August 2017: Once again, Heasman worked their magic on the alignment and the car is driving amazing, certainly better then ever before. They did mention that that even once fully tightened they could still move the body of the drivers side coilover. They have put this in writing for me which should help in hopefully getting it replaced, cause quite honestly, it's pathetic for an expensive and vertically brand new product.
Anyway, finally I can get something, that thanks to the control arm fiasco, I was meant to get started on weeks ago. This car has been crying for a proper stereo since the day I got it, finally it's getting one. Be prepared there is going to be ALOT of pictures and info.
Time to go through everything. Starting with the least interesting, for me anyway.
Despite knowing that they would basically be useless, I grabbed a set of universal 6.5" 16mm thick MDF spacers. They were $8.00 and made it easier to do a nice circle, but otherwise, no help getting the speaker actually secured to the door.
I knew that I would need a somewhat half decent roller for the sound deadening. There were plenty going for well over $40.00 which I refused to pay for something like that. I ended up settling for this Roadkill unit. It's utter crap and the one screw on it kept falling off. Oh well.
While the roller didn't feel like quality, this wiring kit does. This is a Rockford 4GA amplifier Wiring Kit.
9.1 meters of super beefy 16 gauge speaker wire, there is heaps here but I can already see myself running out.
Nice set of RCA cables.
4 gauge power wire with a nice fuse holder.
4 gauge ground wire, nice and short. I'll likely throw this on the passenger seat mount as this has worked well for me in the past.
Also comes with a REM wire and a few other goodies.
I needed three sets total of RCA cables as I'll be using a five-channel amp. So I grabbed two sets of Stinger 3 meter RCA's.
Due to the fact that the Sony XAV-AX100 has a single RCA for the subwoofer I needed to grab a two into one, again another Stinger unit.
For sound deadening I decided to go for some DS18, hey it ain't Dynamat but it also isn't the price of Dynamat so it'll be fine. I grabbed two bulk packs so I'll have plenty and don't have to worry about being frugal with it, plus any left overs can go in the daily.
Now onto the good stuff. Starting with the amp, I was not in the slightest interested in the idea of running two amplifiers. So that meant running a five-channel. Plus the car was designed to have one amp under the passenger seat anyway. I ended up with a JL Audio HD900/5 900W five-channel amplifier. It's such a nice looking unit but surprisedly compact, although super dense, this was a heavy bastard.
Nice to see all of the tuning controls are actually hidden behind a panel so there is no chance of screwing them up.
The amp uses these fancy quick disconnect things for easy removal.
Plenty of I/O ready for tunes.
Next up was the rear, I didn't need anything super special but I wanted something decent for some fill, plus the rears were blown anyway. There is only one space in the door for a single 6" as the original was a two-way. I ended up with a pair of Morel Tempo Ultra 602 Integra's. These are super reasonably priced and should do well in the back. I'll see what they're like, might be a great option for the daily.
Nice.
Lastly what I hope will be somewhat of the piece to resistance. A nice set of two-way 6.5" Morel Hybrid 602's. I was going to go with the three-way versions but they couldn't get them in stock and I'm kinda glad about that because it means the install is going to be way easier because of it. These things are like mini subs.
They even feel quality.
Tweeters.
Bug-looking crossover.
So that's basically all the parts. As for a subwoofer, the car already has a 8" low profile kicker unit in the factory location that even at this point I have to have on -5 because the rattle is so bad. So for now I'll leave that in and see what it's like running off the amp and after some sound deadening.
Time to get onto the install.
Door card off.
Speakers ripped out and vapour shield off.
I decided to start with sound deadening before anything else, at least on the inside. Due to the fact that I had so much of it I decided to do both the inner and outside skin of the door.
I used three main big chunks and then filled some gaps with some off cuts.
Now onto the inner but before that I gave it a good clean to make sure I had good adhesion.
Slowly but surely it all came on.
While I might be approaching diminishing return I had it, so may as well use it.
With that basically finished I needed to get the new speaker wire through the door grommet.
With some whiteline 'high performance' lube I managed to negotiate this high tech tubing up the grommet.
With the cable through to connect the crossover to the amp I needed to sort the wiring for the speakers and tweeter. Time to get the crimps out.
Tweeter and speaker wire sorted.
Once that was done all the old wiring could be deleted.
Once that was sorted I could now find a place to mount the crossover. This seemed like the best place.
I was recommended to actually use the DS18 to mount it, strangely though it actually started to somewhat sag and fall down so I had to re think it.
Some 3M Dual Lock seemed to be the perfect way to mount it, doesn't look like it's going anyway.
Before I continue on that I need to make an adapter to mount to the speaker to the door. I'm happy to see that there isn't much of size or height difference between the two which should make, making mounts a bit easier.
I had a butt tone of 16mm MDF laying around which was certainly convenient. Quick trip to Bunnings and a jigsaw was purchased.
Using the original mount I measured out onto the MDF.
Started with a rough cutout and then using the cheap universal spacers a what mostly looks like a perfect circle was cut out.
Mounting holes were then cut and on the speaker went.
Size ended up almost prefect.
With the issue of mounting the woofer I needed a way to mount the single tweeter.
3M Dual Lock to the rescue again.
Perfect.
That's not going anyway.
Woofer in.
Then onto a touch of cable management.
Much better.
So basically that's everything that needs doing on the one door. I'll fill the last whole in the door when everything is tested. Now it was time to remove the passenger seat to get to the old amp.
Looks like the previous owner had the amp purely for the sub and even more strangely it had two pissy wires for the power and ground each. Happy to see this out.
The amp will be a perfect addition for the daily once I get a better set of speakers for it. That's it for the day. Hopefully I can get a few hours in during the week and fingers crossed have everything in by the end of next weekend.