Car audio install in progress (pics)

[Captainobvious]

Actually, there is currently zero dynamat/CLD in the car. I haven't had any issues with vibration/resonance in the car yet. Outside of the sunglass holder that is. I would probably start by treating the large flat panels that will have the most issues and go from there. (outer door skins, roof and some panels in the trunk/hatch). Also, we noticed the spare tire well area is extremely resonant and sits right above the exhaust system so I'd recommend treating that area heavily as well.


My buddy just treated his speed3 with spot treatments of Dynamat and full MLV coverage.

[The Nut]

I was thinking I need it on the firewall most right now. (New stuff mounts vibing things the most.

[Jeremy M]

I did my whole car aside from the roof
And I need more in the trunk and more around the console area.

[Captainobvious]

Damn, I was considering MM swaps myself too, but if it makes that big of a difference in vibration...I may skip it and live with the slop. Bummer

[Captainobvious]

OK, more updates. The system is nearing completion. Just waiting on the sai lpanels to be completed and I'm ready for tuning. Here's the latest:


Some great updates to add. Just got done a week in North Carolina working with legendary installer Mark Worrell and we made some fantastic progress on this car. (More like me holding stuff and watching him do his thing )

First up, a new dash bezel

























.

Wiring:

Power wires run through the stock plastic/rubber grommet.









Door wiring...not fun to get wires into these doors.





Drilled out an open area in the factory molex connector to pas through the wires



Wire is channeled then through the rubber boot and along with the factory wires into the door











Speaker wiring run



With the RCAs









RCAs







Trunk Ground



Under the car picture. bolted securely to the body metal.



removed paint and secured to a clean surface. This is 2/0awg wire



Speaker wires all techflexed and heatshrinked nicely.



Under the Hood:



2/0awg was run for the main power wire and the other one shown is a direct run to power the head unit. Techflex and heatshrink as usual.



Connected at the battery with a Streetwires BC2P terminal which provides 2 lugs for ring terminals. A very nice piece.



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As seen previously in the build log, I had made up some kick panel enclosures to house the 8" midbasses. I never got around to integrating them into the factory kick plastic for a cohesive look however. Mark and I had some ideas and this is what he came up with:

First, the existing enclosures, after Mark took the time to widen the openings to allow for the larger L8v2 (previously housed a JL ZR800) and freshly carpeted.





They fit the L8v2s now perfectly



The enclosures sit very tightly into the corners of the kicks and we installed SDS butyl rope to anchor them in. I had used it previously on these as well and it was incredibly difficult to remove them from the car. That SDS butyl rope is AWESOME stuff. You can use it for a number of different applications. Check out his site to read up about it: Welcome to Sound Deadener Showdown | Sound Deadener Showdown







Wired up and techflexed



Fresh plastic kick panels were trimmed up and then scuffed up with 40 grit to provide a good surface for adhesion of the resin. We also cut out some carboard templates to make our final shapes in wood.



Here are the cutouts Mark made based off of the templates



Test fitting and adhering to the plastic panels





The pieces were tacked together with screws and CA glue and then resin was applied by Mark to the pieces to seal them up and weatherproof them. He then layed up the pieces with a couple layers of 1.5 ounce fiberglass mat.









Wrapping!







Enclosure installed and waiting for the new cover piece:













Beautiful press fit grill pieces installed as well









And on the other side. Now I need to make some custom mats to keep up with the awesome pieces Mark made!





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And onto the highlight of this build- the trunk

In the mazdaspeed 3, the spare tire well is extremely large in diameter, but very shallow as well (2-3" deep). Mark came up with a fantastic design for the trunk and executed it flawlessly.

Fiberglassing the spare tire well (We used up to 12 layers of ounce and a half in spots to make the shell for the enclosure. It's EXTREMELY strong, yet fairly light weight as well.

The bare trunk:



Deadened with some high quality SDS CLD tiles. This part of the trunk is thinner metal and prone to resonance. I had to use more than the typical treatment amount to get rid of the issues in this area.



Masking off the trunk...Sorry for the low light pics



Mark sprayed in some 3m adhesive and layed in aluminum foil for more protection and to make removal of the shape easier. He covered the entire surface (this shot just shows the beginning of that work)



Boom



After several layers of double 1.5 ounce







The shell is out (and shown bonded with the back piece)





Mark began working on the top of the enclosure and the sub cutout







Rounded edges and then he installed T nuts for a more secure fit.



Sealing the top and bottom pieces up





Mark added extra fiberglass in the sections of the trunk where there are dips/ridges to provide an even mounting surface for the top piece as you can see here after he flush trimmed the piece to take off the extra edges. Really nice work.





Building out the top section. Mark included cutouts for the wiring to pass through as well as integrating vents for fans.







The distribution block and switches needed to find a home, so Mark came up with this little diddy. One of my favorite pieces of the install. It's made of HDP and is routed with smooth rounded edges allowing for connection of the power and accessory wires.









All of the holes were tapped and threaded- Mark is a true professional.







The wiring was neatly routed to the proper locations





Vinyl was applied to the sub baffle front



Glued up



And let the stretching begin! Carpet time



Test fitting



Notice the LED accent lighting around the top edges inside the piece

Setting the mood...





The sub cover with perforated stainless steel mesh insert for protection and breathability.





Top cover panel is being routed and then had the edges shaped with some fiberglass filler to make a higher quality look to the finished piece.



Amps and wires connected to the amps and test fit.

[The Nut]

Hope you've got one hell of a capacitor since small battery.

Looking fucking sweet kid!

[Captainobvious]

Thanks Nut! I'm using a Kinetik HC2000 battery up front so I have plenty of power available over the stock unit I also upgraded the factory ground to a new location and used 1/0 awg. Same with the positive lead supplied from the alternator.

[Jeremy M]

Capacitor isn't needed. There's more then likely tons of "overhead" in power. Keeps the noise floor lower and he will prolly never even use the full potential of those amps for long periods of time. But correct me if I'm wrong

[The Nut]

Originally Posted by Captainobvious Thanks Nut! I'm using a Kinetik HC2000 battery up front so I have plenty of power available over the stock unit I also upgraded the factory ground to a new location and used 1/0 awg. Same with the positive lead supplied from the alternator.

Atta boy

[dead-zone]

I have no words!!!
It is amazing man!!!

[kelrog]

Love the distro location/mount. That is hott stuff.

The Zed's look great in there, are they doing the job?

[Captainobvious]

And the shots of what the trunk looks like when you open it up:










I wanted a stock appearance and Mark nailed it. You'd never know what awesomeness is lurking below

[Captainobvious]

Originally Posted by kelrog Love the distro location/mount. That is hott stuff. The Zed's look great in there, are they doing the job?

Well, I am waiting on receiving the finished tweeter sail panels and I had a bad midbass out of the box so that is set to arrive Thursday. Once that stuff is installed, I can get tuning and see what this system can do. The Zed's should kick ass with 600watts per front speaker and 1000watts on the sub

[Pseudonym]

how much fun were those molex pieces in the doors?

[Captainobvious]

Originally Posted by Pseudonym how much fun were those molex pieces in the doors?

Bane of my existence, essentially.

[Pseudonym]

i cant begin to describe the elation i felt when i put my last one back in the door knowing i will NEVER see it again.

[Patty-Wack]

Damn it, I want to see! All i see is photobucket crap about bandwidth. I'll come back tomorrow..

[evilmonkey187]

Originally Posted by Patty-Wack Damn it, I want to see! All i see is photobucket crap about bandwidth. I'll come back tomorrow..

^^^^^
This^^

[Captainobvious]

Originally Posted by Patty-Wack Damn it, I want to see! All i see is photobucket crap about bandwidth. I'll come back tomorrow..

Originally Posted by evilmonkey187 ^^^^^ This^^

Pictures are now viewable. I decided to upgrade my photobucket account seeing as how it took all of 2 days to reach my bandwidth limit


Here are the finished sail panel pods as well:

[The Nut]

Lookin good. What material did you use on your dash? Kinda looks like suede too, but hard to tell.

[Captainobvious]

Originally Posted by The Nut Lookin good. What material did you use on your dash? Kinda looks like suede too, but hard to tell.

It's a Dash Designs suede dashmat. Good eye.

It's filthy and needs to be vacuumed/cleaned.

[The Nut]

Did you loose your air bags release points on the A-Pillars when you covered them?

[Captainobvious]

Originally Posted by The Nut Did you loose your air bags release points on the A-Pillars when you covered them?

No they still release from the top corner of the pillar. No obstructions

[AshFromCan]

Wow. Great craftsmanship. Don't know a thing about this stuff but it looks great.

[evilmonkey187]

Holy hell, looks amazing. I don't even want to touch my car to install my alpine system now. Lol looks like it was a bitch to do.

[El Beaner]

There is a lot of hotness going on in here

[g00s3y]

That is absolutely beautiful when everything is lit up. Craftsmanship looks like perfection. Amazing job.

[eppopipe]

Is that the HU I think it is? Super jealous.

[Captainobvious]

Originally Posted by eppopipe Is that the HU I think it is? Super jealous.

Pioneer P99RS ? Yep.

Although it's just been removed to make way for the new source setup. Here's the latest update and more is yet to come.

Got a little work done today. Not quite up to "#Doctor" quality level, but I'm happy with the beginnings considering Im working out of my living room...

It's official. The P99RS is out and the new digital setup is on its way in. First up, I had to disassemble the trunk in order to reconfigure some wiring and to find a suitable home for the processor. The board was carpeted and pre-drilled for Hex cap bolts and lock nuts all around. To mount the panel to the trunk, I used (3) 1/4-20 bolts and lock nuts to secure it to the chassis.
I rand 2 new optical cables and a 6 conductor cable for the DSP remote controller.

[Captainobvious]

Now that the dsp is mounted and digital signal cables have been routed, I had to get some RCAs from the dsp over to the amps. I had these purdy SounDrive cables from Westco installed before the Mosconi was a consideration, and the fact that they are 17 footers would make for a messy re-installation- can't have that

So I spent some spare time the last few nights completely tearing down the rca cables and then remaking them to the proper lengths needed. I decided to switch up the RCA connectors as well. The larger ones are a bit bulky and make for a tough connection in the tight quarters where I have the 6to8V8 installed.
I already had 20 of the Monoprice pieces at the house and they are very nice quality as well, so I went with those. (link to these is near the bottom) Cables are made from Canare star quad and dressed up with heatshrink and techflex. I'll also explain how they were made so anyone else interested in making their own cables can see how I did mine.

To start things off, I had to cut the old cables and de-solder the RCA ends:



That's a lot of RCA hardware...



For my system, I use a bridged pair of channels on each speaker. What this means is that I needed to either use Y adapters on the end of a single RCA to split it to 2 inputs on the amp, OR simply make my cables into exact length Y cables. I chose to go the second route to make a cleaner cable and reduce any series resistance of multiple connections along the signal chain. So my cables for the front 3-way setup are all single RCA male to dual RCA male.

I started by measuring out the lengths needed and cutting my pieces. I then applied the techflex covering and used some electrical tape to keep the ends from fraying.



In Canare star quad, there are 4 conductors (2 white, 2 blue) and a braided shield. For lowest resistance, I used all 4 conductors tied together for the tip and the braid for the shield. You could certainly do it other ways as well.

I pulled the shield portion through the little hole provided, soldered and trimmed, then I filled the solder cup for the tip with solder and soldered the 4 conductors to it. After that, I used hot glue between and around the connections to keep them from moving or grounding together, and then followed that up with a piece of clear heatshrink over the connections. It's probably overkill to go to this length, but I didn't want any issues.





Next, I slid the ends on and screwed them on tightly.



I followed that up with some heatshrink over the ass end of the rca barrel and part of the cable. This helps to offer a little strain relief and looks good IMO.





Repeat for the remaining, and wha-la






I've still got one more pair to make for the subwoofer amp as I ran out of RCA connectors (ordered some more up from Monoprice).
Link to the Monoprice RCA barrels:
Premium RCA Plug - Monoprice.com

They have discount pricing in volume and they are very reasonably priced. You may want to consider the Neutrik Rean rca connectors as well in this price range as they are hard to beat for the money. I went with the Monoprice units because I already had 20 of them, otherwise the Reans would have been the choice.


Anyway, once I make the last cable up I can start re-assembling the trunk and focus on the exciting plans for things going on up front

[The Nut]

Dude, why are you being so lazy with this install? Cutting corners and shit?!?

[Captainobvious]

Originally Posted by The Nut Dude, why are you being so lazy with this install? Cutting corners and shit?!?

I know...I really need to step my game up

[Captainobvious]

Working on testing some motorization for a custom piece...

The idea:









I started mocking up the test piece to see if it's feasible. I got about half way there, but need to pick up some nuts and screws to finish the structure assembly. Then it's on to wiring it up with a switch and testing her out.


Pics of current progress:


First I cut out an ABS plate and drilled out mount holes to mate up with the drawer slides. The I cut out an MDF back plate which would theoretically be the face panel for the cd drive and DRC controller behind the ipad.





It moves freely up and down to its locked positions





Note the space between the two plates. The black one is where the ipad is mounted and underneath is the cd drive. The extra space allows for the DRC knob and for the gear rack.

[Captainobvious]

The motor and rack/pinion gears:






Here you can see the motor coupling mount which is a hub mount piece. This allows gears of various sizes to be able to be mounted to the motor.








This geared rack would mount to the back of the enclosure that the ipad mini is mounted in.




The motor and gear would mount to the back side of the faceplate for the cd drive. A routed cutout section would allow for a portion of the gear to pass through the board and mate up with the rack gears.

[Captainobvious]

OK...the "beta" proof of concept is complete...


Motorized sliding ipad mini panel





Pics:












Video (with temp mounted ipad mini- Front View)





Rear View:

[eppopipe]

Out with the PRS eh? Now i'm super interested to see this build come together. Im half way through a 10 inch tablet install myself. Whats the rundown of the HU replacement system?

[Captainobvious]

Originally Posted by eppopipe Out with the PRS eh? Now i'm super interested to see this build come together. Im half way through a 10 inch tablet install myself. Whats the rundown of the HU replacement system?

Excellent! I'll be interested to see what you come up with

The iPad mini will be connected to a Pure i20 digital dock to bypass its analog amplifier and send digital audio direct over optical cable to a Mosconi 6to8V8 DSP in the trunk. In addition, there will be a 1/2 din cd/dvd drive with optical out that also carries signal over a separate optical cable to the DSP. A DSP controller mounted up front will allow access to tuning presets and digital source volume control among other things. The DSP also has the AMAS card installed which allows high resolution streaming bluetooth audio, so I can stream from my iphone or a guest in the car can connect to the dsp and stream their files. It's a really slick unit.

[swsmailman]

I just found this and wow, some great work here! Can't wait to see what is next!

[rdjr74]

Just keeps getting more insane! WOW man, WOW!

I just refinished my grill and put new parts in it!!!

[Phoenix]

Any updates?