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Absolutely stunning work man!! I love it, always have!

Joe.

So from a scale of "1 to I would rather not do this again" , how rate the work involved in converting to the monsoon amp and The Navigation system?

Darcy did most the wiring, and even wrote me instructions, so I can't really give you a true rating. It really just depends how skilled you are at wiring and electronics. I'm not gonna recommend that everyone just hop in their trunk and start cutting wires like I did.

With as much sweat youve invested, im guessing its a keeper for a long time to come?

You do awesome work!

Ya, she's a keeper. Looking into getting the front bumper and hood painted at the moment.

This morning I added another helpful mod. A VSS wire switch. The Nav unit is GPS based, but when it isn't getting a good signal, it used information based off the VSS (Vehicle Speed Sensor) to calculate where the vehicle is on the map. If you don't install the VSS wire, the Nav unit shows your location as jerky and not a smooth flow. However, when you do have the VSS wire connected, you are not able to access some of the features in the Nav, as a safetly feature. Anything over 1-2mph and you can't input a destination or get into the setup menu's. The solution? A VSS wire switch. When you want the vehicle to be able to use the VSS to get that smooth flowing map, you turn the switch on, and when you want to input a destination, simply flip the switch off while you enter the destination. The trick really works pretty nice!

I managed to locate the switch in a non-visable spot... Not a fan of the ricer switches all over the dash.

Here is a pic showing how you can't see the switch.


Here is a pic of the switch. It is still easly accessible. Amazingly, the footwell panel already has a small hole next to the mounting screw, so I was able to mount the switch to the metal bracket behind the panel. This makes it so I can still pull down the panel as normal without even worrying about the switch. Pretty slick!

nice and clean Andrew!

now yes, paint that hood and front bumper, my front bumper needs it too!

What awesome thing will Andrew think of next?

wow... Def a nice find at the yard!!! It looks like eye candy now!!

so is this a SSXP or GXPEi now? All the options, none of the Nortstar lol

I like the sound of SSXP

Hands down the worst car on this board!!

Just kidding of course. Nice work Andrew. Willing to take a stab at how many hours of work you have in that car since you got it...better yet, are you willing to tell what that number would be? haha

But, seriously, keep up the good work. If I was you, I'd have trouble figuring out what's left to do....everything's already done... Where do you go from here?

Oh, and I would go with SSEXp - and make the 'p' silent.




Random underused smilie:

its a nice job on the interior i like it alot!

Well, now that its dug up, I might as well ask about the seat covers. Was the two tone stock at some point or are those custom?

I dig the NAV. My mom has it in her avalanche and it's quite nice. If there was a hack to run a good pre-amp with the touchscreen/nav interface and all the OEM goodness, Id be all over it.

Custom seat covers were from ebay a long time back. Got them for $100, but ended up paying around $500 to have them installed. At the time, they were a cheaper option than getting GXP seats.

Nice. I'v thought about hetting some custom work done, but for front and rear and to have the fron made the way I want (more like the 92-99 with deep bolstering) it'd insanely expensive. For what you have into it, you have some sweet looking upholstery.

beauty car man, its came along way it seems!
one question, i like the carbon fiber look around the vents and door handles..
fill me in on the material or technique you used?

Simple upgrade from the 04-05 GXP Bonneville

ahh, just like i thought, was a stupid question lol

Just got around to seeing this post and had to revive it to share in the admiration for the rebirth of your Bonnie, Andrew. Spectacular.

I'd almost forgotten how sexy the seats were in my '02. I like the seats I have now in the '05 GXP, but there was something about all the bolstering in those seats that made them sexier than the Aurora seats in the GXP.

Ok, reviving this again cuz I just went through your NAV mod again. Thinking to the future, this is one non-stock mod I may be interested in. But I have a [simple] question. How'd you get the NAV HU to have orange backlighting, and more confusing, how'd you get it to read PONTIAC on startup?

Since I already have the Monsoon amp and wiring, I expect this would be a simpler mod for my car than it was for yours? Also, the special connector you had for the DNL to HU, did you make that or did Darcy? Or was it purchased?