06 Civic Build - New Build List on page 60

[scooter99]

So let’s talk about the application. The previous application put the mid bass in the door’s stock locations. This application is going to be about the same but much different.

Starting with the doors themselves, the insides of the doors have been deadened with a layer of sound deadener, and a layer of spray deadener. In this build, I’m going to apply one or two more layers to the inside of the doors. Along with the inside of the doors, I’ll be adding more deadening to the outside of the doors as well as the door cards. I did not apply deadener to the door cards in the last build and while I don’t think it’s an issue now, I did get some rattle and vibration in with the ML165’s. There’s a little bit of difference between the ML165’s and the Alpine Type S coaxial that are in there now! Here are some pictures of the deadening from the previous build.

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The doors are sealed up as much as they can be sealed. In the Civic’s doors they have cables that go from the inside of the door to the outside of the door. I’m guessing most have this going on. There’s a large space in the door right in the middle. You can see that in the pictures above. Right now this has been covered and sealed, but it’s still pretty flexible. What I plan on doing with the doors is fiber glassing them and creating a panel that is the same size as the door card, but that attaches to the door itself. A couple of grommets for those cables as well as the wires that pass through the fiber glass panel and that will allow free movement for the cables, and less chance of damage to any wires. I’ll also deaden both sides of this panel with deadener.

This was the attempt at covering those large holes the first time. This didn’t work as it interfered with the panel going on. I had to greatly alter the whole thing. I was very frustrated at the time, and I didn’t take pictures of the alterations, only the finished product.

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As you can see, it stuck out pretty far. So with the fiberglass I should be able to make the panel, have it be just as strong, and at a fraction of the thickness.

The Mid Bass are going to go in the stock location in a sense but not exactly. After the panel is made, tested, and finished, I’ll be using that, combined with the door card to create an enclosure. Now there have been a couple of discussions here and there about this type of thing, and none of them make much sense to me. So for me, when things to make much sense, I just do them, and experiment for myself. So that’s basically what I’m doing here.

So the enclosure is going to go like this. In the door card, there is the stock grill. This thing is very constrictive. So that’s going away. What I have to decide is if the driver is going to go directly in that space or not. Here is a picture of the door with the door card on it.

If you take a look at this picture you can see the stock speaker grill I’m talking about. The void or curvature above it is where the door shuts to the dash. Nothing is going to be able to go in there. However, here is where I’m going with this. To the right of the grill, there’s a cubby. These are NEVER used in my car. Don’t ask me why, I just never use them for anything. I guess everything I need for storage is in the center console. I don’t know. So those bottom pieces are removable. The whole curved piece under the armrest will be removed, dremeled out, to create one cutout all the way from there around the speaker grill.

From there I’ll have to get creative and see what I can come up with, but the final piece will be an enclosure of sorts that size. Now here’s where it gets tricky. The original speaker hole will be cut out of the fiberglass panel in the back. So the enclosure that I’m making, will still vent into the door itself. If in the future, this proves to be too much air, then I can just close that up. This will have to undergo some testing to see what happens. Here’s a diagram of my thoughts, if you can follow it. This diagram was also when I was going to use the dual mid bass originally. So now imagine one mid bass instead of two.

The finishing of it will most likely be a suede door panel and a custom grill for the speaker. The grill will be made of grill cloth, with a little twist. Then the speaker will be set in, kind of counter sunk, and surrounded with carbon fiber vinyl.

So that about does it for the mid bass. Let’s move on!

Tweeters and Mid Ranges:

The tweeters and mid ranges are what we’re going to address here. A couple of builds ago, I did a sort of A Pillar Pod. It was never done real well, and while it looked ok in pictures, I never really liked it much in person. I have had a couple of attempts, failed attempts, at redoing them, and then lost the desire to mess with them. Here are some pictures of those.

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Second attempt

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The second attempt was temporary, but effective. It for sure allowed me to understand the difference from off axis, like above, and on axis. In this second attempt I used a laser light to point the speakers in a pretty exact direction to my ears. In these pods I used a Hertz High Energy HL70 Mid Range, and a Hertz High Energy HT25 tweeter. Here are those pictures.

Now while these did work well, I found them to be too intrusive. While driving, at first, they were fine but then after a while I found myself looking at them quite a bit. This told me that they’re too far out in the open and too noticeable.

So taking those two builds into account I’m doing a very similar thing. I’m going to take the first build which was filled and glassed into the pillar itself, and use the on axis approach of the pvc caps. The drivers are not going to be able to be as on axis as they were with the caps, but they’ll be close and I think the overall sound will be great. This time, however, they’ll be much more tucked away and less noticeable by the eye.

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I’ve switched drivers though. As I stated above, the second attempt drivers were the Hertz High Energy HL70 and HT25’s. I’m completing the Mille front stage by going with the new Hertz Mille ML 700 3” mid range and the Mille ML280s Signature Tweeters. Here are some pictures of those.

The thought on these as well is to try and finish them in a suede covering. I’m also planning the same with the surround in carbon fiber vinyl. I’m not planning to use the Hertz Grills with the midrange. I think that I’ll leave those “raw” and the same goes for the mid bass, although I didn’t mention that before. The only thing that makes me think about actually using the grills is that the tweeters grills are not removable. So that may swing me to use the grills. Only time will tell, and the decision will most likely not be made until after the build on the front stage is done. However, either way a grill will be made with grill cloth to go over them to conceal the drivers from viewing eyes.

Front Stage Amplification:

The front stage will be amplified by 2 Auidson LRx amplifiers.

The Tweeters and Mid Range will be powered by an LRx 4.1k. While I don’t need nearly that amount of power, I have it already and to try and sell it for a smaller LRx 4.5 would prove to be more hassle than it’s worth. So I’ve decided to go ahead and keep this to utilize it in this way.

The powerful mid basses will be powered by an LRx 2.9. This will supply approximately 260 watts x 2 at 4ohms. I would love to get the 450 watts x 2 at 2ohms out of this amp, but these are 4ohm speakers and to run active that’s not possible. I think this power will be suffice however and I look forward to pulling it and seeing what these beasts can do!

So there’s the front stage. There’s going to be a lot of customization and a lot of designing on the fly, but I’m looking forward to the challenge!

Phase 5 – Rear Fill:

So back in Phase 3 I needed to eliminate the rear fill speakers from dropping under the rear deck. Well with daughters, and head rest screens I’m going to need to have sound back there. It’s a must and now I need to find a way to get them in there in a nice dressed up way.

In a previous build I had a pair of 3” full range speakers in the C Pillars. Here are a few pics of those.

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While those weren’t too invasive, I just wasn’t happy with them. I wanted to go a different route.

A while back when I was thinking about how to do the rear fill I came across a build from a company I know well. They redid some stuff for a Honda Civic and it was just what I was looking to do, but hadn’t quite been able to put together in my head. Here are the pics of that build, courtesy of Audio Xperts in Vacaville, CA.

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So this gave me the ideas I needed to get my design going. Pretty much I’m planning the same type of thing. There are a few differences however. First of all I’m planning to use a set of Hertz High Energy HSK165 Components for this.

While I love the set up and look of this build they’ve done, I’m not in need of the outer grills. So, what I’m planning is to move the mid bass over about where the tweeter is in the picture, and in the same centered space as the current mid bass in the picture. The tweeters will then be moved more towards the center, so basically the mid bass and the tweeters will swap positions from what they are in the picture.

The crossover networks are going to be custom enclosed. I’m planning to make an enclosure that equals the angle of the speakers, however, will not be as high as them. The center will house a counter sunk 4 walled enclosure which will have the crossover networks inside. There will be an cover over them so as not to have any glare while driving.

Again with the covering I’m going to go ahead and go with a suede top. The speakers will have extended surrounds around them, and some carbon fiber vinyl added for consistency and appearance. Custom grills will ultimately go over the mid bass and complete the look.

A lot of custom work for this one, again, but I think in the end, it will be great. Thanks to Audio Xperts for posting these pictures.

Conclusion:

So as in every enthusiasts build, things change. My build changes a lot it seems, but at this present time, I’ve never been so sure about what’s going to happen. I’m very happy and pleased with my designs so far and barring any testing and failed tests, this all plans to be the way things go. I’m not planning any changes as of this moment. Of course that’s always subject to change, but that’s the fun of this stuff is it not?

On a serious note though, while I have liked most of the designs I’ve come up with, I’ve never been in love with them. I’m a perfectionist, and sometimes that’s not a great thing with a hobby that requires a lot of custom work. So I do change designs and I do redo things, but that’s because I have to look at them every day. I’m serious about what I do. I may not be a professional installer; I’m not even close to a professional installer. But I’m not going to let that stop me from doing a professional job. I’m truly hoping that this is the actual “Final” install in this car. I love my car, and I love to work on it, but I’m at the point now where I’m tired of working on it and I would like to finally start to enjoy that. I’ve gotten about 90% of the performance stuff done on the car, as most of you have seen and for those of you who haven’t you’re welcome to check it out over here at: http://www.8thcivic.com/forums/car-builds/241314-scooters-r18-gg-build.html where you’ll find a list of the parts and modifications I’ve done to date. There are only a handful of things I have left to do on it. Those will all come in time.

I currently have a couple of projects going which I’m hoping to have done here very soon. I stopped the work of all those projects to write this summary because I believe that I’ve made some significant changes to the design and overall plan in the last couple of months and I thought maybe some people may be lost on it. I’m also posting it because I’ve started a few new threads and some of those folks who are interested in this, would maybe like to know where this is at and where it’s going. That is what this summary is for.

What is it that I’m looking for out of this build? Well I have a few answers to this question. First, I love to do projects, and as I stated a moment ago, I love to work on my car. It’s given me something to do when I need to decompress after a hard day, or relieve stress on a weekend where things just aren’t going right. Overall I’m looking to do two things. I’m looking to showcase my skills as an amateur installer, and looking to have the best sound that I can possibly produce on my own with good equipment. I love bass, and I love great music. My ultimate goal is to have that when I get finished with the build. If I compete when this is over, then I want to have no regrets about doing so. If I don’t I don’t’ want to have any regrets for not doing so. I want it to sound great to me, and great to my kids, and enjoy the music I love. I drive this car for a couple hours a day. I want them to be the best sounding couple of hours as I can.

I also want to know that if I pull up to a friend’s house, or a parking lot, or an even, that I can strip it down and show it off and not be embarrassed by a shotty install.

I hope that this sums up everything about this build and myself to everyone, and answers any questions that anyone might have. If not, please, feel free to ask me.

Finally, I’m going to get back to building now this week since this is completed. These are the things that I want completed before I start on the audio build:

Headlight Projector Retrofit

Side Marker Wiring

Fog Light Projector Retrofit

I’ll be working on those diligently the next couple of weeks and hoping to get those done very soon. I feel as though I’m very close on the headlights, and once those are done and ready to install, the side markers and those will be wired up at the same time.

The Fog Light Projectors will be installed shortly thereafter. Those should not take quite as long as the headlights took. They should really be quite a bit simpler that the headlights.

But it’s getting darker earlier now, and lighter later in the morning. I want to make sure these are done very soon so I can see better than I do now with just the standard bulbs.

I do plan to post pictures of those things, as I’ve done with the other performance items I’ve completed. Again, this may not apply to all forums, but I will be posting in all forums the same stuff. I know there’ve been complaints from some certain people about “this is not a performance forum”, or “this is not an audio forum” and the pictures would most likely be better appreciated on a different forum. While I appreciate you all taking time to tell me what to do and where to post my pictures, I appreciate even more the folks that have been following this build and all of its different angles, changes, twists, turns, and whatever else has been involved where it be audio, performance or just plain chatter.

Audio portion of this build, which is what this summary was about, will be starting in approximately 2 to 3 weeks. I’m guessing by the last week of October, or the first week in November, I’ll be starting it. Until then, there will be plenty more to read, and plenty more pictures to view.

I appreciate everyone’s patience as I got this done. I’m very excited about the upcoming build and hope that you share the excitement with me as it gets started!

Thanks as always for tuning in and for taking the huge amount of time to read this! Now, on with the build!

[scooter99]

Ok, so everyone knows, I know some of the pics need to be resized and I'm working on that right now.

Otherwise, I'm done and Enjoy and thanks again! Feel free to post up!

[scooter99]

Having trouble resizing. It's resizing, says it is, on photobucket, but when I reinsert it, it's not changing. Anyone care to chime in on this!?!