Interior shot, pretty much stock in here. I use Armor-All low gloss interior protectant to keep the vinyl soft and rich looking. A nifty trick I found is to use a brush on the door fabric to give it a rich suede look. Future interior mods? Leather wrap on the steering wheel, new pedals, and, budget allowing, leather seat covering.

Audio System:

My audio system features the Alpine CDA-9833 CD head unit, Terk XM interface for Alpine, Alpine MRV-F540 80x4 power amp, Infinity Reference Components in the front doors (tweeter on the sail panel) and Infinity Reference 6x9s in the rear deck, Kicker Solo-baric L7 sub in a custom box, and Stinger stiffening capacitor. Doors are Dynamatted (Extreme) and rear deck coated with QuietCar dampening spray.

The CDA-9833 features 3-way crossovers with 4-adjustable slopes, 5-band parametric EQ, and time alignment w/bass focus. I've got a seamless blend of crossover points (no phase anomolies), time alignment, and bass focus. Soundstage is entirely up front. Vocals come from under and to the back of the rear view mirror. And the bass player isn't hanging out in the trunk.

Night look of the CDC-9833 color matched to the dash. This head unit can display 512 colors for the buttons so you can match virtually any dash out there. The red buttons, when fine-tuned, blend beautifully with the factory dash.

Through the steering wheel you'll see the drivers side sail panel tweeter. I like the silver trim ring on the tweeter. It ties the look in nicely with the dash bezel rings. Both tweeters are mounted on an angle facing up and into the cabin; this creates a huge sweet spot. The polished dash bezel rings are from from Dave Bodde. I do not understand how Mazda produced our cars without this nice touch. It's almost as if they forgot to include the rings! Dave B's rings look like they belong there.

Close up shot of the passenger side sail panel tweeter. These Infinity tweeters are a smooth sounding 1" edge-driven textile dome, crossed over at 3500Hz on an 18dB slope on the outboard crossover. The tweeters are set, on the crossover, to -3dB and I have a 10-ohm resistor in-line, dropping tweeter level another 3dB. With time alignment and bass focus set up in the Alpine H/U my front mid-bass just slams now with no bass boost in the EQ.

Alpine MRV-F540, Stinger stiffening cap, and the back of my sub cab. This installation has become permanently temporary...or is it temporarily permanent? No, I'm not going to win any awards for install design. It's basic but the wiring is all done properly. No noise or ground issues at all. I just haven't had time to be more creative with the placement of the amp and hiding of the wiring. I just know how much I enjoy listening to the system.

The 8" Kicker Solo-baric L7 in a custom box. Until I can afford a bass amp I've bridged two channels of my 80x4 Alpine to drive the sub. It's not the loudest configuration but sound quality is all there. Please don't laugh at me for going with an 8" sub! The tight, punchy sound suits my listening needs. My rear 6x9s are being driven (for low level rear fill) by the CDC-9833's internal amp. In fact, I often turn off the rears when I don't have rear passengers because the front sound stage is very spacious without them.

*** *** *** JUST SAY "NO" TO OEM! *** *** *** FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS DRIVE STOCK! *** *** ***