robertoyou

iTrader: (1)

whats up guys; thought id post some pics of the work ive done over my christams break (from school) on my GS' sound system.

first off: car before and after. I had it repainted about 2 months ago. I had always wanted to change it and had always wanted white even more. Tinted it right away and I am so much more incredibly pleased with it. Hopefully a drop, gs4xx wheels and just a few little things here and there and I will be happy with it. car is very dirty right now hasnt been washed in about a month and a half because of terrible weather and because I have no place to wash it out where I go to school. But should be getting a quick wash at least tomorrow and will post full pictures:








I had been buying and gathering up parts for a few months to pretty much redo my whole system. took some time to find some of them (at reasonable prices, as I am a college student) and got everything in just in time to work on it over my winter break.

Doors:

speakers were 3" deep (much beefier than the old ones as you can see) and hit the window quite a bit. had to do a little work to get the speaker to clear the window and still get the door pannel to go back on nicely.











Tweeters:

robertoyou

iTrader: (1)

Crossovers new/old:



New matching amps- JL HD 600/4 and a JL HD 1200/1



New processor to tune everything and get me some good sound quality to the amps- all nice and wired. Also took some creativity to get it to fit nice in the glove compartment with all connections made safely, but here she sits:



also managed to get the remote **** for controlling over all volume/ bass volume in the ash tray of the center console. also took some work, but managed to get it in all nice and flush and looking somewhat integrated.:

robertoyou

iTrader: (1)

Last but not least; this processor had an auxilary input for ipod etc. i had previously ran the wire through the glove compartment and was making use of it. but i hated how it was always sticking out and looked kind of dirty. i wanted ot make it look more integrated and clean as well. as my main goal through all of this equipment is to keep it looking stock.

Here is how i previously had it ran and how it looked:





I looked through the "auxilary input" DIY guides to get an idea of where i wanted to route the cable and add an input into the dash. I couldnt find a place that would look good or leave permanent visible changes so i figured id install it in the arm rest compartment.
I then used brians DIY guide to replacing LED's in center console to help me remove the center console and route the auxiliary cable through the center console into the armrest compartment. Once in there I drilled a hole and with a connection i bought online, i connected the routed cable and it gave me an input that sits flush next to the cigarette lighter in the arm rest.

robertoyou

iTrader: (1)

very lastly i threw these subs back in the trunk in a 4th order box that ports through the rear deck and we have some bass (ive posted pics of the box and how it looks before):

herc2k

nice write up bro? Did you custom make the speaker baffles or did you purchase them somewhere? Looking to upgrade my front speakers soon.

02Legend

iTrader: (3)

Those look like the brackets from here: http://car-speaker-adapters.com/items.php?id=SAK002

OP, how do you like those speakers? I have seen a lot of reviews on how good they sound and was debating on trying them out before I bought my Image Dynamics component.

MikeFoxx

iTrader: (8)

Lookin good i still need to buy some bigger baffles might get these. Won some pioneers at a CL meet and they've just been sittin :-/

robertoyou

iTrader: (1)

I bought those adapters from online. Exact link that Legend above mentioned. They were pretty cheap. I've had them for three or four years and they've been great. Easy fix for adding after market speakers and never had a problem with them. Very durable and sturdy for the speakers. I covered them in dynamat, back and front to help with sq and make them a little more sturdier. Like I said zero problems. I would recommend them. And go with the 6.5 adapters so h can get some 6.5 speakers in there.

Yeah legend I read so much about them I had to try them myself. Plus I had been wanting something louder. These speakers are about twice as big and so are the tweeters. The crossovers are the only thing that seems normal lol. As mentioned I had to get crafty to fit the speakers in the doors so I would definitely consider that. But knowing I did it and that it could be done should be of big help. The tweeters fit pretty easily but are more snugg than my old diamonds.

As far as sq. They are louder. I honestly have yet to really change any settings from what I had my old diamonds on (diamonds are in the pics). Like I said they do sound louder and I think they do sound a bit warmer. I will have to play with them some more and see how they change. Honestly as of now I do not hear a huge huge difference. Which I'm a bit disappointed with. But I know I haven't played with them much so this should change. I did notice though that they handle my current running much better than the diamonds did especially at loud volumes. These tweeters are softer than my old ones which were aluminum (these hybrids are silk) . I threw the diamonds in the back and before I lowered the gain for the back I could hear the tweeters being brighter in the back than the front. I was looking for softer sound so I'm happy about that. I'll try and post about the changes in sound when I tune a little more.

robertoyou

iTrader: (1)

These were good size. Due to the speaker gasket being too big and too deep I had to mod them a bit. Sanded down the inside of the circle and that did the job. I think they should work perfect for most speakers. These things are just too beefy lol.

If you need more depth with your speakers consider doing what I did... I just layers "coats" of dynamat around the outside of the circle baffle until I got my necessary increase in thickness. Worked perfectly. You get to chose pretty much the exact depth you need with out adding too much and also helps sq a bit. I had gotten some .5 inch spacers made before I did the dynamat trick and they were just too big and didn't let my door panel back on

Anyway, good adapters.

herc2k

Thanks Legend! Put an order in for both fronts and rears! Thanks again!!!

jupiterh

Well played Robert, that looks clean. I especially like the controls in the ash tray, sick. I'm working on plans for a similar set up, with the HU in the glove box, 6.5" components in the doors and subs in the trunk.

Do you have any of the wire lengths on hand anymore? I need to buy a lot of wire, and I would love to avoid taking everything apart twice (once to measure, then after my wires come in the mail, once more to install).

Mainly I'm wondering how long (total) the wire run was from the glove box to the inside of the armrest...

Also, did you run power to the glove box straight from the battery, or maybe from a distro block somewhere?

Anything helps man, I really appreciate it. And again, sick install.

Sevenevez

iTrader: (2)

Great work man. Is the green fuzzy tape in the glove box for sound deadening?

robertoyou

iTrader: (1)

thanks for the compliments man. appreicated. the ashtray controls are great. i get to hide them by pushing it in or out as needed. otherwise i would velcro them on somewhere, which would be more unatural looking. you should definitely go with 6.5 speakers and let me know what you plan on doing with a deck in the glove compartment. that sounds very interesting. i had thought about something like that, but wasnt sure how i would make that work with not having the faceplace near me to control it. as for subs- i would HIGHLY sugest doing a 4th orer box like i have. very good improvement with bass going directly into the cabin and also drastically helps with trunk rattles. unless you're just going with something small.

as for wiring. im sorry to say that i do not have any exact measurements in hand. i wish i did for you. i honestly estimated all of my run after i had gone out and bought a few rolls of it. here is how:

- speaker wire:

fronts: i tied one piece of very long wire (you can just use yarn or something similar) to the side mirror and ran it through the outside of the car all the way to the trunk to where i knew i was going to mount the amps. and then i gave i quite a few feet of slack just to make sure i had enough to work with and some spare in case i needed to cut later on. as you can see by my pics i installed them to the back "wall" in the trunk. i ran this wire quite a few years ago so its been there for years. ive changed amps qutie a few times between now and then. obviously this run is identical for both doors. so you have half of your wire runs now.

backs- i pretty much just measured half of what the front was. again leaving plenty of slack. leave good amounts of slack cus you will be surprised how much length will be eaten up once you start routing the wire, ESPECIALLY, if you route it really nice and clean and if you route through the factory door boots and stuff, which i would recommend to keep it looking clean and protect the wires.

for power wire- i just bought a kicker 0 gauge dual amp kit and that was enough to run from the front to the trunk.i think it was about 18 feet.

power wire i n the glove compartment- i ran a power and ground wire from my amps to the 3sixty.3 processor in there now, because they told me that was best. BUT you can just as easily route smaller gauge power cable from the battery to right underneath the passenger foot well and distribute to whatever you need in the glove compartment.

wire length from glove compartment to armrest was also estimated i just needed an auxilary cable to run from the glove compartment to the armrest and the cable i bought was six feet and it was much more than enough.


here is a link to my original installation, its on a car audio forum but you should still be able to look at it:

http://www.caraudio.com/forums/car-a...xus-gs300.html

sorry i dont have exact lengths for you. i would honestly just recommend you estimate and leave pleny of slack just in case and for future use. its the best thing. i ran all my cables years ago as i mentioned. i left plenty of slack and because of that, ive been able to reuse them plenty of times since then.

lmk if you have anymore questions

robertoyou

iTrader: (1)

hahah i was wondering if anyone would notice. the green stuff is felt. i read a DIY on here about adding felt to the glove compartment to stop ratles from the glove comparment and i did that a couple of years back. and well thats exactly what it is. helped a lot btw. i dont think ive had it rattle anymore

jupiterh

Hey Robert,

Thanks for the info. I took your advice and measured with string this morning, now I'm ready to drop a couple hundo on wires.

Speaker-wise, I'm gonna be running a pair of DLS UP6i components in front, powered by a JL Audio 300 2v2 amp in the trunk. For the sub, I have a Soundsplinter RL-P 12" in a custom sealed box, powered by an Alpine PDX 1.600. It's a total SQ sub, and leaves something to be desired in the make-you-crap-your-pants department of low-low bass, but man it sounds beautiful from about 60-150 hz. I was gonna just pop out the stock sub and leave the hole open, keeping my sub box in the trunk. See, I also have this mediocre Kicker 15" in a huge ported box - and sometimes I just need to swap the nice sub for the giant sub and get ghetto for a while.

I had the glovebox set up on my old ride, and it works like a charm. The trick is to use a HU with a good, fully-featured remote control. I have an old Kenwood KDC-MP4032 - very low distortion and the remote does everything. What I like about the glove box on the GS300 is that I can put the HU where the CD changers were, and then my plan is to use a little piece of string to catch the door at about 3" open - does that make sense? So basically when I open my glove box, the door will only fall about 3" before the string catches (exposing the face of the HU), unless I unhook the loop on the string to access the whole glove box. I was gonna have the aux input in the glove box too, but after I saw your install, I might have to switch to the center console, that looks clean. I'm leaving the rear speakers stock, and then powering them with the little rinkydink amp in the HU. My theory on rear speakers is that I leave em turned off unless I have back seat passengers, and then those poor bastards have to suffer through subpar sound while the front seats bask in audio excellence. Sorry backseaters.

Thanks again for the tips