tsooby

I installed two solid Boss products this weekend with the GREAT help of a friend and wanted to give some quick insight into both. A quick word of advice for either of these installs: find a way to remove the shiftknob. I heard a plumbers wrench wrapped in an innertube or a leather strap wrench are good ways to go. I somehow managed to get these done without removing it but I can't emphasize enough that it was not worth it. Pull it off somehow, it will go back on.

1. Quicktime Performance electronic cutouts ($350 + $79 for wireless fob kit)

So when i got the car it was too quiet. When I pulled the restrictors it was god-like, but a little tiresome after some time behind the wheel (this is a daily driver and road tripper, certainly not travelling anywhere in a trailer.) I tried out some yellow jack produced 3/4th inch plates for a while which were good, but the appeal of being able to flip back and forth was a no brainer for me. The quality of these were great, nice polished steel I presume with a logo that says "QTP 302" stamped on them. I wish I had measured the diameter of the cutout hole before i installed them to be sure, but they are probably an inch or a little bigger of diameter, just a little less than stock so the open sound is SLIGHTLY, emphasis on SLIGHTLY less than stock plates out. The motor is the usual QTP motor.

I do have one question: there is no hole in these cutouts ala the stock discs, so when they are closed the side pipes are totally closed off. I assume this doesn't cause any sort of back pressure problem or anything goofy like that, i mean, the stock plates might as well have been closed with how large they were. If anyone can chime in on this I would appreciate it.

Installation took 2 hours or so. Jacked up the car and removed the side pipes. Pulled off the spacers and slide on the QTP plates, not a problem. Great fit. Meanwhile inside of the car I had to pull the the center console and the sound deadening to get to the shift boot. Pulled up the shift boot and ran the wires to the rear drivers side of the shifter where there is some space near the shifter bracket into the car cabin. In retrospect I might have just made a small cut in the shift boot instead, but this works okay too. either way you're going to want some silicone putty to help cover up whatever you wind up doing to the shift boot. We took the slack of the wires and coiled them up inside of the console under what would be the cupholder. Installed the wireless box in there as well. Back under the car we unbolted the heat shields and ran the wires behind it, making sure that the wires were far away and would not be affected by the drive shaft. These things work great, excellent party trick if you like the ability to switch your boss' noises on and off. Highly recommended.

2. Infinity Basslink powered subwoofer

Yes, i know, the most discerning audiophiles will turn their noses up at this one and at the same time the most militant boss-o-philes will too for adding the weight of a bag of groceries to the car, but for the $180 bucks or so that Amazon is selling them for its hard to beat. I put the pioneers that are often talked about on this forum in the front doors only a few weeks ago and felt that they sounded much cleaner than stock, but didn't improve the bass situation at all. I love this thing. I think my sound system sounds better than the shaker 500 I had in my '08. The basslink is really adjustable to fit your tastes, however if you're trying to shake your neighbors windows this isn't for you. That said, if that's your goal I probably don't need to tell you this. The only complaint i've heard about this thing is that they may fail in 3 years or so. I figured hey, amps fail too and this cost about as much as an amp, plus if it does happened i'm all wired up to easily replace it with something else.

Had to pull remove the center console, radio, backseat, doorsills, and kick plates. Ran the power cable under the passenger side door sill and through the grommet near the passenger's feet. Had to also unclip the front passanger wheelwell flaps a bit to feed the power cable up from the grommet to near the battery. Spliced all the stereo wires and feed them down the driver's side door sill and under the backseat. had a few hiccups hear and there, all in probably took us 5 hours to get everything sorted out. If this sounds too painful I have hear of people getting the basslink install for $100-$150 bucks. It's not nearly as an easy "weekend mechanic" job as the cutouts. If you go that route though.... TAKE OFF YOUR DARN SHIFT **** FIRST I PROMISE IT WILL GET DESTROYED!

Long post, sorry all. So that's it for now, sorry no pics, maybe tomorrow!

2006mach1

Shift **** does come off real hard! Locited on. I used a big strap wrench a lots of muscle. Thought I was going to break the shifter taking the **** off!