audio-neon

A master rebuild kit costs ~$460 with oil pump, from rockauto.com Reman'd Long blocks are ~$1800. Depending on how comfortable you are with a rebuild, it is easily cheaper to fix it yourself. If you are just looking for easy, a long block will be your best bet. I know we always rebuild engines rather than replacing them, but then again my father has been an automotive tech/teacher for the past 30 years.

What vehicle and what motor?

I'm jealous... I bet it's impressively loud.

Anytime, I just haven't been in the sq world for quite some time, heck in the audio world either, So I don't want to steer you in the wrong direction. I know that there are plenty of people here that are more knowledgeable, especially with 3-way systems and active systems. I'm more of the "let's move stuff around until it sounds best, than visit my Iasca champion friend for the tuning" lol.

Mixing them shouldn't be too much of a problem.. The nay-sayers are probably competitors, where getting every ampere from the battery to the amplifier, as quickly as possible is much more critical.

Not a problem, the only reason why I offered that response was because I was under the impression that it was a 2 way system until I saw the x-over slopes. I had just figured prior to that, that you were bridging to the mids for more output. Once again my apologies.

I missed the part of the midrange being on/off axis. My apologies. What about putting the tweeters on the bottom? Or was that option already explored.

I remember when I built my sq car, the tweeters were both aimed off axis in the a-pillars to help with the smearing issue. (basically they were pointed at each other). I don't remember all of the details of the build, It was nearly a decade ago. But I do remember sitting in my car, using a sticky tack (dum dum glue? iirc) and moving the tweeters around to determine the placement.

Even though you are giving up that efficiency bump, you are gaining a speaker (more cone area) and more power.

Well that is very debatable, you did pick a speaker notorious for strong treble response (iirc type r components/coaxials come with metal tweeters which can be harsh). But I would steer clear of the foam baffle, although it does dampen some of the back wave resonance; I have never had good luck with them. The pockets are flexible, and in turn move with the speaker. I would focus on adding weight (sound deadening) the inner door panel, or using a mdf mounting ring between the speaker and the metal door panel, at the very least. The weak midbass your are referring to, immediately makes me think of the fact that the type-r's don't have a particularly efficient midbass, every experience I have ever had with them has involved some sense of lacking. You could possibly cross the subwoofer over slightly higher, to help reinforce that ~80-150 hz range. Also your tweeters could be crossed over at too high of a frequency or too steep of a curve. This could be solved by going active and removing the type-r crossovers. There is plenty of information here on going active. It is another option that will give you so much more flexibility and control over your speakers.

The everstart brand actually recieves high ratings consistently and is often found to be the best bang for the buck for starting batteries.

Distortion is perceived as more volume because it is in essence more noise, just not the noise that you are trying to reproduce. If you have ever had a set of noise cancelling headphones ( the ones that use white noise to cancel out sounds), that is what I think of when I am thinking of distortion. So because we are hearing more noise, it is perceived as more volume because we are focusing on the sound we want to hear. I generally listen for "static" or crackling. If your gains are too high, you will hear this noise at minimal volumes. Eventually when you turn your volume up enough on your head unit, you will again hear clipping, this is in the actual source of the audio. This is because of (atleast my opinion) wattage ratings and marketing gimmicks. Manufacturers sell head units knowing that at approximately 3/4 volume (different for each headunit/manufacturer) is the true "clean signal". As for the tuner comment earlier in the thread. It is true that most am/fm tuners suck on aftermarket radios. They aren't much worse than the factory components, its the added amplification, which in turn amplifies the short-comings of the source. Bridging the components could give you more headroom, but why not just run 1 channel per speaker ( 1 per mid range and 1 per tweeter per side)? m5 will have more information when it comes to "active" set ups, but I am curious if it would allow you more potential clean output.

craigslist, kayak (if you travel a lot), a good QR scanner Ebay Newegg

Haha Caught on fire!? yeah just a little overpowered ;)The gain on the head unit can do just as much damage as the one on the amp. usually it is advisable not to mess with the sub boost on the head unitClassic case again of exactly why you should use your ears. If they are trained to listen for stress and you teach them what it sounds like it doesn't matter what you do setting wise as you will know when you go too far.Damage doesn't come from either gain knob, it comes from a careless user. First step is always to train your ears. Until then you shouldn't even have a stereo. Obviously learning steps are great, you've both had them, hopefully they sink in.I shouldn't even have a sound system? I'm careless because I explained my situation and wanted constructive criticisim to help me out? I consider careless as encountering an issue and not wanting to find a solution to fix it. There are a lot of issues here. M5 is a good guy, and his knowledge of car audio (hell any audio among other things) is far superior to my own. I can tell you that overpowering a type r shouldn't catch it on fire, I have tested a type-r on a pair of saz-1500d's strapped. I have intentionally blown subs (and intentionally abused them). Improper enclosure seems to be much more likely for your subwoofer woes. Anyways, a jl1000/1 should be incapable of blowing any decent subwoofer. For information, I suggest you look for topics on setting gains properly. If you fear overpowering a subwoofer (in a sealed enclosure) build the enclosure on the smaller side of the recommended enclosure. Subwoofer failure comes from several reasons (generally) over-extension (caused by playing a subwoofer below a boxes tuning frequency, air leaks in a sealed enclosure or grossly overpowering a subwoofer). poor manufacturing (rare if bought from a reputable company) clipping ( excessive volume, gain) Bass boost should never be used, loud mode etc... Lastly low voltage and improper impedance can cause issues, but more than likely would result in a blown/damaged amplifier.

No audible difference would be achieved by sealing it off. If it's for aesthetics, I would just make a "trim ring" out of mdf and carpet or paint it to match, but honestly it would serve as nothing more than being more aesthetically pleasing.. Maybe a slight placebo effect

You can definitely run any sub over power daily, just don't turn up the volume knob that much, lol... I used to drive around with two saz-1500d's strapped on a pair of 600w rms tc sound subs dual 1 vc, wired to 1 ohm (~.7 ohms per amp before impedance rise) and never had an issue besides the initial smell of glue.

I have had great luck with knukonceptz... http://www.knukonceptz.com/productDetail.cfm?prodID=KRD14BL-100 It might be a little more expensive, but it is super flexible, which I have always found to be a benefit in car audio environments.

I'm going to try and make this as simple as possible. If you are trying to compete, you will want a completely different box tuned much higher, closer to 50hz for competitions (assuming you are doing burps). (Which won't give you the loud lows because frankly competitors don't use low frequency burps to compete because they aren't as loud). As far as speaker wire from the amp to the sub, nothing larger than 12 ga. is necessary, and will not yield any discernible improvement. As far as an improvement in the amplifier department, what is your budget? Lastly a properly built box is the single greatest improvement you can make in any system.

Sundown SAZ-1500d, headroom never hurt anyone.

So it finally got delivered last night at around 1030 pm from Rutland VT. I have always dreamed of owning a muscle era car, and decided that this year instead of building a computer or blowing my money elsewhere, that I would look for a project car with my tax return. After several weeks of looking, this is what I have found. The car is home, and after adding some gas it started right up. The stainless steel brake lines I ordered for the car have arrived, and after a short test drive today, I found out that it has either an oil or cooling system problem, and an evident misfire. That being said, this is a long term project that I hope to keep you guys in the loop with. As far as my plans for the car: I wan't to make a driver. I will freshen up the body work, and replace damaged panels (interior and exterior) with original parts whenever possible. I plan on using modern bushings and updating the suspension minimally to make the car handle effectively. I have already visited my long time friend to address the audio issues I have with the car ( as in there is no radio or speakers). As it stands we have plans of doing a stealth install with modern sq oriented products (morel speakers, a single 5 channel amp, and a jvc headunit that can be controlled by my phone so that it can be mounted in a stealth location.) The primary use for the car will be for local cruises, drive ins and some car shows. I am not building a trailer queen, but rather a nearly 50 year old car that can be driven at any time, reliably.

it does, but stock appearance outweighs audiophile quality in this case. I will figure out more when I get to the audio stage of the game... Body and drive-ability are my top priorities.

Last Final was this morning, I've been around just haven't posted... I did post ~ a month ago about the deck and speakers I put in my DD.