big deal. I still have to wire up the speakers. Wires are already ran, just need to connect everything when speakers arrive.

With the radio wired up I ran the front camera cable. I drilled another hole in the tunnel rear wall next to the current wiring pass-through hole and then another at the firewall to allow the RCA cable through. This was routed up to the front of the car. The camera’s power/ground cable was routed from the front to the firewall, then wired up to a switched power and ground.  Tested everything – good to go. Rear view camera was tested as well, but wiring hasn’t been made permanent yet.

After doing the above I cut the console face out so that the head unit can be fit in from behind. This took quite a while as I cut the hole too small (on purpose) then slowly filed it out for a good tight fit once the vinyl was glued back into place.