I ended up going with a Huawei Mediapad S7-303u. It's the closest I could find to the size of the stock JBL Stereo with the features I wanted.
Even so it's still to big heighthwise (while oriented in landscape). It would stick up about a quarter inch above the bezel to about halfway to the curve of the dash where it curves to the message center buttons.
If I line it up to the top edge of the stereo opening then the climate control panel would need to be moved plus it would require major custom work to the dash to make a semi permanent install that would look stock but could be removed easily to prevent theft.
If there were an already created way to modify the climate controls to be controlled remotely through an app, I might have tried tackling it a few years ago when I could move around better but I can't find anything to do that. And with my back problems getting worse as I get older, I wouldn't be able to do it anyway even if there were a solution for the controls.
So I guess for now I'll use a windshield mount and pipe the audio through bluetooth to the aux interface through the cd input I got.
While I'm thinking about it, I'm also having a problem with the car misfiring. I already know most of the troubleshooting procedures but I do have a couple of questions maybe someone could answer.
Is there anyway to tell if the cars pcm is going bad?
I also was wondering if anyone knows the obdII system real well.
I got an OBDLink MX scanner and a few different programs to connect to it including Torque Pro, Dashcommand, OBDLink, and Car Gauge Pro.
Does anyone know how you set these programs to read ALL the data streams going on? I bought the specific add-ons for these apps if they had the for Ford but none of them seem to be able to read
everything that should be there.
For an instance just off the top of my head say the fuel level. I know the car can read that electronically because it shows it in the message center but none of the programs see any information for that.
Same thing for a lot of other things I'm sure the car monitors (oil level, coolant level, etc) as well as ABS system, transmission, etc.
I also understand they're supposed to be able to run the KOEO/KOER tests from the apps.
The apparent absence of monitors another reason I'm wondering if the pcm is going bad or maybe my car isn't a full EEC-V or do I just not have them setup correctly?
I read somewhere last night that ALL Mark VIII's made after September 95 WERE EEC-V so I went out to look at mine. Sure enough mine was made in August 95.
Does that mean mine is one of those hybrid EEC-IV/V ones I heard about?
Anyone around that that can teach me about setting up this OBDII thing?
Then I can talk to it for hands free.