I have been searching the boards for a while about 4th gen radios and I noticed that most people do not have any fitting problems when they install a 4th Gen CD Player. I then went to http://www.iroczone.com/projcddeck01.html to check out the tutorial to see what that had to offer. The guy who did this tutorial had to cut out some of the A/C vents in order to make the new player fit. Is it necessary to do this? He also swapped pins for the antenna because of different lengths(or width i dont remember). Has anyone gone without doing this and does it effect the sound quality?

My final question is would i need any special AMPs or Speakers to run a Monsoon CD Player out of a 2000 Camaro? My dad told me that he thought the vette's use special AMPs and speakers. I am thinking about upgrading from the awesome sound quality of the stock speakers anyways.

Any advice/ information would be great.

 

At some point GM decide to switch to a weird antenna style. It was somewhere in the middle of our generation - I'm sure someone will jump in with the exact date. All GM did was reduce the size of the antenna plug. If your car has a big plug you can go out and buy a converter at virtually any store that carries/installs car audio (best buy, custom shops, etc). You won't be able to use the antenna unless you buy the adaptor (assuming you have the big plug). There is no negative effect on SQ when using the adaptor.

I wouldn't know about the cutting, so no info there. It’s possible that different years will have different vent styles so you might not have to cut. I know that my bird is completely different than what’s pictured on that site you linked to.

As for the amp question, I'm 99% sure that monsoon decks used external amps. How else would they post a 500 watt output? It’s possible that earlier versions might have had an internal amp but I doubt it. If you want to go with the monsoon deck you can always grab the amp (or amps?) out of the car and use them again. You could also grab the rear 6x9’s as well.

As for speakers, they are higher quality than the normal stockers but other than that they shouldn't be 'special' unless they run a weird impendence vs the standard 4 ohms.

 

firebirds have a "radiopod" and are verry different from the camaro center console design. the vents he cuts are not AC vents. they only function while the heat is on. and (in my birds atleast) don't do that verry well. they hardly blow at all. i gutted the pod and removed them completly (taking care to block them off, so i don't cook my radio while the heat is on) in the 86. allowed me to "flush mount" an aftermarket deck instead of using a kit that would have it sticking out 3".. removing them will be fine. just block them off. you will get better flow through the other vents.