When it comes to stereo systems, there are some people out there that just want to listen to their music, plain and simple. Generally, it's the same group that's scared of all the new fancy gizmos and gadgets and don't even use cell phones. Just kidding about the cell phone part, but now there's no need to be scared of upgrading your stock stereo system. Many companies have taken the fear out of this by making a number of adapters and plug-and-play wiring kits to get you on the road with upgraded sounds in no time. After you see just how easy this is you might even get excited and want to add some bumps, so check out our other special audio tech stories in this issue.
We used a stock Tacoma for our guinea pig, which has a proprietary radio that is not your standard single DIN, so away we went, looking for anything and everything we would need, and what we discovered was awesome. We found it all: a head unit that has a satellite tuner, a dash kit from Scosche that will hold a single DIN, with a wiring kit that will convert the factory harness to any radio plug. We also stumbled upon a set of speaker mounts from Taco Tunes that would let us install a pumped-up set of speakers.
Once all of our stuff showed up, it was time to put it in the truck, so we hooked up with Adam Gedik from 714 Motorsports. After all was said and done, Adam agreed with us that with these parts this is one of the simplest installs he has done. If you're confident in your abilities to remove some interior pieces and clip a few plugs together, you could easily do this install at home in less than two hours. For more information, contact the companies listed in the source box.