Electrodyn

I posted this in the audio section, but it's very specific to our cars (SC400) so I thought I'd post this in our section.

The Lexus SC400 is going to be my new demo vehicle to take around to shows and meets. I did a little bit of the install today (I'll deaden the doors later) and thought I'd post up pics.

Pretty much a full day doing this stuff, but it was a LOT of fun. The Lexus comes apart really easy. Ok, enough about the car.

I decided to install my tweets and see what options I have as far as mids are concerned. The tweeters that are in it are TINY neo's (0.75" neo's). The cars come factory with an amplifier in the back and I decided to use the factory wiring.

I had to modify the Morel MDT12 by shaving ALL of the flange off or it wouldn't fit.

Oh, hey, wait a minute, let's do this in order:

Door panel removed:


The cool thing about the tiny 4.5" speaker in the door is that it has its own ported enclosure from the factory.


Here's a comparison of the factory mid and the Audax Aerogel:



And the Audax by itself:

Electrodyn

I made baffles out of 3/4" plywood to adapt over my 5.25" Audax Aerogel's. While making the baffle I had to recess the screws that were going to hold the baffle to the existing enclosure. I also had to flatten the baffle and the 5.25" mid in order for the door pannel to go back on.




And then the ring installed:


Mid mounted:


I soldered and the Morel's in with the factory harness from the factory tweeter:


And the tweeter mounted on the bracket and installed:

Electrodyn

Here's the top door panel portion without the grille:


And with the grille:


And a picture of the Audax installed:


The factory grille won't fit so I'm going to have to modify it in order to get them back in place. For now they'll go as they are - without a grille.

I only have FM, so I'm not going to comment on how they sound until my CD changer gets here.

I'll post up more about deadening, wiring, and the subwoofer/amplifiers install when the time comes.

Holshot

Subscribed... Great thread, I'm about to do a whole new system in my car as well and I'll be sure to follow this thread and take some notes! Thanks for all the pics and detailed description of what you are doing...

Joe

JonSC4

iTrader: (2)

Looking good so far!

JspecSC3

iTrader: (4)

Great job!

Electrodyn

Thanks guys!

I guess I should let you all know what the rest of the system is going to consist of.

RF3sixty.2 - This is a GREAT unit that is incredibly flexible and offers a TON of EQ. It EQ's the input, provides a solid 5v of preamp output into 6 channels, and then allows you to fine tune each individual channel with 31 bands of EQ and it auto-EQ's as well. I'll be using this to grab the signal from the factory radio and send it out to my amplifiers.

Sundown Audio amplification: One SAX-100.4 and Two SAZ-1000D amplifiers. The 100.4 will be bridged powering the front speakers (they are 8 Ohm speakers so I need to bridge it to get ~150 watts per channel). The twin 1000D's will be powering my Mags.

Two Stereo Integrity Mag v4 12" subwoofers in the spare tire well. The install will be completely flush and totally stealth. Hell, I might even modify and use the factory carpet cover in the trunk!

Electrodyn

Updatezorz!!!!!!!!

Here are pics of the tweeter grilles hogged out - one being covered in grille cloth already:



And today was the mid grille work. Man, this took a LOT longer than I thought. There was a LOT of cutting, more cutting, and more cutting. I basically had to hog out the entire grille. BTW: from the factory, the black mesh is metal. That's right, metal mesh inset into plastic. Odd. Anyway, here we go:

Here is the factory grille on the left and the grille with the grille cloth removed on the right:


I hogged out the port and shaved the extensions around the mid:



Here it is all hogged out:

and from the backside:

Electrodyn

And here's what they look like after they are wrapped in black grille cloth and installed on top of the ported mids:






While I was at it, I tore apart and re-wrapped the rear speaker grilles. I also removed the two rear speakers and left the sub for now...until I install the pair of Mag's.

Electrodyn

And yesterday I ran two 4 awg runs of power wire for the install. The wire is run along the drivers side of the vehicle, behind the rear seats, up and under the rear package tray, and then finally inside the trunk via the now deadened open hole where the left rear speaker was. Here are a few pics of how it sits now:






The only place I could drill a hole large enough for the two runs of 4 awg (note: this is for power ONLY, not power and ground - twin 4 awg runs is almost equal to a single 1/0 run but it lays under the carpet a LOT better) is about 3" above the drivers footrest. It opens up into the fender, but it's behind the tire and will never touch the tire - it's in a little nook, which I then went up into the engine bay via the opening that you see in the last picture. I'll take a pic of the hole when I have the car raised up again.

SSmith

iTrader: (7)

Electrodyn,

I hope you cut a hole in the back of those pods. Those Audax mids you have are going to need a lot more air space than the sealed pod. I ended up taking the pod apart and using the back half, cutting the lip, attaching a 1/2" peice of mdf to the pod, cutting out back half of pod to breathe into door, dynamatting everything inside and out and then installing my Morel Elate 6's. Worked like a champ and fantastic mid bass. The best thing is nothing hit the factory grills. Pic of my door.

Next time you need to run wiring into the car pull the drivers side splash shield and you'll see a grommet that runs into the car. Small slit and anything you want to run goes in there and is covered from the elements. I've got two 4 gauge runs myself going there.

I started redoing my car again. You can see the progress pics on this thread if you'd like to look. I know this car like the back of my hand now. It's my second one and the fourth system I've done in one.

Thread: http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/...ad.php?t=49945

Shane

Electrodyn

The Audax mids don't need any more room than the ported pods (they are ported, not sealed - and the volume is approximately 0.1 cubes which is all that's necessary for the 130's (aka: 5.25's)). I'll post my spectrum analyzer results after I nab the XTZ analyzer. Before that I'll post some A weighted and C weighted response curves of how the mids react in their ported door pods.

That's a really good install of the Morel's though. Morel always provides really good midbass (hard to beat with that high transient power handling / 3" coil and good T/S's).

But no, I'm not running speaker wire in this car. I've ran $4/ft TaraLabs Omni in the past 2 cars and there's no way I'm running speaker wire in this car. For the noise that cars have in them it's simply not worth it. If it was in a house, it'd be a completely different thing (I run Tara Labs Spectrum 3A RCA's, Omni2 speaker wire, etc, in my home).

Electrodyn

Expect pics of the amplifiers and RF 3sixty.2 installed by the end of this weekend hopefully. I should also be able to post up frequency responses of my system before, during, and after preliminary testing/setup and x-over implementation on the tweeters. X-over on the tweets is going to be a 6 dB network, so stick that in your pipe and smoke it (6 dB networks are the KING of imaging / phase alignment, but most tweeters can't handle it).

Electrodyn

Oh, I was messing around with my company's prototype BM ultra-shallow 12" subwoofer and came up with the following mounting location:



Not too bad for a totally hidden location. It would mount via a fiberglass enclosure behind the factory cover panel so everything would look stock when you opened your trunk. Simply remove your rear speakers and sub and you would have plenty of room to let the BM fire through into the cab.

PS: Our BM series subwoofers are going to have 13mm of one-way linear excursion, encompass an XBL^2 motor, and are right at 3.5" mounting depth. Couple that with 0.5 ft^3 enclosure requirements and you've got a hellatious small box subwoofer.

zegnaguy

iTrader: (1)

very nice work Electrodyn, I like the custom cutting you did. I'm reading that the stock plastic and metal infront of the speaker is really messing with the sound. Great writeup