Pt Cruiser/Mazda 3i Builds

[ptcary]

Got some wallpaper done today.

[ptcary]

Mazda toys are arriving! I am still waiting on the adapters for the front doors. Everything will be Eclipse in this car: 3-way components for the front doors and 3-way 5"x7" for the rear doors. I still need to order the 10" sub and sub amp, it'll be a 600w rms mono run at 2 ohms.

The front and rear doors are getting Damplifier and the trunk will get Damplifier Pro.

I'm excited! This will be my first single brand and all SQ system.

The PT is still under construction, now that some decent weather has arrived in Austin, I'll make some progress with it.

[ptcary]

Rear doors done with the Eclipse 3-way 5x7s and some Damplifier.

I will have to order some 3/4" mdf rings to go with the front speakers to get some clearance.

The Second Skin is very nice stuff, I like it better than the e-dead I used in the PT. It is easier to work with.

Here are a few pics. Mazda's have plastic inner doors, it is pretty solid and does not really need any deadener, I was mainly concerned about the outer door skin. The Damplifer made a noticeable difference right away.

The Eclipse sub and amp are on the way! In the meantime, I'll get back to work on the PT, it's still a mess right now, but you guys understand.

[polkfan]

Those 3 way components look interresting.Never had the chance to heard them.You'll made a lil review if you would!

Nice build BTW !!

Clean jobs.

[ptcary]

Waiting for stuff to arrive for the Mazda......back to work on the PT.......told you it was a mess in there!

[ptcary]

Carpet is in! I know the holes aren't pretty, I had to get jiggy with a jigsaw and freehand them! ...but once they are all filled, it'll look good. I need to get a box of flat screws for the PSP ports, all I have a re beveled wood screws. I should have everything up and running this weekend and will get some new vids, I have a lot of new music I wanna hear in the PT, but now that it has the Alpine deck and no ipod connection, I have to burn CDs for it.

Meanwhile, over on the Mazda side of things (Yin/Yang!) I ordered some 3/4" mdf rings to add some clearance in the front doors for the Eclipse midbass speakers, I plan to waterproof the mdf and spray both rings with rubberized undercoat.

The Eclipse sub arrived too! It's a 10" dual 4ohm, rated 450rms. The Eclipse amp I ordered runs 480rms at 2-ohms, so they should be a good match. I am not sure about where I want the sub, so you guys post up your thoughts here! I can fiberglass it on either side of the trunk, sealed; or build a ported box for it. Eclipse supplies a ported design for 25 hz tune! ....tempting.... but it cost me trunk space.

Here a some pics from this afternoon....

PT still needs all the carpet edges trimmed back, but this time I did it in unbacked carpet and one solid piece of carpet, so no more seams!

The tunnel will be the same color and the same LED lighting.

Here is the ring and adapter for the Mazda front doors for the Eclipse 3-way components.

Eclipse 10" sub.

Looking at the passenger side wall of the trunk. I can fiberglass it with or without that carpeted panel there, not sure yet.

[BASSBOXMAN]

Love it! The mirrors really set it off too!

[ptcary]

Progress finally! I need to finish trimming the carpet at the top and bottom of the tunnel opening, but most of the hard work is done.

Well it is back together for the most part, everything is playing, I have to get the car out on the road before I can get the volume up, but it sounds good at low volume, already noticeable deeper. I moved my old Alpine 9856 in for now, so I gotta figure out how to set it up again.

The reason for the gap in the port spacing is that inside the box is 2x4 bracing right there that I did not want to cut through. If I would have done 2 more ports at the very bottom, the tune would have went up, so I left it alone.

It sounds a lot "fuller", but the Alpine deck has no crossover on the mids/highs, so I need to work on re-adjusting those amps. It moves more air. I am also stuck with CDs until my ipod cable arrives, I might just have to switch it out for the old Eclipse single din, since the double-din went to the Mazda. I am going to take it to work tomorrow, nice to get it out on the road after sitting for a month.

[ptcary]

Back to the Mazda....

Finished the front passenger door; turned out to be a little more work than I thought, these Eclipse 6.5"s are the biggest speakers I have tried to squeeze into a front door factory location, but they made it in! I did a simple singe layer of Second Skin just on outer door. Damplifier is very easy to work with and made an immediate and noticeable difference to the door; I am very pleased with it.

The Mazda starts with a 5x7" and a tweeter up in the sail panel. I ordered a set of abs 5x7" to 6.5" adapters and a pair of 3/4" MDF rings to add some strength and also to bring the big magnet out away for window clearance.

The abs rings got epoxied to the factory plastic inner doors and 4 screws each, then the MDF ring was sprayed with bedliner and screwed through the abs adapter and into the inner door plastic; then the woofer with it's added plastic ring for an additional 1/4" space was screwed to the MDF ring.

The door had a nice spot for the Eclipse crossover to mount to, I used the wiring supplied by Eclipse and left the tweeter adjustment to 0db, it has the usual 0, +3 and -3 db settings via a jumper in the crossover.

Onto the door panel, mounted the midrange flush in the same way a tweeter would be done; epoxied the rear for additional strength. The Eclipse tweeter went into the factory sail panel tweeter location with epoxy on the 3 mounting tabs.

Initial listening and the mid immediately catches my attention, it is aluminum dome, so I expected it to be kinda bright, but it is very detailed and very clean sounding, not harsh at all.

Here are some pics, I am taking a break then out to work on the drivers side door.

....and the port is ready! I am no good with a router, so I ordered a custom flush mount 10" ring for the Eclipse sub so I can fiberglass it up off the face of the box....25 hz tune done to Eclipse specs. I do a lot of DVDs so this should be nice! The amp also arrived, it is a brand new old stock Eclipse amp, previous generation, 480 watts rms @ 2-ohms mono and is class D.

Thanks for stopping by.

[Hotdog]

you really do some nice work. Everything looks clean, great job.