Wicks' E46 M3 Build. Hertz 3-Way Set from Tony D!

[Wicks]

Lots of pics coming!

Here's the direction I'm headed with the redo of my custom ashtray layout:

I cut out a rectangle from my leftover black acrylic to make a mounting panel

I picked up some nice buttons with blue LED rings

Right now I'm thinking about a button for a manual remote turn-on override. So I can turn on my accessories in the trunk without having to wait for the Kenwood HU to boot up which takes a while. The other button, I'm thinking a manual fan activation but we'll see what I finally decide on later.

I needed to cut a notch out of the acrylic panel for my modified SMD VM-1 but I don't have a nice scroll saw...so I made one with an inverted jigsaw.

I would highly advise against doing this as it is rather dangerous to have your fingers that close to a jigsaw blade as they are a little wild at times but it worked.

I wore some heavy leather work gloves as well and went very slow.

Next I needed to cut out an internal rectangle from the piece and the jigsaw blade was too wide.

So I created another makeshift scroll saw with my rotozip (spiral saw).

Again...don't do this unless you are very careful. Rotozip's have a tendency to run away from you because of the rotating blade.

I'm not really happy with how this cut came out since the rotating blade made the cut a little wavy.

I may end up redoing this whole piece again but I needed to start somewhere.

OK, back to my first fiberglass attempt. I need to smooth out the rough spots so I pulled out my Rage body filler.

First application on the top of the trim piece and another product plug.

I may have mentioned it before but if you need a general purpose "gunk" cleaner then I highly recommend

"Krud Kutter"! Its great for removing grease, bug guts, sticky residues, etc...

It worked pretty good to help remove body filler residue that magically gets on your hands ( even through you use rubber gloves) plus some paint over spray that I had as well.

Here's the panel dried up and ready for a test fit.

While I was waiting on body filler to cure, I did some trimming on the plastic end-caps that fit on the top of my rear seat.

I needed to shave off about 3/4" to make room for the new aluminum bar that I used to secure both rear seat-backs together

Ended coming out much cleaner then I was expecting

Sure enough, when you have body filler curing in the sun you get some weird Colorado rain when its sunny out

I took a piece of my dash trim to Lowes to see if they could color match it so I could get some touch-up paint for some of the custom parts I'm making...and of course the machine couldn't match the color for some reason. The lady working the paint section had no idea what the error was either...

But she recommended a stock color which was close so I went with it.

So I got to pull out my airbrush again and try out the paint

Hard to tell from this quick picture but it looks pretty close.

Another application (or two or three...) of body filler

Test fit

With the seat bolsters to get a better idea of what it will look like completed.

Lots more coming. Hold on.

[Kyblack76]

MAN !!!...

that is gonna blend like a mother fugger......

WELL DONE BRO !!..

i hate you

[scooter99]

[scooter99]

How are you going to finish it off? You going to match the bolsters? That would be sick!

[Wicks]

MAN !!!...

that is gonna blend like a mother fugger......

WELL DONE BRO !!..

i hate you

Yeah, it blends pretty good. You'll see better in the next round of pics coming up.

Dude.......

Soo wore out on sanding body filler... Just when you think you're on the last coat, it doesn't sand as even as you need it and you find more flaws soo....more filler!

How are you going to finish it off? You going to match the bolsters? That would be sick!

Wrapping the fiberglass panel in black vinyl to blend in the rest of the black vinyl in the car.

Matching the bolsters would be sick......if I could color match that orange (cinnamon) color.

I did find some though that I'll try and use in the trunk to bring that cinnamon/black look to the trunk rather then the OEM grey carpet.

Not easy finding that exact color, so I went with black behind the rear seat.

No worries though Sir, there are a couple other goodies coming that will make that front baffle POP!

Almost time to bring them out....almost

[Wicks]

Ninja pic

Hmmm, I wonder what this is....?

My modified SMD VM-1 getting trimmed down to fit in my ashtray.

Changing up some solder joints

Adding an inline connector to allow me to remove the ashtray section cleanly.

Securing the back of the new bass knob location. Not as clean and nice as I'd hoped I could get it but this awkward console piece is not very cooperative for custom mods.

The spring loaded door that covers everything is the trickiest part to account for and to not mess up.

Finally got the 5K back out and mounted to its base plate

Made a cardboard template for a trim piece around it. Not sure If I'm going to stay in this direction yet or not...may change in the future.

Transferred the template to a piece of hardboard that I had laying around.

As you can see on the right side of the trim piece, it sticks up a bit because its hitting the criss-crossed 2/0 power cables.

It sure would be nice if the dual input terminals would be separate dual power and dual ground rather two terminals of one power and one ground.

OK, so I was wore out on sanding the body filler on the fiberglass trim piece so I said screw it and jumped into wrapping vinyl.

I have a road trip on the first weekend on June that need this thing road-ready for, so I needed to get this part done.

Plus I wasn't entirely happy with the fiberglass panel so I may do it over and use this as practice.

Here it is wrapped in black vinyl

It doesn't look too bad in these far-away pics but it didn't turn out all that well.

Those internal (negative) corners are a PITA. I couldn't get the vinyl to stretch correctly and they stick out a bit.

If anybody has vinyl wrapping suggestions, I'm all ears.

Here it is in place in the car

With the seat bolsters to see almost the final phase

I do like how the overall look is coming together though. Its great to see it come to life finally rather then just a vision.

Behind that wrapped vinyl trim piece, I used a TON of gorilla tape and sealed the front baffle to the surrounding material around the rear seat area.

Gorilla tape is some MEAN stuff...

I finally got to pull out my SPL Labs SPL meter and play around with it. I was curious at what sealing around the front of the sub-box would do since it was pretty leaky on the last test.

I used a VERY handy app on my iPhone called "Signal Gen". Its a signal generator that I used to Bluetooth a 0dB sine sweep to my Kenwood HU.

Bummer, looks like sealing up the front of the box also constricted the box a little. My previous best was a 146.5dB.

Well...I still need to seal up the rear of the sub-box as well. I'm guessing a lot of the back pressure from the ports was getting forced out to the trunk rather than through the rear deck.

Still more coming...

[Kyblack76]

GEEEEZUS.. i think it looks tits bro.. .far away or not (although, i know your brain,.. me you and scott have the same)

I think its tits... Maybe some heat for the fabric to pull tighter, and of course,,.. the shape your PULLIN/STRETCHING to needs to be decent...

That said,. i think it WAY choice my friend.. good god..

Wicks, post, and ask so the heavy hitters can answer on the FB page.... They could lend some helpful hits.... And, im in for those answers...

That said bro,,,, I think it looks GREAT........ well done.. slow clap, buy you first round.... what ever you need... cuz, like all your shit... .JOB WELL DONE...

[Kyblack76]

OH...

and the black, and that brown/orange/leather color is the SHIT.... love it

[scooter99]

The things I'd suggest is rounding the corners I stead of sharp edges. Second a chamfer works well on the edges. Otherwise..................my name is Scooter and I approve tis message!!! Nicely done my friend!!

[Wicks]

Off to the trunk with the mission to seal it off better.

Measuring out a cardboard template for some panels to help seal off the rear of the trunk.

Look at all that spaghetti......That's a lot of damn wire tucked into this corner.

Also, the wooden framework around my Fosgate Punch200 fits into this corner extremely TIGHT!

It took my 15mins to wiggle that thing out of there because its so jammed in.

Another panel on the other side

It literally took me an hour or more just to make a dozen small cuts to get these pieces to fit all those curved surfaces. Talk about a puzzle piece...

While I was in the fuse panel corner, I wired up some leads for my modified SMD VM-1 that's in the dash.

Picked up some 16ga Sky High Car Audio wire for some general purpose wiring.

It is almost ridiculous how reasonable this wire is priced for how nice it is!

In case you haven't noticed, when I add MDF panels to my car, I've been cutting out small chunks from my makeshift workbench.

The more progress I make, the smaller my workbench gets.....

Here the panels are secured.

In this configuration it will never be truly 100% sealed off. With all the power cables running back an forth and the actuator sticking out a ways, there's a LOT of small gaps but eventually I'll try and seal up as much as possible.

Extra XP3000 and my Fosgate added back

I fab'd up a metal bracket to secure the battery down previously but I never felt good about it since there's always the remote chance of the bracket shorting out the battery posts (even though everything was very well secured and the chance of that was very small).

Regardless with the new sealing panels, it moves the battery back a bit and I found a convenient way to brace the battery with a wooden bar rather than metal.

Much better IMO, Its braced on the sides, bottom and top so it ain't going nowhere.

All this extra weight is finally starting to affect my springs

The rear end is starting to squat a bit.

Still drives really nice though.

OK, so I added a BUNCH more gorilla tape all around most of the seams in the trunk and went off to try out the SPL meter again.

Gained almost 2dB, but still less then what I hoped for.

Then I remembered on my previous test back in November, I was using DJ Magic Mike "Bassin' After Midnight".

It was a song I always used to play back in the day (mid-90's) to make my trunk lid RATTLE like crazy.

I was using 0dB test tones but I figured, what the hell, lets try it.

BOOM

Meters in the passenger kick panel with windows down and drivers door open.

These XL12's sure like to breathe...

Here's a few walk-around shots:

Don't know if you can tell from the pics but I was finally able to put the bottom rear seat back in after it being out for like a year with some towels in its place so the rear seat-back didn't get damaged.

Any thoughts on if I can squeeze any more deebeez outta this thing?