Offical Simplicity In Sound Install Log V.2

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Alright guys, not even a week after taking delivery of my brilliant silver 2005 Subaru Legacy GT Limited Estate, the audio install have began! Though its not a volvo, it does share similar body styles and install locations so i hope you will follow along and perhaps evolve some ideas of your own with your volvos

The goal of the system is essentially to do something that completely adheres to my values in car audio...and that is:

1. Sound Quality -- though I do not plan to seriously compete, I would like for this car to be able to hold its own in IASCA, USAC and other sound quality competitions if entered.

2. Simplicity -- You wont see any flowing painted fiberglass in this install, nothing spectacular, just straight up simple and classy work. You also will find a MINIMAL number of components in the install. so dont expect to see five amps and four subs and 10 speakers

3. Stealthiness -- I want hte system to be very unobtrusive, when hidden, i want nothing in the interior to really stand out much at all.

4. A/B listening comparison -- The entire stock system, including the stock radio whcih is integrated with the climate control, and all the speakers, will be left totally untouched. The system will reside in totally new locations. This is so a customer can directly compare a decent stock system with a good aftermarket one.

here is the basic layout of the system components, though some parts may change during the course of the install:

Headunit: Pioneer Avic-D2 or Avic Z1 -- One of these double din unit will be installed in the upper cubby location.

Line Driver: A yet undetermined line driver will boost the 2volt outputs of hte pioneers upto the 7 volt input level of the dls amps.

Front Stage: DLS Nobelium 6.2 6.5" component set. A set of these top of the line DLS components will be installed into custom molded kick panels.

Rear Stage: What rear stage??

Subwoofer: Image Dynamics IDMAX10 10" subwoofer

Amplifier: DLS Ultimate A7 5 channel amp. This amp's four stereo channels will provide 60 rated watts a piece into each front midbass and tweeter, the front stage there for will be active. There is also a chance that i will downsize into the A5 3 channel amp and use the existing DLS nobelium Crossovers. The sub channel on the A7 will power the subwoofer with 600 rated watts.

Signal Processing: Dual USDaudio sw30b rackmounted mono 31 band eqs will be used. Xover functions will be left to the amp.

Wiring: A combination of wiring products will be used, mainly stinger and knukonceptz, but every single wire on display, including cables, etc...will be silver, to match the car

Dampening: A combination of Elemental Designs Edead V1se, v3 and v4 will be used liberally in what is an already pretty hush cabin.

so...thats it...lets get started!

First things first: a good fundamental step is to get the battery situation squared away, and a quick order got me a Optima Yellow Top Group 35 battery, it fits very well in the stock location.

next is dampening of course. While i dont plan on going crazy and gutting the interior, there are a few key areas that i wanted to focus on. that being the doors and the cargo area where the majority of the system components will be.

first up the cargo area. Here is what hte floor looks like after all the panels have been removed:

two layers of Edead v3 liquid dampening was first applied:

when that was dry, 2 more layers of Edead V1se butyl dampening was applied, and here is waht the end result looks like with most of the panels in place... now that is a shiny spare tire well! and HUGE too

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Next up are the doors, i took off the factory door panel, removed the speakres, mounting tabs and applied three layers of edead v1se onto each door. the large cavities were sealed with edead v4 foam dampening. that is the grey stuff you see amongst the silver. All in all, there is noticably less roadnoise emmitting through the doors, and the stock system sounds much better! less buzzing! Though no aftermarket components are going in the door, i wanted to do this to prvent rattles and gain a quieter cabin as often, the stock doors let a decent amount of road noise through.

thast it for now, the eqs are already here, i plan to order the sub, amp, speakres, and wiring next week, and start on the trunk install first Please be patient as i am quite busy in april with customers car, but with luck, i will make it for hte may 1st Davis meet :)

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update:

a few things have changed:

instead of hte DLS A7, i have decided to go even more simple and use the DLS A5, whcih is a 3 channel amp doing about 2x85 plus 1xup to 800 watts at 1ohm

also, instead of the USD processors, i am going with an audiocontrol DQT

should start on the trunk very soon

b

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Its not often that a car comes with an OEM "amp and subwoofer rack", but in the case of my legacy, Subaru was kind enough to provide one for me

It is a foam based storage compartment that goes above the spare tire. I will be utilize this piece to provide additional stealthiness to the install..the goal is that even when someone opens the cargo hatch, he or she will still think that there is nothing in the car

here is the piece sitting in the car:

and hwat it looks like out of hte car:

with a sharp razor knife, it hatching out hte bottom time! after about 10 mins, and then some light sanding, the bottom is completely out.

Since hte bottom piece will be the only weight bearing surface, it cannot be left to the foam of this piece, rather, this factory foam piece will be acting more like a cosmetic cover up top rather than an integral part of the amp rack

thats all for today, next up is dampening this baby and then building the subbox below it...:)

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okay, some more progress

since i plan to use the stock foam cover piece as part of my enclosure, i have to treated it somehwat so it doesnt becomg squeak city, i plan to dampen it completely.

Fist i had to mask off the areas that i do not want to get the dampening on:

after thats done, a layer of Edead v3 liquid dampening went on. Another layer of V1se solid dampening will follow, but first, it must dry at least over night for me to go any further.

So i turned my attention to the rear of the car, to the rear view camera to be exact. I sourced a low profile night vision back up camera. It has an array of IR LCDs that acts as flash lights at night, though the beams are invisible to the naked eye. I tested it with one of my LCDs in the darkened garage and it works like a charge, spooky infact, in a completely dark garage to be able to see everything on the LCD as if a spot light is being shown...

anyway, the first step is to drill the license plate, since htat is where i plan to install the back up camera.

After cleaning the plate, and masking the portion off wherei plan to cut (always mask the area where oy plan to drill or cut, it prevents metal shaving from scratching things and makes for a much cleaner cut), i took a 1.25" holesaw to it...and here is the result:

next, i took the plate onto the car, and marked off where the hole has to be drilled into the car, and once again, masked the area:

next went in the same hole saw, and with the tape pealed off, a perfect hole!

next i test fitted the camera to the plate, and its a perfect snug fit:

At this time, its a good idea to dampen the license plate against rattles, so on went a layer of Edead V4 foam dampening, this thick foam will definetly ensure that neither the plate nor the holder will rattle against hte body of hte car:

after this was done, the plate and the camrea went onto the car, secured via the mounting screws:

The camera uses a series of spacer and screw rings to sandwich the plate and the sheet metal of the car in order to secure the camrea, as you can see, these rings, along with the back of the camera, is easily within acess in the tailgate through a cut out. Using my power supply and an external LCD, i adjusted the camera so it is paralell with the ground.

Next of course is the wiring, three wires will be coming out of the camera, a video cable that will go upfront to be pluged into the headunit, and a power and ground to be connected to power the camera. Here is a shot of the wires, all the connections are electrical typed, and the wires are bundled together:

The wires are then routed through the tailgate and out of the stock wiring tube on the passenger side of hte car, here you see the tube disconnected and the wires passed through to the inside of the vehicle. A great tool to have is a wire pass through tool to easily get the wires through this tube.

The off came a few panels in the interior and the wires are snaked through to the floor. I left them for now in the spare tire well and will run them when i do the main wiring for the car, in a few days. All the pieces went back on and no hint of wiring anywhere

Now thats done, i turned my attention back to the license plate holder. I took the bronze colored Carnegie Mellon Alumni frame off the volvo and thoroughly cleaned it with soap and water...gotta keep on representin my alma mater!

next went on three coats of sealing primer:

followed by four coats of Factory matching Brilliant Silver paint, followed by four coats of clear coat They came in an easy to spray bottle from www.paintscratch.com

finally, after a few hours and its dry to handle, the plate went on the car as well the color matches really well and provides in my opinion a classy look to the back, and goes with the debadged theme of hte vehicle.

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Today is sub box time! always one of my favorite times of an install, figuring out how to make a certain type of enclosure fit with in a certain space.

With the scooby its not so much the well size that its hindering me, since its HUGE...rather, its the limitation i put on myself by using the stock foam cover. The opening i have set fo the sub is only about 11" wide front to back, and the subitself is pretty much that size, meaning i have to be dead on withe measurements. also, since hte sub is quite deep at almost 8", i need to build the enclosure carefully so that when the sub sits in its final position, there is enough clerance above it for a grille...

anyways, to maximize the depth of the well, i decided to with a hybrid MDF/fiberglass enclosure, with the bottom of hte enclosure being fiberglass.

First a frame was built using 3/4" mdf, not braces at all four corners:

next, the frame is lay onto the well where it needs to go, and adjusted using wooden spacers so its completely level with the ground using a round level. then some fiberglass mat is laid down. Aluminum foil is laid down in the well first to act as a mold release.

after taht its straight up fiberglassing, here is the result after 4 layers of mat:

After its all dried, the box is removed, not that the corners have not been glassed at this point

now the attention is turned to the structure above the sub box, obviosuly, as you can see, this is a shallow subbox, so i will need to build a series of supports above it in order for the sub to sit nicely in the well.

first is the top cover of the box, notice the hole cut

next, these two pieces are cut, one is a 2.5" support bracket, and the other is the top piece that will acutally sit in the well holding hte sub and crossovers

now lets see how this works in the car, first with the box top on:

next with the support bracket on:

then the top cover:

and finally, test fit with the idmax 10 fits like a glove and will be competely airtight. right around 1 cub feet its just a jigsaw puzzle really, except you first have to build the pieces in your head, then build them in real life and watch as they fit together

now that i know sub rack fits, i turned my attention back to the subbox itself. four more layers of fiberglass mat went on, including sealing of all the corners. after that dried, a heavy dosage of duraglass is applied to major joints so ensure air tightness.

and finally, two good layers of edead v3 liquid dampening is laid down on the entire structure

that all for today :)

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Today i was all over the place, the main hold up now is that my amp and speakers arent here yet oh well...

anyway...first thing i started with is the sub box...the dampening is pretty much dry by now, so i drilled a hole, routed through the speaker wires and sealed it with a combination of duraglass and dampening, and then using three screws, the bottom of the sub box is fully secured to the car, aint no one gonna rip this thing out

next went in some polyfill

then i cut out the floor for the front well as well as the spacer:

and then secured the spacer to the top of hte sub box, and then secured the top of the subbox to the bottom with a combination of woodglue and nails:

now with the back top back on (temporaryly removed the polyfill to check on something

and then the front floor plate, everyhting seem to fit mighty nicely now if i only had the amp and the speakers grr...

then i briefly paid some attention to the interior, after about 5 mins, the entire radio is out, along with the top cubby spot where the double din HU will go...i then spliced and extended the five wires from the stock wiring harness upto the cubby area, using the correct color coded wires, i did - 12v, acc, ground, illumination, and powre antenna.

So...then i went to under the hood, and started another one of my favorite portions ofthe install: doing the underhood wiring to make everything clean and neat

components that went underneat there include:

two sets of Stinger battery termainals, one with voltmeter

two stinger circuit breakers, one 100 amp for the audio portion, one 50 amp for the rest of the accessories

one knukonceptz 4 to 8 guage distribution block for any future additions

four stinger solid ring terminals for hte distribution block

stinger 4 and 8 guage wiring

and here is the result:

so back into the car i went, and ran the wiring for hte driver side, wcih is the 4 guage power cable, two sets of speaker wires and the remote bass control cable for the DLS amp that i dont have lol..

now thats ALOT of cabling, and ALOT of cable ties

but it all went in fine, here is the portion that is under the back seat on its way to the cargo area

more tommorow :)

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didnt get too much done today, had to drive 2 hours to and from sacramento...but to pick up my avic Z1 so only had about 2 hours really to work on things...

first off is to run the wiring for the passenger side, this includes the rca cable, remote wire, and two speaker wires, say it with me again guys, tahts ALOT of wire ties

here again, are the wires that pass under the seat cushio, the other set of wires you see are from the rear view camera running foward:

once the wire are ran, they are separated and flat taped against hte floor, that way, the stock rear panels wont bulge up

and finally, the result that every installer craves for no evidence of all the wires run:

then i turned my attentio back to the front. one of things that always annoyed me was that as time goes on, one tends to add more accessories to the car, and these accessories often need their own power source. which results in more taping of wires into one antoher and in the end creates a mess.

I am solving this problem by including a 4-8 guage distribution block under the driver side bottom dash tray, this is a constant power source and will be used as the central tapping point for any future add ons. I plan to add another D block for ignition wire later on as well.

here you see the 8 guage that came from the engine compartment hooked into this D block

next i figured i would give a crack at the DLS remote amp gain module. after looking around, i realized that a great spot for hte knob would be on the fuse panel door, located below the steering wheel ont he passenger side, within easy reach of my hand at all times...

here is the module with the door:

and here is the module secured to the door:

here you can see the remote bass control wire run through the kick and behind the door, attached to the control module:

and finally, the whole thing closed up with only a small knob showing

after that, i decided to run the wires for the Avic Z1...two wires that i needed to hook up was the vehicle speedsensor wire and the reverse gear sensor wire.

the revserse gear sensor, much to my delight, can be accessed in the passenger side kickpanel, located in the bundle of wires that runs towards the rear...it is a brown wire with a yellow stripe on it, and here you see the avic Z1's reverse gear wire tapped into it

next up is the speedsensor, whcih is also located in the passenger side kick, it is a green wire with a black strip on it and again its tapped

after running RCA, remote turn on wire i started try and find a location for hte voice commany mic that comes with the Z1, it usually sits on a small snap holder...after 10 mins of staring and coming up wtih nothing, i ditched the holder, whcih is bulky and looks ugly and made my own mounting system using just a wire tie now this little thing sits ontop of hte A pillar CUTE!

finally, its the GPS reciever location, whcih i tucked away out of site on the passenger side dash. This is almost identical to where i put the antenna on my volvo and it has always worked out great. I like it becuase it doesnt draw attention.

and here you see all the connections needed for the Z1 run into the upper cubby location where the unit will go...three main harness, the antenna, the SAT antenna, and the mic

now all i have to do is hack a load of plastic away and somehow get the Z1 to fit in the cubby opening! lol fun fun fun!

tommorow the amp and speakres should be here, so hopefully, i can get the amp rack and sub enclosure all finished and wired up...

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today the UPS guy finally delivered for me my DLS ultimate A5 three channel amp and my DLS Ultimate Nobelium 6.2 component set, that means i can finishup most of the work on the back!

first i started by laying a mock up of roughly where the amp and the crossovers will go:

next i started working on each individual floor piece...first up is the subwoofer/crossover rack.

here you see the plate drilled out for wire passing grommit and the edges sanded down

then the panel was covered in grey suede, and plastic snap in grommits are put in

and then with the crossovers screwed into the plate

next came the amp rack, again, its sanded down and pre drilled for the grommits

and then sueded

now, both pieces are installed into the vehicle, and the components secured and all the wiring run...

and to get an idea of almost how the final product will look, the stock foam piece is put back in a snug fit

its not completely all connected yet, and i still have to build another fake cover that goes above the components so that even when the hatch is raised, there is still nothing showing, but for now, its all good and i can turn my attent ion to fabricating the headunit mount

and here is what it looks like with it clsoed...STOCK :0

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well, ifrst of all, for anyone who is following this log, be prepared to be patient for a while, after this post, it will be a while before any more progress is made, i have two upcoming back to back installs of customers cars coming up so i will be squeezing time to work on my own car hehe...prolly an update every three to four days...hehe

anyway, today was working on the rack for hte processor. for this car i chose the audio control DQT digital 31 band eq. easy to read controls and easy to tune. for this car, i was determined to have it accessible from the front of the car, beucase last time, running back and forth from driver seat to the trunk got tiring after a while.

the best place after doing some staring and measuring was the passenger side foot well...

so...first out comes the metal plate that is under the foot well that protects the ecu. here, you see the dqt secured to the plate

next i cut out htese two pieces from MDF, one is the inner mounting plate that goes under the carpet, one is the outter plate to go above the carpet

The inner plate was then attahced to some spacers so it can sit ontop of hte DQT

and here isthe plate is secured to the metal plate

now its fitting it in the car, here you see the piece secured back inthe car, rca and power cables are hooked up

now its major hackage time of hte stock carpet, didnt bother to be too neat, not that i can since hte stock carpet is so darn thick for my poor razor lol but here is the carpet back over the eq rack

then to make things look neat, the upper covering plate is secured to the lower covering plate, sandwiching the carpet for a neat and clean look. since i am still waiting on some charcoal carpet, its just bare wood for now...i iwll cover them when the carpet arrives on friday :0

and finally, a test fit of the covering piece that will go on so make a solid surface

so...thtas it...i hope to mold the kicks this wekeend, and then its the most challenging part of the install: fitting the headunit

tahts all for now folks ;)

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got done with a customers car a little earlier so i had an afternoon to work on the scoob woot!

well, the carpet finally arrived so firsthing i did is to upholster the top covering piece for hte eq with it:

and here is a pic with the carpeted plate over the eq and the eq turned on much better!

next up of course is the eq cover:

and with it all hidden

now i turned my attention back to the headunit, as i mentioned before, themounting of hte headunit is perhaps the most challenging part of ths entire install..

here is why, here is the stock cubby bezel lined up with the Z1...as you can see, its not even close to fitting...

i trimmed away a little of the bezel so i can at least trim to squeez and line up the unit inthe cubby opening

the other big challenge is that there is no mounting point fo hte Z1 in the cubby opening, and after hacking away a ton of plastic within the cubby, i took some measurements and used two L brackets as mounting points, here you see the brakcets secured to the Z1

a piece of 1/2" mdf was secured to the bottom o fhte unit along with some foam dampening to act as a secondary support and to eliminate any vibrations that may occur

overall, it came out pretty good, here is a shot of the unit fully secured int he cubby opening and iwred up

but as you will see in this next pic, the challenge now is to make this bezel fit over the Z1 and make it look more or less stock...can you say bondo and sanding?

wtih the securing of hte headunit, it means i finally have the signal chain all done in the car, which means i can start on the speakers! yay! should have sound in the car pretty soon...

so...first step was to cut out hte moutning baffles for hte kick panels....nothing fancy here, just a normal shape...i wouldnt mind doing a more fancy looking kick with flush mount etc but that would just eat up more space

next , using 3m green masking tape (the ONLY masking tape anyone should be using in a car), i masked off the general area that the kicks will go, and then, using a black marker, i traced the outline o fghte kick mold onto the tape. this is a trick i figured out myself a while ago, when you glass onto this, the marker lines transfer onto the fiberglass, and you cna use it as a rough guide when trimming hte mold a layer of mold release was also smeared onto the tape.

Note that the factory kick panel pieces remiain, as you will soon see, i plan to make that panel part of the kick i am building, for a shape that blends in better with the interior

then, 6 layers of fiberglass cloth was layed down on each side to form a bottom mold...on most cars, fiberglass mat is better to build up strengh quickly, but, for htis application, because i have to be very precise with where hte fiberglass goes in respect to the stock kick piece, fiberglass cltoh is used to better conform to the multiple curves

this was done yesterday (friday), today i should make some more progress on the kicks and hopefully have sound by the end of hte weekend woot!

b

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lets keep going with the kicks shall we?

after letting it dry over night, the kick panel molds were removed from the car, and here is hwat they look like, as i stated before, the marker lines transferred to the mold and makes it easy to trim

then comes the trimming:

then goes on three more layers of fiberglass cloth to make things strong.

when this last layer has cured, i cut out two holes to act as vents and wire routing openings for the speakers

now comes the dampening, i have always found that the more you can dampen a kick panel, the better it sounds. so four layers of edead v1se was put onto the back mold of the kick panel

then the baffles were secured to the back mold. interms of how to positve the baffles to aim speakers? wha ti do is aim them by eye in the car, and then dab some hot glue to secure them and then more hot glue to fully secure them to the mold. if you want to go to extremes, you can use a laser pointer and all that, but to me, i have always been able to get good results by lining them up by eye

then, i wrapped the kick panels using fleece...and saturated the fleece with resin

when the resin dries with the fleece, it creates a VERY tough layer of material, about 1/8" thick and i have found this to be strong enough for most kick panel duties with out additional fiberglassing. Once its dry, i trimmed out the opening for the speakres, and test fitted the midbass all good!

then comes the final prepping and upholstering of the kick panels. first using 60 grit sand papger, the entire kick was sanded down to be relatively smooth, the edges where hte fiberglass meets the plastic stock piece was bondoed and sanded as well

once this was cleaned off, black suede was pulled over the shape and glued down oh no what baout he ruff edges that hte suede doesnt cover???!

and a quick test fit in the car shows that no part of that will be shown when the door sill piece is in place

so then its time to load the speakres...here you see the Nobelium tweeter arleady in place and the nobelium midbass secured

next of course is the grille for hte midbass, and the driver side is all done!

the passenger side receive the same treatment of course, here you see the spray adhesive drying before i wrapped it with suede

and with suede:

so...lets check out the final results of all this work since i molded everything off the stock kick panel, the kick blends into the interior pretty well, conforming to the lines and ridges dictated by the stock trim pieces... right now, ther ei no tuning, no settings, but a quick listen to some cds already tells me they will sound AWESOME!!! enjoy!

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alright you picture hungry vultures here are some more fresh meat. just so you know i did this toay in about 45 mins just so you guys have something to look at lol...i am still sanding the trim panel for the HU here and there but not much more has been done on that end...

anyway...today's goal was to tackle the cover panel that goves over the subs, so it has a nice and big vent and looks alright from both ends.

so first step was to compltely strip off the stock carpet and cut a big hole for the sub to vent:

next, on the bottom side, a layer of edead v1se was added to give it more resistance to vibrations:

then over the edead, a layer of black suede is added to give it a somewhat finished look:

now back over onthe top side, a sheet of grille mesh was cut out matching the shape of the panel:

the part where the mesh shows through the hole on the bottom side was covered with black grille cloth:

and then grey flexform carpet covered the hole thing, the edget were trimmed, and this is the end result: simple

now lets see what this looks like in the car:

the new carpet is just a tiny shade off but i am fine with it, in normal lighting conditions, its barely noticable

there...all done with that..

on the other end, i added 100 horsepower to my car today! in the form of 10 stickers! (or has it gone up to 20hp per sticker now? )

my goal is to have the decals advertise for my buisness and my brands yet be unobtrusive. from this angle, you can barely see the decals upfront, and the only one you can immediately notice is the simplicity in sound logo on the back windows...

thats because the decals i had made up in reflective silver that is not far off from the cars color itself that way, at night and lower light conditions, they sorta disappear into the car, but when the sun shines on them or headlights, they reflect sparkles...

here is a rough attempt at capturing the sparkles in the setting sun, in bright day light, they really sparkle well

took her for a spin, funny thing is i didnt notice a big jump in performance, perhaps these stickers arent workin??? :P