Ok............ so I spent TEN FRIGGIN HOURS putting the stereo in the car today. Yea.. go ahead.. call me a dumbass..... I feel like one.

So I drill the holes in the custom 6 inch kick panels.... all goes well

Drill small holes in the doors (barely visable) for the 1 inch tweeters. Pain in the ass.. but it happened.

Attached the crossovers to the bottom side on the glovebox with some double sided automotive tape.... no problems.

I wire everything together... including the bass tube. All goes well.. so I think.

Hook up the wiring harness to the back of the stereo...... you know, the AIWA that I bought off e-bay about 4 months ago...... THE CD PLAYER DOES NOT WORK!!!! The radio works, but not the CD... so now I'm friggin pissed cause it's 9:30 pm, and I wasted $90 on a friggin stereo..... already left positive feedback months ago... and best buy closes in 30 minutes.

So I'm doing 90 in my moms toyota Celica (I did all this in her garage today) to get to best buy to buy another AIWA so the harnesses will match up. All of their Aiwas all suck ass....... so I fork out $200 for a descent JVC.

SO I TURN DOWN A LATE-NIGHT BOOTYCALL CAUSE I'M SO EXCITED to finally have tunes in my car.... yea.. believe it.

Get back..... rewire the new harness...... and it sounds great..... except for the fact I GET NOTHING BUT STATIC OVER 1/3 VOLUME!!! AAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHRRRRRR!!!!

So now I'm throwing a fit like a 2 year old with diaper rash in my moms garage cause my shit doesn't work right. So I give up... call it a night..... and I've convinced myself that I have to bring it to a stereo place tomorrow to have them troubleshoot it.

So as I'm speaking on the phone with my friend.. trying to convince her that a VERY late night bootycall is in order....... I have a revelation........ "I spliced the front and back wires together to run into the crossovers....... but then I spliced the left and right wires together to run into the basstube... maybe I can't do that???"

So I disconnect the wiring harness..... AGAIN..... and completely nix the bass tube.

Low and behold....... My stereo KICKS ASS!!!! Hell yes..... sounds awesome.. plenty bass response with the infinity components (I sent the MB Quarts back cause they were used, not new as advertised).. crisp highs, ultra-clear.

And.. on top of all that...... I picked up a copy of the new Limp Bizkit CD at Best Buy.... I highly recommend it to everyone.



So its after 2am......and I got no booty tonight...... but...... my stereo kicks ass..... and I'm ready for summer. I'll snap some shots tomorrow when it's light out

Rock on!!

and what did we learn from our experience, grasshopper ?

if it was not "wire and test components on the bench before beginning the install" you are not yet ready to snatch the pebble from the master's hand ...

I think he should have learned that you can hook up a stereo any old time, but booty calls should never be turned down! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING MAN?!? Glad to hear the stereo works, though. I put one in my teener this weekend, too. I didn't have any of the trouble, or a botty call.

let's see some pics, gentlemen.

It was such a nice day, I went outside and took a couple shots with the office's digi cam.

Stereo pics.... sorry for the dirt.. been almost a week since I vaccuumed

left side

Nice job of the radio install

I noticed you're sportin' 4 gauges in the console...which ones?

Thanks!!

Top left to right..... top to bottom

Cyl Head Temp
Oil pressure
Temp
Volts

Good Job!

I have the 6.5" speakers from Amity. The sounds is pretty good but the bass is lacking BADLY. Where did you place the Sub tube? Can you grab a pic?

I would have needed the booty call after a night like that.

Plus I would have given up when I got the call the first time.

- Brett

The sub tube had to be nixxed..... it was causing more problems than it was worth. Plus, I didn't want to drill into the firewall (hence, the reason for my other post)

And I agree with you about the bass.... which Is why I went out searching today.

I just bought a 600W amplifier online about 30 seconds ago, and I've looked into a new product called the "JL 6W0" 6 inch subwoofers..... very small, and very powerful. $90 a pop, which considering a 914 doesn't give too many options, isn't too bad.

I'm going to build a box that "hangs" from the oderside of the passenger side dash, and try to get the sub as close to the center of the car as possible.

In addition, I'm going to run BOTH speakers from the component infinitys through the high channel in the crossovers..... and the low channel will be for just the subs... with a little adjusting.... Fred Durst will sound like he was supposed to!!

if you want to improve the bass suff the back of te panels with poly fill makes a big diffrence ,also we do sell a sub woofer that goes with these panels.but cheers to you on youre stereo install.

nine, great install, looks sweet!

you CAN't go wrong with JL subs... even those little 6" bastards are bad ass!!

I would also suggest Kicker Solobarics if you listen to Rock... they require VERY little space and are very good!! I didn't like them as much as my rockfords when it came to Rap/Bass... but I rarely listen to that anyway!

Thanks!!!!

Kicker...... Solo-What???

How big are they? The smallest sub I know of are the 6 inchers from JL.. Does Kicker make one too??

Oh.. and yea.. I'm strictly a rock guy..... although I dabble in the rap-core stuff too (Limp, Korn, POD, etc).. so the bess response is well-appreciated.

What is polyfill???

Keep in mind, the panels have a large opening at the top.. they are not sealed.

kicker solobarics have 8" subs that need a VERY TINY enclosure to work right... hardcore works well on them, I am a big Rage, Korn fan... the bass they have trouble with is the synthetic, LONG bass notes... the size of the sub isn't the proble, it's the size of enclosure they use!


Polyfill is stuff used to make blankets are stuff, like a synthetic pillow filling, it makes the area of air-space in an enclosure SEEM bigger to the speaker... you can buy huge bags at Walmart for almost nothing

example, say a speaker NEEDS 1 cubic ft. (subs usually need a lot more than this btw) but you only have space for a .5 cubic ft enclosure, you can put poly fill in the box to make the speaker respond as if the speaker is in a bigger box.

2 questions:

1. Will this work with the kick panels.... because they are not an "enclosed" speaker?

2. How much do I put in? Fill it till it's stuffed, or just a little bit??

1. yes, but not as well as if they were sealed... but component speakers don't require a set amount of space, they are like "free-air" subs... use what is called "infinate baffle".. which is why you can mount them in a door or in the trunk of a car... no box


2, some where in between, but closer to "a little bit" put a little in and test the sound, put some more in... find a sound you like, don't over fill though... this can cause the speaker coil to get hotter...

Morphenspectra is right, he did recommend the polyfil when I bought the spkrs. I'll give this a shot.

Morph, I like your sub but I already have a stock console that I'd like to maintain.

Regarding a SUB.. the passenger side footwell has a hard foam-like insert underneath the carpet to give the footwell a slight outward angle. The thing is maybe 4-6 inches wide. I was thinking of pulling this out and fitting a sub box there and just carpeting over the thing. Anyone try this?

Sub Placement

Here is a link from a previous discussion on this topic!

Jeff

Wow..... so many choices... man

Ok.... quick question. I currently have no subwoofers, and no amplifier. Just a fdescent JVC head unit, and a set of Infinity Kappa 50.5 CS component speakers with crossovers.

I'm ASSUMING that the reason It gets distorted at higher levels (especially with heavy bass playing) is because of the stereo.. not the speakers, as I believe top of the line Infinitys should be able to handle much more.... right??

Please.. correct me if I'm wrong.

So..... I have a 600W 4 channel amp on its way here as we speak.... Which leaves my choice of subwoofers and subwoofer setups up to me.

cutting the center console is definate OUT. No way. I absolutely SUCK at fiberglass, so if I built a box in the front of the passenger footwell (BTW.. the "foam" piece has been removed in my car, and carpeted over), I'd have to build it out of wood. Plus, $350 is too rich for my blood to buy the one that guy is selling.

My plan was to "taper" the box so that the bottom part (resting on the floor) was very thin, and the top part was much thicker, so the subwoofer would be facing kinda "down". But after reading that thread, I see the converted bass tube used as a certer console... and I kinda like it. So now I'm torn on what do do.

Advice? Suggestions??

The distortion ratio for the deck is what causes the high volume distortion. When you add the amp you will be at the lower end of the distortion level for the deck and hence lower distortion at higher volumes. A crossover will help cut out any highs and low to the wrong speaker component.



That’s an interesting option but it will take up your limited interior storage space!

I will search for a few other postings that have shown some very imaginative sub placements!

Jeff

Link 1

Link 2


Link 3

Link 4

There is one more that I can't find that shows the sub mounted in the back pad between the two seats. They built a box that replaced the center section of the pad.

Jeff

OK, I found the one in the middle back pad!

Jeff

Another

Jeff