Loud & Low 8th Gen Civic - UBL #3 - The Final Chapter - Up to date

[scooter99]

Put the cap on the relay box and we're good.

Daytime shots. Off

and with it on. I have 2 more 10" actuators on the way that are both 150lb capacity. This is 35 lbs. I'll swap this one out with one of those and add a second one to the other side. Then the 35lb one will go on the seat back. In the meantime I need to find that trunk pop wire. BUT IT WORKS!!

And a little video!

Lot's more to come soon! Thanks for checking it out!!

[scooter99]

So I was having issues with my car after I put the alt and battery in, as I mentioned the other day. I was stopping at a light and the battery light was coming on. Put the meter on it, and the VM-1 as well, and found that i was dancing all over the place. Low was 12.3v while driving and then high was 14.5v. I hadn't done the ELD bypass yet, EFF YOU HONDA FOR GIVING US THIS CRAP, so I thought that would be my next step. Hoping that was the fix! Well it was!!! NOTE: AFTER DOING THIS, I'VE FOUND OUT YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DO THIS FOR THESE NEWER (06 AND UP) CIVICS. JUST PULL THE PLUG. NO LIGHTS NO NOTHING. ELD OFF, POWER UP, AND NO SWITCH TO HAVE TO FLIP.

That being said, let's run through what I did.

First thing I did was pull the cover off the fuse box. That's where the eld is. Unlike the pre 2006 civics, the eld isn't screw in on the 2006 and up. Not easily accessed like those.

Next thing you need to do is find these clips. These are what holds the fuse box in. There are 3, 1 in front and 2 in back. The clips pull toward the the fuse box. Pull the clips toward the fuse box and then pull the box up at the same time. You'll probably have to work around it. It's tight.

Here are the second two in back.

Next you're going to follow the harness down. You're going to do this because you won't be able to pull the box up farther than getting them off the clips. See this green clip? That's not it. I didn't get a good picture of it, but it's at the bottom around the bigger harness, and on the frame rail. I couldn't get it to pop off, so I cut the zip tie. It's one of those zip tie clips.

Next you're going to clip this zip tie under the box that holds the harness to the box.

Finally all around the box, are these spaces. Those are for a screwdriver to go in and press in while pulling down on the bottom half of the box with your hands. That whole bottom part will come off. Go one clip at a time until it slides off.

Last side. Screwdriver goes in like this.

Now you've exposed the wires, this is the eld clip I'm pointing at. NOW, you can just pull this plug off and button everything back up if you want to. Again, you won't get any cel's or anything. I wanted the switch in case I needed to take it in and turn it back on for testing or anything. But the switch didn't work in the end. But it may just be the kind of switch I have.

Closer view.

Ran the wires from my switch up front.

[scooter99]

I'm splicing the orange wire with the silver stripes. This is the sensing wire. The yellow is power and black is ground.

Soldered the switch wires on. I actually swapped this out, because the red is my common wire for the switch, in other words feeds power into the switch. The blue is the Normally Open wire, passes the common through when the button is pressed. So the eld, is in the fuse box, and thus the signal comes out of the plug and out to the alt.

After some heat shrink and some zip ties we're ready to put it all back together again.

Bottom cover goes back on opposite of how it came off. Except no screw driver was needed.

Next snap the box down on the pins.

Put the cover back on. Fuse box is done.

Put everything else back together.

What a mess! One day I'm going to get down here and either replace this alarm, or re wire this one!

All cleaned back up and under the dash.

So after a test, I'm sitting solid at 14.6v consistent, and it touched the 14.9v on occasion. So the eld bypass fixed this. What I found out however, is for some reason the switch doesn't do anything. Turning the ELD back on with the switch, doesn't switch it back on. There was never a drop. Not like there has been. It's stayed right at 14.3v. So, I'm probably going to remove the switch now and use that spot for something else. So there you go. ELD Bypass.

So the next thing I'm thinking of is the switches. Since now that last switch is pretty much not needed, I'm thinking I may replace it with a momentary switch.

I have an idea and I'd love to get some input on it.

What I'd like to do, is take the current up button for the trunk actuator, and combine the trunk pop with it. I'm thinking that when I press the button the trunk pops, and a split second delay happens, and then the trunk goes up. I'd need some sort of pulse to constant relay thing. Or I have a DEI 527t (I think is what it is, it's the pulse timer module). But I'd need the trunk pop to be a pulse and then be done. I'm not sure how to do that.

Then I can keep the down button the same, and then the button I currently have specific for the trunk pop, I can use for the back seat down, and then the swapped out on/off to momentary button can be used for the back seat up.

So if someone can maybe help me with the trunk pop button thing, I'd be grateful. I'm gonna go research now. Thanks guys for checking things out!

[scooter99]

So I had a great day today. Wasn't starting out so well. I decided to get the rest of the pieces cut for the enclosure today, so I can work on it this week because we have kind of a full sunday out of town, and had some things going on this morning. Then I went to go out and get started, and it started raining!! GREAT!!!!!!!

But the rain wasn't bad and kept letting off, so I powered through!! Here's the progress today!

Got today started with working on the port. Got the Rage Gold out and my filler tile I have for mixing.

This is what the steps of the port look like now.

First coat on. You can see here it was raining a bit. The wet drop spots on the wood.

While that dried, I decided to get the enclosure going again. I took the floor out, and put it down on the trunk floor to mark out the amp rack radius. Remember it's not all on center because of how the wheel well was built off center of the trunk. So I decided to measure out on the board not the amp rack.

I cut the initial cuts with the regular saw.

Then finished off the corners with the jig saw.

So the middle piece there will be used for supporting the upper floor, and the outer piece will be attached to the side walls and the rest of the enclosure.

Time to glue and screw.

One side done. I was going to make new sides, and then finish nail them from the outside, since I figured out that the body of the enclosure can fit in the trunk. But then I decided eff it I already had these cut, I'll just fill it in and sand it down.

[scooter99]

Other side, top and bottom on. The front is on also but that's not glued. Just there.

So to make the floor removable and effective by being able to fasten it, I had to have a piece up front.

Then I cut the second piece. This is the one that will be removable.

Took it out and flipped it over so I could screw it from the bottom.

Measured it out. Lots of screws here. But it'll be solid.

Used a counter sink to drill em all out.

Now some glue. I spread it out with a chip brush.

Then screwed it down.

Pre drilled for the inserts. Remember this is the piece that will be removable, so it needs to be able to be unscrewed, re screwed as many times as I need without stripping out the screw holes. Just screwing into the wood has a tendency to do that over time.

Next I inserted some threaded inserts. These are for some 8-32 screws that I have tons of. These are super tight, and will be against the floor of the trunk, so I'm sure these will be fine.

These however, I'm not sure about. The holes are real close to the end of the board, and so I decided to ca glue them.

Here it is in place.

Pulled the front piece.

Glue down

Pre drilled it with the countersink bit.

[scooter99]

And screwed it in. This front piece is obviously permanent. As you can see here, the removable piece, goes in under this front piece, and then screws down tight through it into the threaded inserts on the removable piece.

I was having some issues with the inserts sticking out over the edge.

So I cut the edges off.

Got the back cut. Measuring out to drill holes for the screws.

Counter sink bit, all the way around, ever 2".

Then I measured out, and drilled for the port.

I forgot I needed to do the round over on one side of the port. So I got the mini router out.

This is pretty tight. I left it down a bit to I could get some glue in there on the top. No way I can get glue on the sides. But I'll get some on the seams, and when I put the back wall on.

[scooter99]

Not much tonight. Had about 30 minutes, so I sanded this real quick, this is the second coat.

And then put a final coat on the insides and the top. This should sand down well and nice and smooth.

We'll see what tomorrow holds for time. Oh as you can see also, I finally cleaned off the workbench a little. Really just placed it in different spots. I need more shelves in the shop!! I may try and get the enclosure back in, and then make the brackets for this piece. Then I could work on the rear deck trim panel. But we'll see. Still lots to do and not much time to do it in.

Good night!

[scooter99]

Well it's been a while since I did anything with the amp rack. Guess it's time to take care of business. I got her cleaned up so I could get it finished.


First time trying flocking. Doesn't look too difficult. Probably should've tried or practiced on a smaller piece. But that's just not how I do things. One day I'll learn!! LOL


Flocking tools. Flocking fibers (orange as you can see), the gun with the canister goes on the compressor, and then there's the adhesive. It's also orange.


Few other tools. Screwdriver to open the can, chip brush, a foam roller, a pencil cause I couldn't find anything else to stir with and I have 100's of them, and a roll of shop paper towels.


First I got the adhesive on. Let me just say this. The roller was a god send. The chip brush I basically used to put the adhesive on, and then roller to push it around. Another tip, if you're going to do this, I'd highly recommend painting the piece you're going to flock, a close color to what you're going to flock. In this case, I had a black amp rack, orange flock and adhesive, and that didn't work out so well. You can see a few spots where it's a bit thin on adhesive. It's too thin I found out later. So a nice even cover, so you can't see the bottom of what you're working on, but not so much that it runs.


The next thing I had issues with, was the flocking gun. I had the compressor set to about 30psi, it's as low as my compressor would really go. But I'm guessing I did something else wrong too cause it wasn't comeing out very well. Not blowing out like I wanted it too. It would clog and all kinds of stuff. Again, shoudl've started or practiced on a smaller piece. So what you see was me getting frustrated and just opening the canister and dumping and sprinkling it all over and then patting it lightly with my hands.




After this I let it sit for about 12-14 hours before I touched it.


I started brushing it off with a chip brush. VERY VERY VERY LIGHTLY!! You can see here in this picture, that the black paint is really showing through. Pile of fibers on the left, brushed on the right.


Showing some real thin spots here.




So here I have it all cleaned up. I have just about all the fibers off and was able to salvage them so I could use them in the future. Most of it anyway.


Then I took it outside and lightly blew it off with my air nozzle.




Now, what do we have here. Anyone wanna guess what these are for? Yes they're grommets but what are they for?

[scooter99]

While i wait for that, let's get started with some laying out and prepping.

Pulled the amps down. Only 2 of these are being used right now. The other one is the 1100.4, which was on top so I had to pull it down. Ya know, even with my cautionary thoughts lately on the brand, they're still sexy ass amps!! Hands down!!

I went to OSH today and picked up some other goodies too. For the rest of the build. Lots of threaded inserts, and screws and all kinds of stuff. I bought the cases from Home Depot. This will help me be a bit more organized. This case is for my threaded inserts, washers, nuts, grommets, rivserts, etc.

This is my screw and bolt case.

[scooter99]

Ok so the grommets. Well I was trying to figure out how to raise the amps up a touch, as well as give an anti vibration. So I was looking at rubber washers but they were too stiff. So it dawned on me, grommets are soft and thick in some cases and I thought would work perfectly for what I was needing.

And I was right. First amp is on. Back side.

Front side.

Time for round 2! Can't leave here there by herself!!

GOD I LOVE THIS PICTURE!!! Starting to come together. Next I need to get the dual inputs wired up, and installed as well as the remote run, the speaker wires ready and set up, and then at some point make some RCA's. But this is real close to going back into the car.

So that's what I got done tonight. I was going to sand and paint the port too, but I had to do stuff for my daughters this afternoon and evening. Pitched to my oldest cause she has softball assessments tomorrow morning, then go out and get my younger daughter soccer gear cause she starts indoor soccer on Sunday. SO my night was busy! But I managed to squeeze in some time.

Tomorrow is CRAZY busy!! I'll see if I can get that port sanded and at least primed. Maybe I can make a few cable runs. But i doubt that.

More to come soon!