16psibrick

iTrader: (10)

well, its acutally been a few weeks since i finished the installation on my own car, but with the crazy work schedule, i havent had any chance to organize the pics i took and upload them until now.
so anyway, lets get started...
Goals:
1. achieve a decent level of sound quality (than previous system)
2. keep everything hidden completely under the floor
3. throw in aspects of my skillset into the install so i can demonstrated to potential clients what certain things can look like (i.e. wiring neatly through grommits, routed plexi, led edge lit plexi, etc etc)
Before i dive into the current install, a quick revisit to the previous install. which was extremely simple. pioneer avic-z1 to a single DLS A5 3 channel amp, whcih powered a set of DLS nobeliums in kicks upfront, and a single idmax10 in the back, with an audiocontrol DQT providing the tuning. the car sounded decent in a normal sense, but paled terribly when compared to the SQ systems people were building. Coupled with the fact that more and more clients seem to be interested in going in that direction, i figured it was finally time to ditch the old and build something a little bit more proper...
so here was the old cargo area set up:

as you can see, a single idmax10, the A5 amp, and two passive xovers took up the entire space.
so...this is where the challenges for the new install began...this time, in the SAME space, i needed to fit roughly TWICE the stuff, if not more
and here are the big pieces thats going into the back:

so...lets take stock:
IDQ10 sub
DLS A4 4 channel amp (bridged for midbass)
DLS A5 3 channel amp (tweets, and subwoofer)
Zapco DSp6-SL processor
and add to that:
.75-.8 cubfeet sub enclosure
two D-blocks on display
two barrier strips on display
a slew of edge lit plexi borders....etc...
so all that in this space...and have to look decent (though cosmetics was never the driving factor in this setup)

so quite the headache then, setting this limitation on myself...you may wonder why? well...i guess i will let the pictures do the talking. This is my car on a weekly or bi-weekly basis:

infact, this is a light load normally, there would be a few more sheets of wood and carpet in there.
so this is why my install in the back must not take up ANY space other than the spare tire well
rounding out my equipment list is a Rockford Fosgate 8250Ti headunit and Seas Lotus Reference 6.5" two way set

lets do the headunit portion.
Becuase the legacy GT has a one piece circuit board with AC and stereo, its very difficult and expesnive to try and install a headunit into the stock location. IN addition, i intend to leave the stock system completely intact (as before), so i can provide A/B demo to potential clients if needed.
so the other solution is to mount the headunit in the stock cubby spot in the upper/center dash, between the AV vents...
so firstly, the wires needed for the new headunit, along with an antenna adapter, was extended to the upper cubby spot, i used female/male quick disconnects for easy removal and service of the new headunit:

next here is the Denford's wiring harness organized and protected:

what you see on the left is the stock ac/vent cubby piece, with the cubby removed, and on the right is the JDM AVO singl din dash adapter piece that allows a headunit to be fitted, it needs to be trimmed a bit and parts of the dash structures needs to be cut off, but its a great solution for the legacy GT.

here are the two pieces mated together:

here of course, is the unit itself:

and the rcas all bundled up and protected, as i will not be using them. the unit has simblink style balanced Din outputs, that i will be tapping directly into to connect with the DSP6.

here are hte brackets for the AVO kit attached to the unit:

remote wire techflexed and ready to go:

the simblink cable similarly done:

all the wires lead out to the spot and ready to mount headunit:

and the headunit secured with all the wires attahced:


here are an assortment of other wires that are techflexed for running to the back of the car:



and a few quick shots of the wiring as it goes to the back of hte car:

16psibrick

iTrader: (10)

I always felt that each install, especially the stealth ones, is like a jigsaw puzzle, you get an overall picture and slowly piece it together by making the individual components. The most important aspect IMO, is the overall picture in my head, without that, then i really am lost.
so...tackling this install is sorta like working with a really small puzzle in terms of overall size, yet having many many pieces to it...
so the first thing is to figure out the one component that takes up the most amount of space, and pretty much will dictate how the entire install will be fitted, in that is, the sub box.
after some quick measuring, it quickly became apparent that the ONLY way for everything to fit int he well is to make a pancake flat subbox. luckily, i had a very large spare tire well
here is the well after the old system was removed:


so i used a box and measured out about .9 cub feet with peanuts:

and put it into the well, and as you can see, it stacked up about 2" high when laying flat:

then the height was mapped, the buttom bluetapped, and the line draw across to mark the heigh for glassin'

so here is after 8-10 layers of 3/4 oz mat goes on:


and here is the top baffle piece made:

and the bottom mold piece trimmed.

some dampening while i am at it:

and sorry about htis part, cause i skipped a few steps and didnt take pics, but here is the box with the top part joined with the bottom and test fitted in the spare tire well:

i took a second measurement with kitty litter and found the internal air space to be around .8 or so, which is right around where i wanted it to be

one thing i decided very early on to do, despite the fact that it was going to make my already crowded install even more difficult, was to show case some clean wiring via barrier strips and distribution blocks, as well as to use some edge lit plexi to set things off. The reason i wanted to include these aspects into the car is not really my own preference, but i wanted the ability to demonstrate some of my installation skill set to a potential client...as it is much easier and effective, for example, to show what edge lit plexi looks like than trying to describe it...
so anyway, here is the start of the construction of the U shaped piece that would make up the side walls of the install...hard to explain, i guess just follow the pics.
each side piece is acutally made out of three pieces, first the two sides were lined up wtih the custom routed center plexi pieces, and holes were drilled onto the back MDF where wires will be passing through.

and then, the frontal piece is made out of 1/2" mdf as well, and an opening was routed out, and slanted, to match the opening on the plexi piece:

then, skipping over a bunch of steps where i forgot to take pics lol, here is the bulk of the pieces test fitted together, and marked, the frontal portion of the U is pre drilled also for the wires of the DSP6 to pass through, you can tell by the markings on the floor piec where each piece will go:

then the side pieces, including hte plexi border and the back piece with the grommits, are test fitted:



and mounted ontop of the subbox, to check for clearances...so pretty tight already, without any of hte wires ran yet

next come the vinyl part...i chose to do the back in two tone black and silver CF vinyl, again, not neccessarily for my own preference, but to those of some of my customers in the recent past. Its very easy to explain what suede or single color vinyl looks like, but its kinda hard to pass on what the CF vinyl looks like in real life, plus it blends well with the black and silver theme i have on the rest of hte car hehe...
so here is the U piece:

and covered in black CF vinyl:

the back of the side pieces:

covered in silver CF vinyl and grommits installed:

the side plexi clouded:

and million (RGB) led strips attached to the outter edge:

the thin floor piece also covered in silver CF vinly:


so here comes the pain...i mean...wires
here is the bulk of the rack sitting together, all vinyled, and all the preliminary wires ran and lead out. a keen eye will notice that the barrier strip closer to the camera is empty, and indeed it is there solely for cosmetic balancing purposes, as there are TWO D blocks on the driver side, there should be TWO barrier strips as well on the passenger side)...

so as you can see, a ton of wires already and not even counting the ones that comes from the CAR, these are just the ones running to and from the rack itself
here is an all around view of this:




to prevent any bare MDF to show through any joints between the silver floor piece and the black side walls, the box was painted black at those areas...most likely this made zero difference, but i am a bit **** sometimes

a grounding spot was chose on the driver side and the metal ground bare:


so now the real fun begins, as the wiring coming from the front of hte car joins the fray...
its really hard to explain just how many wires are on the PASSENGER side of the install, 3 simblink calbes in, 3 simblink out adapting to 3 rca cables...speaker wires.. etc etc...took a while to get things at least somewhat organized and the space taken up minimized... i will just let the next few pics do the talking:



next comes the mounting of the various components into the well...
i had a good friend of mine make me two spacer blocks out of aliuminum, this will provide a very solid footing for the A4 amp that will be suspending over the smaller A5 amplifier:

so first up is the DLS ultimate A5 big three 3 channel amplifier. this unit will send 85 watts a piece to my tweeters upfront, and power the subwoofer with 780 watts at 1ohm, all class AB not ehte wires for the dsp6 was ran as well.


here is a brighter pic to give you a closer look at the wiring leading to the A5


then, the A4 4 channel was installed, this amp is briedged and powers the midbasses with about 250 watts rms.

and the wiring:

and then, we skip a head a few more steps...and now the sub and the DSP6 are wired up as well, so this is the raw install finished, wihtout any of the top cosmetic panels:



so naturally, the next thing to do is to make the top floor...
first, a piece was cut with the opening shaped the way i wanted, and apiece of plexi was routed to match the opening:

the mdf piece was then slant routed and sanded, and opening was cut onto the upper right hand corner for my logo

then, two side pieces were built matching the shape of hte stock foam floor pieces...here is everything back together in the car before vinyling:

so next, the main MDF floor piece:

was covered in black CF vinyl as well:

the piece of clouded plexi attached:

and the led strips were attached to the outside edges and then black tape was put down to prevent any light "leakage"

so this basically is where i stopped taking pics of hte progress in the back, as you can pretty well imagine, the two side little pieces were covered in black vinyl as well, and thats it...time to move onto the front.

16psibrick

iTrader: (10)

so...onto the front stage construction...and here i got really lazy with the camera so i apologize in advance.
i was determined to make the biggest kicks possible given the space and cosmetic restrictions, to make for the smoothest midbass extension...so a relatively large back mold was taken, integrating the stock kick panel pieces into them:

here is the mold out of hte car after drying overnight:

then the baffle was trimmed and some dampening attached:

two MDF baffles with flush mount rings were carefully aimed and attached to the back molds:

and here again, skipping a few steps where mold cloth was attahced, and resined and reinforced, here are the kicks, ready to covered in black suede:

the Seas mid is wired up and ready to go:

i covered the kicks with black suede, and did a silver CF vinly trim around the speakeres, and here is passenger side kick pretty much finished.

and of course the same thing with the driver side:


and finally, a two piece grille was made to protect and hide the speakres:


now unto the tweeter mounts.
first, a ring baffle was carefully aimed and attached tot he stock A pillar:

then mold cloth was used and resined:

and finally, bondoed and sanded smooth, ready to be wrapped:

a major issue was trying to find a matching material for the stock A pillar, its this beigeish color and essentially grille cloth, i went through distributor after distributor, no one carried it, so i decided to try something a bit risky, but worth the effort, and that is, to carefully peel off the stock material, and rewrap the new panel with it, hoping that i can line it up correctly and that it stretches enough to cover the new, bulging shape...
so here it goes:

and the first onetook a coupla tries but in the end, i managed to make it work

tweeter mounted and ready to go!

and the other one as well:

took a while but now i have a perfect match to the stock headliner material
while i was at it, i decided to make my seas reference tweeter a little different, i took a sponge brush, eld the tweeter upside down, and stubbled it into a silver metalic color...one of those "i am bored, what can i do now" kind of deals hehe but i do beleive i have the only pair of silver Seas reference tweeters around?
finally, the top floor covering panel was made, its a piece of 1/4" mdf with grille mesh secured on top, the wood was covered with black CF vinyl on the bottom side, and the part where the mesh is seen through the opening is covered with black grille cloth:

here is hwat it looks like from the bottom side, and then the top side was wrapped again with factory matching carpet

okay, so this basically is all the buildup pics that i have...sorry that i missed quite a few steps here and there but hopefully you can fill in the gaps yourself hehe

16psibrick

iTrader: (10)

Finally, lets take a look at what all the work has amassed to, I wont be explaning anything here, and will just let the pics do the talking. Sorry about my crappy camera if the lighting seems off or is blurry…thanks!






















and finally, a quick video of the LEDs cylcing through their colors
http://www.icixsound.com/iv/view_vid...931222ff4467bb

thats all folks

crg914

iTrader: (5)

Man alive, a lot of work went into that install. Very impressive work. Wish I was closer, I'd have you do my audio system.

Nice work.

cbr900son

iTrader: (4)

WOW awesome work! BTW is that a huge crack in ur window?

drsifu

iTrader: (6)

nice work Bing....hope everything is well up in the Bay Area.

16psibrick

iTrader: (10)

TWO HUGE cracks in my window, along with two more smaller ones, i keep on getting hit at an interval of once every few weeks to a month or two, i figured there is no point replacing it for now if i am just going to get a new one right away...lol

pony_killer

iTrader: (23)

i always love seeing your new work...even your old work because lots of time and perfection go into each car you do. good job again bro..AND FIX THAT WINDSHIELD

KelekonaKustoms

iTrader: (9)

Great install!! i really like those kick panels with the silver carbon around the speaker, nice touch

UofA350Z

iTrader: (9)

Nice work Bing!

16psibrick

iTrader: (10)

thanks guys...hey, by any chance does anyone know if they offer a clear bra for wind shields?

i am just super glad i managed to get things to fit, this was one install i wasnt sure until about 1/3 of hte way into it, and it turns out, if things were 1/8" bigger in any form, it wouldnt have worked lol...that would have sucked waste all the work already done...:P

blackz123

iTrader: (13)

nice!

folgrz

iTrader: (20)

wow.... beautiful install!!!!

bing your work never ceases to amuse me

hiz-n-herz

iTrader: (11)

Incredible install, Bing!

Did you always have the IDQ10? I thouht you had an IDmax 10 at some point.

I'd like to come over and audition that system some time...

Bill

SlideFox

Beautiful Setup! Absolutely Stunning!!

350zspl

iTrader: (3)

really nice Bing

16psibrick

iTrader: (10)

yeah i had an idmax before, no way to fit it into this install sure, come take a listen to it whenever you want, since it seems the GTG is dead around here

XERMAN2001

iTrader: (1)

can you play the sub with the ruber mat down/on.

can you still here the sub, does the lack of air hurt it and will the amp overheat?

thanks

Kevin

16psibrick

iTrader: (10)

my bass sounds BETTER with the mat in place, i never remove the mat at all, havent removed it ever the bass is louder with the mat in place, i have tried it both ways

nope on the overheating hehe...good amps, properly installed and tuned, are not prone to overheating, infact my amps are still easily touchable after serious sound demos for a over an hour