16psibrick

iTrader: (10)

havent posted any of my installs on here in a long time...mostly for two reasons:

1. havent done too many Zs lately.

2. been doing more nad more of hte pure SQ setups, the kind of install that may sacrifice pure looks in the name of sounidng better, whcih may not be the way to go for guys on this forum hehe..Especially the last two installs involving big A pillar builds

but...i figure i would put it up for you guys to peruse...these will be direct cut and pastes from other forums, so dont worry about certain names and stuff that petains to those forum and members

-----------------------------------

FIRST UP: simple SQ install in a MkV Gti

well, fresh back from vacation and boy the relaxation was worth it, cuase this MkV GTi was surely one of hte more annoying cars i have done recently. Ask many installers and they will tell you they dont like germans cars, this MKV was a bit peculiar, in someways, it was easier than the MKIV, but in others, more annoying...hehe

anyway the goals:

1. great a nice sounding SQ system with the gears supplied by the customer (whcih is why its low powered)

2. very simply looking in the back with fully stealthiness

3. figure out osmeting for the front midbass location

anyway, lets get started. everything except hte subwoofer and the midbass amp, was provided by the customer.

the singal starts with an aline 505 dvd headunit. now here i want to make a suggestion to anyone who has one of htese cars or is going to work on them.

DO NOT GET THE METRA DASH KIT!!! it fits HORRIBLY. at first i thought it was me that did something wroing,until i took it apart, got another one, and just put the kit in place without the HU, and it was the same. notice the HUGE GAPS top and bottom, not tomention the sides dont match the contours of the dash either. i then confirmed this by going on golfmkv.com...apparently AI makes a kit that fits much much better, whcih is interesting cuase i usually avoid AI's kits. but for this car...i ugess they make the best fitting one. again, DO NOT GET THE METRA DASH KIT FOR THE MKV! until you findout they have revised it. lol we are getting the AI kit to swap it out asap.



the front stage consits of a pair of Zapco Competition 6.5" two way components. the tweeters were molded off axis into the stock A pillars, again, VW's A pillar proved to be annoying to work wtih, its very thin and too flexible to sand and wrap easily...and the vent makes things harder, but it came out okay.





here are two quick build pics:

first after its molded



and then after they were wrapped with vinyl:



now comes the midbass, whcih of course, as you know, is one of hte most intersting install challenges. the stock midbass location is at the BACK of the front door, firing into the side of your butt...WTF (rumor i guess is the MKVI are going back to the normal front lower door location)...some people have put in a relatively large mid in the stock mid location, playing it as low as possible, to drag the stage forward, but to me, that seems still like a bandaid solution.

so we decided to build kicks for them. whcih is annoying of course beucase of hte driver side hood latch in the stock kick. took a bit of delicate molding and a lot of sanding and cursing

so here they are, each kick is SEM texture coated and SEM painted since you cannot wrap that shape of the driver side kick.









so some build pics...first the kicks were molded and sanded smooth:



then the inside went on first a layer of modeling clay to kill resonance:





then a layer of dampening to add more resonance killing but also, to keep the clay in place when the temp rises, i have found thiscombination to work really well in preventing a slopping droopy mess.





here they are, texture coated, and then wet sanded with 400 grit to get hte texture to where i want...



and then sprayed with SEM paint, and speakres mounted





here is a shot of the laptop tuning of the DC reference amps via the USB cable in the glovebox:



and finally the front portion as a whole:



moving onto the trunk...

as mentioned before, just very simple and stealthy, here is the normal view, virtually 100 percent stock looking with the cargo mat in place



pull out the mat and a fake floor trimed in carpet with a center cut out greats you:



remove the carpet and here is hwta you see, a white vinyl rack with poenings for two zapco DC amps, and a Exile XT10 10" shallow mount subwoofer.









here is a view of the wiring. the DC350.2 on the driver side sends 2x100 watts to the midbass, the DC360.4 on the passenger side sends 50 watts to each tweeter, and bridged 180 watts to the sub. a total of just shy of 500 watts

the XT10 sits in a .5 cubfeet subbox thats only about 4.25" deep. whcih is the reason i chose it, as the spare tire well has a huge hump in the middle of it.



now a quick word on the XT10...i just picked up Exile recently, after hearing reviews from my peers and talking to them presonally. and i am acutally very impressed wtih the XT10. it blends into the music very well, with exceptional transients, toanlly very good, and impact is suprising good as well, not the loudest sub nor going the deepest, but it certainly is one of hte best, if not the best, shallow subs i have installed within the sub 200 dollar price range. look for more Exile stuff from me in the near future

here is the sub it self, hasa nice quality feel to it







overall, the car sounds quite good, for only a coupla hours i had to set it up and with speakres i am not that famliar with. midbass is nice and snappy, nice and high staging, the cneter isnt as focused as i want, but just needs more tuning time. over tonally is good, with no major problem areas, and i dont have that many bands altered on the EQ...

overall, not a bad car acoustically speaking, but i am sure glad i got this one out of hte way...waht a PITA...and for my next act...i have....oh wait, anothe MKV GTI coming in next week for a bigger SQ install...bleh...

16psibrick

iTrader: (10)

SECOND - Higher End SQ install in a MKV Gti



hey guys...

well, i just finished of my second back-to-back MkV GTi SQ install. If you remember the last one, this one is another step up on budget, overall sq, and apperance. so here goes.

Goals:

1.Excellent SQ with the ability for rear fill surround (dictated by the customer)

2. Stealthy apperance in the back but clean and can be shown off if need be

3. fabricate better midbass mounting locations on the stock door

lets get started:

the signal starts wtih an alpine IWA-505 dvd/cd headunit. learning from the experiences wih the metra kit kit, this time i used the one kit that apparently fits well, a american international kit, and installed the HU. I bonded the two pieces of the kit together, molded it, and then painted flat back so its one seamless surround around the headunit:



here is a pic of the two pieces of kit being molded together:



the ipod adapter for the HU was lead out to the glovebox:



onto the front stage, whcih consists of a pair of Seas Lotus refernce 6.5" two way component et.

The tweeters, were molded into the stock A pillars, and the A pillare recovered with vinyl:









here are a coupla quick build pics of the A pillar, first, the molding process:



then, vinyled, and stock vent installed back into it, tweeters placed and ready to be installed into the vehicle:





now, moving onto one of the most challenging parts of the install. as you may or may not know, the mkv GTI has a rather unique stock speaker mounting. the stock midbass is at hte back of hte door, whcih sux, and there is a map pocket going to the front. in the last GTI, i molded kicks, but a requirement for this GTI was that the kicks are not to be touched. ther efor, the only real way to do this is via door pods.

here are two pics of what a stock GTI door looks like, i grabbed them off someoen else's post as i forgot to take pics of hte stock door:

here you can clearly see the stock midbass location



and the pocket upfront whcih obviously makes for an interesting mold for a pod



there wasnt budget really to do a fully molded door panel...

so anyway, here are hte first, finished result.

the door pod is molded so it slides into the pocket cavity, i also molded with a shape that i felt is well suited to the overall shape of the stock door panel...whcih is always a difficult thing to do when you cant follow the entire contour of the door.

the pods were finihsed off with dark vinyl, whcih acutlaly matches the grain really well and the upper portion of hte stock door, though the lighting and my camera makes it look a bit more off than it really is

here they are:

























a coupla shots of them inside the car with the doors closed (sorry for the dark pics)





and finally the entire front end as a whole:



now, onto construction pics of hte pod.

first, the stock door pocket was trimmed to allow proper clearance for hte pod:



then the area to be glassed was taped off and roughly marked:



then 7 layers of 3/4oz cloth as applied, whcih was tricky due to the ledge of hte pocket. after that was dried, a layer of duraglass was applied, and the entire thing was allowed to dry for 48 hours, this ensures it is properly hardened and no warping occurs.



once they were cured, and removed, the moldes were removed from the door and trimmed to the desired shape, to make the portion that snaps into the door pocket ledge, a piece of MDF and ABS plastic was used, and then smoothed over with filler. there is also a back vent hole into the mold so its not a completely sealed pod, this lessens midbass coloration somehwat and allows hte wire to be passed through, obviously:



next, a layer of thick dampening went onto the mold for resonance killing:



and then the ring baffles were attached:



and then the entire piece was molded. first ht emold cloth, and then the shape was strengthed frm the inside with more layeres of glass and duraglass.



then it was test fitment time, and as you can see, they fit quite well even just sitting there:











then, a crap load of sound proofing went onto the back of hte door droo panel to kill buzzing and vibrations as much as we can. it prety much went onto any surface that i can dampened properly:





next, it was back to the pods...

they were sanded smooth, and in went a layer of modeling clay to kill resonance even more, its hard to see in this pic, but its the white stuff you sorta seen in the pod:



then, another layer of dampening went over the clay for more resonanace prevention and to jhold the clay in place, again, its hard to see unless you look close between the two hehe



finally, they are ready to receive vinyl:



and on goes the factory matching vinyl:



then, a layer of deadv4 thick foam went onto the stock metal door, this does its best at resisting road noise, new speaker wires were ran into the door via drilled out molex plugs:



then the door pod was attached to the door via speedclips and screw, and the entire door mounted back on:



and then finally, the seas midbass was installed into the pod:



the same goes for the other side:







so onto the rear speaker install. the customer provided me wth a set of Hertz HSK165 6.5" two way comps for rear fill and surround purposes.

first, the passiver xover was installed into the cavity and wires neatly organized:



then the hertz midbass was installed into the stock location, the panel was dampened a bit and wires from the xovers lead out:



and the hertz tweeter was iunstalled at the stock location via the bridge mounting option, MDF blocks were first epoxied to the location, the brige moutning screws into them, and then i put some dampened around the area for good measures



and the same for the other side:

16psibrick

iTrader: (10)

finally, we arrive at the hatch area. first is the normal view, with the stock cargo mat in place, as you can see, not a lot has changed, the load floor was raised by about an inch or so at the maximum:



a layer of soft carpet was cutout to go in between the rubber underside of the cargo mat and the fake floor to prevent any cutting or slicing of hte vinyl:



and lift that out and you see a fake floor with removable panels, though its hard to see, the front panel has raised vinyl logo of GTI



pop all the panels off and the entire install is viewable.

upfront, TWO DLS reference RA50s power the entire system. one amp sends 75 watts each to the tweeters, and 75 watts to the rears, and powres one of hte subs with 200 watts or so, while the other RA50 is bridged to send well voer 200 watts to the mdibasses, and 200 watts to the other subwoofer. I installed a link so to give the appearance of one, very long amplifier. two Exile audio XT10 10" flat subs provide the bottom end, they sit in a .9 cubfeet sealed enclsoure. and the alpine H701 DSP processor is highlighted to the right of hte subs, and provides all the active processing for the entire system.

the equipment is trimmed by white suede, and the floor is in dark vinyl.







close up of the equipment:



and from further back in the car:



and a few quick build up pics of the trunk, was too busy and didnt get to take too many...





and all the wiring, as you can see, quite tight, not an ounce of room was spared



it sounds quite nice after some tuning, stage is very very high, and its well centered with good widths and depths. midbass is also pretty darn good, just an overall nice tonality to it. the two XT10s, continue to impress me with their output, impact and transients, for how small and low powered they are

prolly one of my favorite installs in recent times...mainly due to overcoming the challenges of the door and the limited space in the hatch for all the gear

b

16psibrick

iTrader: (10)

THIRD - Simple Stealth Setup in a Yaris 3DR

this is a 08 toyota yaris 3dr hatch, a little bubble mobile. the owner of this car is also the owner of the lexus IS350 i did last year with lighting and motorization:
http://www.icixsound.com/vb/showthre...9&page=1&pp=10

this little guy is a companion show car he takes a long. while the IS is doing the VIP thing, the little yaris shows off a more simple side...i guess pretty much inline with the difference in price.

this is not to say the car doenst have much mods hehe, quite a bit acutally, SSR wheels, coilovers, bride CF seats, etc etc...and a lot of JDM gear...when i saw it, i just really liked it.

so here is the car, i am sure some of you will like it, and some of you will not....hehe...but it surely is interesting











anyway, onto the system. the goals:

1. to create a very simple design in the back but that speaks of quality as well
2. to make it sound pretty good (top notch SQ was not the goal here)
3. maintain all usable trunk space...i think perhaps when the two cars go to the shows, the yaris gets to haul all the displays and stuff

the signal starts wtih a kenwood 8120 cd/dvd/nav unit. here it is:



ipod cable comes out of one of many hidden compartments on the dash, here it is watching video from the ipod:



a kenwood rear view camera was installed next to the license plate:



and here is the view from the 8120:



i tookt he bluetooth mic from the 8120, found a spot in the dash where hte contours fit the front of the mic, and manage to completely flush it into the dash, completely stock looking



from here on, all the rest of hte gear is Zapco.

the front stage consists of a set of zapco reference SQ 6.5" two way components, the tweeters were flushed into the A pillar:





and the midbass installed into the stock lower door location and the door dampened, and new wires ran into the door itself:







moving to the hatch area...as mentioned, the goal is to have a completley hidden install...so here is the normal view, the floor was not raised a single mm, and the stock cargo mat fits on top:



remove the cargo mat, and you see a new vinyl covered fake floor, with a grille cover in the middle:



remove the grille and here is hwat you see. i took a while to come up wtih the shape of hte opening. in the end, i felt like a half squarish and half round cutout really fits the bubbly round yet angled look of hte yaris well...

so, the red vinyl trim surrounds a single zapco i-force 10" subwoofer, and on the left side, two zapco reference 350.2 two channel amps are lined up and showing through their own cutout. one amp powers the fronts with 100 watts, and the other sends about 350 watts to the sub.









and the wiring shot, sorry about the poor lighting, too much shadows around 3pm



overall, the car acutally sounds quite nice, despite having really notuning ability and just passive the reference zapcos are pretty powerful, with a lot of midbass and overall pretty smooth midrange and highs. been doing so many high end sq installs late i have forgotten how well a simple passive system can sound

anyway, thats about it, my wife also absolutely loves the car lol

16psibrick

iTrader: (10)

FOURTH - Full-on Sound Quality Install for a Friend's new G35

for the guys that know me, you will prolly know that for my personal preference, when cosmetics and stealthiness goes up again SQ in the most strict sense, I will personally almost always side with the former. for this reason you will very rarely see me do on axis tweets, or ovely large kick panels with more than two way comp sets, in other words, if an installation method mean that it could net slightly better SQ, but at the risk that it will stand out drastically from the vehicle, iwill usually not do i... I guess its a strength and a weakness depdending on what crowd you ask

So i guess it was refreshing to depart from this value that i hold so dear once in a while. The biggest departure from my norm for this car, was the moldiing of large format tweets on axis on a relatively thin A pillar

acutally it was acutally very relaxing in a sense beucase i just had to follow orders, basically i installed things the way i was told to by the customer and his adviser so please dont ask me why something was installed a certain way, instead, ask Mr. whatzzap and Senor Eng, as they are the owner and adviser to this build...respectively...

The vehicle is a new general infiniti G35S sedan. Since i have so much experince with the old Gs, it was great to finally get my hands on the new version so i can famaliarize myself with it.

so i will dispense with the normal goals and hwat not, as the obvious idea here is to create a system that sounds very good and look clean...also of note is that Ron provided virtually every piece of equipment and supplies. so any questions on gear choice please ask him hehe...most of his choice was top class, but a few umm...decisions related to wiring...cuased me some grief...more on this later


lets get started...

the signal chain starts wtih the stock headunit, there is as of yet, no way to add a new heaudnit via adapters to the stock dash. So the signal is tapped between the bose headunit and the bose amp. I should note that this isnt hte first install in the vehicle, so some of hte work was already done, including hte signal tapping.

from the stock bose output, the signal goes first through a soundgate LOC, and then into an alpine H701 processor, controlled via the C701 controller. I wanted to install the controller in a location that is hidden, but can be easily accessed to sit back and tune in the front seat. so i came up wtih this mounting.

normally, the controller is velcroed to the arm rest top, out of hte way of all the stuff in the amrest holder:



when tuning, just unattach it, and you can sit back, relax and tune all you want from the seat:



the front stage is a set of Scanspeak Alpine F1 status 3 way comp set. the midbass were installed into the stock lower door location, there was already dampening on the door, quite a few layers infact...so i just made the baffle, ran new wires into the door and put in the speaker:





the midrange, was installed into cusotm molded kick panels, aiming on axis at opposite listener. briefly, we thought about molding it into the A pillar as well, but with the think A pillar of the G, it would be very tough to get the needed air space for the mid, not to mention it would look aboslutely insanely bulky. So kicks were used instead...









here are some build up pics of the kicks:

first hte initial mold and dampening



baffle aimed and attached:



wrapped in fleece and resined:



filler and sand



hard to see the next two pics but the insides were reinforced, and the modeling clay added and then another layer of dampening:





test fitment in the vehicle:





vinyled with black vinyl:



left kick attached, wires run through...(here you see part of the wiring choices that I disliked )



Left driver installed:



same for the other side:





now comes my favorite part...the tweeter build. two of the reasons why i never wanted to do large format tweeters on axis was one, it looks really bulky and eye-catching, and two, i have seen very few large format tweets covered in material that isnt wrinkly, stiched or other wise non factory matching. this is of course, due to the extreme angles the pod makes, when molded to a relatively thin A pillar.

for a while, i thought about painting the pillar with SEM to match the dash...but a quick epiphany and some testing allowed me to pull something off all together. and in the end, i feel that i achieved a finish that was very close to matching stock colors and texture, with absolutely no wrinkles in the finish or stiches more on this below...but first, the finished product.









as you can see, the material and finish is almost completely stock matching, its darker than the stock material by a shade, but very close indeed the alpine tweeters, like the mids, were aimed on axis with opposite listener as i am instructed.

now the build up pics of hte pillars:

first the mold:



then test fitment in the car:









then they were strengthened and sanded smooth:



and dampened from the inside



and now comes the fun part, the finish...the stock headliner/A pillar material is basically grille cloth finish. but it is of a very unique color. its halfway between beige and light gray. when i try to get beige vinyl or headliner material, its not gray enough, and when i try to match it to light gray, well, its not beige enough...absolutely annoying...

then i remembered that i had some expeirnces dyeing grille cloth...and the trick in doing that was when a certain color grille cloth was sprayed with SEM, it doesnt become the color of the paint, but rather, it forms osmething that is in between the two colors.

add to that grille cloth, is about hte only thing flexible enough to wrap this shape in one piece, completely wrinkle free

so...armed with that theory...i first wrapped the two pillars with light gray grille cloth...no wrinkles



then, i sprayed them with light beige (off weight) SEM, and after a few coats, viola! the light beige bonded with the light gray and formed a color that is very close to stock...

here is one of the pillars dyed, next to the original:



this was perhaps the most satisfying part of the install...

and finally...the front stage as a whole:

16psibrick

iTrader: (10)

two quick shots of HUGE 11 guage twisted speaker wire Ron gave me to run...i hate oversized speaker cables, and i HATE twisted speaker wires even more...bleh...





so...moving to the trunk...and i really have to say i cant take pictures worth ****, but here goes...

the main trunk has two pieces, with an upright subwoofer section, and an in floor amp section. normally, two vented grilles protect the two sections. Ron will get a custom floor mat cut to go on the floor.



the two vented grilles:



remove the grilles, and hwere is what you see. the top layer of floor and wall is covered in graphite alcantara, a great material looks wise but very hard to work with.

two scanspeak 9" subs face backwards, they sit in a 2 cubfeet sealed enclosure (1 cubfeet sealed per sub!!), two Abyss amplifiers and an Abyss cap/Dblock sit in the floor. both the subs and the amps are trimmed in white vinyl.

there is acutally an additional abyss mono amp below the main amp rack, and poweres the two subs with 800 watts total, one of hte abyss amps sends over 150 watts to the midbass, while the other amp powers the mid and tweet with 75-100watts(i think...ask Ron lol)

so here comes the other complaint about wiring...the HUGE *** knukoncept rca cables...with super long ends and very unflexible...they may look cool but makes the installer's job, espeically when trying to fit a lot of things into a small space, HELL!...thanks Ron!!!! lol also, i was given ...12 foot? rcas when a 3 footer would have worked...trying to hide 8 gigantic rcas in an already tight space made me curse a lot

that is why the rca cables are routed the way they are, if i made then run straight, it would have made the amp rack too wide for the other components installed beside it...

anyway, the top of amp rack is a routed and polised piece of plexi, to allow the amps to vent

pics:











if you look at the wall of the amp rack, and the cutout around the subs, you will see a plexiglass border...they light up with a flick of the swtich...with UV/purple LEDs



of course, the idea is to see it at night, however, regardless of how i tuned my POS camera, i couldnt capture the effect of the purple UV lighting glowing onto the white vinyl, causing a slight reaction and casting a slightly more BLUE hue to theentire rack...

so i only have these shitty pics...you can sorta see how the color the vinyled area is more blue than the edge...but not really...bleh...oh well i guess you just have to see it in person hehe







well...thats it...all build pics from now on...Leon helped tune it up a bit and we will do some more tuning down in LA tommorow, so you socal guys can check it out at the meet as for how it sounds, i think its tonally qiute good, but i will let Eng, Leon or Ron talk about it after all three has seen/tuned it...

anyway, subbox build pics, due tot he awkward shape of hte trunk, this is how i squeezed 2 cubfeet out of it, a 1.6 cubfeet middle section wtih two .2 cubfeet side...he L brackets are not hte only thing holding the sides on...obviously, they are air nailed in, the brackets are for extra support...





THIS FOLLOW PIC I DEDICATE TO MR. RON WHATZZAP



front vinyled:



front baffle covered in alcantara and edge lit plexi border attached:



leds attached to the outter edge and then black taped to make sure there is no light leakage...here is halfway through that process:



here ist he bottom amp rack wtih the abyss mono amp on it, along with a crossflow fan...its mounted this way so we can still get at the gain controls:



a second tier support was ten attached, and the main amp rack sits on this:



the amp rack itself is acutally five separate pieces

first, the bottom plate, with the holes drilled out for grommets:



then it was covered in vinyl and grommets snapped in. various holes are drilled in the area below the amps, this will serve to secure the amp rack to the support platform and then the amps go on top of these holes.



here is the insane wiring job below the amp rack, where each individua wire, going into their grommets, has to be attached in a way that lead them to their eventual destination, and yet never overlap more than oncebeucase the thcik speaker wires and rca cables, should they stack together more than once, it would make the wiring too thick to fit with in the 3/4" spacers..

this took me quite a few hours...







and the top side wiring action:







now here is the wall of the amp rack, made of four pieces of routed out MDF and plexi.. first are two stacked 1/2" mdf pieces, then the plexi piece, then a 3/4" mdf piece, to form a 2.25" high surrounding wall wtih a plexi edge lit sandwich:



the inner edges of the pieces were vinlyed white to match the floor:



and the entire rack together:



both the subbox and the amp rack was then attached to the car:



and everyhting was wired up...note the gigantic bundle of rca cables on the driver side...i call this...taming of hte anacondas lol

as you can see, other than the amps, there is also the H701, a Tru line driver, and a PG remote line Dblock...the idea is to mount everyhting so that ALL the pieces can be accessied, diagnosed, tuned without removal of anyhting else...this dicated each piece's location in the maze...







and finally...the top fake floor piece with the plexi attached:



okay, thats it, i am going to go pass out from exhaustion now and get ready for my trip down to socal tommorow.

pardon me for the more than normal amount of typos...too tired to care right now haha

cheers.

Bing

16psibrick

iTrader: (10)

FINALLY - another Pure SQ install for a freinds Civic Coupe

hey gang, just got done with my first new civic, this being one of our own forum members car. its a 2008 civic coupe. I have always thought that the interior would lend itself to a very nice SQ install..and was very happy i finally got the chance to give a crack at it

the goals:

1. excellent sound quality
2. place midrange and tweet cleanly onto the A pillar
3. as stealthy and space saving as possible in the trunk

lets get started:

the signal starts with a kenwood excelon DNX 8120 cd/dvd/nav headunit, installed via the honda double din finisher:



if you look next to the HU, you can see the flush mounted bluetooth mic for a stock apperance:



the front stage consists of a seas lotus reference 6.5" two way component set and a DLS ultimate iridium 3" dome midrange.

the midbass was installed in the stock lower door location, and the door dampened, the outter door card was dampened as well around the speaker area:













now arriving at the most challening part of hte installation, the mold of hte A pillar to accept the midrange and tweeter. after some mocking up i decided:

1. to place hte tweeter infront of hte mid, pushing it as far back as possible, instead of putting it further up the A pillar, though it may have been a much easier mold
2. to keep the mold contained in the A pillar itself, instead of flowing onto the dash, the complex curves of the driver side dash means that if i molded it out onto it, it would make for very assymetrical and weird looking pod.
3. to not use the DLS midrange grille, beucase i think it wouldnt match with the seas tweeter, so this means making my own grille and inturn, means making a recessed flushmounted baffle...

so anyway, here is the result of the work:

first the drivers side, i made a shape that i though flowed with the angles and shapes of the stock A pillar and dash area the best...there is a suede insert, and the two sepakres side one in front of hte other. the grille for the dls midrange is removed so the dome is exposed. the entire pillar is wrapped in one piece mesh grille cloth with no cuts, wrinkles, or sewing...quite an annoying task lol







the passenger side:







all together:



i also made matchin grilles for the A pillars:



and here ihwat it looks like with the grilles in place:











now onto the build pics of hte A pillars.

first, the baffle itself was cut, and then low heat plastic wrapped around and shaped to be identical with the baffle, there is also an insert, and a grille, so in essense, each side consists of three individual pieces, all routed to match.



next the baffles were aimed and mold cloth attached:



after it hardened, it was strenghthend from the back:



next came the sanding to make it smooth:





then, they were wrapped in grille cloth, matching hte pattern and close in color to the headliner, the insert pieces were covered in suede and ready to go





the grilles were made also and finally, the speakres were installed into the A pillar structure with the insert in place







with the grilles test fitted:





so moving onto the trunk, again, the goal here is for a very stock apperance...to that end, here is the initial view when the trunk is open...100 percent stock looking:



remove the rubber mat, and it still is 100 percent stock looking, no fake floor rebuild in sight



lift up the stock cover, and here is hwat you see, two zapco dc reference amps, a 650.6 and a 1000.4, powers the entire system, and two exile audio xt10 shallow subs upfront, all trimmed in light gray suede.
the 650.6 sends 180 watts to each midbass and 500 watts to the subs, while the 1000.4 sends 100plus watts to each midrange and tweet.











if you are wondering about hte bass with the cover and rubber at in place, it doesnt seem to affect at all, originally i planned on making a new cover grill to replace the stock lift off piece, but after powering up, i realized that it made no difference in sound, no rattles, nada, so the stock cover was retained for a completely stock look

now, this is an install that IMO, looks super simple, but take a lot of work behind it to make it work...the main challenge here is obviousy to fit two large amps, and two subs, in the spare tirewell, while giving each sub the proper airspace that it needs...so here is a quick few pics of the trunk process...

first, the wires had to be run around the sides of the trunk so it wouldnt stick underneath the carpet and bulge it up:





next, comes the strange looking subbox, in order for the box to get the proper air space AND serve as a firm mounting pltaform for the two amps, a half MDF half fiberglass piece was construted. internal volume is somehwere in the .85-.9 cubfeet, matching the subs requirement very well. its definetly one of hte more bizarre boxes that i have built but it works well.







now here is the subbox and amp rack installed and all wired up:





and then the last piece was also a interesting build...its hte top floor, its acutally a two piece bonded together, a 1/2" mdf main baffle, with a 1/8" hardboard lip, this lip slides underneath the stock carpet, and there for, forms a seamless top baffle once in place, while the thick main baffle provides the strenght for hte floor:





so thats it, and this car is definetly going to be one of the best sounding i have done recently. after doing so many 2 ways, this 3 way with the A pillar set up really provides a lot of realism, while staging and imagine is pretty dead on. thanks to Leon for some quick tuning, and on friday, i am taking her down to LA for some more tuning with senor Eng and then delivery to the customer on saturday

cheers!

Bing

Kwame

iTrader: (78)

Dayum, thems is alot of pics.

16psibrick

iTrader: (10)

take your time man, take your time

jdmteg2nv

iTrader: (5)

great work...and thanks for the detailed writeups...I always look forward to your install threads 16psibrick

KPierson

iTrader: (1)

awesome installs and great documentation!

16psibrick

iTrader: (10)

thanks guys,

Kevin, anything that can somehow make my car -2005 subaur legacy gt AUTO, to shift faster on the first gear full throttle runs? lol...i have enough mods that in first, the tranny cant shift fast enough and hits hte rev limiter, we removed it and thenit hits hte fuel cutoff, whcih hsa the effect of slamming my face into the wheel lol...

folgrz

iTrader: (20)

top notch work as always bing

every install looks great!

KPierson

iTrader: (1)

If the car has external shift solenoids you can force it to shift faster - also if it has an external pressure solenoid you can make is shift harder (which sometimes makes it faster).

A while back I built a transmission controller - if you have external shift solenoids it may work for you - check this out: http://www.kptechnologies.com/forums...php?f=31&t=208

The other option I could see would be to raise your fuel cut!

B5I8

iTrader: (1)

Geez that's a lot of work you've had to do. How do those Scanspeak's compare to the Seas? In the home audio world both company's are top notch. Now I know why you haven't had time to rewrap my A-pillar's

adamtaylorpcb

iTrader: (7)

bing, need a new shop jockey? i just got laid off from circuitshitty so theres a roadshop guy needing a job with something he loves