SQ oriented build log

[WonkyJon 8]

Hi all,

I've been a member of TalkAudio (now TalkStuff) for a fair while and done a fair bit of competing in both dB Drag and EMMA events and my builds have always been accompanied by a build log. I thought I'd share it with you guys over here, so here it is...

After 7 months of ownership and a few performance/visual changes to the car I've decided now is a good time to put some time into the sound side of things. None audio wise it's had suspension, wheels, manifold, EcuTek tune and a raft of other 'goodies'.
 
001 by Jon Clements, on Flickr
 
As with my previous SQ oriented cars I'll be looking to be sympathetic to the stock look of the car which means nothing more than a tweeter build to imply anything has been changed and being a #racecar means I'm not looking to add a huge amount of weight (minimal deadening!)

The plan is to use existing kit where possible, adding to it where needed. Current kit list is:
 
DLS R5a tweeters
DLS Scandinavia 3 mid-range (new addition)
Match Audio 6.5" midbass
Match Audio PP 82DSP
Match Audio MA 10FX (sub amp)
Subs - Kicker S10d (The proper ones. Old round solobaric)
 
I've made a start on stripping the car down so it currently looks like this:
002 by Jon Clements, on Flickr
 
003 by Jon Clements, on Flickr
 

004 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

Once I've finished gutting the car the first thing to do is sort those doors out. I won't be adding a ton of deadening but there are some pretty big holes that need covering up so I'll make fibreglass panels to cover them. Once that's done I'll look at amp placement and get the cabling runs done.

[WonkyJon 8]

Did a little more interior removal yesterday, centre console and carpets are now out
 
005 by Jon Clements, on Flickr
 
And a literal drop in test of the mid midrange speakers. happily there is plenty of room in there for them
 
006 by Jon Clements, on Flickr
 
My fibreglass order hasn't arrived as yet so I'll move on to looking at the amp placement. I'd like them to go under the front seats, with the carpet in they were a bit of a tight squeeze but now the carpet is out I'll have another check.

Fixings are in place for the sub amp which is going under the drivers seat. This required taking the seat out and putting it back 3 times but with a little tweaking and a little cutting I finally managed to get the amp to fit without fouling anything in my normal driving position and, should I need to move the seat I just need to lift the seat a little and there's plenty of clearance for full movement of the seat.

Holes drilled and painted. not pretty but does the job (and this is the only time you'll see it)
007 by Jon Clements, on Flickr
 
Rivnuts fitted
008 by Jon Clements, on Flickr
 
All four done
009 by Jon Clements, on Flickr
 
Nervous moment when I checked I'd measured and cut correctly but happy to confirm, the holes in the amp and the holes in the floor line up.
010 by Jon Clements, on Flickr
 
I then had a quick look at the passenger side, another amp and power distribution to go under there but the Audison 4 way distro is a bit too big for my plans so need to re-think that part of things. So I moved on to a known rattle spot in the car, the rear shelf. I quickly identified the culprit, one of the box of electronics isn't held in too well, has a metal base and a plastic case that rattles against the base. 
A smidge of deadening was applied. Enough to get the job done....
 
011 by Jon Clements, on Flickr
 
Some parts of the shelf were also particularly 'tinny' so they got a bit of treatment too.
012 by Jon Clements, on Flickr
 
013 by Jon Clements, on Flickr
 
And to finish off for the day, a bit more deadening on the boot lid. This is particularly thin and flat so I gave it a half decent amount of silent coat.

014 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

Thats probably all I'll get done this weekend... 

[WonkyJon 8]

Slow progress, but progress none the less. I was expecting to have to spend more time doing house 'stuff' but due to incompetent delivery people I instead got some time on the car
 
With the drivers side amp mounting done, it was time to move on to the passenger side. More checking of position and more drilling of holes for rivnuts.

015 by Jon Clements, on Flickr
 
With that done it was time to get the carpet back in and check for clearance under the seats.
 
Drivers side
 017 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

 
Passenger side
016 by Jon Clements, on Flickr
 
Passenger side clearance
019 by Jon Clements, on Flickr
 
Drivers side clearance
IMG_7665 by Jon Clements, on Flickr
 
Its hard to get a decent picture but the passenger side is fine, the seat moves freely. On the drivers side it moves freely around my usual position but if I want to slide the seat all the way forward I have to lift the seat a little using the height adjuster. a minor inconvenience for the very few times I'll ever need to move my seat.
 
With the amps positioned it was time to move on to cabling. The designer of the car was kind enough to put a bloody huge grommet on the passenger side.
 
020 by Jon Clements, on Flickr
 
Another cable went through there (pos and neg in 2 awg) but I didn't grab a pic as yet. Cables were run along the sill as there is a bit of room there to put them (not a lot though!) held in place with cable ties.
 
021 by Jon Clements, on Flickr
 
The cables pop out from under the carpet and into the distribution block
 
022 by Jon Clements, on Flickr
 
And from there, off to the amp/dsp. 
 
023 by Jon Clements, on Flickr
 
 
Finished off the day with a smidge more deadening, this time in the rear quarters:
 
IMG_7709 by Jon Clements, on Flickr
 
Next job is getting the 4 awg cable over to the drivers side, but that will have to wait until this weekend

And that's where the build currently sits. I'll update as I go from here on in

[Ade 517]

Cool thread. 

I had reservations about mounting the mids in the dash as they will be mounted to plastic which is a bit wobbley and also at the lower mid frequencies might cause a wobbly frequency response due to comb filtering caused by windscreen reflections?

Where are the tweeters going? A piller pods?

 

 

[Ade 517]

Not sure if you've seen my thread?

I used Genesis profile amps. Got a P4 bridged for the mids/bass under the drivers seat. Was a ball ache to get it to fit. Didnt want to drive so I used Silkaflex and 9mm mdf. There like 3mm clearance on one side. 

On the other side I used a P2 for the tweeters and managed to find a narrow 4 way midi fused distro block to go next to it.

[WonkyJon 8]

Yep, seen yours chap, very nice work!

I had reservations about the midrange too but given that at the CAS event some of the best in the business (Lee, James, Nige, Richard, to name a few) said it would be a good shout I'm willing to give it a go. I fully expect to beef up the mounting somehow, I just need to figure out what that 'somehow' is! (the dash might have to come out  )

Tweeters, yeah, a simple pillar build/pods. I'm still someway off getting to that point so I've not put much thought into it as yet.

[Ade 517]

Ah well must be a good idea then!  Will be looking forward to hear yours at some point 

I was/am considering doing something like the Pioneer reference car that Adam Rayner posted about, with my Morel Tweeters:

https://www.talkstuff.net/ipb/index.php/gallery/image/18467-hand-covered-with-leather-at-auto-audio/

 

 

[AJ124 118]

I was reading your thread on Talkstuff the other day, looking good. Between yours and @Ade builds I'm getting all sorts of silly and expensive ideas!

[Ade 517]

1 hour ago, AJ124 said:

I was reading your thread on Talkstuff the other day, looking good. Between yours and @Ade builds I'm getting all sorts of silly and expensive ideas!

LOL yeah tell me about it. Mine started out as "i'll just change the speaker for those Focal OEM ones....." ... then a couple of unused Genesis Profile amps popped up...

 

 

[Varelco 211]

I do like these ICE builds, its giving me plenty of good info when it comes to sorting out my car

[WonkyJon 8]

Managed to do a bit more work on it this weekend, the progress doesn't look like much but some jobs are just slow going. Mostly cable routing with a bit of sound deadening...

First up, the subwoofer speaker cable was braided, termination done and then fitted...

025 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

026 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

027 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

Where the cable needs to connect to the amp it simply comes through the carpet
IMG_7765 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

Then I moved on to the RCA - there's only one, between the amp/dsp and the sub amp. There are a couple of handy holes in the brace under the front of the seat
IMG_7768 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

I used some rubber grommets to keep everything nice and safe and ran the cable through (although it was more like heat the grommet, fit it over the cables and then into the hole, bit of a pig to do but it got done)

030 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

And then a fairly simple case of routing the cable
031 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

032 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

The RCA routes the same way on the other side so not much point in posting pictures, especially as it's had to come back out again. It's a fairly short run so the RCA I have is about 2.5 meters too long! I'll make up my own RCA to the correct length, possibly some time this week.

Then I moved on to the power, again this has to go from passenger side to drivers side. (earth cable not braided at this moment in time, it is now)
033 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

Again, much of a muchness on the other side.

And lastly for this weekend, a bit more deadening. The boot floor is a tinny, thin bit of metal and needed a reasonable amount of damping material to get it to stop ringing like a bell.

034 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

I then applied some 6mm Dodosuperliner over the top - it's not overly heavy but should help dampen noises down a little.

035 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

A few other small jobs done, nothing pic worthy but some prep on the speaker cable runs and that's it for this weekend. Slow progress, but progress none the less  

 

[WonkyJon 8]

Another small update, the RCA's have been 'made' and fitted, the power cables are in place and the sub speaker wire run into the boot area.

First up, the RCA's. I went with the DD Audio Z wire for ease of construction. Simply cut the wire (straight, and don't squish it) then pop the RCA end on, do up the grub screw and that's it. done!

036 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

037 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

Once one end was done the cable was braided and fitted into the car. This time because one end of the cable didn't yet have the RCA ends fitted it was a much more simple job, fitting the grommet then passing the cable through.

038 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

039 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

040 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

 

and similar on the passenger side

041 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

042 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

While I was there I tidied up the power cable, made sure all the ziptie pads were holding firmly, pulled the zipties tight and made sure everything was secure and tidy before popping the carpet back in.

Passenger side with power from the battery (2awg), power cables (4awg) that run off to the sub amp under the drivers seat and the RCA cables all making their way out from under the carpet

IMG_7889 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

And drivers side with power cables, subwoofer speaker cable and RCAs
044 by Jon Clements, on Flickr

The carpet will have to come out again to run the speaker wire loom but it had to go back in as I was at Mod-Nats at the weekend and wanted the car to be presentable even though I wasn't competing in anything.

I'm now waiting on an adapter for the Match Audio loom to the Toyota headunit but plenty to be cracking on with while I wait!

[Deacon 1357]

Car hi-fi's not really my thing but I love seeing work being done to such a high standard. Awesome build 👍

[WonkyJon 8]

1 hour ago, Deacon said:

Car hi-fi's not really my thing but I love seeing work being done to such a high standard. Awesome build 👍

Thanks chap  
I've been doing this for years but mostly on the SPL side of things so the standard of finish hasn't really been high on my personal priority list. My last couple of SQ builds were done by James at Bloomz Car Audio, he'll do some bits on this one but I'm trying to get what I can done at a standard worthy of the Bloomz name... it just takes bloody ages doing things properly 

[WonkyJon 8]

A full month since I last did anything on the car, yikes! With show season well underway I didn't want to keep taking the interior in and out so I've not done too much on the car but following JapFest on Saturday I felt motivated to get something done on Sunday. 

It can sometimes be the small jobs that take a while and this was one of those jobs. I'd previously started on the power and earth connections to the battery but straight ring terminals were no good, 90 degree terminals were close but needed some tweaking so not a straightforward job but having looked at how to tackle it, I got it done.

 

First up, chop the earth cable to length,

045 by WonkyJon, on Flickr

 

then take a right angle ring terminal, fit it, find out 90 degrees is too tight. Order more ring terminals, grind the terminal off, bend a new terminal, fit it and jobs a good'un!

 

I'll save pics of the failure, but the final article looks like this:

046 by WonkyJon, on Flickr

 

and once attached...

IMG_8284 by WonkyJon, on Flickr

 

next up was the positive side of things, lesson learned I didn't crimp a single cable until I was sure it would fit. With the stock fuses on the battery terminal there was no way I could simply come out of the side (as the fuse block wouldn't fit back on) so I had to get a little bit destructive/creative.
I split open the battery +ve terminal, dropped the bolt out and put a (slightly straightened) 90 degree ring terminal in the middle of the stock terminal. You'd think it would have just dropped on the bolt and the stock wiring on top but no, it was having none of it.

047 by WonkyJon, on Flickr

 

After a test fit on the car I crimped the cable in place then bashed the ring terminal until it was back together and not springing apart any more.

048 by WonkyJon, on Flickr

 

and then the heat shrink and labels were applied

049 by WonkyJon, on Flickr

 

And back on the car

050 by WonkyJon, on Flickr

 

And then with the stock +ve block/wiring fitted back over the top of it.

051 by WonkyJon, on Flickr

052 by WonkyJon, on Flickr

 

The end result is 2awg wiring that hasn't changed the standard operation of the battery terminals and the red +ve cover fits just as it should.

IMG_8276 by WonkyJon, on Flickr

IMG_8284 by WonkyJon, on Flickr

Next up was the fuse holder, another job where I spent an age looking at what to do, considered just sticking it on the battery but then a strip of metal in the garage caught my eye and a plan was formed. A simple platform, using stock bolts at both ends and a plate on the fuse block to clamp the two together.

Forming the bracket

055 by WonkyJon, on Flickr

After some cutting, filing and sanding I had the bracket and 'clamp' good to go

057 by WonkyJon, on Flickr

056 by WonkyJon, on Flickr

 

Gave them a quick coat of paint

60 by WonkyJon, on Flickr

 

then fitted to the car

61 by WonkyJon, on Flickr

62 by WonkyJon, on Flickr

I know it's only a simple bracket but I'm pleased with how it turned out. Next I need to sort out the power cable into/out of the fuse holder...