Tunes for (almost) free

[panhandler62]

Due to economic woes I had to dispose of my 2007 Camry. I made a deal with my mom -- she bought the 07 from me at the payoff cost plus her 92 Camry. She gets a nice car and I don't hav to drive the gas-hog Chrysler to work. Not only does this help everyone out; I now have the last car my dad bought before he passed, so that's kind of cool.

Well, the 92 is not a bad car but the tunes were seriously in need of an upgrade. Luckily for broke 'ol me, I only had to go through my storage shelves, bought $25 worth of stuff at Walmart and I was good to go. With the help of my junior engineer, we got her knocked out yesterday and the car rocks nicely now.

[panhandler62]

Here is the first step:

Collect everything we'll need and begin yanking stuff from the car. Notice the Toyota hood prop... like many Camrys of this age, the hood struts are due for replacement.

[panhandler62]

I put a set of Infinity Reference speakers in the car for my mom in 2002. As you can see here, the rear speakers didn't like the sun much.

[panhandler62]

Just stripping everything out...

[panhandler62]

Getting the wiring and speakers in. The 6,5 Infinities were still in good shape so they got re-used. The Pioneers look a bit better in the back than the old Infinities did though.

[panhandler62]

Getting the wiring buttoned up and the amps installed. The interior speakers are wired in series because the amp I dug up is a small 2 channel and it's not rated for a 2ohm load.

If you are not competing you might be suprised at how much power 35 watts per channel is.

That red amp is a Walmart special that's been gathering dust on a shelf in my strrage room. Bridged like that I think it puts out about 25 watts rms. I'm not sure what kind of voo doo math they used to label it 222, but it works fine as a mono to drive the 10 inch subwoofer.

[panhandler62]

Finally... here is the Pioneer head unit installed in the dash. I'll add the trim ring if I can ever find it.. lol

Looks OK, sounds great and was mostly done with stuff I had laying around. All I bought was the dash adapter ($15) the harness adapter ($5) and the barrier strip so my speaker wiring would be tidy.

Best of all; it was a whole day spent with my son.

[jb1016]

I bet it sounds better now. Looks like you've got a helpful assistant there. How many miles on the car? My folks bought a 91 Camry wagon brand new - the only new car they've ever owned - and they put 227k on it before they sold it. Great car.

Edit: Just looked at the pic of the airbox; does this car only have 98k on it??

[panhandler62]

Just a tad over a 100k now. Got to watch it roll over myself.

It's dated, but the car is in excelent shade.

[jb1016]

Hey, dated = simple. You could get another 200k out of it without breaking a sweat.

[nuke1]

nice job done, bet the kid enjoys driving in it now with you a little more, and not soooo embarassed of the car.