I have yet to see a picture or thread on this so I didn’t know if it was possible. I am here to tell you that it is, and that it is easy. I relocated the HVAC controls up one din so my radio controls would be at easy reach while resting my hand on the shifter. It’s almost exactly how nice it was in my 1st gen Eclipse.
I had to make a custom bracket to mount the head unit to. I happened to have the factory mounting brackets from a 1st gen Eclipse. You can see one of the four spot welds I made in this picture. You could just drill through and bolt them together if you don’t have a welder. The donor bracket was contoured almost perfect to slide into the contours of the factory bracket.
Cut the metal vent spacers as seen here and move the cables up
The donor bracket had to be cut to clear the hvac cables. The HVAC module had to modified to remove the mounting holes on both sides and new holes drilled in through the bracket into the plastic. I did this with a cutoff wheel and a dremel.
Brackets installed before cover replaced
Here are some more pictures of the install:
I still need to fill the hole at the top. It’s unfortunately not quite 1 din tall, which is weird considering the hvac module is 1 din in size. I’ll find a 1 din cubby or something and modify it to my needs.