boom boom- finally finished up

[AlexN09]

Haha okay thanks I've got a pair of tin snips and I mean I know I could just go at it and butcher it until it was all out but I am going to try to find out how to do it. I've got almost any tool at my disposal so I'm sure there's something good. Oooohhh I just thought of a cool one. I found a tool called an air nibbler at my dad's shop the other day that could make short work of this. It's funny cause I asked my dad what it was and he said, "... Just don't start right on your car cause it takes a while to get used to it." Haha well I think I might borrow it this weekend!

[AlexN09]

Put a lot more work into the car today and ill get some pics up soon!

[AlexN09]

UPDATE:

So I continued my cheap-o deadener install throughout the trunk and rear deck:


I found that the bass response in the car got much tighter and much warmer. I also ended up pulling some lower frequencies out of the EQ because it got a bit louder too. Rear deck vibrations were reduced quite a bit and volume from the exterior was reduced as well.

As far as new components go... I am finally gonna start my front stage installation!!!

I already have this new planet audio three channel active crossover wired up.


It's mounted under my consul on the floor and the sub channel remote gain is mounted in my little cubby thing along with my iPod cables and parking brake bypass switch:


I ran all new speaker wire tonight from my four channel 4x50w amp to the four front speaker locations.


I fished the left and right woofer leads through the little gaskets in the door frames:


Finally, I made these mounting rings today for my new woofers:


My new drivers are coming in the mail tomorrow and I can't wait to get them mounted up! I still need to make some mounting brackets for the tweeters to mount into the stock dash locations. In the future I will make up some a-pillar mounts for them but for now I want to keep the car as stock as possible.

Tomorrow I'll be deadening the doors to an extent and mounting up the new woofers and tweets.
Pics to come as I unbox the new drivers!

[DJ_B_Easy]

Nice progress! But holy hell rats nest! I hope you are planning to loom all that wiring? Might just be the B Easy OCD but that's one of my peeves. Otherwise

[AlexN09]

Haha I knew someone would say that, that's literally just all the lengths of speaker wire coiled on my floorboard before installation. So yeah it's significantly cleaner now. The amp is installed in the dash so I took a pic while everything was out and visible.

[AlexN09]

It wouldn't be a bad idea to loom up at the least the signal cables as they are running somewhat close to the steering mechanism. Everything is kind of temporary until I get it all tuned and installed, than I will simply enjoy the stereo for years to come!

[DJ_B_Easy]

Well yeah, not only does it clean up the install but it also protects all of your wiring. Lay a cable over a metal edge and vibrate it a few thousand times a minute. Going to damage over time. Seems like you are being very detailed with the install, don't skimp on the cheap stuff. Loom is very inexpensive.

[AlexN09]

Wow well thanks for the tip because I honestly didn't really think about that at all !! I definitely don't want to skimp out on anything while its all apart. Better to do it tomorrow when I've got everything in pieces than later on down the road when I'm too lazy.

[Ranga14]

DJ_B_Easy, you'd die if you saw my car and its mess of wires.

[AlexN09]

Dannnnnngggggggggaaaauuuhhh !!!!! My package isn't here yet apparently paying extra for 2nd day air doesn't help anything .

I guess I'll just start fabbing up the tweeter mounts so it'll be ready to go.

[LongBeachCoupe]

Paying extra for shipping is a sucker bet! Spend that extra cheddar on the looms!
Unless theres XYZ show this weekend let the mailman take his time.

I had a friend who liked to be... ambitious... with his wiring when I was in high school (back before 2000, wow I am old)... One day we went into WaWa and when we came out his car was filled with a thick grey smoke, and his roofliner was beginning to catch fire...needed to disconnect the battery and have it towed home...

I also saw a friend's battery catch fire while we were driving on the highway (back in 2004).

[DJ_B_Easy]

^Troof!

You did at least loom the power cable in the engine bay, right? RIGHT?!

[AlexN09]

Rushing to lowes....

[DJ_B_Easy]

Oops! Not only do you want that loomed because of the obvious heat and movement, but depending on where you came through the firewall you want a bung in there too.

[AlexN09]

I came through the firewall through that cool black rubbery gasket that was already there. Wow I never even thought about how catastrophically my car could die when a power wire arced onto ground!!

[DJ_B_Easy]

^Yes, people dont realize its more power than you think.

I dont know the full extent of the story, but member DiamondWVU had his hot end disconnect somehow from his capacitor. From what i understand it dumped the full charge into the floorboard near the transmission. I dont know if you have ever seen a capacitor short and discharge, but its rather violent. I remember in my high school electrical class my teacher showed us a very small one, maybe a couple fractions of a farad. Charged it, shorted it to a metal toolbox, and the thing WELDED ITSELF TO THE TOOLBOX. Needless to day I believe DiamondWVu said bye bye transmission.

[LongBeachCoupe]

Diamond will tell us the story again at carlisle!

[AlexN09]

Wow that's ridiculous man!! Fortunately I do have a rather realistic understanding of electrical power and I'm gonna add some precaution to my setup today. Thanks for looking out for me, guys !

I really wish I could make it to Carlisle but I am just too young and too poor !

[DJ_B_Easy]

Do I need to ask if your power feed is fused within 18" of the battery?

[AlexN09]

What's a fuse???












Haha just kidding yeah I have a fuse inline about six inches after the battery and all amps are fused. Plus everything has it's own dedicated circuit to avoid any overloading.

[AlexN09]

So i finally discovered what happened to my order!! There was a problem with my supplied address and madisound emailed me. Unfortunately gmail routed it to my spam folder and I never read it. So they just cancelled my order completely.

Either way made some progress this weekend:





Gonna grab some loom and wrap up my power under the hood and all my speaker and signal wires in the dash!

My parents went on a trip for the weekend so I had the whole garage to spread out my car parts lol

[DJ_B_Easy]

My parents went on a trip for the weekend so I had the whole garage to spread out my car parts lol

Does not look amused.

[AlexN09]

Does not look amused.

That was him smiling. I'm glad I didn't see him this morning when he hit a deer doing around 50mph

Anyhow, this one's for you DJ:

Before:


After!!


Went ahead and did all wires I have ran like this and it only cost me $12.

[DJ_B_Easy]

Ahhhhh, thats better.

[AlexN09]

OOHHHHH YEAHHHHHH!!!!

My speaker order from Madisound came in today !!

I apologize for the bad phone pictures but here it goes anyhow>

My new Silverflute 6.5"s and SEAS NEO alluminum dome tweets!


These things are so large and heavy and well made. Even the little tweets are pretty stout. I went straight to wiring and mounting the tweeters.

I remade my first steel tweeter bracket and then made a matching second one. They both utilize the factory mounting screws from the stock speakers I pulled out. I mounted the tweeters to the steel plate with rubber washers to help absorb and isolate speaker vibrations.



Here is a top view of the driver side tweeter mount with GPS antenna under the grill as well:


I messed around with my active crossover quite a bit and spent some time tuning tonight. The sub is low passed at 100 hertz with a 24 db slope, the mids (still stock at this point) are band passed between 80 and 2500 hertz at an 18db slope, and the tweets are high passed at 2500 hertz at an 18db slope.

These tweeters are so far ahead of what the stock 3.5"s sounded like. They are so much smoother and less harsh. The higher frequencies are all there now and the sound is crisp and detailed without being fatiguing at all. You guys should really check these things out. I think I paid $50 a piece for them and they sound great.

Tomorrow I will mount the mdf rings, trim some sheet metal and mount up the silver flutes. This thing is going to sound so good, I can't wait!

[J Russ]

That was him smiling. I'm glad I didn't see him this morning when he hit a deer doing around 50mph

So does that mean your dad will be getting a C7 in the near future??

[AlexN09]

Man I hope so!!! That's what he's been holding out for for so long but after the Detroit auto show he was like gross I'm getting a C6 lol

[AlexN09]

Just want to say thanks for everybody who posted in this thread to help me with my install, and to everybody else whose write-ups and old posts I learned from.

The system is finally complete!!

I just finished installing my silver flute 6.5"s today and they sound fantastic. I've got the doors all sealed up and treated with OCF and the speakers mounted to mdf with layers of non-hardening clay to help isolate and decouple the drivers from the doors. All sheet metal is treated with a layer of deadener and the midbass has finally reached that level of punchy I was looking for.

I had to cut out about 1/4" around the speaker holes in order to mount these. Nissan did a fantastic job helping us out when they designed these doors. There isn't a hole larger than a push clip in the whole door. The window glass is shaped around the speakers so you could drop deeeeeeeep speakers in these doors. There is plenty of room between the speaker surround and the grill of the door card, even with a 3/4" MDF baffle. I've got about 45watts running to each speaker now and they sound really fantastic.

Overall my response curve, clarity, and total volume have all gotten so much better. I am really enjoying having my car all in one piece and fully functioning too.

Anyhow here are some final pictures!

Driver's door finished up:


Passenger door:


A close up of the silverflute and mounting materials:


Thanks again for the help and please feel free to post any questions you have or pm me with anything you need because I have had this car interior all apart now and know what problems you might run into.

[DJ_B_Easy]

VERY NICE! Love the extra steps you took to make it clean and floating all the speakers. I always said when sell my condo and buy a house Im going to float an entire room and bug out with the turntables in it for days.

Wish I could hear it in person, but I think we live a few thousand miles away.

[LongBeachCoupe]

Looks good! Syphon some gas out of the vette and use it to fund a carlisle trip...
We all recall mehdi coming from Canada for the event!