Wicks' E46 M3 Build. Hertz 3-Way Set from Tony D!

[Wicks]

More sanding

Giving the port extension a test fit:

Some close ups. The tapered contour is starting to come together:

The inside of the port extension will need some paint and not just some regular rattle-can black.

I picked up a can of charcoal-like paint a while back for the work I did on my ashtray area that should match the interior nicely.

Rather then having to sand down a bunch of brush marks, I figured that spraying it would be the best option.

My air brush is a bit too small for that job so......another trip to Lowes

This should do nicely and also work for spraying out larger quantities of contact adhesive as well.

I rebuilt the port piece that fits into my rear deck, it needed to be widened out a bit to give a better round-over edge.

Just needs some body filler to smooth it out, but first I need to secure it to the rear deck lid.

I had previously thought of using modeling clay to hold the pieces together so that I could flip them over and resin them.

Clay seems a bit messy so I figured that I'd just add a thin layer of fiberglass to hold them which could be sanded away later if needed.

I also worked on a small addition under the hood that I didn't get fully installed, more on that later.

Something to help with a noise issue that I've had.

[Wood]

sir, this is a stellar build! And that deck is coming out nicely !

[Wicks]

Initial testing is coming along nicely so I can throw this out there:

My own version of the TM-1:

Plus lots more room for future expansion.

More to come..........

[Crandis16]

Not gonna lie, that deck looks like a nightmare. Good luck with that. After seeing what you can do I imagine that you won't have an issue doing it.

[Wicks]

sir, this is a stellar build! And that deck is coming out nicely !

Not gonna lie, that deck looks like a nightmare. Good luck with that. After seeing what you can do I imagine that you won't have an issue doing it.

Thanks Guys

Ohhh yeah the rear deck has been a challenge, that's for sure.

I have a good feeling about it though. I think it should help my numbers a bit, look nice and get rid of a LOT of rattles and vibrations too.

Now hopefully I can get it mostly together before the snow falls.....

[Wicks]

So...I had noticed a bit of alternator whine on the right side of my car which has bugged me for quite a while.

It wasn't bad, but was definitely noticeable driving around in a quiet car with no system installed.

My power wire is running down the right (passenger) side of my car so I moved the speaker wires thinking that might be it...nope.

Since the noise was sneakily present without any equipment running (amps, HU, etc), I knew it wasn't in my signal cables or anything like that.

So the noise was coupling from my power wires into my passive speaker wires and getting the speakers to faintly buzz.

My conclusion pointed to the fact that these BMW's don't have batteries under the hood, its in the trunk.

The freshly rectified output from an alternator is going to be inherently noisy and is usually filtered out by a large battery in close proximity (under the hood).

Since my battery(s) are in the trunk, there isn't anything to filter out the noise in the front section of the car.

I have this pocket under my hood which looks to be a perfect spot to house a small battery:

Back when I bought my XP3000's, I also got a lil D375 that I had intended to install as a backup battery.

I'm leaning away from allowing my XP3000's to drain down too far so I've had the battery sitting around for a while.

I figured it'd be worth a shot to install the battery and see if it helps and hey, another battery never hurts

First off, I noticed that my frame ground post wasn't going to be long enough for all the grounds I needed to connect.

I needed to fabricate a small extension bar with a longer bolt:

Here it is installed:

...and after an hour of trying to wiggle my hands in this very tight little space, I was able to thread the bolts and get the battery mounted:

Sorry if the pics are a little washed out, it was getting late and I needed to use the camera flash. I'll get some more pics in the daylight.

After a couple days of driving around.....I think the noise is gone.

I wouldn't mind doing some actual measurements to put some numbers to the noise.

Plus my trunk area is still completely open and unsealed so I'm getting a lot of road noise into the cabin as well that I need to seal off when the rear deck is finished.

[775Tundra]

Mind blowing. I would have never thought that the alternator to battery wire carried a high frequency but it make sense.

[Crandis16]

I love XS power accessories. that battery is barely noticeable in there

[Wicks]

Mind blowing. I would have never thought that the alternator to battery wire carried a high frequency but it make sense.

Indeed!

In your home, your wall outlet is 120Vac at 60Hz (single phase).

When electronics rectify the AC voltage to DC, you get a 120Hz (full bridge rectification) ripple voltage riding on the top of the new DC voltage.

That ripple is smoothed out with some capacitors until you get a smooth and flat DC voltage.

In a car (I think my Mechman Alt is 6 phase) you get a varying frequency with the vehicles RPM.

So you could imagine with a 6phase system and a fast RPM, that the frequency of the resulting ripple voltage will be relatively high. Easily in the audible range.

Now unless that ripple is smoothed out, it will induce noise in everything around it.

You can either shield the surrounding components or kill the noise at the source.

I would suspect that most people with the Big3 and batteries under the hood, would never see this problem.

I love XS power accessories. that battery is barely noticeable in there

Yeah, it does fit snugly in that pocket and the pics don't do the aluminum battery holder any justice at all.

It looks way better in the daylight.

[sphinxbccp]

As always, everything looks awesome!! Keep it up dude!