'96 Mercedes C220 Build

[BenzBass]

This is my first car ever, along with my first build and my first serious exposure to car audio. So I got the 1996 Benz back in September from some nice fellow off of Craigslist for $2300. For the most part its stock externally except for 35% tint all around, and chrome trim pieces on the grill. Heres the car:

The first thing audio I got on the car was a Kenwood KDC-248U

Shortly after I removed the wood trim surround because it was cracking and getting in the way, now it is just silver.

The next thing I did was get six Kenwood KFC-1662S Coaxial 6.5" speakers. Two in the front doors, four in the rear deck. The weird thing Mercedes did was that they had four cut outs for speakers in the rear deck, but only three were filled, and the fourth had a foam block in it and the wiring on the 4th speaker just doesn't go to anything I think, or isn't amplified because it doesnt play anything even when plugged in. But here are the speakers:

Then after that I got two Kicker DS40 5.25" Coaxial speakers for the rear doors:

I think the wiring is bad on the right rear door because the speaker doesn't play any music, but after all it is possible that one of the wires just wasn't connected or it came loose.

After a solid month of a lot of research I decided I wanted the 15" Kicker CVX subwoofer. I had narrowed it down between this and the RE SXX 15". The reason I went for the Kicker was I had never heard of RE which in my mind sounded like a risk, but now I know better. I got a Power Acoustik 1500 Watt amp with it, which I later discovered that it did 650 Watts @ 2ohms not the 1500 like I expected, but this whole car audio thing is about trial and error after all. I also got a Planet Audio 2 Farad capacitor with it and I wired it all up with a DB Link "1600 Watt" 4 gauge wiring kit and I had the sub sitting in a ported box. After awhile of not liking the Power Acoustik amp I did some more research for the next amp to get. I stumbled upon the HiFonics HFi2000d. I had seen a decent amount of people on youtube using hifonics amps so I figured it wouldn't hurt to try it. I saw the specs were 1300 watts @ 2ohms and it was a little over $200 so I figured I had to try it. I had noticed how much beefier the HiFonics was compared to the Power Acoustik. Shortly after getting the new amp my box started to destroy itself so I decided to get a new box. The only prefab box I could find that would fit my trunk was a tiny sealed box. So I've been riding around with this set up for awhile, with the sub sitting in a tiny 2 cubic foot box. So I decided I wanted to build a box. Its summer and I've got all this extra time, why not? I got the dimensions of my trunk, and decided I would build the biggest box possible that I could get into my trunk with relative ease. I decided I wanted a ported box, but I didn't do a whole lot of research and just got into it. The box is 36" long, 16" high, and 12" deep. Here is the port set up:

The port is is 3.75" wide, 14.75". Here is the box now, and a bit of the build:

The box is definitely louder, but it just is tuned too high. So I need your guys help in what I should do. Is there any way I can tune the box lower without having to start all over again? And this is how the future plans go:

1. Get a 4 Channel amp for the mids and highs

2. New rims so it would roughly look like this:

3. New sub, trying to choose between a DC level 4, AQ HDC3.15 or HDC4.15, SA-15, Skar VVX 15, something Fi, maybe an American Bass and maybe RE SXX

4. Remote start

So what do you guys think? What should I do about the box? What amp do you guys suggest for my mids and highs? Anything you would change?

I also need help on what to do bout my sunroof rattle if anyone has any input on that as well.

Edited June 13, 2012 by BenzBass

[Crandis16]

looks clean, did you use particle board?