Omega5002's 1998 Volvo S70 UBL

[Omega5002]

Hello, and welcome to my uninterrupted build log

Thank you for your time, and if you would like to comment, go here
http://www.stevemeadedesigns.com/board/topic/141247-1998-volvo-s70-build-log-unexpected-re-build-in-place/

To start everything off, this my old box mobile, a 1998 Volvo S70 basic FWD model, that I got as a senior year gift.


The leather was ripped, the left turn signal light was dangling, the speedometer rarely worked, and the rear bumper was bent, but I didn't care, it was perfect to me, and the first thing I wanted to was to put a system.

So I bought 5 things
- A wire that adds rcas inputs to my stock headunit ($17)
- A $40 Cadence wiring kit from ebay
- An MB Quart FX1.600 from amazon ($110)
- A Kicker CVR12 from a pawn shop ($60)
- A crappy prefab ($45)



And this was my first system, it sounded like shit but I was happy back cause I had bass, till I learned quickly that it sounded bad, and by fate, coolant spilled in the trunk, ruined the prefab, and I was bassless for months


So I was determined to build a box that would sound awesome, so I hit up Ryan from RAMDesigns and asked for a box design
It ended up being a 2.3 cu ft box tuned to 33hz, I made it larger than average cause I read back then that Kickers like big boxes


And then I went to Lowes, and grabbed some supplies
mdf and dowel

red suede leftover from a home project my did

And then I had the cuts done by a friend's neighbor, who's a retired carpenter, and a very nice man, even lent me wood screws and some titebond

[Omega5002]

Building process of the Kicker CVR12 Box












Then the wrapping process



Crappy bolt terminals with 16 gauge speaker wire

And the box all done

[Omega5002]

Then the creation of my amp rack





Everything installed and playing




And I went to drove to demo it, I was impressed, it sounded great on all music, it got lower, and got much louder compared to the prefab

Then the plan after was to save up for a headunit, since the stock was kinda crappy, and so was the tape aux

[Omega5002]

I went to visit my friend's house in Tallahassee, and I was hanging around, and saw a nice looking headunit laying around, and I asked him "What is your dad doing with this?", he said "He's gonna donate it since he doesn't like it", they used it for a Honda Odyssey for extra tvs, and xbox, and ask his dad "Do you still need this radio?" and he was like "Ah, you can have it"
So basically, I scored an old but very nice Kenwood DNX7100 for free, was almost gonna buy a cheap Kenwood single din, so I bought some kits, and installed it, and it fit perfectly


And I finally recorded a video

Course, I also fixed that damn dangling light


And now, time for the frontstage since the stock speakers sounded like ass


The Dayton tweeters didn't fit in the dashboard like I hoped, so I returned them, even though they sounded awesome on my home stereo
The Focals were a tight fit, but boy do they sound awesome for $9, even being 8 ohms, they were louder than my stock 4 ohm speakers
Comparison to my crappy oem speaker
One of them installed into my driver door


I ordered new tweeters, the Tang Band 25-302SH


Though waiting, did a small distance test on the focals on just about 10 watts lol ,and yeap, I'm a Pink Floyd fan

And also still waiting for the new tweeters, bought some 8 gauge Audio Technix power wire to replace my crappy 16 gauge speaker wire since I read that's its only good for 300 rms at 2 ohms

Also ditched the magnet cover as well

The inside with the new wires, and terminals, but due to the length, attaching the wire to the terminals was a little fun

Fits nicely on my amp's speaker terminal

More advanced terminal, alot stronger, and very hard to unscrew

Overall results:

I noticed more air being moved, it sound alot clearer, and felt a slightly tighter response, overall, was worth the effort, and learned not to cheap out on speaker wire.

Tweeters should be here in a few days.

[Omega5002]

Now time for the ghetto rigged tweeter installation since I love how they sounded on the a-pillars so much, I destroyed the a-pillars
also ordered some 5k high pass crossovers for the tweeters



Before doing anything, I decided to hook these up to my home amp to test them out, and they have a nice neutral sound to them, and a flat response as well, they are harsh when the song is harsh like the beginning of Pink Floyd - Time, and soft when the song is soft.

Plan for them is to hole saw my a-pillars, and install them there. The crossvers will be installed my dashboard in place of the blown stock tweeter where the connection is so far.
Crappy OEM tweeter vs New Tweeter

Installed crossover

Preparing a-pillars to make new holes for new tweeters since they sound 10x better there than on the dashboard


Stupid worn out plastic broke into pieces

Running the wires

And this is where the a-pillar started fucking up on me, but it doesn't affect the structure, and the tweeter still holds strong, it's just old plastic falling apart. Also didn't realize the tweeter couldn't go in, so had to use electrical tape to not show the screws


At least the other side turned alright, though if I do learn to glass, I'm buying replacement a-pillars to do it.


How the a-pillars turned out pissed me off, until I sat inside my car, and took a listen, after hearing how good it sounded, I didn't care about the looks anymore, the sound quality made up for it.

Though I decided to repair everything

[Omega5002]

More randoms
Added steering wheel cover, grips nice


Frontstage test video

Also, got myself a DD-1, and boy do I love this thing, my amp sounded a lot better, and ran cooler as well


Also decided to deaden some area with Audio Technix 80 mil

[Omega5002]

Voltmeter installation




Needed to shave out the rubber that holds coins, and I thank my friend for letting me use his dremel

And another random, replaced my stock air filter with an AFE air filter for better economy

[Omega5002]

And this is where I finally metered my car

They measured legal and outlaw

My scores are

136.8 db at 54 hz burp Outlaw

136.3 db at 51 hz music Outlaw

135 db on music and burp Legal

For the equipment I'm running, on stock electrical, in trunk car and on a musical box, I'm surprised


I got a medal for metering


Also got more Audio Technix 80 mil


Deadened my doors




Noticeable improvements, better clarity at lower, and higher volumes, better mid bass, and doesn't sound like the speaker is banging on the door, so better sound quality overall.

[Omega5002]

Of course, bad things happen too
Tried reinstalling my amp, but after blowing many fuses, I looked and I saw I had the power and ground wires reversed



So I've learned an important lesson here, whenever I do anything major, I can never rush anything, and next time, before connecting anything, I double check, and make sure everything is ready to go, because I lost an amp because of not making sure everything is correct.

So, after that, I decided to go to the pawn shop, and I picked this up for a very good price

a Kenwood KAC-9104D, which I'm gonna run at 2 ohms, and since it's apparently 900 rms, though I think it's 700 rms due to 60 amps of fusing on 12v, gonna have to be extra careful with my cvr, and good thing I have a dd-1 as well for a clean signal.










and 2 videos

But of course, that Kenwood was very power hungry, so I ordered a new battery

[Omega5002]

And more randoms, I broke my map light holder, so I applied epoxy


Also decided to deaden under the console, and rearview mirror as well



Results: After putting everything back together, a lot less rattle since I installed the deadening, and retightened everything

Oh yeah, here's a video too from my sub flexing metal, which surprised me a bit lol

And here's where things started getting much better
Ordered an Audioque 120.4 for christmas


And here's the pics








Also decided to order some stuff to do the Big 5


Audio Technix oversized 1/0 hybrid wire

Laying down wire


Big 4 done
Alt + to Bat +, and Alt frame to Bat -

Now, here's the interesting part, when my friend was trying to get the stock positive wire out, he came to discover this in the middle, and two positive wires were connected at one point, both being about 4 gauge, I replaced it with the 0 gauge, I believe this must be the voltage regulator for the car, I'm not sure, may have to read into it