Eco's 2021 Mazda CX-5 Build - UPDATE - 3/08/2024 Ruining my backup set of A-Pillars!

[Ecohostile]

Hey Everyone,

 

You may recognize me from this thread here. Where I asked a bunch of questions and went through a ton of SketchUp designs, just to end up dropping a sub and buying a premade box.

Don't worry though, the premade box will not stay, it's simply a cheap way to test some parameters and help me figure out what box I want to build 

 

 

So First - The Car Is a 2021 Mazda CX-5 which has some major drawbacks as far as power. Mazda uses one of those variable alternators that doesn't run all the time, varies from 12-25v, and as far as I can tell no reliable upgrade has been produced.

 

I did not realize this when I purchased the car, but I will not let that deter me from finding a workaround.

 

So what's the workaround?  Lithium bank/Big 3 (probably 4 down the line)/XS Power D3400 if I can fit it under the hood.

 

Introducing the first piece of this build-

 

 148AH 1200A LEV60F BATTERY LIFEPO4 - SLIM From Jag35  (Bodhizafa for scale)

 

The keen among you might have noticed the purple line drawn down the center of the battery pack, That is because I Intend to disassemble it and cut the pcb/busbars down the middle. Still waiting to hear from Jag35 if I can do that but according to some of their video's on other products this should be completely fine. If I can't I'll just skip the pcb and go busbars only. 

 

I haven't decided whether I'm going to use 4 cells in a series or 2 x 4 cells in a series. I figure more is better, and I think I can fit both around my spare tire on their side if I notch a bracket near the spare tire.

 

I'll have to wait until I finish leveling that area and placing amps to see how much I can actually fit.

Edited March 8 by Ecohostile
Update

[Ecohostile]

Next up is a bunch of hardware I ordered. I have a BUNCH of stuff I'm pulling out of my old car, but I figured I'd grab some goodies on black Friday.

 

Knuconcepts Ultimate Battery Terminals with top posts (Which I'll need to keep Mazda's computers happy

 

 

 

Picked up some of their 0/1 set screw adapters just because I like the look

 

 

And last I have a couple fuse blocks. I have similar knuconcepts fuse blocks in my old build, so these are just additional. Not Sure I'm going to use the one on the top.

 

[Ecohostile]

Alright now for the fun stuff.

 

For subs I'm going with 2 Sundown audio x-8v.4's. Why? because 8's are Rad, and I'm trying to keep my care as usable as possible. But also because it's different. The original plan was 3 but I was having difficulty making a box for three that would work within my size constraints and the SA 2500.1 D would struggle to run 3. Maybe down the line I'll go for broke and run 4 off of a beefy 4k for shits and giggles, but most likely I'll sell off the extra 8.

 

 

 

 

The Box that the subs are sitting on is a CT Sounds dual 8 enclosure with 3/4 MDF, a kerf port tuned to 39hz, and abou .81cu ft per woofer. It's on the smaller side but it was cheap and I figured it would be good to compare against a future box with a full 1cu ft per woofer and 32hz tuning. But first, I needed to fix a few things.

 

 

These Cup terminals. Known for being leaky,  So lets fix that.

This is some Second Skin Butyl Rope that I had leftover from my last build. This stuff rocks. It's especially good at silencing license plates.

 

This worked for me before with a sealed enclosure, just gotta really work it into the cracks.

 

 

Next I put some ferrules on the wires because ferrules are awesome

 

 

And Last I used a little Tessa tape (Fabric Tape) just to make sure the wires don't rattle against the box.

 

 

And that's pretty much where I have to stop, at least until I gut my other car, and start building an amp/battery Rack.

 

[Ecohostile]

Finally got some screws so I could throw the subs in the box and see how it fits in my car.

 

First issue I noticed is that the terminals + wire was too difficult to get into the box without ripping the wires out. So a couple quick relief cuts were needed.

 

 

Then I hit it with the shop vac.

 

 

After that, I wired in the subs and chucked em in the box. I pre-drilled some pilot holes and screwed them in. They're snug but not fully tightened yet. I have an idea to make the box a little prettier so they'll probably come out at least once more.

 

 

And lastly just a quick test in the car. I'm gonna drive around with them for a few days to see how the space effects me. This is the average load I have in the trunk with my tool backpack, a set of rain gear, and the Milwaukee bag full of drills. Sometimes I carpool so you can just about double that for those days. I'll need to figure out something to protect the subs. Finding grills would be difficult with how much xmax these guys have. Maybe some bars or something. Shoot me any products or ideas you guys have.

 

 

I'm also thinking about adding some kind of small lip to the top of the box so I could throw My toolbags on top of the box and not worry about them sliding off. Maybe some kind of cargo net. who knows.

 

And DEFINITELY glad I'm going with 2 subs now. This box loaded is a back breaker. I May throw some straps on top to make it easier to pull in and out. 3 subs would almost require two people.

[Ecohostile]

LITHIUM Update!

 

So the guy who runs JAG35 finally got back to me and gave me the green light to separate the cells from the lithium bank and chop the PCB in half. I was pretty confident that this was possible but it's always good to double check when you're messing with lithium.

 

The cells I'm using are LEV60F Prismatic by Lithium Energy Japan. They have a nominal voltage of 3.2-3.5 or 12.8-14v when run in a series. When running 8 cells total I should have a capacity of 148ah with 1200a of burst power and 800a continuous or 600a/400a if I decide to run half. In watts that's 14,400w burst and 9600w continuous. 

 

I know this is overkill but I'd rather have too much and room to grow, than not enough. And it's beginning to look like upgrading the alternator is out of the question for my car.

 

On to the pictures

 

 

Marked is how I want to separate the cells.

 

And here's the underside taped together with fish tape

 

 

 

Very carefully I cut the tape in between the cells with a box cutter and a straight edge

 

 

Next I removed the 1/2" bolts and the PCB

 

 

Next I needed to get rid of these connection Ports. They're for monitoring/balancing the cells, which is unnecessary for this application.

 

 

 

A pair of dykes will do the trick but you'll want to watch out for shrapnel 

 

 

All clean, I hit these lightly with a Dremel just to clean up the sharp edges. A better way would have been to de-solder them but I don't have a soldering gun.

 

After remarking Center with a flat PCB ( 2 - 5/32" WTF lol) I used a pair of tin snips to cut the PCB. This is By far the best way to do this. There can be some pretty nasty chemicals in PCB's that you really don't want to breath. Also your cut will be nice and straight.

 

 

After cutting, I copied the rounded edges from each half onto the other and ground them down with a Dremel  ( I know I just told you not to do this.) This way the corners wont stick out past the cells, and it looks nicer.

 

 

Next I chopped the Bus bars in half. These are 1/8th thick aluminum so I used a bandsaw. You'll want to make sure you get the orientation right as the holes are different distances depending on the orientation and if you mess up then you're now making your own because you cant order them as far as I know.

 

 

Reassembled the cells, making sure not to overtighten the nuts. The torque rating for these bolt is only 6.64ft-lbs which is not very much. It would be very easy to over tighten and damage these cells.

 

 

Checked the voltage and both came out to 12.8v which is the same as before. I still haven't charged them yet. When I do I'll be looking for 13.2 before I wire them in.

 

 

And lastly this is a mock-up of how I would like to lay them out in my trunk. It's tight, but I should be able to fit everything with a little bit of modification of the rear inner quarter Panels. The goal is to have everything 100% hidden while retaining my spare tire/tools. Also I'll be constructing everything in a way that can be reversed when I sell the car down the line.

 

 

I still need to make some compression plates to prevent the cells from bulging, but those will be integrated into the amp/battery rack. So that's a project for another day. 

Edited December 8, 2023 by Ecohostile
Rotated Pictures

[DerrickC9035]

Hey I'm wondering if you can give me some advice I just ordered the 74AH pro V2 model from jag35 and it's my first EVER lithium battery I've never dealt with anything but lead acid and I'm nervous that I'm going to mess something up if I'm going to delete the lead acid battery and just run lithium do I need any type of isolation device or DC to DC charger on board or anything like that other guys in the car audio community are telling me just drop in the trunk fuse it on both ends and hook it up others have told me I'm going to see a major fluctuation in voltage after the swap and recommended getting some type of super cap setup so I got a second hand ioxus ultra cap battery to help with the voltage after install but I still have yet to put it in because like I said I don't know what I am doing I'm upgrading for the first time to a bigger system than 15-1800 watts rms biggest I've ever had currently running a CXA 1800.1 and two Q-class 12's wanting to upgrade to at least 4K in the trunk and another 1-1500 on the mids and highs and was told to start with my power supply before upgrading speakers,amp etc. and my car can NOT take a high output alternator so upgrading my battery was the only option and jag35 had a really good budget friendly option in the 74AH model I'm glad to see I'm not the only one trying these out

 

[Ecohostile]

Sorry I've been MIA. As for the 74AH pro I'm not sure you should get it. I'm second guessing my purchase already and I cant send it back. I'm still going to try and use it but i wish I would have done more research. Apparently these cells have a really narrow voltage range. It might work for me but I'm still a ways off from testing them out.

 

----------------UPDATE 2/25/24---------

I decided to revamp my system entirely. I  sold everything from my old car except 2 SA x-8's, my SIA2500.1d, and my wiring.

 

I got rid of my Infinity Kappa 3-ways and purchased Infinity Kappa Perfect 3-ways. The new setup is as follows

 

Helix M Four DSP running my tweets and Midrange

2 Sound Digital 800.4's running my midbass, center channel, and rear speakers

SIA2500.1d running 2 SA X-8v.4's - 2ohm's @ 2000watts

   - Also contemplating building a T-line enclosure for these

 

 

Also I decided to do custom a-pillars. So on with that!

 

These are my Infinity Kappa 300m midranges all taped up and ready to be trimmed. The two things i dislike about these are that the mounting tabs add an inch of width and they don't come with grills. Gonna have to fix that.

 

 

 

Left one trimmed, on the right you can see the problem. These are some funky a pillar pods I found on amazon. I'll still need to do some fiberglassing and trimming once my second set of a-pillars come in. Not gonna modify the originals.

 

Thank you skar audio for the sacrificial grill

 

Fit's but is not done.

 

This is a tinner's hammer hammer. Time to shape some metal

 

Not perfect but you can see what I'm going for.

 

A can of zyn fit's nicely to help with the shaping

 

Also had some steel round mesh from another project So I decided to try that as well

 

Side - by - side of the two grill options

 

Now for the tweeters. The flush mounts we too big so originally I was going to use these. But it looks hideous and bug-eyed.

 

So I trimmed one of the flush-mounts to fit.

 

And ditched the black grill. The steel looks better imo, especially when matching the tweeter.  There's still a lot I need to do to these. Currently the grill is sitting on the midrange surround so I need to fix that, and the pods still need to be fiber glassed to the a-pillars and covered with some kid of material. But that is for another day.

 

[CstrokerV]

a Cap bank will help, with not having a good alt  

[Ecohostile]

On 3/2/2024 at 11:53 AM, CstrokerV said:

a Cap bank will help, with not having a good alt  

 

I'm definitely wanting to look into that. I may try and use half the lithium I have or just wire it up and see what happens. If I end up going the cap route, I'll need to do some research.

[Ecohostile]

------UPDATE-------- 3/8/24

May have trashed $80 worth of A - Pillars..... We'll see.

 

So I ordered some spare A-Pillars so I could keep the stock set and swap them back out when I sell the car.

 

The Drivers side is from a CX-5 with Bose (Which I don't have) and the passengers side is from a cx-5 without tweeters in the a-pillar (which I do have) No worries though, the plan is to cut em up, fiberglass/fill, and re-upholster them with OEM headliner material.

 

Here we go!

 

Extra  A - Pillars.

I highly recommend getting a second set before you start. You never know when you might want to go back.

 

 

The plan is to mount the 3.5" Midrange and the 1" tweeter in the A-Pillars without losing the vents or the side airbags (not pictured)

 

 

 

Drilled out these plastic tabs that hold the vents. Some short screws should make nice replacements when I fasten these back on.

 

 

And Just like that, it's free.

 

 

Always check the backside first for mounting clips. We want to keep all of these if possible.

 

Made an ugly rough sketch. Erring on the small side (you'll see why later)

 

 

Pre-drilled some holes to make life easier.

 

Rough- cuts at first.

 

Then more rough cuts.

 

 

Quick check to see fitment.

 

Had to throw them in the car though to really get a good Idea.

 

And the other side

 

And both sides

 

And this is where I decided to destroy the Pillars. 

 

Not sure if you can tell from the last picture but the pods are WAY too high. I got focused trying to go around one of the mounting clips and forgot to check these before I went to far.

 

Sooooooo.... I decided to move them down as far as they could go, which is what I should have done the first time.

 

So now there's a huge hole I have to fill or I need to get another set of A-Pillars.......arghh

 

Here's one installed at the new height. It's much better but I'm bummed about trying to make this panel look factory again.

 

So that's where I'm at for now. Gonna call some junkyards and see if I cant find some A-pillars nearby. They'll be like $10 if I can find em that way.

 

What do you guys think? High or low?

 

And another question, the tweeters are aim able but the midrange is not. These speakers are supposed to be pretty wide when crossed over correctly, How important do you think it is for me to aim the 3.5" midranges? I'd prefer to put them tucked into the corners as possible (like it sits now) or I could get a lazer and aim these puppies in-between The driver and the passenger.

 

Another question, I'm going to add a center channel speaker to take advantage of my 10ch Helix, in anticipation of this, would it effect the way I aim FL anf FR?