Celica Forums General Discussion General Newbie Stereo installation questions

Hey all,

I bought a 2002 GTS used in February of this year, and I absolutely love the car. However, about a week ago, the CD-player ate a CD, spit it out and now keeps switching over to give me an Err 1 message, which means I cant even listen to the radio for more than 5 seconds at a time... so basically I decided to buy a new Head Unit for my car.

I dont have a lot of money lying around so I was looking at decent HU's in the $150-200 range with the only real priority being that it could play MP3's (and of course sound and look good). I went to the Best Buy here (BIG mistake, I know now) to see what they had and ended up buying a Kenwood KDC-MP425 HU. That was the easy part.

After ~5 hours of dealing with crap from Best Buy, I finally was getting them to install everything, and they didnt have the wiring harness that was needed. They ended up finding the info on your forums here about the Scosche TA03 harness, and I read over the thread on the Noise Mod for it. BBuy said if I bought the part, they would install the HU for me (its free with purchase of the player), but Im concerned about feedback noise from the car.

So this leads to my questions for you all:
1) Does anyone know how many watts the stock amp for a 2002 Toyota Celica GTS is rated for?
2) Will a new HU with 50 Watts/Channel sound better using the internal Amp or using the pre-amp's to the stock Amp in the car?
3) Is there anything else thats gonna bite me in the ass that I dont know about?

and of course:
4) Kenwood KDC-MP425 HU a good one for the price? Are there issues with it that arent evident by looking at it on the shelf? The main concern I have is, if in the future I want to add in an amp and some subs, would this HU be able to handle the addition, or would I need to get a different one? Again, my price range is really ~$150-200 for a HU (then ~$100 more for parts and labor to install if need be). If there is another HU I should look at, Im all ears.

Thanks for the help in advance,
J

Where is that noise mod link?

noise? maybe the isolation loop can take care of that. don't know the spec on stock amp, but your kenwood should be good enough, but not overly powerful to break your windows. if you plan to add external amps, check to see how many pre outs are on the back of the kenwood. by the way, you should have gotten the excelon series. contact BRIANGTS from the other site, he might be able to help you locally, plus he is also a best buy installer...

Check out my install guide for the GTS.

Nice guide