1 - Requirments, planning, planning and more planning.

The first thing to be done when we undertake any large system build is nothing. That's right, pure and simple. Absolutely nothing. Actually head installer Marty Price just sits down in the car and has a good long look around and think. Installers are known to sit staring at a blank dash for half an hour while deciding what gear to put into a car based on numerous aspects. During this time the installer has to consider various things like space requirments, budgets, component availabilities, customer requirements, interior shape and the music types to be listened too.

Throughout this install we will be making many references to Marty's old car, the Corolla. This is done in order to describe various lessons learnt from that install and how he will go about it differently here.

There were numerous points to consider and various guide lines to be followed whilst undertaking this installation. Some of these were:

• No metal was to be cut. Absolutely no metal was to be touched anywhere in this install. Not metal to be cut out, no metal to be drilled. All mounting points had to come from existing bolt holes within the car.
• No modifications were to be made. No modifications were to be made to any part of the car which meant that this install had to be able to fit into any Nissan Silvia. No choppng boot hinges and replcing the boot with Carbon Fibre items like the Corolla.
• It has to run from a standard battery. For the time being. The system had to run from the standard battery and alternator hence ruling out 11 amps and aftermarket alternators like the Corolla had.
• The car had to retain it's funcionality. The car had to retain its functionality. This means the spare has to stay and remain attainable, the boot hinges and everything in the boot has to be usable. The glove box has to remain in use and the seats have to remain fully functioning.
• The system has to be hidden from outside the car. Pretty self explainitory. All custom panels either had to look factory or be hidden from view.
• The equipment price to stay below $5000 not including the head unit. This figure was the absolute maximum for the entire system minus the headunit, unlike the $45000 for the Corolla. The head unit was not a consideration as we already have one.

After initial ideas and concepts are in his mind, the next step is for Marty to attack the enitre car from every angle with a tape measure and see what kind of space he has to play with. "The actual size of the interior and the boot is a lot smaller than it looks" states Marty. "The entire system is going to be a lot smaller than the Corolla's system was." To see the diagram of the Corolla's system, click here. The distance betweent the rear boot hinges alone is only 26 inches. This is barely enough to fit decent boxed twelve in.

As one can imagine there is quite a challange up for Marty as he undertakes this project. After the initial look, feel and think, the course of action was planned out and this was the result:

• Complete the entire boot install.
• Complete the rear shelf.
• Complete the kick panels
• Comlete the doors.