New Radio For 451

[Wheel_Man 0]

Hey everyone, I managed over the last three days to install a pansonic Strada Nav radio in my new smart car!! I also installed 4 Kenwood speakers also!!!First the radio: Remove everything at the begining, it will be much easier. The seats, old radio plate and radio, gas pedal etc. radio fit nice with a double din plate from smartie parts (steve, thanks), and looks factory! This unit has full nav located on a hard disk drive (30 GB) and has maps for the US and Canada. Hook up is easy if you just want a plain system, I don't!I had to remove both outer door skins to remove the old speakers from the doors. The skins come off a little different than my old smart (more on that later if you wanrt to know how), smart has made it difficult to replace the door speakers, they are a pitifull 6 1/2 inch speakers with super small magnet. To top it off, it uses an oversized mounting flange, in otherwords, normal 6 1/2 speakers cannot be mounted on the original speaker holes and screws. My solution is (wait for it...) cut up the old speakers as they are made of plastic, remove the cone and carefully cut out the ribs that extend to the magnet. Once you have the outside ring left, grind it down so that it is flat (no ridges) and then i used two part epoxy to glue the ring to the new speaker. If done right, it will be centred and no glue will touch the speaker cone. Sorry, i didn't take any pictures as this was taking a really long time to figure it out. Glue drys in 4 minutes, mount into stock location keeping in mind any grille that may show through the mesh from under it, it must be straight. IE: any chrome bits on the new speaker will show through the mesh in day light. Next: I disconnected the pityfull tweeters at the radio, no need to remove them (they are located at the from left and righ side of the windshield dash vents.Please see pictures below of the radio installed and the next one showing the nav function...SWEEET!

[Wheel_Man 0]

The rear speakers: I wanted to install the speakers in a place where i could hear them. Not under the rear cargo cover (which leaves out the tailgate or side panels), so I found a spot near the seat belt anchours above the cover in the rear.They are Kenwood 180 watts, same as the front. Yes i know what you are thinking.... they are better speakers that you can buy. I agree but... the smart is very quiet and doen't need alot of power and more power means more magnet size, deeper and wider. Not good.If you refer to the two pictures above, I mada 2 mdf rings out of 3/4 inch stuff, cut a hole in the side panel (after i inspected the area first) and found the panel had 1/2 inch of ribbing to keep the panel away from the body. That gives you 3/4 +1/2 inch to play with. Plenty of room to mount them. I painted them black to match the speakers, but they could use a little sanding and sealing to make them perfect. The front door speakers use the original wiring to the radio where i cut it to the new wiring. The rear speakers were wired to the rear of the driver's seat and i used duct tape(100 MPH stuff) to tape the wiring in place and not to get tangled in the seat belt assembly. I was carefull to cross other wiring harness at 90 degrees to eliminate any unwanted sound to my speakers.Next: I placed my hugh!!!! 5 channel amp behind the driver's seat. It is a Kenwood Execlon 1200 watt 5 channel amp (I think it has more power than the engine!). How did I handle the sub from the smart? See below for your answers!Jim

[Wheel_Man 0]

The original Sub Woofer: It is self powered and I thought,,, what's the point of trying to find another one to put in this car while I already have one. A few problems first off: It already is self powered and is pityfull in size (we know size does not matter!!!).I reoved the driver seat and removed the the plug from the right front corner. I removed the 20 or so phillips screws from the underside and the left side mounting bracket also (it had a couple more screws under it). Pull the two halves apart (easy to do) and see the small sub speaker. It faces down to the floor when installed. It is less than 6 inches in size (I think). Small by any standards. Remove the the plug from the circuit board (amp), it has four wires in it. This sub is a dual voice coil in it. I measured the resistence of each coil and it was 2.5 ohms. So I joined them in series to get just under 5 ohms in total. One wire into one coil and the other to the second coil and the last wire out to the amp. So i then drilled a hole into the top portion of the wire connector (right front corner, connected to the amp board) and feed the two wires out that hole and also filed a small groove in the plastic cover so that when the two halves are put back together, there will not be any pinching of the wires. Seal the wires with silicone. The box is pretty well sealled. if you let any holes open, the sub would not sound as good.If you look in the last photo of the amp, you will see a wire along the right bottom edge. This is from the smart sub to my amp.Does it work good? Not bad for the size of the speaker, i can feel the floor shake sometimes!!!!You will notice in the picture that they are no mounting screws used, I used valcro strips along both edges and it stays in place just fine. When the seat is moved back all the way, the seat does not touch the amp at all. Lots of clearance.Any questions? just ask!!Jim

[Le Smatte 0]

Is it the only radio with GPS available on the smart 2008?

[Wheel_Man 0]

There are other GPS radios, Clarion N.I.C.E is and Pioneer has several to chose from. Most are in the 1,000 to 2,00 range, mine was 900 delivered to my front door and listed for 1900 CDN!Jim

[Overkll 0]

Very nice and clean work! Your amp doesn't fit under the passenger seat? You could always go with some of the new very small amps from Eclipse/Alpine/etc in the future to make it more stealth (although it is in a good position now). Little subs in these cars are adequate; won't hit 20HZ, but really fill in the low end.

[brahmy 0]

Looks great!! I told myself I wouldn't upgrade the sound system but a possibility like this is almost too tempting!

[NJV 1]

I like the location of the rear speakers. I've always thought that rear speakers in the 450 would work well in custom boxes designed to fit over the rear plastic windows (coupe). It would take a bit of work though.

[Guest ductgord]

hey nice job i would like to know how to remove the outside door skins so i can replace my dooe speskers any advice would br appreciated thanks Mike

[crankin 0]

Right here

http://www.fq101.co.uk/451howto.asp

[SmartieParts 12]

Excellent job! - Steven

[Guinness 0]

Thanks for the write up. I was actually thinking to do a 4.1 setup for the smart. Looks like someone beat me to it already. Very Clean installation.

[Huronlad 186]

After mostly having 4.0 and 4.1 setups in my vehicles, my last install was 2.1 and I have to say having a proper sound stage was much more pleasant to listen to.