Readers of the June issue of CA&E who read Michael Cajayon's article on what led him to a successful career in the car audio industry (see "A Life in Car Audio," pg. 81) will recall that when he graduated from college, he had plans to work for a marketing firm and get out of the industry altogether; but he just couldn't do it. His heart was in car audio. So he went back to retail, working for Ultrasounds Ltd. in Lynbrook, NY. He wound up there because of their reputation for building championship caliber vehicles in the IASCA circuit. Six months after he started at Ultrasounds, he got a call from an Alpine sales rep., Pete Miceli, regarding a job opening as a Product Application Specialist. After four months of interviews, he was hired. Cajayon quickly assimilated himself with the regional and national teams, and eventually became a National Product Trainer.
In April 2000, Cajayon knew the lease on his 1997 Nissan Maxima would be up in July of that year so he started to shop for a new car. He toyed with the idea of buying a newer Maxima, but the 3-series BMW really caught his eye. He placed an order for a 328I in early April of 2000 only to change it a week later when he found out that the 328i was being replaced with a 330i. He expected to take delivery of his vehicle in September, but to his surprise, the vehicle showed up in early July, just in time because the lease on the Maxima was up.
SBDLuckily for Cajayon, he is good friends with co-worker, Steve Brown. (All of us should be so lucky.) Brown is an Application R&D Engineer for Alpine and has created several dazzling demo vehicles in the past few years. He also has made several trips to the stage at the IASCA Finals. With both working for Alpine's marketing department, Brown and Cajayon have acquired a deep passion for cars.
When it came time to proceed with the installation in the Bimmer, Brown immediately started to think about what he could concoct in Cajayon's new car. The problem was time; Cajayon waited patiently for a few months. It wasn't until after the 2001 CES show that Brown got started.
Cajayon had some guidelines that he requested Brown follow. He wanted a system that would be unique in its styling; eye-catching while at shows; and to have some room in the trunk. Alpine management gave Brown ten days to finish the job. That wasn't much time, but SBD (a.k.a. Steve Brown Design, not the more popular, silent but deadly) was up to the challenge.
Brown's first step was to completely gut the interior of the vehicle. Usually, sound dampening would be applied at this point, but the vehicle had sufficient material out of the factory. Only the doors received some extra dampening. This was also the perfect time to run all the wires. All the wire, connectors, and circuit breaker are from Phoenix Gold. The head unit Cajayon chose is Alpine's IVA-C800 Mobile Multi-Media Station. Space was quite limited and tight up front so Brown knew that the brain for the radio would go in the trunk. A KWE-600B extension cable for the IVA were needed. All the wires from the head unit to the brain were carefully routed from the dash all the way to the trunk, and tied down in regular intervals. The unit itself was mounted via a dash kit from Scosche. Brown even painted half of the kit aluminum in color to match the dash. The factory steering wheel controls were utilized using a sample converter Cajayon obtained from his Alpine counterparts in Europe (this piece will not be available in the states).