I took ownership of my (new, old stock) 2008 Brazen GXP last week. Got it for a great deal - roughly only $1000 more than a used 2007! After reading though many of the threads and posts here (and standing on the shoulders of giants) I immediately started the mod craze... the following were all completed within my first week of having the car:
1. GMPP upgrade. (Well I can't really take credit for this) I had the dealer add GMPP tune before delivery so that it was covered by the full new-car warranty, though I had to explain to the salesguys what it actually was first. They charged me $820 for it with installation - a bit of a rippoff - but they gave me such a good deal on the car that I let this one slide.
2. Twin horns. Guys you HAVE to do this mod. Makes the feeble stock 'toot', into a noticable big-man's HONK. I followed
Tweety's Horn Mod, with pics but with the GXP, the horn location has moved to the passenger side to avoid the turbo plumbing. I found another location nearby for the second horn, further to the side, but had to bend the bracket to form a L-shape to fit. I can post pictures if anyone's interested. Oh, by the way, the horn's gone up in price now to $20 (at Pep Boys and Advance Auto) but I saw it at a NAPA store for $18.
3. Side marker-blinker mod. While I was doing the horn(s) I thought I might as well do the safety-related side marker mod too. I used the simple 'cut one wire and splice' method from:
"How To" Convert Side Marker Lights into Marker/Turn Signals
4. Homelink addition. I got a visor-type Homelink module and mounted it up in the window-frame trim beside the driver visor. This was a lot more difficult than I had thought, basically because of making it fit in the thick and semi-curved plastic of the trim, and also due to all the wiring from the passenger footwell BCM for switcehd accessory power. (I could have used 'always on' power from the Onstar mirror much more easily, but didn't want to have anyone be able to walk up to my car outside my house and be able to get into the garage.) Again, I have photos and can do a step-by-step post if anyone's interested.
5. Auto-dim mirror. Using the ideas from a number of posts around the web, but mostly:
Auto Dimming mirror with OnStar, cheap., I bought a used Onstar mirror with map lights and auto-dim from an "00-06 Impala" off eBay, for $37 shipped. The wiring of my connector seemed different from that in the original post, but I plugged it in anyway and it worked! The only thing is that bridging pins 13 & 14 to make the auto-dim work did NOT work for me - there was no 12V power on pin 14. So I connected pin 13 (originally no wire) to the accessory power I'd routed for the Homelink mod above. Works great! Only downsides are an ugly (unused) microphone 'wart' on the bottom of the mirror, and the fact that the 'phone' icon button is just a round 'dot' on the new mirror.
6. Driver and passenger storage. Some time ago I bought a couple of black carpet-type material storage bags/pockets which I had put in my old car. They're really just a pocket with a flat back and with a raised portion on the back. I slid this raised bit up under the side of the center tunnel trim in front of the seat and the pocket is held there by friction. Works well (unfortunately I can't find them for sale any more).
Now the thing that really bites, is that ALL of the features/functions I just added, and many more, were included as STANDARD on the car that I'm replacing (a 2001 Audi A6 2.7t). I begin to wonder if I did the right thing
[EDIT} Darn! I forgot one! I guess this makes it an average of a mod a day!
7. Footwell lighting. When I was under in the footwells wiring up the Homelink mod, I threw in the footwell lights. Tapped the "fading ground" wire at the BCM (see:
Pontiac Solstice Forum - I be 'GLOWIN' *NOW* - solstice-forum.com - about 1/2 way down) and used a couple of slim LED discs from IKEA (Dioder 001.194.24 -
IKEA | Integrated lighting | Bookcase integrated lighting | DIODER | Multipurpose lighting). They come in a pack of four and I'd used two for cabinet lighting previously. Great thing is they are 12v powered, so direct wire-up. I just hope that 14v from a running engine won't fry them! Anyway a good amount of white light and they dim fine with the map lights.
Linear Mode
