A few questions for my next setup

[J R]

I'm just beginning to get serious into audio. I'm a student so I'm certainly on a budget. If I had the money, I'd have a crazy setup like 90% of the people reading this. But for now I'm sticking with what I have and can get. My goal: To make the best of it.

My truck is my daily driver. It is a single cab, so I have two Pioneer shallow mount 12's, 400rms each, ran at 2 ohm. In a .8 cu ft. per sub sealed box, they sound DAMN good. A lot louder than I expected. I've got knu 4 gauge throughout the truck with a Hifonics Brutus amp on the subs, and an alpine for my door and rear pillar speakers. It's nothing crazy, but I love the setup. I have always wanted to make a much louder and crazier setup and finally decided I would put it in my car (where my money goes). A 1969 camaro Z28 drag car. The downfall is I have a 15 gallon fuel cell in the trunk, so it's off limits. I got my hands on two AudioPipe iPipe 15's. They're in a 4.5 cu ft. ported box tuned to about 28hz. They're DVC 1000rms each sub. They will be wired @ 1 ohm to a Hifonics Brutus 1700. A bit under powered but that's okay. For such a cheap sub, these puppies are LOUD, and blow the doors off my Kicker L5 12's. The main issue with my set up is I don't have a head unit. I'm hoping to not have to put one in either. My goal is to just take an AUX to RCA cable straight to the amp or maybe a crossover, but i'll get to that in the questions. I'm pretty good on subs and amps for the subs I've been messing with subs now for quite a while. What I need help with is the component side of things. I plan on putting in a Hifonics ZRX1000.4 amp for the speakers. I'm putting two 6x9's in the rear, Two 5 and a quarters in the door, and two 3.5in tweeters in the door as well. Also other questions on this setup to come...

I suppose I will number my questions to make them easy to answer.

1.) As I just stated, I was thinking of going straight from an iPod Aux cable to the RCA input on an amp. I'm okay with only having two channels L/R. I plan on setting them up to be front and rear instead. But my question is...Is just the iPod signal too little? A HU usually puts out 2-8v ACV and I honestly have no idea what the iPod is going to put out. So would putting in my old school Pioneer CD-635 3 way crossover up the voltage? I read it puts out 2 or 4. I want to say it's 2 but I'm not sure.

2.) If the Pioneer crossover isn't enough...Would this be good: http://www.amazon.com/Hifonics-Hide-Away-Way-Crossover/dp/B000XPX1LW/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1341212199&sr=1-1&keywords=Hifonics+HFXR+Crossover

I love hifonics and this claims to put out 8.5v from the RCA out's.

3.) Are all these crossover's a waste of time? I read a lot about people putting them in and needing to turn the gain up a lot less. I figured with only an iPod output, maybe a crossover would be needed to have good clarity.

4.) I planned on getting the Hifonics ZRX1000.4 amp for $140. At that price, you can't beat it. And I've also been extremely satisfied with anything Hifonics besides their cheap ass $37 subs, those on the other hand go out with a bang when you blow them for fun. Anyways, my question is...Since I plan on running only 2 channels, should I just get a 600.4 amp instead? It's $114 instead. Question 5 may help you answer this question.

5.) The car has a loud exhaust. Loud meaning...open headers with a 500+ cubic inch Big Block Chevy sitting in front of me. The setup is mainly for when I'm at a car show, but I'd love to be able to listen while I'm driving. My plans were to put two 6x9's in the back, two 5.25 in the 2 doors, and two 3.5in infinity tweeters also in the door/kick panel/dash. Where should I put these tweeters to make this set up sound the best?

6.) After reading #5, I'm wondering if I need to add more speakers. More 5.25? Or more 6.5? Or maybe even two more 6x9's in the back? What about 4x6 in the back? I'm set on low's, I just need mids/highs, and preferably a lot without cutting more holes in my doors.

7.) I currently have 5.25 in the doors. Would it be better to go with 6.5's? Knowing I really only need mids/highs, which size is better and louder for my goal?

8.) In my truck, I have a 3.5 farad planet audio cap. I wasn't expecting much for $33, but it really surprised me. I hooked up my 12 inch l5's for fun once, also an Fi BL 10 also for fun. Not once since I bought the cap has the amp cut out. On a very low drop, I saw the volt meter go from 14.1 to 12.0v. I plan on putting another one of these in the car...Is that what I should do? The car will have a yellow top optima for itself. I have another battery laying around my garage. It's just a regular car battery nothing special. Could I make use of this? The car already has 2 gauge CAR positive and negatives to the trunk ran up to the Optima up front. By "CAR", I mean...It's NOT audio power and ground wire. It's for a car battery to do what it's made for. Would it be useful to me to Run my Knu 4 gauge from my amp to this battery instead of the Optima up front? Or would it be better to stick with 1 battery and add my 3.5 farad cap? Knowing my options, give me the best ideas. Oh, I should add in that the alt is a 160 amp High output. So already got a decent alternator..

I have more questions but I think I will stick with this for now. I've done tons of research, yet no matter how much I do, a pro's opinion is where it counts. So someone with some time on their hands to help a newbie out, thank you in advance for any help. If you'd like to just tell me model numbers for speakers 4 channel amps, crossovers, caps, ect. with what I need. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

[Maebros]

8.) i would just upgrade a better battery and get rid of the cap all together.

[bassface]

1. hook the pioneer up and meter it to see what you are getting out of it, 2v isnt great but will work assuming you dont want to buy a different deck with built in crossovers. Im guessing there is an adapter to make the ipod hook into rca's also.

2. What you would be looking for is a line driver crossover.

3. Turning gain up means you have a weak signal and need to boost it, boosting gain to much can cause clipping and distortion. Before crossovers were built into head units everyone had to run either electronic crossovers or passive crossovers. So if you arent going to be using an actual head unit with built in crossovers you will definatly need one. Line driver built into the crossover is never a bad thing either.

4. If the amp is only for the highs then yeah a 4 channel is great because if you are using an active crossover that means you can run the tweets and mids off of separate channels in stereo while being fully active which means your electronic crossover will be used to make all the adjustments to crossover points instead of passive which is a pair of crossovers that come with componet speakers. The problem with passive setups is the tweeters will split the power evenly with the small woofer/ mid range. When that happens you may be over powering the tweeter and under powering the woofer/mid.

5. I would run 6.5 in the front doors or kick panels and forget the rear. Alot of people dont use the rear stage nowadays because its hard to get them to sound right with the rest of the system. If you were gong to run 2 sets of componets put them all up front, it will sound much better as long as they are the same size. tweeters should be up front also.

6. 2 sets of 6.5 componets up front would be great. you could fiberglass them into the kick panels or door panels or even just make pods that you could screw into the door panel.

7. yes 6.5's, 5.25's are fine but bigger is better if you arent using factory mounting locations. you would want to keep them all the same size up front preferably, 2 different size componet sets would look wierd if they were mounted next to each other.

8. I would put the optima in back because its a dry cell battery so it wont leak and wont have fumes inside the car, put the wet cell up front, may be bad advice but thats what i would do. The cap most people would say to ditch it, me personally I wouldnt buy one, you can make the call on that one. 2 gauge wire is fine, car wire, welding cable, audio cable, all fine.

Well ill probably get flamed on 99% of the answers i gave you, but i figured since you took the time to ask so many questions I would try to answer them the best I could. Anyways goodluck on the build.

[J R]

Okay, first off...Thank you very much for taking the time to answer all of these, and everyones opinion is different so I wouldn't doubt being flamed if your right or wrong.

1.) I can't put the optima in the back because the car has 14.5.1 compression and need a LOT of CCA. If I put my junker up front it wouldn't spin the motor over when it was being boosted. I could put a Red top from another car in the trunk? Be known, that the 2 gauge wiring from the front to the back is old. But, from the battery to the amps i would have good 4 gauge. Is this okay? Better than a cap? No worries of cutting out anymore?

2.) I'll probably just put two pretty nice Pioneer 6.5's in the doors, and my tweeters in the door or kick panel. Is only the 4 enough? I'll also definitely go with the 600rms amp instead of 1000.

3.) As for the line driver, I found some online and wondering what you think. If both are junk could you recommend one for me?

http://www.amazon.com/PYLE-PLE720P-Parametric-Equalizer-Crossover/dp/B0016L1J1Q/ref=pd_sim_sbs_e_6

http://www.amazon.com/Cadence-Acoustics-CEQ-773-Paragraphic-Equalizer/dp/B0043QMGA4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1341253472&sr=8-2&keywords=line+driver+crossover

I would just run a AUX to RCA cable straight into the crossover, and out from there.

[bassface]

1. Yeah I would definatly not put a wet cell battery inside the passenger compartment or in the trunk/ they are dangerous so the red top should work fine.

2. sounds like it will be good, 4 drivers and tweeters will be fine, no need for more then 2 sets.

3. Hmm just noticed this, its has a line driver built in, so you would only need a crossover and not a line driver with something like this.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PLDN37R-iPod-Direct-RCA-Stereo-Audio-Ground-Loop-Isolator-Audio-Line-Driver-?cmd=ViewItem&hash=item231b93ed64&item=150786534756&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0

And then maybe a crossover like this would be cool, has a bass knob, which if you have no head unit may be a nice feature.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Pyle-PLXR8-3-Way-Electronic-Crossover-w-Remote-Subwoofer-Control-Car-Audio-?cmd=ViewItem&hash=item2319a78fe6&item=150754267110&pt=US_Signal_Processors

[J R]

Alright I got my crossover. I'm putting 6.5 ken woods up front, along with 1 inch tweeters in the front and back. I'm wondering if i should put two more 6.5 ken woods in the back behind the back seats?