2002 Pt cruiser (The Mayan Green DYC Cruiser)

[wccfan12]

Hello SMD!

Before last summer of 2012 I was a long time lurker of this site after seeing Steve's videos on youtube of the Tahoe I got this burning desire to finally be loud. Last summer I finally nabbed me a job after graduating High school ( I go to a university full time as well) and started saving for the build. I took baby steps and have recently completed the build that I originally sought after over a year ago. Now I"m already planning the next build of course!

I will also include pictures and a few explanations on my plasti dip job that I've done on the car. I recently dipped my whole PT mayan green, which is a custom plasti dip color that I'll explain how to mix later on in this log.

I just wanna say that my main motivators for this build were of course Steve Meade, Purple haze (a member on here with one of the sickest pt's I've ever seen), and The pt bruiser build (you can look it up on youtube, he's also on the SSA forums).

This build consists of:

-4 skar vvx 12's v1 model (were originally d4's but just reconed them into d2's)

-Mechman 240 amp alt

-C&D 140ah battery in the rear (a monster!)

-Deka intimidator g31 blacktop under the hood (was a very tight squeeze)

-Soundstream vir 8300Nr Headunit

-All cadence 1/0 gauge

-re audio coaxial speakers (didn't really care about quality just needed something to keep up with the subs)

-Hifonics zues 600.4

-DC audio 3.5k

-8 cubic ft. box net tuned to 32 hertz with 108 sq. inches of port using three 6 inch aero ports

-Big 3 upgrade

-Lots of LEDS

-Full Mayan green dip job with dipped rims and bumpers

Misc. stuff that might prompt questions.

On some of my pics my windshield looks super dark, yes I did tint the entire windshield with 35% and to me it's worth it. I also have double 35% on the front two windows and double layered 20% in the rear. The reason for the double layering was because I decided to go right over the original tint I had instead of paying the shop to take off the original tint first. THey seemed to think it was the best idea as well and it looks great! All of my led's are from ledunderbody.com so if you want to order the kits that's where I bought them. They're very bright and I've had them for about 4 years and they're still working great!

I think that's about it, so without further ado… lets get to it!

Here's the car when I first got it.. bone stock.. I knew this had to change fast!

-Of course I had to get a system into it as one of my first upgrades, but this way over a year before my discovery of SMD so my knowledge of car audio was extremely poor;( My first system was a memphis sr. 12 on a 150 watt memphis street series amp in a sealed prefab box. Since I had never had bass before then, and had only heard like two systems in my life at that point, I thought it was loud, until I got used to it in only 2 days, then knew it was time for an upgrade.

-I did get pics of the original head unit though, a JVC Kd 625 arsenal with usb and optional bluetooth audio. It was an awesome head unit, and the only reason I sold it was because i wanted a screen.

Soon after that I got myself a kicker L7 15 in a ported prefab and ran that on a HIfonics HF 1500.1. It pounded pretty good for back in the day, but soon I got the itch to upgrade again.

-THis was my third system a few months after I sold the kicker sub, 2 sound stream rxw 12's in a dual 12 ported prefab running on the same Hifonics 1500 watt amp. It was about the same loudness as the kicker sub

-I was ready to upgrade again obviously, so I sold these subs to a friend (who was so excited about getting bass it was really funny, bass head girls are the best!) and ordered two re audio se 12's and used them in the same box, but I upgraded the amp to a Hifonics brutus 1700.1. Even though the RE's were considered SQL subs they were still louder than the sound streams in the same box and sounded better. I had this setup in for over a half a year makin' it the longest time I kept one setup besides my final one..

-This was the point where I finally got me a part time job to help fund the build. It's also when I decided to take it to the next level. The plan had been in my head ever since I discovered SMD. Take out the backseats and build a huge ported box tuned low for 4 12's. Thanks to one of my buddies locally who competes in Meca and the motivation to finally get a little loud, lol I started gathering the subs together. I decided on skar audio vvx 12's for a number of reasons, the main one being that they were decent quality (to me at least) and they're pretty cheap, especially used. I bought one brand new, and the rest used from members off of CACO.

-Here they are on my front baffle. We used the wait of the subs to hold the two pieces of the baffle together while they dried.

So finally we get to the good stuff..

I had to try to get my electrical somewhat decent for what was to come, so first I did the big three upgrade.

-Sorry guys, I didn't get many pics of the process cause once I get caught up in the work I'm too lazy to take pics, but I've added on way more wire to the initial "3" wires that the upgrade is known for. I have 2 strut tower grounds, one to each side. 2 pos. runs from the alternator, 1 run to the fuse box, 1 run grounded to the alt casing from battery neg. and 1 engine block ground. All power and ground wire used in this build is cadence 1/0 gauge wire ordered off ebay. It works very well and is actually OFC wire. Its a very decent price too I couldn't be happier.

-I don't have pics of what I did next, but next step was all the run to the back, I ended up with 3 pos. runs and 2 neg runs front to back of the 0 gauge (it was a tight squeeze believe me).

Here is the finished product from when I had my C&D 55 ah dual front batts installed. Not the neatest job by a longshot, but it worked for me and has since been cleaned up a lot. No wires are touching anything hot anywhere and voltage holds very well for my electrical now. Stays right around 13.0 volts full tilt.

Next I got a itch to change something' to the outside of my car and my headlights were looking' pretty rough, so I just decided to tint over them because I like the blacked out look anyways. I soon did my rims and bumpers in black plasti dip spray cans, because the blacked out lights with chrome wheels and gray bumpers look super tacky to me.

-The blackout tint altered the look of my headlights a tad, but I've always had HID's in this car. The ones currently in it now are VVME "blue" 55 watt HID's and put out a pretty good amount of light for them to be so blue.

I'll continue the log on the next post, don't wanna cram it all on one post..

[wccfan12]

So now we get to the actual box build itself. You have to imagine how excited I was at this point to know that I was going to have my own custom built box and not a prefab one for a change. Also the thought of 4 12's or anything more than just two subs really made me excited. I only had like an hour of sleep the whole night, lol.

The next morning I woke up and took out the dual 12 ported box I had in the back, took out the rear seats, loaded all the equipment up and headed over to my buddies house in the city to get started on the box build.

When building this box we used 3/4 inch birch wood that's surprisingly strong for it to be so light. WE used dowel rods on the inside for bracing and a double baffle. There are almost no screws in this box, we only used gorilla glue and caulked the seams on the inside. After over a year of pounding almost everyday for at least an hour or more a day it's still just as solid as it was when we originally built it, no air leaks, no vibrations. Gorilla glue is good stuff!

Onto the pics..

-Wiring these bad boys up!

-All 4 subs in!

-Here's the finished product! I ran these on the Hifonics Brutus at 0.5 ohm until i got my Dc 3.5k. The brutus ran pretty warm at 0.5 ohm, but it handled it without any problems.

-This pic is kinda blurry but here it is at night with some of the led's lit up

Also another thing I did in about 20 minutes with some green led strips I had laying around. I made my own engine bay kit. So people could see my big 3 upgrade and batts at night, because I tailgated a lot of football games around this time.

-And a few more pics of some of my led light kits around the car...

-Next step was a new head unit because I had always wanted a screen and a radio capable of playing DVD's and having an input source so I could play video games in the car. So I researched and found one that would work for me with my budget, the Soundstream vid 8300NR. They've been discontinued now, but mine runs great still and it's been over a year.

-After that I decided it was time for some new mids and highs. I needed some that would be decent (not superior quality by any means) and that would be enough to keep up with the bass, so I ordered some re audio coaxial speakers. 6.5's in the front doors and 5/7's in the rear pillars. The speaker wire is all sky high car audio wire, and the 4 channel amp is a Hifonics sues 600.4. Been working good since day one and the mids keep up with the bass nice.

I don't have any pics of the actual install because it was dark due to me doing it in the middle of the night in my garage.

-Next up was getting a better bass amp, I searched the forums for a good quality amp that I could find used for 500-600 bucks, and as luck would have it a member on here was selling one almost brand new for cheap, so I jumped on it. I was practically jumping up and down when I picked it up from the post office.

Here is is! And the owner even included dual inputs from toolmaker!

Here's a pic of it mounted with the 4 channel above it. I couldn't even get all of it in the picture, but I love my amp! As for mounting the amps on the box, they have been fine there for over a year, the box is pretty solid and hardly vibrates the amps at all so I just left them there. Plus I like how it looks when you look back there from the front.

After that I figured it was time to upgrade my alt. Full tilt I was dropping to 11.9 every time I turned it up and didn't really play it that much because I didn't wanna blow anything. I was sick of not being able to play my new system so i finally saved up and dropped the cash on a MEchman 240 amp alt. Sorry guys, no pics of the alt or install as I had a mechanic do it, but I think we all know the superior quality of MEchman alts and what they can do:)

-This brings me to where I'm at now currently with the car. Recently I dipped my entire car a custom plasti dip color called mayan green.

If any of you are thinking about an alternative to painting your car this is a very cheap alternative for around 400 bucks for a car this size. I ordered all supplies from dipyourcar.com and bought a wagner sprayer from walmart. It's the wagner "paint ready" sprayer in a funky green looking box. The sprayer itself is white. In order to mix this color there is a video on youtube you can watch if you search "mayan green plasti dip" the owner of DYC tells how to mix it. If you don't wanna watch the video all you do is mix in 5 blue tints from the DYC tint kit on the website, to every 2 gallons of electric lime green, which is a DYC exclusive color. I used 3 gallons on my pt so I ended up mixing in 8 tints. The recipe called for 7.5 but I just did 8 cause there's really no difference at that point. The outcome was way better than I expected for my first dip job ever I was very happy and excited! It took me about 16 hours total working all day on it (something I'll never do again) but the results were so worth it. Of course there's a couple of tiny spots where I messed up, and a spot where the tape fell on my bumper and kind of messed it up slightly ( you can only see these blemishes if you stare super hard at it in direct sunlight) but other than that it came out perfect with no texture and really smooth. At the same time I installed my VVME "blue" 55 watt HID's in my low beams and fog lights. For any instructional how to's about how to dip your own car, just get on youtube and type in "dipyourcar" and their channel should pop up. There is a wealth of knowledge in their videos about the uses of plasti dip, how durable it is, and the whole process step by step on how to dip your own car. Anyways enough of the chatter, on to the pics!

http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad176/cag0016/Facebook/iOS%20Photos/1465145_339066849566252_1401739112_n.jpg

http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad176/cag0016/Facebook/iOS%20Photos/936505_339089006230703_263105722_n.jpg

http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad176/cag0016/Facebook/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_1692_zps0386699a.jpg

http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad176/cag0016/Facebook/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_1694_zps5fae07db.jpg

http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad176/cag0016/Facebook/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_1684_zps64863c54.jpg

-And how she sits as of yesterday when I washed it for the first time after dipping it.

http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad176/cag0016/Facebook/iOS%20Photos/581172_349925908480346_27885193_n.jpg

-Anyways that's where I'm at currently. I'm working on finding another job ATM because I quit kroger a few months ago due to the management there and how crooked they ran the store (stealing hours off of people's checks including mine) but I won't get into all that drama. THe plan for the rebuild is 4 15's of either soundqubed or AMerican bass, but we'll see if that idea sticks, lol. I usually change my mind a million times on a build idea until I'm actually ordering the equipment.

Thanks to anyone who views this log and look out for more updates in the future!

[Zak Katzer]

Lookin good man, love that 3.5k

[wccfan12]

Not sure why the last few photos didn't upload right but here they are again..

[wccfan12]

Lookin good man, love that 3.5k

Thanks man I appreciate it! I never saw myself owning a DC amp cause they're expensive but I got a lucky deal on this one and it pounds those vvx's like it's nothin.

[wccfan12]

WEll found out good news today… I'm basically lined up to get a job I've been trying to get for awhile now, so when that happens it'll be rebuild time! The plan is looking to be 4 soundqubed HDC3 15's on 2 DC 3.5k's since I already have one. Of course adding more batts and maybe upgrading my mechman 240 to the 320 amp. Also have plans for the front doors as well so stay tuned!

[Noel989]

Looks real nice

Like the green

[kryptonite]

congrats on the job, looking forward to updates!

[wccfan12]

Thanks guys! I appreciate the comments! Hopefully I'll have updates real soon! Right now I'm trying to land this job first!

[grayta]

Awesome build so far man and the car looks sick dipped green. I used to run the BRZ1700 too and loved it. Good luck on the job