so i've been running my FT-7900 kind of half-assed for a while now, just had it sitting on the seat with a mag mount slapped on the roof, worked okay but the SWR was a little sketchy and the cable was just flopped across the backseat which was driving me crazy every time i had a passenger

anyway finally bit the bullet last weekend and did a proper install. ran the coax through the firewall with a grommet, mounted the head unit under the dash on a little RAM mount bracket thing i found on ebay, and switched to a NMO mount through the roof. what a difference honestly. SWR is sitting at like 1.1:1 across the whole 2m band now and the audio on receive is noticeably cleaner, less noise getting in i guess from not having that crappy mag mount cable

only thing im not totally happy with is where i routed the power cable, i went straight to the battery with an inline fuse but the cable runs kind of close to some other stuff under the hood and i'm a little paranoid about it. anyone dealt with that, like is there a minimum clearance i should be keeping from other wiring harnesses or is that mostly just about heat sources

congrats on getting that sorted, a proper NMO mount really does make a huge difference over mag mounts especially for regular daily driving. your SWR numbers sound great

on the power cable routing, the main thing to watch out for is keeping it away from anything that gets hot, so exhaust components, the heater box, that kind of stuff. running near other wiring harnesses is generally fine as long as the insulation isnt damaged anywhere and youre not zip tying it so tight against a sharp edge that it could wear through over time. i like to add a little split loom anywhere the cable might rub against metal just for peace of mind. the inline fuse close to the battery is the right call, a lot of people skip that and then wonder why things go sideways

yeah i had the same situation in my truck for way too long, mag mount hanging off the cab, coax in the door jamb... worked but looked terrible and my wife hated it lol. finally did the proper install and honestly wish id done it sooner. the NMO makes such a cleaner install

i cant really answer the clearance question specifically but i just used split loom on basically my whole run and havent had any issues in like 3 years now