Astro UBL - 12 12"s in a Clamshell Wall

[Colin - STAPUFT]

Please make any comments HERE

Out with the old...

Used connection grease on all the connections and grounds.

The new water free home for the ballasts. And a fresh and clean ground.

Mounted Ballast

Back together

Please make any comments HERE

[Colin - STAPUFT]

Please make any comments HERE

I still have to adjust them properly, but they are pretty close...

Low

High

Just the dinky fog lights

HIDs and Fogs

Please make any comments HERE

[Colin - STAPUFT]

Please make any comments HERE

Drove around today and put the stereo on blast for a good minute, then busted out a temperature tester I borrowed from a friend. It was about 80 degrees out while I was driving and I gave the alts a pretty good workout. These are the highest temps I could find on the alts.

160 Degrees on the second alt installed in the A/C location....

182 degrees on the one in the factory location.

Just in case anyone didn't see it earlier- these are both the small case CS-130 GM alternators. I gutted both of them and rebuilt them with 220 amp output kits, then put some teeny tiny overdrive pulleys on them. They are wired together- both charge the single under hood battery. I'm sure they get much hotter when the temp is hotter outside and when the van is sitting still. They can't dissipate the heat nearly as fast as a proper large case either....

Not too shabby for on the cheap, but I am still having voltage trouble at idle when the motor is HOT. It drops down to right at 12 volts simply because the van Idles so freakin' low. If I had to guess, around 700 RPM. With just the weight of my foot on the pedal, it jumps up to 13.8 volts at around 800 RPM. The idle set screw can't be accessed though because it is capped off from the factory.... so, either I am going to drill it out to be able to adjust it, I'm going to find some easy way to reprogram my ECM chip to bump up the idle (I don't think this van works that way though), or I will just tack something to the end of the Set Screw to give that tiny bit of RPM to help at Idle.

Please make any comments HERE

[Colin - STAPUFT]

Please make any comments HERE

Starting to get on another LED kick.

Putting Blue LEDs inside. These are on their own switch.... for all things blue.

Also put White LEDs under the front and back doors. These come on when the doors are opened. Call them Puddle Lights. They work WELL. No problems seeing what you are stepping in now. hehe

The Puddle Lights were a PAIN running the wires. Had to remove door panels, drill the bottoms of the doors, fish the LED wires through the doors and the door jam harnesses (wires are all hidden and secure), then tap into the door light circuit. BUT- I believe it was more than worth it.

Please make any comments HERE

[Colin - STAPUFT]

Please make any comments HERE


I tried getting some decent video today.... but it all went oh so very wrong. Enjoy.

Please make any comments HERE

[Colin - STAPUFT]

Please make any comments HERE

So, I had some extra tweeters- so I checked to see how they would sound. They sound good! picked the soundstage up a bit as well.

These are old NIB MTX 1" silk dome tweeters. I wired them from the tweeter section on the 3 way active crossovers that the 2" mids in the A-Pillars are wired from.

Even though I have the McIntosh Tweeters and the tiny Dayton Tweeters (all silk domes), these play at a much higher frequency. They are brighter but aren't overbearing. I don't really notice them when they are running, but if I unplug them, then I notice something is missing... so, again, I suppose that means success.

Picture!

Please make any comments HERE

[Colin - STAPUFT]

Please make any comments HERE

...in short- I cheated. I used diodes on the alternator harness wire to trick the alts into thinking that they are working with LESS voltage than they really are. So, the alternators step up their output voltage. The cheap easy way to raise alternator voltage.

I just put the diodes in the harness, before both CS-130 Alternators. Up goes the voltage- and the voltage doesn't drop as badly either. They don't seem to get any hotter- we shall see if any blue smoke comes out. haha

Please make any comments HERE

[Colin - STAPUFT]

Please make any comments HERE

Muwahahaha! Goodies!!

Old School JBL GTP4 Image Processor.

Please make any comments HERE

[Colin - STAPUFT]

Please make any comments HERE

I re-wired some things with some new ...er, old crossovers. 4 crossovers do the McIntosh silk dome tweeters and JBL GTi Mids on each corner, and 2 of them do the MTX silk dome tweeters up front. I kind of had to do this because one of my amps had an "anomaly" so to speak. It decided to have a wicked amount of noise, so I just pulled the wires and re-wired everything. The good part (if there is one) is that now I got to use these crossovers, and the 8"s in each front door moved to a different amp- they each get 200 wRMS each now instead of the 100 or so they were getting. It woke them up.

^ no pictures of the wires or wiring... because that part is boring and sucks.

I did get a bit done on the JBL GTP4 Imaging Enhancer:

Got a bit of wood

Marked it off and cut it with the Roto-Zip (I love that tool)

Angle cut a ragged bit of 2x4

And screwed everything together and put it in place

From the side

Argh! She be a close fit!!

And with the back door closed

I still have to run the RCAs, hook up power, run the wire for the remote, and mount the remote. And I will be honest- I don't like the way it looks up there. Like- at all. I might pull it back down and change that angle a bit. Also- I know it is all ragged up top with wires everywhere. I do have plans to make a fiberglass panel to cover things up. ...I realize I have been meaning to do that for several years- but this time I mean it. lol

Thanks for looking guys- I hope to get things going soon to see how this Antique does. It is quite crazy right now with Christmas, Christmas Parties, and Call of Duty: Black Ops taking up my time. haha

Please make any comments HERE

[Colin - STAPUFT]

Please make any comments HERE


Some more LEDs. I made some panels that block direct view of the leds... so, I get the glow without the glare.

And- I put the LEDs from HYPER on the van over 2 months ago, but didn't put up any pics....

I got some 3M double sided adhesive tape for the LEDs.

Here are the LEDs with their new sticky backing- cut to length.

Just for giggles, I added some to my Aquarium lighting. The LEDs on the top are from an auto parts store. The crazy bright ones are the ones from HYPER LED.

Solderless connections to the LED Strips.

And here are some shots of the LEDs under the Running Boards. I still have to do front and back and maybe some other lights under it here and there.... The plan is to have the van floating on a bright cloud of marshmallowy goodness....

This shot it isn't really dusky dark yet.... It is hard to really describe how bright these are.

Here is is getting darker out... Notice how the HYPER 6000k HIDs make the regular H3 fogs look like dog poop. lol

And dark out-

Like I said, there is more work with the LEDs coming. Right now I have them on a defeatable switch that is tied into the door / interior lights. I may do an over-ride thing of sorts where I can throw a switch and make them come on (but not the interior lights) and have a defeatable switch that can enable them to come on when I open the doors. Talk about "puddle lights" - psh... forget about it.

Please make any comments HERE