Is there any room to recess mount the head unit?

[Gavin]

Like the title says, I’d like to mount a new CD player recessed slightly into my dash. My reason for wanting to do this is that I’ve had a hard time finding a CD player that offers the functions I want, that doesn’t also have a Tokyo-by-night look to it that is not my taste for a BMW installation. So what I want to do is mount the head unit recessed into the dash, and build a custom trim piece to mount to it (in place of the face plate) which would hold two gauges in front of it and conceal it, leaving a subtle slot for loading CD’s. I would then hard wire a loom to the contacts for the faceplate on the head unit, as well as to the face plate, and relocate the face plate controls some place less conspicuous.

So, is there any room?

[StereoInstaller1]

In a word, no.

You might want to consider mounting the deck in the glovebox, running a ribbon cable to the face as you said.

Max pimp efect would be achieved by mounting the face just above the rear veiw mirror...

Luke

[T.Dot_E30]

why not just find an older alpine.

[Ray Smoodiver]

E36 RDS is flush fit.

[Gavin]

I'd like to install a deck with a USB/aux input port, but I don’t like the look of most new style decks in an e30 BMW application (they look fine on their own, or in a new car). I’d also like to be able to easily access the head unit to load CD’s, so the glove box isn’t really the option I’d like to go with. I guess I’ll have to keep looking for a different solution.

[Gavin]

The more I think about my idea to mount gauges in the stock deck location the more I like it. I really would like to find a way to make this work.

Is there a peripheral device that would allow me to interface a portable MP3 player (with a radio) directly into my amps? Maybe I’d need some sort of signal booster as well? I haven’t been active in the car audio marketplace for a while, so I’m not sure what’s out there.

If I could put together a sort of ‘stand-alone personal MP3 player - pseudo head unit’ system I could mount my MP3 player in the covered ash trey slot and still have the stealthy system I’m going for.

[92 mtechnic cabrio]

Gavin, you could just have ur ipod wired to an amp in the trunk or something, it's pretty easy. It'll just be harder to modulate the volume.

Get a long cable, where one end is a pair of RCAs and the other end is a 3.5mm jack.