I ran the other two wires and put everything back together, then wired in the amp after checking the channels. It took a few (~3) hours.

PROGRESS TODAY

The wires were done using the exact same procedure as before, and they again slipped through without any drama at all. So 2 x 12AWG 2 conductor wires fit through the grommets without much trouble if you use a snake and some lube. I still need to finish and bolt back the door panels and configure the wiring in the trunk, but the cabin is no longer a mess.

I positioned the tweeter wires where the factory tweeter wires end. I'll take pictures when I fabricate and install mounts for it.

I later tested and wired the speakers to the amp itself and then cut off the remote wire to make sure I don't end up sending dead signal through the lines (in case the speaker wires ground out on some odd chance).

THE DAMAGE

I need to pick up about 3 plastic clips from Honda for the kick panels. Those ones were the easiest to destroy from my experience--especially the white one near the A-pillar on the drivers side. Also, some of the trunk clips are damaged, so I'll probably need a few there.

I knocked the spring off the tray in the center console and will need to fix that--I took it out and left it in the cupholder part of the tray for now. No big deal, just one more thing. The power wire in the center console area seemed to be striking it at full retraction, even though there is another wire of the same size right next to it. I'll have to make sure things are positioned better when I fix the spring.

PLANS FOR SPEAKERS (probably during the week, )

For the tweeter, instead of connecting the speaker wire directly to the tweeter, I am going to try to find a clip-on/off fastener since I will need to be able to disconnect the tweeter anytime I choose to remove the door panel, i.e. if I dynamat the car next summer or change the speakers.

For the tweeter mounts, I'm leaning towards cutting the original tweeter mount bolts and shaving them flat, then buying and dremeling a thin (ie 1/16" or 3/32" type thickness) aluminum piece for a mount. I would cut it to about 1" wide by several inches long and then match-drill holes to attach it to the outermost bolts and the stock tweeter hole in the center. Maybe I'll just hack at the plastic and try to angle it though, but I'd like to get a bolt in the back of it somehow.

For the woofer I'll just make a 3/4" MDF spacer using the hacked up bits as templates. I'll spraypaint it to try and seal it. It's a bit cold for epoxy to cure (it won't be in our apartment, that's for sure!), and the goop has a 24 hour cure time, so I might skip that for now.

 

Today I did the tweeter mounts.

First, I got some aluminum stock from Lowe's. This was aluminum sheet, 1/16" thick, 1" wide, less than $5. Here it is next to the stock tweeter:



I cut off the posts on the stock tweeter. I'll be using the outer mounting posts for this aluminum piece.



First I cut rough lengths. I didn't measure, but I held it up to the tweeter and made a good guess. The lenghts were fine with that low accuracy.



I knocked off the edges and deburred the corners so I didn't cut myself or anything else on them.



I then placed these brackets right up to the tweeter and did my best to make dots with a sharpie to locate the points where I needed to drill holes. I drilled holes for #8 fasteners (~0.17 inches IIRC) with a 0.25" bit, so they were a bit big already. I was off by about 1/8" on one of the brackets and had to lengthen the hole, and the other worked as drilled.



Funny thing... the drivers and passengers side tweeter covers are very differently shaped.



And the angle on the passenger side is pretty steep... I'll have to figure something out here...



Here's the drill and such:



And even on the drivers side I founnd I had a big problem. It won't fit.



So I took some measurements--how far the aluminum bracket needed to be away from the tweeter mount, how big the tweeter bolts were, etc. etc. I then decided I needed to buy spacers and longer bolts, so off to the hardware store again.




Here's what I bought. If anyone is wanting a shopping list, you can send me a PM if you don't see what you need to from the posts. The bolt size was hard to match, so I got it extremely close instead of dead-on. I have no idea what Honda used here; it doesn't appear to be a typical thread. The #8's fit well; they're about 10 thou smaller than the stock bolts, and they have the same number of threads over the length as the stock ones although the spacing is minutely different. I didn't use the 3/4" length bolts I bought, but I think I used everything else. This was all like $12 at Lowe's.




From memory--I'll check later: Driver's side: I used 2 x #8 x 1.25" screws with 3/4" spacers. I should have used 1/2" spacers and shorter bolts. I'll post when I figure out what works.



From memory--I'll check later: Passenger's side: I used 1 #8 x 1" screw and 1/2" spacer and 1 x 1.5" screw with a 1" spacer.

I also added a washer to each tweeter, #4 IIRC. I bought these since the 1/4" holes I am drilling are too large for the tweeter's bolts.




I had a bit of trouble with the drivers side door panel--it scraped as I slid it in. When I slid the panel down onto the window frame, the new tweeter mount was scraping a bulge in the sheet metal above the area where the tweeters sit. I thought it worked just fine, but this morning I noticed the tweeter mount was sticking out of the door panel... I didn't measure, but it looks like I need to reduce the spacing by just under 1/4". The passenger side has tons of clearance due to the different panel design.

 

Ace, keep in mind that your tweeters are being blocked by the grill.

Those covers are designed for 3/4" tweeters, and the grill is drilled out as such. With a 1" tweeter, you'll need to open up the grill to alleviate that (that's why I cut mine out and used grille cloth to cover them - I'd have cut a bit differently if I were to do it again, but the important part is that they're cut out).

 

You know, I was starting to look for a reason to cut that out so I could set the tweeter in 1/4" more shallow on the drivers side to stop that striking.

You just gave me a great one. I'll probably be buying some speaker cloth in the next few days.

This little issue and the spacers for the woofers are all that's left before I have sound. Getting a rough tune is extremely easy with the auto-eq on this HU. Takes like 6 minutes after I get the gains set up, so maybe an iteration or two with gains and crossover points... I figure it will take around an hour to get decent sound. I'll probably start with 3.15kHz as the crossover point for both woofers and tweeters with -12dB/octave slopes.

After a few weeks I'll fine tune it to my liking. I might switch over to the amp's crossovers instead of the head unit's, but for now I'll use the fast and easy way to get decent sound until I have time to tinker with it and really dial it in.

I've picked up a few narrow wood screws and nylon washers to bolt the amp down once I have it tuned to my liking. I'll probably bolt it to the piece on the spare tire tools for now since it's pretty hard to tell a bolt went through carpet. That will give me plenty of time to do other non-car related things before I get the amp rack done.

 

Pick up a can of 3M 77 spray adhesive (green bottle).

Spray it on the backside of the mount and then be careful when laying the speaker cloth. The adhesive dries white and soaks through easily - so if you get glue on the cloth piece, you have to cut another piece (I think I wound up cutting 5 or 6 before I finally managed to get both sides done )

 

/\/\

I was hoping to find it locally, but I ordered some speaker cloth, and I'll look for 77 when it comes in. I found a company selling 6" x 6" samples for $1.00/ea, so I ordered 2 in black and 2 in dark grey. We'll see what matches the best.

I also fixed the drivers side tweeter mount; it was a no-brainer fix. I pulled the 3/4" spacers and used just 1/2" spacers. Although the tweeter's metal grill (which is hideous BTW) is touching the plastic or fiberglass frame of the top and bottom perimeter of the Honda tweeter mount/grill when the bolts are tight, it seems to be acceptable. A Dremel could file it down until there is no contact, but it currently looks like it won't be enough to bother with IMO--doesn't look like there will be fretting, vibrations, squeaks, etc, so no big deal. If I have issues down the road I'll post about it and how I fix it / them.


The hardware I used for the final tweeter mounts:

Bracket -
1x 1" W x 1/16" thk x 3' length aluminum (1' would have been plenty)

Bolts for bracket -
3x #8 x 1" Pan head phillips sheet metal screws (stainless)
1x #8 x 1.5" Pan head phillips sheet metal screw (stainless, passenger side)

Spacers for bracket -
3x 1/2 L x 0.194" ID x 1/2" OD Nylon spacers
1x 1/2 L x 0.257" ID x 1/2" OD Nylon spacer

Back of tweeters for bracket mounting:
2 x #6 flat washers (stainless)

Tools:
Drill with 1/4" bit
Dremel with metal and plastic cutting "blades"

I used a battery powered dremel and it took 2 full charges to do this.

 

Madisound has the grille cloth by the yard (50 or 60" x 1 yd) for $7 or so...

The 6x6 sample might be too small... I'm not sure how long the cover is - but it doesn't leave much extra in case you get adhesive where you don't want it (you will, trust me ).

 

I'd bet you're right on that--I'm pretty good at doing it carefully but wrong. And the 6" might not be wide enough, but for $1 each I didn't take the time to check. I'll have to check out madisound. But at the moment I'm a bit preoccupied:

Good and bad news today. Good news: I followed the DIY on making speaker baskets and now have sound. I used the DIY found here:
https://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=269226

Making baskets went ok. I was only within about 1/4" of my outlines--I'm obviously miserable with a jigsaw. I also cracked one of them since I cut it too thin. It is my first time. I sealed the gap with caulk in hopes that it would be more or less sealed for the next week or so, so it's basically in miserable shape and needs to go out of my car soon.

But I connected everything and now have sound. It sounds great, I think...

Right after I connected it and turned it on, I have never heard anything quite as noisy. And yet clean--it wasn't a sloppy noise. The crossover points from the headunit are correct, and the amplifier has linear gain without introducing a lot of extra noise, so I'm suspicious of the wiring...When the volume is very low is when it was the worst. The music (at very low volumes) sounded like stacatto with a mix of pulsing noise and musical notes (it was sort of that kind of track). It just pulsed with static as much as beat. It pained me, but I tried a bit of volume, then after that went well a bit more. It sounds better and better with more volume--the noise didn't get much louder, and the signal seemed to take over. But it still sounded a bit messy.

Does that sound like a ground issue, a potential power wire issue, a crossed wire type issue, or is it pretty nigh impossible to decouple without performing some real tests? I was thinking to go visit a friend or my brother tomorrow and use their car battery to bypass my power wire, then try the same with the ground or something to that effect so I can really test the wiring. I started the auto-TA and EQ, since I figured it wouldn't hurt after finding the noise didn't increase with volume and went in the house and initially posted.

And then I went back to the car now that the EQ / TA has finished, and the noise is now gone. It sounds great. But I'm haven't been able to enjoy it just yet. I'll have to report back in a day or two when I figure more out. I kind of hope it was a fluke, but I also really want to figure it out so I don't have to wonder if it will happen again at a later time...

Suggestions?

 

Well, that problem is gone for now. Also, since it was intermittent I know it can't have been due to interference with my power wire being too close to the HU or etc--if it was, it wouldn't have stopped since the wire hasn't moved. So it has to have been an issue with the electronics inside the HU, the amplifier, or a short somewhere in one of the wiring connections. I hope it doesn't come back, and if it does, I hope it's easy to troubleshoot.

It really sounds great!! (this is my first SQ-oriented build of course)

The EQ was already on flat, and the first thing I did was turn the loudness off, left the EQ set to flat, and just enjoyed the sound as it's recorded without adding coloring. I am really enjoying the sound of good, clean power! The auto-EQ didn't change a lot with these speakers, while with the OE speakers it was a true transformation. That's a great compliment to the speakers, IMO. I've been listening to the first focal demo disc all morning. I really like the result.

I wish the speakers had a bit more travel as after the auto-eq and such ran, with everything set to flat I run out of bass response before anything else distorts. My LPF is set at -12dB/octave@80Hz. If I want it louder I can change it to 100Hz, but then the music starts to sound a little hollow. Maybe dynamat will fix that down the road? The bass response does sound great, and as long as I'm not looking to play it at max volume or beat the block down it's more than enough. I still might add a sub down the road though so I can use the full 100W RMS of the amp. Also, the imaging isn't great yet, but I expected that. As NS posted, I'll probably get a lot back by cutting the OE tweeter housing up so it doesn't block all of the tweeters like it's doing now.

Otherwise, with those exceptions, there's nothing else I want. It sounds great!

I do have a ground noise to fix; it makes a whistle that changes pitch with engine RPM, so I'll have to do a bit more research on ground noises, follow NS's advice, and sort that all out. Actually I've got a lot of small things to sort out--broken clips, the untreated and broken speaker mounts, the center console spring is out... but at this point I can enjoy the stereo, so I don't mind the work!

 

haha man. I'm pretty sure if you and me put our builds together, we'd have every problem in the FAQ and then some. :-P I told you to expect it to take longer than a weekend :-P. I'm still working on mine nearly a month later... haha.

You have sound though, which is important. Congratz man. Keep it updated. I got a better camera from my sister, so I'm going to attempt to take some pictures this week (Maybe today after classes) and show how mine was done.