Hell Fire's right. $500 is a drop in the bucket. Ok. Lets approach this like any other project.
Firstly, are you planning on making a "system" or are you just upgrading. If your upgrading move to section 2.
1.) Remember to do your system is phases. I'm on the next to final phase of my system now. I already have my speakers, ams, sub, and am now replacing the cheap Sony head unit I bought with an Alpine CVA-1005.
If your going to make a system of it I would buy a good head unit first. When purchasing a head unit consider several things. How many RCA outputs are there (these are needed to run audio to the amps) and are they high or low output. A good head unit will have 4 to 6. 2xFront, 2xRear, 2xSub. My Sony has 4, so I have 2xFront and 2xRear. This is needed for fade and balance control. The power output on the "RCA" jacks will be important when you buy your amps, higher will give you a "cleaner" signal, it helps keep out interferance. Also, what kind of skip protection is there, remember a Explorer IS an SUV and as such rides like one. DIN size, do you have a single DIN slot or a dual DIN slot. DIN is a term used to refer to the size of your head unit. Most head units are single DIN but there now going to dual DIN size which will let you put a more feature packed unit in, or a unit like my Alpine CVA-1005 and slave a CD player off it like the Alpine CDA-5755G. Power out-put on the speakers is probably not that important if you have the factory amp, just wire the speaker leads off the amp to the speaker leads off the head unit. REMEMBER TO CONNECT THE REMOTE POWER ON! I sat there for 3 hours wondering why I wasnt getting anything out of the factory amp, until I noticed it's lead. It SHOULD be light blue.
That about covers an Intro to head units. Panisonic's Dual Shock looks to be a good entry head unit, has robust features, plenty of skip protection (it's there selling feature) and will run you about $250. Please, please, PLEASE dont buy a head unit because it has a nifty animated display. You wont be able to see it durring the day and the cool factor wears of REAL quick.
2.) Buy somthing thats going to be easy for you to adjust while your driving, my Sony is wicked in that respect. I wish Alpine whould have placed the control nob on the left side of the unit instead of the right. Makes a huge diffrence, especially when you have a manual transmision. When installing, it's temping to just cut the old harnes off and wire directly. DO NOT DO THAT. Used what is called a Reverse wireing harness. It will have you about 3 hours and 2 bottles of Asprine. These can be found where you bought the radio (I bought mine at Auto Zone for $10). The reverse harness will clamp onto the orignal harness saving you from having to sit in the truck with the dash apart holding a soldering iron. There pretty self explanitory, you wire the leads from the aft of the head unit to the reverse harness and "Plug-and-Pray". Do it right the first time, it will be cheaper that way.
Well, that about does it. If you have any questions, post here or E-Mail me. Dead Link Removed
Justin "Skipp" Hoyer
skippman@swbell.net
