Category: Automotive

My car speakers and multi-amp wiring harness arrived today. I now have everything I need to start the installation except for the RCA and speaker cables. I will get those from Mr System in Shuwaikh sometime this week. Yesterday I passed by Ace Hardware to get some pollyfill which everyone online advises to use to fill in the enclosure behind the speaker. Surprisingly they didn’t have any which is weird because they have everything. If you haven’t been to Ace Hardware recently you should because they’ve rearranged sections, canceled some unimportant ones and added new ones with more useful stuff. I really love the place. So after Ace I passed by Barakat in Salmiya which is a sewing store, I ended up finding pollyfill there which is basically pillow stuffing. 250grams for 750fils.

I also got a call from Cadillac today, I am going to be test driving the new 2008 CTS over the weekend. I checked out some pictures of the car online and it looks pretty interesting so I am looking forward to it. [Cadillac CTS]

I woke up today morning at 8:30 with a phone call from Stallion. He was on his way to come pick me up so we could go to the junkyard. I needed a seat riser for my Wrangler but not any seat riser, it had to be off a pre-2000 model because the one I had was one of the new ones which allows my driver seat to tilt forward. The pre-2000 models didn’t have that option and so had more empty space under the seat which would allow me to install my car’s amplifier in that space.

I was expecting the junkyard to be just one large unorganized place but it turned out to be this huge area made up of little small junkyards that were split up by car make or type. We drove around looking for junkyards that had Wrangler parts but there weren’t many. We found around 6 to 8 places that had Jeep vehicles but only 3 had Wranglers. After driving around from place to place we found what I was looking for BUT the guy would refuse to sell the seat risers without the actual seat.

Stallion using his great haggling skills tried to convince the guy to sell us the seat riser by itself but instead of convincing the guy to sell us the riser he nearly initiated a riot and the guy ended up refusing to sell us anything. I was sure we were going to get attacked by the Afghani workers there, I don’t know what happened because it all happened fast but it was a really short conversation that ended with Stallion and the Afghani worker shouting at each other and us walking out quickly.

We finally gave up on finding the seat riser without the seat so we took off back home. On our way we passed by Dunkin Donuts in Al-Rai since I had been craving Dunkin Donuts for a week now. It had be a long time since I had Dunkin and I had forgotten how good their donuts were. I took a lot of pictures of the junk yards which you can find by clicking continue below. It was a pretty productive morning.

I am not a big fan of classic cars or old cars in general but there are five I would love to have in my garage one day.

1- Lancia Delta Integrale

2- BMW M3 E30

3- VW Golf GTI MKII

4- Ford Escort Cosworth

5- Datsun Skyline GTR (1971)

Thanks Stafa

As I mentioned before I am currently upgrading the sound system in my Wrangler. I already received and installed the head unit which I have to say is incredible. I installed the Alpine iDA-X001 which is made for the iPod and its extremely practical and easy to use. I am really glad I went for it, absolutely no regrets and would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a new head unit.

For the speakers and amp I was planning on going with JL Audio but I wasn’t able to find a combination that fit my budget. Also the JL Audio amps are pretty big and I wanted something I could fit under the drivers seat. In the end I decided to go with Boston Acoustics SX55 for the front and rear with an Alpine MRP-F250 amp under my drivers seat. I already ordered these items and I should be getting them next week.

For the subwoofer I decided to go with an Infinity BassLink II. I use the trunk of the Wrangler for my dog every time I take him out so I don’t have room for a large sub enclosure neither do I have room to install an amp. I decided to go with the BassLink II since as you can see in the picture above, it won’t take up much room in the trunk and it has a built in 250watt RMS amp which makes it all very compact. I could get my dog in and out of the Wrangler without even having to remove the sub which is really practical.

All thats left now is the installation which I have decided to do myself. I already have a step by step guide with pictures on what I need to do and so far the only hard part seems to be the removal of the drivers seat so I could install the amp under it. The reason I want to do the installation myself is because I want to learn how to do it plus the fact that it should be fun. I will be sure to post pictures of the installation once I am done.

The reason I am asking is because two days ago he posted a video on YouTube of his car arriving to Kuwait… its a Bugatti Veyron!
[Video Part 1] [Video Part 2]

Can anyone here recommend a good car sound system place. I am looking for a place that has either JL Audio, Bazooka or Rockford Fosgate. I passed by the places in front of Al Raya and they have neither.

How far can you go after the gas light in your car comes on? My BMW and Wrangler both last around 62km, how long does your car last for? [Link]

Today morning I got a surprise delivery, my stereo which had shipped from the US 3 days ago with U Shop We Ship had already arrived to Kuwait and cleared customs. It was my first time ordering from Crutchfield and I have to say they really are the best for purchasing car audio equipment from. With my Alpine iDA-X001 head unit they also provided me with everything I needed to install it into my Wrangler by myself including a face plate, wiring harness, antenna adapter and a step by step installation guide with pictures of my Jeep.

I took both the Alpine wiring harness and the one that Crutchfield sent to connect it to my Jeep to a store in Hawalli to have them solder it together. Its a pretty easy job of just connecting wires of the same color together but I didn’t have a soldering iron so I let them do it for me. After having them solder the wiring harnesses together I went back home and took apart my Jeep’s dashboard and installed the head unit myself. It took me less than 30 minutes to have it up and running. This is what I love about the Wrangler, its such a simple car, I seriously think I could take it all apart using just a philips screwdriver.

The Alpine unit doesn’t play CD’s or tapes, it just connects to the iPod and from what I have seen so far it does an amazing job of it. I will post a full review after I try it out for a while but so far it looks like its going to be a positive one.

If anyone is planning on buying something from Crutchfield use the coupon code: p9w3q-2y6hc-2dssw
It will give you a $20 discount and I get a $20 credit.

Note to Wrangler owners: If you want the factory sub to work then you need to connect the Blue/White cable (Remote Turn-On) to the Blue cable instead of Blue to Blue. The Blue cable is for Power Antenna and so powers the sub only when you are tuned into the radio. The Blue/White cable sends power constantly so the factory sub will be powered when tuned into the radio AND when connected to the iPod or listening to a CD or whatever. This applies when installing any head unit not just the Alpine.

The video trailer from GulfRun3 [YouTube]
Also make sure you check out the GulfRun website [Link]

*Thanks to Zakaria Dashti and Al-Watan Tv for putting the video together.

Not so sure I am liking the look of the new SL, kinda reminds me of the SL from the 90s. [Link]

via autoblog

Since I will be driving the Wrangler from now on due to my speeding tickets I’ve decided to upgrade the sound system. Marzouq recently upgraded his cars sound system and it made me realize how easy a process it could be to buy everything online.

I don’t have a really huge budget to start with so I decided to take it step by step and order the different components one at a time. The first thing I ordered was my head unit. There are only two brands I was considering, Blaupunkt and Alpine and after a bit of research I decided on the Alpine iDA-X001 (pictured above) which I’ve had my eyes on since before it was released. Its a digital media player that connects to the iPod and allows you to control it using a full color ipod like display. The only downside in the unit is it doesn’t have a CD player but since my music is all ripped onto my iPod anyways its really not a big problem. I found it on Crutchfield for $336 and that includes all the cabling, adapters and harnesses needed to install the unit into the Wrangler.

Next step is replacing the speakers followed by getting an amp and finally some kind of subwoofer enclosure that doesn’t eat up too much space from my tiny trunk. I am looking at JL Audio for the speakers and either Rockford Fosgate or JL Audio for the amps. The subwoofer enclosure will probably be from some generic brand but the sub itself will be either Rockford Fosgate or JL Audio.

If you are thinking on upgrading your car sound system, Crutchfield is a great place to start. You just tell them what car you have and they will tell you what fits. [Link]

They are coming out with a Knight Rider movie TV show and the picture above is of the new KITT. Its bad enough that David Hasselhoff isn’t going to be playing Michael Knight and now they’ve ruined the car. Its going to be one lame movie show. [Link]

I haven’t had the chance to pass by the motor show yet but yo_ghurt has a ton of pictures on his flickr account which you can check by clicking [Here]

I think Kuwait should replace the dangerous lamp posts on the Gulf Road with these flexible and much more safer ones. I posted about this 2 years ago but I didn’t have a video to accompany my post but I just found it now on YouTube so I thought I would share it with everyone. The safer lamp posts cost more but its not like Kuwait is going broke anytime soon. [YouTube]

Here is a link to my original post. [Link]