nice upgrades, really nice

 

nice... that's alot of work.

 

The vinyl wrap is finally here! Still haven't picked it up yet from the mail though. I hope it's the right kind. I spent some time over the weekend on the mounts and believe that I've gotten it right. As soon the wrapping is done I should be able to get the tweeters mounted. It really suck to be running the components without tweeters.

The next upgrade is going to be deadening and sealing of the door. I also need to snake another wire (again) to run the tweeter because the driver side pod will be attached to the door. This is my least favorite part of the upgrade because I had such a tough time last time snaking a woofer wire

 

any updates?

 

The vinyl wrap is gone!!! I thought it was delivered but Fedex left it at my front door and it was no where to be found!

With the wrap gone, I spent some time this weekend on the door upgrade. Finished a new baffle to replace the old one (see beginning of post for pics)

 

Lookin' good so far.

 

Still no vinyl wrap. Just had them shipped me a new one. Hopefully it will arrive this week but life goes on.

With the new MDF rings waiting to dry & air completely, I moved on to wiring. Spent about 8 hrs this weekend to lay more wires around the car.

 

!!!



But first got to finish up the rest of the wiring. I don't think I can survive another week with just wind noise while driving...

 

Alpine PDX 4.150 Mounted
Thanks Alpine for making this possible. Just compare the size of this with the MBQ. Not only is it much smaller, but it puts out 50W more RMS per channel, and 2 more channels than the MBQ!



Knukonceptz Mishaps
While testing the wiring, one of the housing came right off when I tried to unplug it from the Alpine (black below). It turned out that the connector's thread was manufactured too small so the housing couldn't screw on. What surprised me was that instead of replacing the connector, it was SOLDERED to the housing. I'm going to have to contact Knukonceptz to let them know this. This is unacceptable. It'll be a hassle if I need to replace it. At this point, I'm withholding my previous judgement on Knukonceptz products until I hear back.

UPDATE: Knukonceptz confirmed that this is rare defect and agreed to send a free replacement as part of the warranty. It's unclear how the soldering fix slipped through Quality Control though. Lack of a higher quality Knukonceptz RCA for car application, I'm now looking into other brands to replace these cables. Luckily I don't have to pay someone to rewire the RCAs, otherwise I'll be down another $100+. I'm still happy with their speaker/power wires though. No problems there.



Alpine PDX 4.150 Mounted
Hid all the mess in the spare tire area. Thanks to bomberman for making the blueprint of the mounting board. It fits like a glove. I also used a relay for the remote turn on from the HU since this is the second amp.

 

Dynamat

Double layer for the outer skin per suggestions from a few people. Just one layer for me this time since I already have 1 layer underneath.



Sealing the Door
In case you wonder what the plexiglass was for. Now you know. I picked it because it rather easy to cut and won't rust. Since plexi isn't flexible, the fit is not perfect. Some non hardening clay will fix that.



Dynaxorb
I got a good deal on these during the Holidays. It was just sitting there so I decided to superglue it on the outer door skin behind the woofer where it is supposed to go. This thing felt like jello. I did some A/B testing with them and I noticed that with the Dynaxorb in, reflection (the "ringing") within the door chamber was reduced marginally. I decided to kept them in there.



Door Deadened and Sealed