06' Si Sound Quality build

[beckerson1]

I figured I start a build thread to document my daily driver audio build for my 06' Si. Enjoy

First off my friend and I redid the big three:

We used #2 ultra flex welding cable for the alt to battery+, battery- to chassis, and chassis to engine block. All connections are in contact with bare metal for optimum efficiency. We fused 200a right before the battery for the alt to battery+ and fused a 200a inline for the power cable which is run through the plastic trim through the fender into the cabin through an open grommet right above the dead pedal. This cable was then run through the driver side trim, through the rear seat and into the trunk. Here are some pics:

Note we don't have the fuse holders mounted atm:

The next thing we tackled was the HU. I was on the fence for a long time debating whether I wanted to keep the stock HU or go with an aftermarket. After much research and asking around some other forums I decided to get an aftermarket unit as they have many more options and tend to sound better then stock.

I got the Pioneer DEH-P7200HD:

After some time we then hit the wiring and speaker/amp combo. After seeking help from a friend and listening to what seemed like thousands of speakers I choose the MBQuart PVL-216 6.5" component set for the front. Power is transferred through 16 gauge true OFC speaker wire. This wire is run through the rear seat up the driver side door trim and splits (two to the passenger and two to the drivers side). Up through the stock boot. This thing was a pita as it was a very tight squeeze and to even access the hole for the drivers side you had to tweak your arm around the fuse box.

We were very excited to find out that we could recycle the stock speaker hanger. As we didn't really want to mess with the sheet metal. The speaker and baffle were all one unit so we had to do some trimming (or melting) but everything fit like a glove afterwords. Best this about this is you won't be able to tell its aftermarket by looks as we didn't have to trim the doors beauty cover to fit the speaker.

Sorry for the dirty car:

Drivers Side

Passenger Side

Unfortunately the new tweets were to big to even thing about mounting up top without doing something custom. After remembering what papasin posted we decided to mount them in the kick panels

After spending hours upon hours on the door speakers we then moved on to the amp. I decided to get the Hifonics ZXi80.4.

At the time of this picture we just had things mounted or hidden as we ran out of time and I personally really couldn't stand not having a radio as I get crazy if I have no noise of some kind.:screwy:

Here are some pics:

The wire that goes towards the top of the picture leads to the stock sub. I was very surprised at how well it sounds on an aftermarket amp:

We made our own ground directly into the frame of the car. Later on in the next few posts that wire will be trimmed in half:

[beckerson1]

Finally got some work done on the car today. The main goal this time was to apply deadener to the door and cover up as many holes as we could.

But before this I have some pictures of my Mb Quart speakers inside the doors. These were taken before the tar crap was taken off. And my god this stuff was horrible. Lots of elbow grease and old towels....

Driver Side:

Passenger Side:

I do want to say for those who are potentially looking for great 6.5" components. These Mb Quart PVL 216's sound great. All frequency ranges are very clear and crisp and the bass reproduction is amazing.

Here is a clearance shot. Loads of room.

Now here are the shots of the doors before deadener.

Driver Side:

Passenger Side:

Now after

Now I had gotten 20 sq. ft of deadener and ended up using roughly four sheets per door. Now we applied some deadener the full length of the door in between the structural bars and some above and bellow. To fill the two massive holes we used cardboard that we trimmed to fit and then applied deadener over top to make a tight seal. We also filled all the smaller holes as well.

As far as the sound difference of the speakers. I could defiantly feel the beat more in my feet. I haven't really tested them at operating volume but I'm sure there is a massive difference from before. Later on that week I had done some of the trunk lid and the rear deck as well. Still need to add some more in the future and stuff the rear deck to prevent rattling.

[beckerson1]

Its here!!!!

Here are some un-boxing pictures:

It passed testing before shipping:

Packed tight in foam surroundings:

Yes another 20 HP:

Shot inside plastic covering:

Little side view:

Specs:

Model E-12D4

RMS- 400W

Dual 4 ohm impedance

The construction is quite solid. It's my first sub so I can't really compare it to other designs but its built to handle a lot.

Here is a testing video of the E series (Order goes 15/12/10):

Discription:

"Little free air play on the production models. These do not have the hard physical limit of the triple joint support ring smacking the top plate like the prototypes (see older video) -- so they have a bit more throw than earlier videos. Very impressive for our small 400-watt rated line. So far I'm very pleased."

[beckerson1]

Alright you probably have figured out by now that this is basically a done project. So here is my first (wrong attempt) at building a box...

Alright here are some installed pictures. We didn't take pictures as we were building as there wasn't much measuring/following a preset drawn box. The whole box is out of MDF. We figure its probably between .6-.75 cubic feet. Sundown recommends 1-1.5 cubic feet for sealed. With this setup the sub seems to handle the box well. Still sounds very clean and smooth. I'm currently breaking it in so there isn't a lot of movement.

Our biggest issue was fitment with the least amount of overhang onto the spare tire cover and to not hit the trunk door hing. As stated above this took about 12 hours to do. Basically in the beginning this thing looked like a bunch of wood at odd angles and tons of overhand. Lucky we had a portable belt sander which we were able to make this hunk of wood to look something like a box.

We painted this a textured black with silver glitter to add some dimension. The pictures really bring out the imperfections from sanding and whatnot. In person it looks much better. Sorry for ranting but here are the pics you've been patiently waiting for. Video's will be up soon. I will try to make one tomorrow after my exams but I can't guarantee that it will sound/look good.

Excuse the dirty floors. The MDF is hard to get out. If you have any good suggestions on something to use let me know. I did sweep some but didn't have time to hit it hard.

This was taken through the little opening from the passenger side rear seat folded down:

Side shot:

Here is what it looks like from the top. There isn't to much of an overhang. I'm very pleased with its location. According to my friends I can still fit my dead bodies in there

Here is a shot of the clearance of the top of the box:

The trunk lid just barley even touches the box. You can't really tell that from the previous pic.

We drilled a total of three holes to mount this box down to the floor. We used some beefy screws as well. This thing isn't going to move easy...

I'm in for video suggestions as well. What are things people like to see. This being a SQ sub and all...

[beckerson1]

Now here is the result of the first box:

Well... major delay

To make this short...

The sub blew, wasn't amp as things were set right , even under spec. Blame is on the box being to small. Hindered the cone movement and poof. So sending it off to get a re-cone:facepalm::facepalm::facepalm::sadface:

Seriously this post can't ever show how pissed off I am.

[beckerson1]

Alright after discussing my issue with Jacob over at Sundown he is shipping me a replacement for 20+S&H. So after the cost of shipping the blown unit its going to be just over $70... Anyway here is what I'm planning on doing.

My previous box is going to be sold, as long as we can determine what the actual cu feet it is. We personally believe the box was way to small and due to the sub being so stiff in the beginning we didn't realize it was suffocating the sub. Probably due to the 11+ hours we worked on it and fatigue.

Lesson learned and we are going to do this thing right this time. The goal to save space has went down the tube with the blown sub. I still think I'm going with the SQ sealed setup. Also the idea of placing the amps on the rear seat also changed. I am now in the final planning stages of an amp rack. Here are some pics:

Now this shows four fans but that has changed to two:

Here is what the two will look like:

Here is the 3D rendered rack:

Now the hope is to be able to place the amp rack and the sub box side by side up by the rear seats. I measured a good 40.5 in and am figuring a max of 39.5 to be safe. The sub box is going to be 1 cubic foot and I believe we figured the length needs to be 18 in. These two items will be painted black as well.

[beckerson1]

Sorry for the crappy cell phone shots

Here are a couple random shots:

Alright some shots of it being put together. Used screws and glue to hold this together...

And some finished shots:

This is going to be a nice video angle would you say? Imagine the sub jumping out at you....

Now we didn't get to the amp rack but that should be coming in a month or so...

My friend also had an amp he wasn't using and let me borrow it until I get my mono amp in... I would show some more pictures but right now everything is kinda ghetto rigged down and somewhat organized. Also we sealed the box with a water/glue mix and a base coat of black spray paint... Yesterday I also added some sub woofer grills to protect the sub as well... Things are coming along nicely...

[beckerson1]

This is the most recent update so far:

This post is picture heavy

The day has finally come to build my carefully planed amp rack. I will have to say that I had put a few hours into designing this amp rack to fit and had many visions for it.

So basically here was the mental plan:

The major idea was to clean up the install via adding a rack that holds all the amps and present itself as visual eye candy... The major issue with this was to have adequate air space around the amps.

The original idea was to add 4 fans to pull air through the box, over the amps dissipating the heat and blowing this hot exhaust out of the box... Of course when designing, things will change and the finial design was to use two 80 mm fans...

Didn't take a lot of build pictures but here is a shot showing everything together. All sides of the rear of the amp rack (which will be seen from inside the car):

The clap was used to hold the top on as I will either attach it with small magnets or use Velcro strips to hold this in place. The idea here is that the interior shelf and the top will be removable for access to the amps. The interior of the rack has been painted black as well.

Here is a shot of the front (what you will see when you open the trunk) of the amp rack. As you can see the fans will mount on the right hand side and the crossovers on the left hand side. I was originally going to hide these crossovers but they do look very nice and my friend suggested to even out the box and place them on the left of the fans. What isn't show is the voltage meter which is in the middle of these two things towards the top of the rack...

In case your wondering how the wires are going to get to the inside of the box, we drilled a total of three holes just under the crossovers to provide a very clean install...

Here is a shot showing the cut outs for the fans. We ended up rounding the outer edge to provide a very clean look.

Of course we tried to make these as center as possible. Nothing worse then uneven components :facepalm:

Off to paint:

As you can see here there are some holes inside the box to allow entry for speaker wire, power, ground, remote and its not shown here but the middle shelf has a hole to allow passage for more wire to the upper level. Unfortunately we weren't thinking and should have mad it a slot so we could remove the middle shelf to access the lower amp. Easy fix

We first sealed the box with a glue/water mix which helps seal the out pores of the MDF and provides a barrier between the paint and the very absorbent MDF. The next thing we did was add a base coat of flat black spray paint. Lastly we added the final coats of Textured black spray paint.

Ok to turn away from the amp rack itself for a little bit... Shown here is the mess of wires that need to be hidden and routed into the amp rack... Unfortunately I must not have taken a picture of the false floor but we were able to cut a piece, I believe, half inch ply wood to provide a solid place to mount the sub box and amp rack to.

Mess o' wire:

Now to fast forward a little bit.

This was a pita to do as the plastic under the stock cover is very tough for what it is. Also aligning the holes up was quite fun as well. As you can see all wire is run under the ply wood and up through to the positions to enter the amp rack... BTW I am still able to access the spare tire even with the boxes inside the trunk...

Alright back to the rack itself. Here is a shot of what the amp will look like inside:

BTW that's a temp amp until I get my mono amp

Time to mount the crossovers, voltage meter, and fans:

Now you can see the holes I was talking about...

Wire Wire everywhere:

Now to move to the side where the power/ground wires go.

Here is a shot showing the main idea. The power wire will enter from the right and the ground will exit from the left.

A relay was added to power the fans and any other accessories in the future. Didn't know which kind to get so I got a 30A relay as I can power many things with it before they draw to many amps...

Now for the power/ground to enter into the box:

Kind of a cool little design I must say.

Good Lord!!!! look at the mess we made

Close up shot of the Crossovers:

Look at how much we trimmed off the ground wire. Don't have a pic of the power wire but it was a good little bit as well.

Fast forward through the loads of connections and here is the final look:

Don't worry baby you will get washed today...

The sub and amp rack are bolted down from the inside with at least three 1-3/8 in wood screws. The amp on the lower level then covers these screws and is bolted down as well. The sub box has three screws on the inside of the box.

It will be physically impossible to steal these things without spending loads of time busting the boxes and damaging the products... there is just no way a theft can get away with these things without having to take the car. Which has a security system with the immobilizer system which means they will have to either push it, or have a flat bed...

Now there were things that went wrong when things were fired up. First we noticed that the sub was extremely loud and was probably moving a good 1.5 inches or so... After about 6 min of this (playing How low can you Go) we noticed the sub and sub amp were hot. The amp being the hottest. After spending a good few min to get things moved enough to see my friend realized that he wired the sub bridged. Which the amp is stale at 4 ohms at 600W. So really the amp was seeing 2 ohms bridged at around 800W or so. Theoretically speaking of course, could have been even more...

This is speaking to the quality of Sundown's subs. Not only did it handle more then double the power but it was clipped power. Not at one point when it was playing did it sound bad. No distortion and sounded very good...

Now we will have to modify the amp rack a little so we can get the the gain on the sub. I want to thank my friend for his help as this wouldn't have been possible without his help.

Now its time to go to some car shows and maybe a comp or two to see what I got... Maybe an 8th meet in the future:dancingcoolsmiley:

Stay tuned for more pics and videos as well... I do plan on hauling things in the trunk still so a sub grill is a necessary thing to have in my case. I've already paid a good bit of money towards it and don't need a golf club smashing into it and making it a dead sub...

[beckerson1]

Here are some pics of it running:

[jlh2003]

looks good....get some vinyl for that box and amp rack!

didnt realize you had it all done, guess i havent kept up with your thread on 8th...