06 Civic Build - UBL #1 - Performance and Audio

[scooter99]

P2R Throttle Body Spacer:

Vibrant Catback Exhaust: Old on the right, new shiny on the left!

WORST DESIGN FOR A CONNECTION EVER!!!!

My inspector!

Before Video:

After video:

Changes: Painted the exhaust with VHT Heat Resistant Black

[scooter99]

Not gonna do the Megan Racing Header cause I already took it off. WAAAAYYYYY too loud, and lost too much gas mileage for it. Gone! Megan Racing Downpipe: OEM on the left, Megan on the right

After video with Megan Downpipe and no Racing Header

Exhaust Fix: I ripped this thing off like 4 times.

Got fed up and did this!

Also had some issues with the rear bushing not staying on cause I had to bend the bracket down in order for the exhaust tail not to hit the bumper. Fixed that with a ss screw and some washers and a nut! Sometimes you just need to be smarter than the part!

Vibrant Bottle Resonator:

[scooter99]

Buddy Club Rear Camber Arms Buddy Club N+ Spec Dampers

Before Drop Front

After Drop Front

Ingals Front Camber Bolts (2 sets)

[scooter99]

Speed Bleeders and brake fluid flush:

Old and new

Just from the reservoir:

Painted calipers:

These were black, as you can see here:

But I decided to color match them to the car like everything else, like this:

Going to be changing them back to black, cause they look to much like stock with the color match paint. Looked much better black!

Si Rear Sway Bar: Painted it to match the car

Old (black) and new

P2R Lower Tie Bar: Also Painted to match the car

[scooter99]

Varrstoen ES 2.2.2 18x8 Matte Black:

Old wheels - YUCK - trying to sell them btw!

New

Current Stance:

I got some new kicks today! Check it out!

Before

During

After: Falken ZE912 215/35/18

[scooter99]

Coming soon, to a forum near you, well here actually, project "Headlight Retro V-2 - The Quad Set Up"! That's right I'm doing it all over again! When, I have no idea! But, I took advantage of the Cyber Monday sales at TheRetrofitSource.com and picked up the stars of the show! Let me introduce them to you! Here's their bus rolling up now:

Oh wait the doors are opening, who do we have, YES the E55 shroud crew:

aren't they just sparkly! They'll look really dazzling after a little matte black paint! Who's that way down in there? Ladies and Gentlemen, introducing the FX-R Projectors:

Now let's see them dance together!

Absolutely beautiful! They also had a friend tag along, who is this, let me find out!?! I've just been informed it's the 9006 HID Morimoto bulbs! Welcome to the party guys! Please won't you take your coat off, have a seat and relax!

That's better!

Let's get a family photo of you all! Christmas cards from this one I can tell!

Ok folks that's it. They'll be making their way back at some point. Not sure when they'll be ready, but I'll let you know. Ok for real now, the quad set up is gonna happen at some point here down the road. The 9006 bulbs are so I can remove the current set up, Mini H-1's and sell em to get some money back to pay for the hid bulbs and the extra ballasts I need for the quad set up. Otherwise, this will be going off sometime in the very near future! Hope you liked my little skit!

[scooter99]

That brings me to the audio portion of the build!

Here's a list of the equipment for the audio!

Audio (I have all this in hand, just need to do the install)

Samsung Galaxy 10.1 Tablet

Octava HDMI 1 x 2 Distribution Amplifier

Samsung 7" LED LCD with HDMI input x2

Knu Knoceptz HDMI cables - x3

Knu Konceptz Optical cable

Hertz Mille ML280s Signature Tweeters

Hertz Mille ML700 3" Comp Mid Range

Hertz Mille ML1600 Mid Bass

Hertz High Energy HSK-165 Rear fill (passive)

Hertz High Energy HX300D sub (12" dual 4 ohm)

Audison Bit One.1 Processor

Hertz HDP4 - Tweeters and Mid Range

Hertz HDP4 - Mid Bass (Bridged)

Hertz HDP5 - Rear Fill and Sub

Stinger - Batteries (x2 SPP1200)

Cables (1/0 Ga, 4ga, 8ga, speaker, other wires)

Audison Connection - distribution blocks, and all connections

Mechman 220 amp alternator

Zenesis auto start alarm with DEI window up/down modules, and sunroof modules

AND A SHATLOAD OF OTHER LITTLE KNICKNACKS!!!!

So this is Version 1 of the Audio Build. It's since changed, to the list I just posted, and that's all current equipment. But I started the tablet build, as well as, the rear deck amp rack build. This is all old posting, but I'm going to show it anyway, cause it tells the story.

Now, the audio. I mocked up my tablet a bit the other night, onto some 1/4" foam board. This is going to give me an idea about mounting and cutting on the dash bezel without actually having to use the tablet. Not a big deal.

I'll start working on that very soon!

However, with today being so nice I had to take advantage of the weather and get some work done in the trunk! Not really having a design for the sub enclosure yet, I'm still mulling over some designs for that, I decided I needed to get some progress made on the rear deck amp rack. So, that's what I worked on.

So a few months back, or a month, or however the hell long ago it was, I made a mock up of the area under the rear deck for this amp rack. So I started with that mock up of foam board, and some 1/2" birch ply wood.

Got out the Ridgid (FTW) circular saw and the jig saw and went to work on my first board.

Got out the amp mock ups from last year, FINALLY get to use these! Then did a little set up to see what kind of room I ended up with.

Then I got out the real deal baby! Audison LRx 2.4 and LRx 2.9! Mmmmmmmm sexay!

Ya those are gonna look good there!

[scooter99]

So with those bad boys in there I knew I was going to need something pretty stout to hold up to the weight. These are what I came up with. 14" Heavy Duty Drawer Slides from Home Depot, courtesy of the hardware department.

So I did some more measuring and calculating and decided I need 4 panels. Two for the actual drawer, and two for the frame. So at this point I had my first panel done, I just needed to copy it three more times. So I cut out three pieces to copy.

OH YA, NEW TOOLS FTW!! Bought this a couple months ago, and finally get to use it!

Then I got to routering.

Now I needed to cut two of them down by a half inch to account for the rail slide thickness.

Double checking my arrangements and calculations. And time to build the walls. I wanted to do this in a way that I could incorporate my final design and have it tight against the amps. So I had to do some serious calculations on this. Took me a few times of measuring and remeasuring and measuring again! But I got it.

That was all dry fitted in place. Nothing attached at this point. I looked at it a few more times, and with the design and the way the amps sit, etc., I had to get the wires in there and at the same time, make it look neat. My original thought was to cut out some really big arches , or two, leaving two inches on either side and two inches in the center to attach the wall. But then I got to thinking, and the only thing going in here are going to be two amps and maybe some leds. I don't need that much cut out, and with this being half inch, I need as much structural as I can get. So I decided on a couple of 1 1/2" cut outs on either end and in the middle. The RCA's will go through the center, and the power and ground through the outer cut outs.

If you're thinking wire management, and WTF, cause that's going to not look clean and tidy, well don't fret! It will look clean and balanced cause these amps can be rotated. The center part (grey) with the led audison logo, rotates and that allows you to put them in any direction! WINNING! Ok lets put it together. Glue, and nails!

Time for the amp cutouts for the top plate! 2.4 done!

2.9 done!

[scooter99]

Traced the cutouts on the base plate so that I can make sure they all line up!

So here's where I hit my first hiccup. I did not like the way these set up. I'll explain in a moment. Here are some more test fittings.

Now it's time to put the walls on the base plate.

So with the walls and the base done, I decided it was time to do a little experimenting! I don't want just square cut outs. Well the cutouts aren't square, they have rounded corners, but what I mean is a square cut into the wood. I either wanted a rounded edge or a 45 degree edge. I think the 45 degree edge is what I want to go with most. Router time!

Left, square, right, 45ed

Now this is what I'm unhappy with. As you can see, there's a huge gap between the edge and the amp. It's not cause of the 45, it's cause of my miscalculations. So what I did was traced out the amp on the base. Base of the amp that is. What I didn't pay attention to, was that the amp itself, tapers at the top portion of it. Then it rounds in, and creates a lip. Well all this falls into play with my wall raising. See in order to make it all fit, I had to flip the RCA's inputs of the amp, to go under the amp. Audison people know what I'm talking about. You'll see later in the build at some point. Basically, the rca inputs, can flip to the underside of the amp. There's a little cut out under there to allow the plugs and wires to insert and hide the wires for a nice clean install. Well I didn't have the room or ability to go through the base, so I had to raise the amp in order to pass the wires under it. Now that's why I had to do all the measurements and calculations. So, back to the cutout and why I'm unhappy with it. You can see here, the gap is waaaaaaaayyy too much!

Not a chance in hell I'm letting that go. I did some measuring and lines and things to get it where it needs to be, and I know it'll get closer. I'd like it within a 3/16's to an 1/8 inch. I'm probably going to finish with carbon fiber vinyl, or something thin like that, so I'll be good with that closeness. However, I took some closeups to compare the 45 angle and squareness next to the amps.

This is where I want it, how close anyway!

So there it is! That's what I was able to get done today. Hopefully I'll get some time to do more soon. On another note, the component rack I built a while back, I'm going to go ahead and remove and rebuild with birch ply. I know it probably seems silly, but the weight difference is crazy. Also I'd like to get it done and have it outside of the car so I can do some arranging and prep for wiring on it and not have to hunch over in the car. I could feasibly do it in the comfort of my living room! Course if I drop the soldering iron on my wifes carpet, I'll be living in my car from then on! Meh, small price to pay right! HA! Ok more soon! Thanks for tuning in!

[scooter99]

Well, I was able to get a few things done today. Not much, cause I'm home sick. I don't have much energy today. But I decided to get the amp outlines figured out so I could make a template for the cut outs. Started with some regular computer paper, tape, pencil, and scissors (not pictured).

Oh and I can't forget the amps!

So I just basically taped some paper together a little larger than the size of the amp. I cut the second piece of paper so that I would only have one level cause the original idea was to set it on top and trace over the amp itself.

Decided to see if the top of the amp came off or if it was just the way it was made. In the meantime, got a nice little internal naked pic!

So after I figured out the top was one whole piece I ended up doing some measuring and using the end caps to get my pattern.

Got it cut out...............

Then decided that the regular paper just wasn't going to do the job. SO I packed up real quick and ran up the street to Office Depot for some supplies! Enter, Poster board, a new ruler, and an xacto knife. This should do the work nicely.

Traced the paper pattern onto the poster board and got it cut out.

That gave me a nice thick, stiff, template yet flexible enough to work with, although I'm not overly sure why it needed to be flexible. But whatever! So let's see if it fits. OH SO NICE!!!!

So the pictures don't show it real well, but there's about 1/16" - 1/8" between the amp and the template! That is absolutely going to work! Exactly what I was looking for. Here's the LRx 2.9. The good thing about this one is, this template will work for 3 amp with one template. The LRx 2.9 and the LRx 1.1K are the same size amps. There are 2 LRx 1.1K's and 1 LRx 2.9, is how I got the number of 3 amps.