Pete's install log

[Aaron Clinton 2,372]

be careful, the problem I have right now is that the component mids are too deep and I cannot move the seats up much at all, so I hope your mids are not as tall as the Orions

[Bigpete123 1]

Good point. That's the nice thing about the Focal V-slims. My 6" speakers are only ~2.75" deep. My main problem is that the 6" diameter is much bigger than the original map pocket. So as you can see in my drawing, I will have to make the enclosure "taller" that the map pocket to the point where it will have to cover part of the padded leather area above it. And since I'm only installing one speaker on each side, the enclosure will only be a couple of inches deeper at the very end of the door.

I am worried about the imaging though. I don't know if it's better to try and aim them a little bit (but not aim them too much) or not aim them at all.

There's no way I will be able to aim them perfectly like a set of kicks (and due to the location of my ebrake pedal, kicks are not reasonably possible). So I almost think that it will sound worse if I aim them badly than if I don't aim them at all. I personally think it will look much better if I don't aim them.

lol, i'm talking in circles. Advice??

Edited June 1, 2006 by Bigpete123

[///M5 2,833]

I forgot about hot glue, super glue loosened on me when I applied resin but imagine that the hot glue would be much more immune to this. Go Ramos!

[Bigpete123 1]

I forgot about hot glue, super glue loosened on me when I applied resin but imagine that the hot glue would be much more immune to this.  Go Ramos!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah, I could always test it out on some scrap pieces of plastic first, I guess.

[mrray13 30]

hot glue will work, it is the bomb!!

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[Bigpete123 1]

Okay, this isn't a huge update or anything. But I had a few hours to put my drivers' seat back in, so I was able to take the car out for a drive. The last time I drove it, I hadn't deadened the floor under the seats. This is by far the most noticeable difference so far. This has made a significant difference in cutting out road noise.

The only problem is that the reduction in road noise now makes the engine noise a bit more noticeable. But what can you do? The overall noise in the cabin is reduced, so that's great.

This weekend I will have a whole day to devote to my car. So hopefully I'll give you something more interesting to look at!

[Eldorado 0]

what can you do....turn the volume up ( when you get the speakers in)

[Bigpete123 1]

ha ha, yeah. I'm not even thinking that far ahead yet, lol! So much work left to do... so little time!! I can't believe how much time I've spent on this project and I'm still not even close to having any sound!!

[Aaron Clinton 2,372]

keep us updated man, and we love pix!!

[Eldorado 0]

Need to add to the im addicted to car audio thread:

when i drive around for months without music because of the install and its not perfect

[ramos 2]

hmm, that might be true.

[Bigpete123 1]

Wish the germans believed in using screws

I hear you man, I just took the door panel off last night. I was intending to build the enclosure purely out of MDF, but since the map pocket provides the mounting points for the door panel, It's not gonna be that simple.

Thanks very much for your reply, man. Your information, coupled with the context I've gotten from inspecting my door panel itself last night, is probably plenty for me to get going on this project. So don't sweat it on finding more pics for me. Of course, you're more that welcome to post anything you feel led to post!!

It looks like I'm going to be doing almost exactly what you did. The only difference being I'll just have one 6" speaker and no crossovers in the door. The tweets and the 4" speakers are going in the dash.

The next step in my project is to finish sealing off the trunk for my IB sub and cut the holes in the interior rear deck that will be necessary for the sub. Then I'll be able to put my rear seats and rear deck back in for a while and work on the door pods and rear speaker enclosures.

Again, I promise to keep all of you guys aprised!!!

[Bigpete123 1]

Ramos, quick question... How many square feet of fiberglass matt do you suggest purchasing for this project? Thanks man!

[Eldorado 0]

1 package ( 9sqft) should be good enough

And get the chop mat

[Bigpete123 1]

great, thanks man.

[///M5 2,833]

If you have an art supply store you might be able to get it in bulk cheaper. Place in Minny called IASCO, Industrial Art Supply Co. They have tons of useful stuff including supercheap brushes, waxless resin, any sort of chop, mat including kevlar and cf, polypropylene sheeting, non-hardening clay....

[BASS OUTLAW 0]

Good choice in equipment, good car, large trunk

[ramos 2]

Think I used like 1.5 yds for those. And Harbor freight for chip brushes if there is one close by . Muy cheap

[Bigpete123 1]

Damn! I only got to spend about 3 hours working on my car this weekend... and worse yet, I brought my camera out to my woodshop (which is out at my parents' house), but the batteries were dead. No pics, sorry!!

All I did was make the little curved sealed enclosures to go over the hinge holes in the rear deck for my IB sub. So it wouldn't be all that exciting anyway. Man, this project is slow goin'!!

[Bigpete123 1]

Ugh. Like I said in my last post, this project is slow-going. I have previously discussed the issue of sealing off the rear headrest mechanisms as part of the IB subwoofer installation. Last weekend, I spent nearly an entire day trying to make an enclosure that would fit in the very tight spaces around the mechanism. It was extremely frustrating work... the rear deck has lots of immeasurable curves to it, so I had to do tons of guess and check work.

And even after a day's work, I hadn't even finished one of them.

This most recent weekend, I went back to my shop to work on it some more. I almost immediately decided that I would have to concede a small defeat and build the enclosures such that I will lose the ability to drop the headrests. As a reminder, they are made so that when nobody's sitting in the back, I can hit a button and they collapse to increase my visibility. I can still see just fine with them up, but I would've prefered to keep them completely functional. Oh well. And instead of trying to make wood pieces that fit the contours of the rear deck, I just sprayed an ass-load of expanding foam in the gaps around the MDF enclosures and caulked them off. Not the classiest looking thing, but hey. Who looks in the trunk anyway.

I also made a replica of the first aid kit door (you can see pics of the OEM one on another page in this thread) out of MDF. This will cover where the sub vents into the car in the rear deck.

Again, I don't have any pics for you guys. Sorry, I just get all excited when I'm working and I forget to take them. But like I said before, there's not much to look at so far... I will take lots of pics when I begin the fiberglass phase and when I make the baffle for the sub.

I've built the enclosures over the headrest thingies, built enclosures over the trunk hinges, sealed off the spots where the cables come into the trunk, and sealed up all of the other miscellaneous holes. Next steps:

1. Make the baffle for the sub (I'm budgeting AT LEAST one full saturday for this since the rear deck is so curved/ridged)

2. Complete the trunk setup (i.e. mount the amps, 6 channel EQ, sub, omnifi harddrive, fans, crossovers, set the gains on the amps and on my EQ, etc). I will budget another saturday for this. That might be a little ambitious though.

3. FINALLY begin the fiberglass work for the rear speaker enclosures, front door pods, and the tweeter pods (if I can't fit them under the front grills). I'm also gonna be ambitious and say that this will take 2 Saturdays. I've never worked with FG before, so again, maybe this is way too ambitious!

4. Upholstery of the enclosures in step 3 above. 1 Day.

5. Install all of the enclosures and tune them using a friend's spectrum analyzer and my ears (of course).

6. Buy something for my fiance to make up for all of the time and money i've spent on a frickin' car stereo installation so that I can listen to music in a car that I only drive for like 6,000 miles per year! lmao

I apologize guys for the large gaps between my posts and the lack of pics! Hopefully I haven't lost your interests.

[Bigpete123 1]

okay, I just looked and apparently I posted pics of the rear deck in another thread. So here are some pics of the first aid kit door that I rebuilt using MDF. There's some grille cloth on there from my previous installation.

[Aaron Clinton 2,372]

holy crap, very nice, I should do that with mine,

I just have it ported under the first aid kit cover, but nothing through the cover

[Bigpete123 1]

holy crap, very nice, I should do that with mine,

I just have it ported under the first aid kit cover, but nothing through the cover

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Doesn't that rattle? Even with the setup I had in the pics above, that thing rattled to the point where it annoyed me... That's why I rebuilt it out of MDF.

[Aaron Clinton 2,372]

holy crap, very nice, I should do that with mine,

I just have it ported under the first aid kit cover, but nothing through the cover

Doesn't that rattle? Even with the setup I had in the pics above, that thing rattled to the point where it annoyed me... That's why I rebuilt it out of MDF.

yeah it tends to bounce up

[Bigpete123 1]

Alright, I finally have some pics for you guys. Here you go, tell me what you think! There's still a lot to do, but I'm getting somewhere!

Here's one of the subwoofer mounted in part of the baffle that will attach to the rear deck:

Another:

Just a shot of the trunk. Those ugly boxes are my solution to the headrest mechanisms, which I have discussed previously. Again, now the headrests are stuck in the up position permenantly. Also, the really white thing (sorry, I'm a bad photographer) is the "permanent" part of the subwoofer baffle. It's screwed into the rear deck and sealed using expanding foam and caulk:

A pic of the enclosure that seals up the trunk hinges:

A pic of the baffle with non-hardening rope caulk on it (to seal it to the rear deck):

A pic of the baffle in the previous picture installed in the trunk. It's held in place using bolts that screw into T-nuts in the "permanent" baffle discussed above. That way I can remove it repeatedly without the risk of stripping the MDF.

A pic from the top/outside of the sub. Yeah, I know it's mounted sideways. I did that so that the terminals on the bottom are easily accessible. It will all be hidden later, so I figured I'd err on the side of convenience.

A pic of the test-fit of my future amp rack, which will be attached to the gas tank (method is discussed more below):

The amp rack with the amps on it and the holes for cabling:

A pic of my shop in disarray:

This part of the project was fun, but a bit of a female dog. Although the amp rack was carefully cut to size such that it would wedge into place and would utilize gravity to bear the weight of the components, I needed to come up with a solution that would keep it from falling over. In other words, I just needed to stabilize it, not support its weight.

So the gas tank is right there, and unless I have a death wish, it's not smart to go drilling into it. The tank has grooves on it (which you can see in the 3rd pic of this post). So I made some 1/4" thick slats that will fit inside the recessed parts of this groove. I used some closed-cell foam on the parts of the grooves that stick out so that the amp rack wouldn't vibrate against the gas tank.

I took some more T-nuts and affixed them to the back of the slats. And I carefully measured and lined up the holes on the amp rack so that I could bolt into the slats.

Then I used 2-part epoxy and glued the slats onto the gas tank. In order to make sure they were precisely in the right place, I had to screw the slats onto the back of the amp rack, spread the epoxy on the slats (and only the slats so that the amp rack could be removed after the epoxy cured), and wedged it into place. I let it dry for a couple of hours, carefully unscrewed the amp rack, and prayed that it worked. I was very happy when it did! Here are some pics:

The slats screwed into the back of the amp rack, before epoxy:

Taped up the back of the amp rack and the backs of the t-nuts so that the epoxy didn't get on anything it shouldn't:

I then spread the epoxy, carefully pressed the amp rack into place, making sure everything lined up perfectly, and used some scrap to wedge the assembly into place for curing. I didn't feel like sitting in my trunk for 2 hours holding it in place. I crossed my fingers and hoped it would work (and it did, thank God):

Pic of the slats attached to the gas tank after the epoxy somewhat dried:

And that's all the pics I have for you. I still need to spend some time finishing up the amp rack so that I can mount the omnifi harddrive and the Audiocontrol 6ch EQ. there isn't enough space for the EQ to be on the rack next to the amps, so I will have to "stack" the small rear channel amp and the EQ on top of each other.

Then I need to make this look a little more presentable. But I will probably wait until I get the system up and running before I do anything like that. Chances are, I will conclude that it's just the trunk and I don't care how it looks.

Oh, and one last thing. When I shut the trunk, the sub jumps up and down considerably. I did a few fist pumps when I saw that, because it was a good sign that I had done at least a decent job of sealing the trunk from the cabin. The same goes for when I shut one of the car doors with the windows closed.

Things are finally taking shape!