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

[Noel989]

Nice build I just finishe reading and looking at all the pics

[scooter99]

I wish I was as lucky. Thought I was getting my car back this week, turns out there was an issue with my rear door replacement not fitting properly. So they ordered a new one, which is fine, but apparently they felt it was none of my business when it would be done. I called today, after no phone call yesterday when it was supposed to be done, and I ripped em a new one. I'm ready to start my damn build!

Let's see what I can do about those pictures............................

4 of these in the front doors (2 per door), along with two ft1 tweets (one per door)

Powered by this, Crescendo c1100.4:

with an XL15 powered by this, Crescendo bc3500d:

Enclosure is cut and ready to be put together if I ever get my car back. I have to see if I can build it and put it in or if I have to build it inside the trunk. Can't wait to get it going!

[Wicks]

beautiful! I'm jealous

Thanks

Hopefully I can get it all together, installed and looking sweet in the near future...

Nice build I just finishe reading and looking at all the pics

Thanks for taking the time to check it out, I appreciate the comment.

I wish I was as lucky. Thought I was getting my car back this week, turns out there was an issue with my rear door replacement not fitting properly. So they ordered a new one, which is fine, but apparently they felt it was none of my business when it would be done. I called today, after no phone call yesterday when it was supposed to be done, and I ripped em a new one. I'm ready to start my damn build!

Let's see what I can do about those pictures............................

4 of these in the front doors (2 per door), along with two ft1 tweets (one per door)

Powered by this, Crescendo c1100.4:

with an XL15 powered by this, Crescendo bc3500d:

Enclosure is cut and ready to be put together if I ever get my car back. I have to see if I can build it and put it in or if I have to build it inside the trunk. Can't wait to get it going!

NICE!

Dude, an XL15 in a Civic..

I want to see some build pics of that.

On a BC3500 even.....?

Damn, that's going to do some damage.

I was really hoping that I could squeeze some 15's in my trunk.....didn't happen.

I really like those beefy RCA jacks on the Crescendo's!

Looks very well made.

[scooter99]

That's the plan. Box is cut but I have to have a car to see if I have to build it inside or out.

Build log will happen when I get more progress. Probably nothing till after thanksgiving.

[Wicks]

Quick update on some stuff going on.

Murphy strikes again...

So I installed the new DC5K and double checked the output of my HU with my DD-1.

Well I was getting a really flaky signal. The DD-1 wasn't registering a signal and the distortion light was all over the place.

I had the RCA's run directly into the DD-1. I verified the results with a DMM as well.

Barely a volt or so measured across the RCA connectors and a fluctuating signal when using a test tone which didn't make sense either.

I ripped the Kenwood out of my dash and did a bunch of testing on my bench.

Sure enough I found out that the outside conductor on my RCA's was not connected to ground and was just floating.

This means the audio signal would be returning to the HU though the ground wires instead of the RCA's and opens up the opportunity for noise.

As long as the RCA's on the amp(s) are grounded, the system works but I wasn't happy with leaving it this way.

I had a touch of alternator whine so I'm thinking that this may have something to do with it...I'll have to verify later.

If you've heard of the "Pioneer Pico fuse" issue, this would be the same thing. There must be an internal fuse that somehow got blown.

In doing a bunch of output testing on an o-scope, I also stumbled on another issue.

The 30-pin connector on my iPhone is very noisy so I've been using Bluetooth to stream music to the HU.

The HU has 5V RCA's which I verified using the SMD DD-1 CD.

I loaded those tracks into iTunes and put them on my iPhone so I have them in both forms.

Using the 0dB tracks and the volume slider on the iPhone all the way up (clean signal), I was only measuring ~1.5Vrms on the RCA's when using Bluetooth. Not so great when you're amp gains are adjusted for 5V.

I had also noticed that the Kenwood would occasionally lockup and reset itself which seemed odd.

I submitted an email to Kenwood asking about the issues and sure enough never heard back in over a week so yesterday I took the HU into the dealer I bought it from and they said they'd handle returning it.

So in the mean-time I threw in my trusty old Alpine 9851:

Not pretty but it works, although its old enough that it only has CD functionality. Had to dig up some old bass CD's to try everything out.

Needless to say but the DC5K is brutal and has opened up a whole new world of vibrations and noises that I hadn't heard before...

The XL12's are finally happy, that's for sure.

I was initially scared because with the volume barely up, I was hearing a clapping sound similar to a voice-coil bottoming out.

After some digging, I was amused to find out that my trunk vents were flapping loudly with the bass :whew:

I tore those out and now need to come up with a better way to vent the trunk since I'll still want some airflow but I don't want to leave the vent holes open which would let in dust and whatnot.

New tool review.

My trunk is full of thin wavy sheet-metal and I was trying to come up with a good way to brace my amp racks / trim panels.

I read this thread that "mklett33" started which includes some great tools.

http://www.stevemead...ongoing-thread/

The threaded insert tool caught my eye so I ordered one.

If you're interested, go to surebonder.com. You need to drop $50 for an order, but it is a very neat little tool and not expensive at all.

It works great to install a threaded insert into thin sheet-metal where you don't have access to the back of the hole and therefore can't use something like a nut and bolt.

My rear deck has some previous holes in it from some plastic rivets which held on a trim piece around the rear seat opening.

I'm using it as an anchor to hold some vinyl and it also holds down the rear deck cover.

With my box porting through the rear deck, this connection point needs to be secure so rivets weren't going to cut it.

The holes were a bit small and needed to be reamed out a bit for the insert to fit. i started to use a large drill bit in my cordless drill but I didn't have enough depth between the rear deck and the rear window which angled the drill. Not a good idea with thin sheet-metal as the drill wanted to just rip the holes apart. So I pulled out my little Dremel and just lightly bored the holes out a bit.

Then I used the threaded insert tool and installed the inserts, same procedure as rivets.

You'll have to account for a little play when installing the bolts that connect into the inserts since the process of crimping the insert into place sometimes offsets the threaded part of the insert.

Anyway I was able to secure my rear deck cover which helped get rid of some of the vibration noise.

With that...

Initial SPL Meter results!

Got a text from Danny (bassstratus) that he got an SPL Labs meter and offered to meter my car.

If you get a chance, check out his build, impressive setup stuffed into a Stratus.

http://www.stevemead...is-is-my-build/

I met up at a sound off yesterday and we have some initial numbers

This is with the trunk still unsealed with a fair amount of rattles so there is plenty of room for improvement.

This was the best I could do given the couple of bass CD's I had on me at the time.

Meter in the kick with the door cracked.

[Kyblack76]

Nice job bud....

glad your seeing some results,.. and fine ones at that......

Happy for you man...

[scooter99]

On those vents, I would put them back in, and throw some deader on the flaps. It allows them to still open and close, but stops the slapping the bass causes. Course I'm guessing when you seal it off completely, that will go away too. But I did this in my civic, and it works perfectly. Just a quick easy fix I found and thought I'd share.

I really need to get one of those nutserts tools for sure. Gonna come in handy with my new build! Nice find!

[Wicks]

Nice job bud....

glad your seeing some results,.. and fine ones at that......

Happy for you man...

Thanks

Glad to start seeing some results myself.

On those vents, I would put them back in, and throw some deader on the flaps. It allows them to still open and close, but stops the slapping the bass causes. Course I'm guessing when you seal it off completely, that will go away too. But I did this in my civic, and it works perfectly. Just a quick easy fix I found and thought I'd share.

I really need to get one of those nutserts tools for sure. Gonna come in handy with my new build! Nice find!

Hmmm interesting idea with the deadener, never thought of that.

Yeah I'm definitely re-installing the vents, but I was just going to maybe install some foam or something to filter any incoming dirt/dust.

Both vents exhaust air but the flaps won't let any air in. I may want some inlet air to help cool the DC5K and with me sealing the cabin from the trunk that may be hard to do with the flaps the way they are now. I seem to remember Meade simply flipping one of his Lexus vents around so it inlets air. I'll have to look into that as well.

Food for thought...thanks for the comment. I have some planning to do.

[scooter99]

Absolutely. Hope it helps. Just be careful cause when you do the altering, if you start smelling exhaust in the cabin, youll know you need time changeable. Those vents also hello keep exhaust fumes out of the car as well as vent it out.

[sphinxbccp]

I've been thinking of a way too stop my door panels from rattling, the stock clips allow too much play. Those threaded rivets look promising!!! Thanks for sharing that!