2001 Civic SDA3 12's 8k

[afearlesshunter 8]

Round number two for the real deal. Started planning and collecting for this build a few months after I got the car, so basically a full year now. Don't really have an idea for goals yet, I hope its loud and I will get it metered in the spring. Super close to tearing into it and getting it done, waiting on a few more things to arrive in the mail.
2001 Honda Civic Sedan ES1
Singer 320A
Soundrive SDA3 12's
Taramp's HD8000 Ex
PPI 900.4
Xs Power D5100 & 3100 (maybe more battery coming)
4/0 welding cable
SHCA Fuse Holders / Speaker Wire / Battery Terminals
Kenwood X399 HU
*Possibly going with SSA Evil 6.5 for mids, no clue on tweeters yet*
Lots of misc stuff to make it all happen.... on to the pictures.
The car

 

Box design, 2.3 ft 30hz 

 

In the trunk. I will be make a front panel for it and completely sealing off once I finish wiring in batteries etc.

 

 

Still waiting on my 16 ton crimper, triple 4/0 inputs, probably get some quad 8 awg for the speaker terminals whenever they are back in stock. Still need a shorter belt for the alt and just small stuff to wrap it up. Advice etc always appreciated. Thanks for stoppin in for a gander!

Edited January 1, 2017 by afearlesshunter

[edouble101 314]

I think those SDA subs are going to be great. 

[afearlesshunter 8]

Alrighty, got my hydraulic crimper in the mail but haven't tested it yet. Started tearing out the rear tonight and trying to figure out how to fit group 31's within 1/16" height clearance, probably have to do a cut out of the new floor piece where they are. 

Pulling enclosure ( everything for this build is made to be relatively easy to remove.)

 

 

Ideal location for first batt 

Stopped here for the night, still need to pull all carpet from trunk, rear seats, passenger seat etc.

[Notorious97200 339]

Tuned in for more.

 

I'm curious about those Soundrive subs : you will have them on a 8000 watts amp ? Those subs must be strong.

 

[Randal Johnson 544]

Nice. I'm tuned in.

Wish I had time to work on my ride. 

[Infinite913 381]

I got a buddy here with 2 soundrive 15s v1 in a no wall setup jeep commander and it is on soundigital 8k and they love every bit of it. He is tuned 36hz

[afearlesshunter 8]

8 hours ago, Notorious97200 said:

Tuned in for more.

 

I'm curious about those Soundrive subs : you will have them on a 8000 watts amp ? Those subs must be strong.

 

Yeah its a Taramps for whatever thats worth. I expect to have rise and am only wiring at 1 ohm so that 8k will quickly be <4k.

7 hours ago, Randal Johnson said:

Nice. I'm tuned in.

Wish I had time to work on my ride. 

Thanks, I've been waiting for some time for about two months now. The build is probably one of my favorite parts.

2 hours ago, Infinite913 said:

I got a buddy here with 2 soundrive 15s v1 in a no wall setup jeep commander and it is on soundigital 8k and they love every bit of it. He is tuned 36hz

Everyone that I've seen and talked to with the soundrive's has been happy with them. Im currently tuned to 30 but might bump up the port area and raise tuning to 32 or so, currently without being sealed up they were getting down well to about 25hz.

 

More updates hopefully later tonight. Thanks guys. 

Edited January 12, 2017 by afearlesshunter

[afearlesshunter 8]

Finally got the firewall drilled out. Ended up having to use a step bit, wanted to die the entire time. Have two power and two ground from front to rear now. Really hoping to get everything in for a test run before the end of the week, will be working on making everything look nice afterwards.

Lumpy carpet is cool I suppose.

. 

And knu konceptz 4 awg vs 4/0 welding cable just for fun.

 

[edouble101 314]

Holy cats, cant believe you got 4 runs of 1/0 through the firewall!

[Aaron Clinton 2,372]

Tuned in.

[afearlesshunter 8]

6 hours ago, edouble101 said:

Holy cats, cant believe you got 4 runs of 1/0 through the firewall!

Don't know if you mistyped but... its 4/0  

 

52 minutes ago, Aaron Clinton said:

Tuned in.

Thanks sir! Hopefully it will go well and maybe playable this weekend.

[Shogen 325]

holy! ;.... dayum!

[afearlesshunter 8]

Got a little more work done last night. Power and ground lugs on in the front.

SounDrive rca's

Edited February 8, 2017 by afearlesshunter

[afearlesshunter 8]

Aight, got everything in and tested. PPI has been kind of odd for some reason but I'm moving it out of the trunk soon. Wanted to die wiring up that rear batt with 4/0 after the enclosures were in. They had to be in for amp wire measurements.

First day had problems with one sub unloading much faster than the other, checked and rewired seems fine now. Need to go back to advance and get yet another belt thats a different size , slips like a mf'r below 1500 rpm, 40" is like barely too long and Im pretty sure the alt is swiveled out all of the way, 39.76" will be the next test size. 

The amp is surprisingly efficient. No clue how much power I'm getting from it. Gain was set with 50hz sine wave -3dB with subs unhooked, set right before clip light even starts in. Honestly, I haven't turned the lc1 past 1/2 way ( gain was set with it all of the way up). Im still making sure the subs are a little broken in (if you believe in that). Im always looking back at them and listening hard to make sure they don't bottom out but its really hard to tell with the doors and deck flapping around. 

Not many pics for now. Im honestly embarrassed to show it in its current state. The boxes have no front beauty panel, I haven't made a new trunk floor yet so both boxes are crooked and dip down at the center where they come together. Wiring looks like sht. No rack for the 8k yet so its got foam on the bottom and back and held in place with a sheet of mdf. 

Door holes cut to fit 6.5's

 

Amp turn on stuff and Xs 31 (that's too deep for the spare tire well 

Under the hood was extremely tight, but didn't turn out too bad. 

[afearlesshunter 8]

Little Update: PPI 900.4 seems to be doing fine but still am going to move it to the interior. Alt belt continues to slip even at 2k rpm with anything past halfway on the lc1, Ill be ordering a continental elite 39.5" soon hopefully to get it a little tighter. From about 35hz and up I can not tell but and getting concerned for the subs, might be bottoming out but Its hard to tell when I have to keep my foot on the throttle for the belt not to slip at that level. I can smell them slightly after a few minutes but the cones/ dustcaps don't get that warm, Ive had others much much warmer.

Received my quad 8awg speaker posts the other day, waiting on more lugs to arrive to get those on. 

Edited February 21, 2017 by afearlesshunter

[Billy Jack 145]

On 1/1/2017 at 5:11 PM, edouble101 said:

I think those SDA subs are going to be great. 

I think no one will ever know as there always sold out lol. Kind of like Crescendo sold out for over a year.

[afearlesshunter 8]

20 hours ago, Billy Jack said:

I think no one will ever know as there always sold out lol. Kind of like Crescendo sold out for over a year.

Damien has another batch cooking up along with work being done on some new stuff like 4 inch coil and maybe neo motors too for a 3 inch. 

[Billy Jack 145]

On 2/21/2017 at 6:15 PM, afearlesshunter said:

Little Update: PPI 900.4 seems to be doing fine but still am going to move it to the interior. Alt belt continues to slip even at 2k rpm with anything past halfway on the lc1, Ill be ordering a continental elite 39.5" soon hopefully to get it a little tighter. From about 35hz and up I can not tell but and getting concerned for the subs, might be bottoming out but Its hard to tell when I have to keep my foot on the throttle for the belt not to slip at that level. I can smell them slightly after a few minutes but the cones/ dustcaps don't get that warm, Ive had others much much warmer.

Received my quad 8awg speaker posts the other day, waiting on more lugs to arrive to get those on. 

You need a bigger pulley and belt as tighter want do a thing but make the belt fail quicker. I have seen this very problem a bunch of times and everything was tried and didn't work until they got a larger pulley. And I already know what everyone is gonna say, (but it want turn as fast causing it to not put out as much), trust me a alternator actually turning with a proper size pulley will do far more then one that's just setting there with the belt spinning on it. Besides it's really not that much difference anyways.

[afearlesshunter 8]

1 hour ago, Billy Jack said:

You need a bigger pulley and belt as tighter want do a thing but make the belt fail quicker. I have seen this very problem a bunch of times and everything was tried and didn't work until they got a larger pulley. And I already know what everyone is gonna say, (but it want turn as fast causing it to not put out as much), trust me a alternator actually turning with a proper size pulley will do far more then one that's just setting there with the belt spinning on it. Besides it's really not that much difference anyways.

Im willing to try a few more belt sizes before I pull the alt out because that requires the removal of almost everything on the drivers side of the engine. Also, a larger pulley would not greatly increase the surface contact that the belt makes or make the belt much tighter and may lead to having essentially no output at idle.

[Billy Jack 145]

38 minutes ago, afearlesshunter said:

Im willing to try a few more belt sizes before I pull the alt out because that requires the removal of almost everything on the drivers side of the engine. Also, a larger pulley would not greatly increase the surface contact that the belt makes or make the belt much tighter and may lead to having essentially no output at idle.

Just remember when you finally realize that you have tried everything to no avail, and are changing pulleys anyways I tried to give you good advise from years of dealing with the same problem. And do you honestly believe a alternator that's not turning much because the belt is slipping, is gonna put out more then a alt that's turning to 90% capacity? Trust me bud I'm trying to save you a lot of trouble. But I will say, if this isn't a new belt or you haven't switched to a wider pulley then yea I would try that first. But if you have already done all this and your tentioner is good then save yourself a headache and go big. This is a common problem with high output alts and bigger pulleys is the only thing I have seen work. 

[///M5 2,833]

Bigger, larger, and wider were all used in your description....hmm.  Wider is obviously the ultimate choice, but at what cost?

[Billy Jack 145]

6 hours ago, ///M5 said:

Bigger, larger, and wider were all used in your description....hmm.  Wider is obviously the ultimate choice, but at what cost?

What are you on about now? Obviously I was talking about a taller pulley with a greater circumference in my first comment, and I only mentioned wider in the second. He understood what I was saying. Some of us have enough common sense to process what other are telling us. 

[///M5 2,833]

2 hours ago, Billy Jack said:

What are you on about now? Obviously I was talking about a taller pulley with a greater circumference in my first comment, and I only mentioned wider in the second. He understood what I was saying. Some of us have enough common sense to process what other are telling us. 

I thought I understood, but you used the terms so interchangeably I wasn't positive the OP followed.  It also isn't the first thing you should do.  Somewhat of a bandaid and one with minor benefits.

11 hours ago, Billy Jack said:

You need a bigger pulley and belt as tighter want do a thing but make the belt fail quicker.

Reason being is that the biggest difference in a bigger pulley is that it will increase the tension on a fixed length system.  With a tensioner of course it shouldn't change or only minimally based on the spring constant of the device.

As for surface area that the belt adds.  In a perfectly simple world (ie only two pulleys so maximum pulley contact) you would only gain the amount (1/2 circumference of big pulley - 1/2 circumference of smaller pulley).  Which would mean going from a 4" to a 4.5" pulley you would gain less than .75" of contact along the length of the belt.  If the angle of incidence is such that it normally only touches 25% of the pulley (more normal) you can cut that number in half.  The 6-12% contact patch gain while significant is probably less effective than a clean new pulley and non-glazed belt.  

Just replacing things isn't the approach I'd take.  Making sure everything is setup right is the first step.  Most people are lazy and skip this.  Don't.

[edouble101 314]

13 hours ago, afearlesshunter said:

Im willing to try a few more belt sizes before I pull the alt out because that requires the removal of almost everything on the drivers side of the engine. Also, a larger pulley would not greatly increase the surface contact that the belt makes or make the belt much tighter and may lead to having essentially no output at idle.

I had a similar issue with my aftermarket alternator. Your belt squeal is caused from the smaller diameter aftermarket alternator pulley. The only way I was able to overcome this was with a 0.3" smaller OD diameter belt along with a better belt. The belt that I used was a Goodyear Gatorback. 

Another option is to use an idler pulley on the bottom bolt on your alternator mount. This will drastically increase belt wrap around the alternator pulley. I did this on a previous vehicle I had.

 

Not a good pic of belt wrap but the difference was significant. 

I you use a larger pulley you might as well put your stock alternator back on.

Edited February 23, 2017 by edouble101

[jones82joshua 31]

5 hours ago, Billy Jack said:

What are you on about now? Obviously I was talking about a taller pulley with a greater circumference in my first comment, and I only mentioned wider in the second. He understood what I was saying. Some of us have enough common sense to process what other are telling us. 

Please read M5's signature, then read it again.