Completely New Audio Setup in progress

[TeCKis300]

New Audio Setup in progress

So I'm in the process of gutting the stock JBL 10 spkr system in my '05 Limited. Thought I'd share some progress pics that might give you guys some ideas for your own build.

This will be a two part build with the final goal of installing an HTPC Nav in car. I am holding off on the HTPC until next year but will complete the audio portion in the next few weeks.

Component list for audio portion:
Pioneer Premier P930 HU
Pioneer Premier PRS-D4000F 4ch amp (2x75W for front components and rear chanels bridged for sub 1x300W)
Diamond D661S Front components
Infinity 6012i 6.5" rear coaxials
Elemental Design 9kv.2 DVR 2ohm sub
PAC SWI-PS Steering wheel control adapter

I plan to have an 8" widescreen VGA touch screen mounted in the stock HU position.
With nowhere else to mount the aftermarket headunit, I am resorting to going with a remote face mount. That is, I'll mount the HU face on sunglasses holder area with the HU's chassis in the armrest bin. The front vertical cubby in front of the cupholders will ultimately house a slot loading DVD-ROM.

The sub will replace the stock sub in the stock enclosure. It will me mounted inverted with the basket side out as it is too deep. The amp will go in the stock location as well.

All my parts have come in already. I am dynomatting the whole interior including underneath the carpet.

Here's a few pics of my progress so far.
Stock sub setup:

Edesign 8" sub to replace stock unit. Sub is about 1" deeper but with way more xmax. Hopefully this will give me enough output for some comfortably loud listening levels. I am not looking to have others hear my bass. I just want good SQ at comfortable levels in car.

Rear door speakers in stock basket. These are DIRECT drop in with no mods. The adaptor and everything that comes with the infinity 6012i will screw right in as you can see.

 

[atomic punk]

Looks good dude! Sounds like you did all your research before starting, which is a great time-saver. Gives us all an update on how that ED sub sounds when you have it installed, especially given that non-traditional mounting position you are using.

 

[TeCKis300]

Making more progress slowly. If only I can get out of work for a solid day...been working 70 hr weeks.

But anyways, got some good Raamat down through the entire cabin and doors. Underneath the carpet area too. Now that there's a bit more tire noise from the Terra Grapplers, I hope this will return the interior noise to stock levels.

Got the rear door speakers in as well.

Pics:

 

[TeCKis300]

More progress.

Main Fuse:
There was a nice bracket that had screws almost exactly aligned with the fuse holder. No need to drill holes. Just elongate the fuse holder holes.

Front door matted:

Did some wood work and got all my adapters made. I like the T4R in that all speakers are easily mounted with 1/4 hardboard adapters.

Sub Ring Adapter:

Tweeter Adapter:

Tweeter Mounted:
There's a huge place to mount the tweeter. Can probably fit a solid midrange driver there and for a sub/mid bass driver in the 6x9 spot.

Front speaker baffle done:

 

[TeCKis300]

It's been a rough week at work and I'm glad it's finally weekend so I can make more progress.

Got a lot done today. Finished mounting all the door speakers and put the door interiors back.

Moved onto the sub and amp mounting and did some fabrication there.

I also got a chance to test out the system with all the new drivers and stock HU/JBL amp. Just changing the drivers and sub made a HUGE difference. Volume is a bit more attenuated per volume level but the sound was sooo much more crisp. Treble in particular was way better with much better imaging all aound. The stock speakers are 2ohm units and all the new door speakers are 4ohm but it still gets plenty loud if I crank it up...less distortion to boot!

Now the sub for those of you that are looking a nice simple bass upgrade. The stock JBL pushes the eD 9kv.2 just fine. Sounds WAY better...cleaner, deeper AND louder. There's no loss in power here as the 9kv.2 is dual voicecoil 2ohm which is perfect!

I really would be content with it just the way it is right now...all new drivers and sub. It's a great clean sounding system right now and well balanced. Definitely a nice step up for those that don't want to mess with new HU and amps.


Now onto my progress pics:

Got the front speakers in. The Diamond Audio crossover was rather large and I really had to do some work to make them fit in the doors. I had to move the stock harness in the door about an 1" over to make room. I also had to cut a support post off on the plastic panel. With the crossover in its place, there no loss of support/rigidity.

Closed cell sound deadening foam installed. I can't wait to take the car out again to hear how quiet it should be now. Everything is also nice and snug in the door.

Sub adaptor ring

Sub mounted

I cut open the side of the stock enclosure to make some more depth to mount the aftermarket amp. An added bonus is that I took away about .1 cu ft volume which makes the enclosure size now ideal for the eD sub. The new cover panel is currently getting glued on. Will have more pics tomorrow.

Modified sub enclosure test fitted with amp. Ahhh...PERFECT fit just as I had planned. I love this premier amp. solid 600/4 power and compact! Just my opinion but I hate to see installs where people mount the amp on the back of the seats. This just kills the utility of the t4r.

 

[jdub24]

Nice work, man! Looks like a lot of time, effort, and $$ has gone into this project. I'm sure all that sound-deadening material will pay off for you though. Keep us all posted, I'm through with my system, but very interested to see how yours turns out.

BTW, were you on the is300.net forums a few years back? I used to drive an IS, and I used to tool around on that forum. Your username looks familiar for some reason....

 

[outoftown7]

Looking good ...nice work !

Let us know how is comes out when your finished.

Would like to know where you plan on putting the pax so it will work with the HU. I had a tough time finding a good place to mount it and just have it right next to the top letf of the HU.

 

[TeCKis300]

Nice work, man! Looks like a lot of time, effort, and $$ has gone into this project. I'm sure all that sound-deadening material will pay off for you though. Keep us all posted, I'm through with my system, but very interested to see how yours turns out.

BTW, were you on the is300.net forums a few years back? I used to drive an IS, and I used to tool around on that forum. Your username looks familiar for some reason....

Hey jdub24...yeah, I was and still am on the IS300.net boards. Did you sell you IS for the 4r? My 4r is pretty much our vacation/utility vehicle that sits in the garage.

You'd be surprised how much I've spent on the project. I have an excel sheet documenting everything I've bought and it's right around $1k which I consider a steal for SQ I hope to have. Of course, it is taking a lot of labor which is sorta free

 

[TeCKis300]

Looking good ...nice work !

Let us know how is comes out when your finished.

Would like to know where you plan on putting the pax so it will work with the HU. I had a tough time finding a good place to mount it and just have it right next to the top letf of the HU.

I'll let you know how it goes when I get there. Thanks for the heads up though. It'll be slightly different in that my HU chassis will be sitting in the armrest bin.

 

[jdub24]

Hey jdub24...yeah, I was and still am on the IS300.net boards. Did you sell you IS for the 4r? My 4r is pretty much our vacation/utility vehicle that sits in the garage.

You'd be surprised how much I've spent on the project. I have an excel sheet documenting everything I've bought and it's right around $1k which I consider a steal for SQ I hope to have. Of course, it is taking a lot of labor which is sorta free

Very cool. I would definitely agree with you that for that price, your sound quality will be a steal.

No, I actually sold my IS300 for an Evo VIII. Which I then sold for my wife's Sequoia. I've come full circle back to the 2JZ fold though, I picked up a '94 TT Supra a few months back....It's actually for sale too though. I'm always going through vehicles. The 4R is my daily. I think it's a sweet daily too...

 

[TeCKis300]

Making very slow progress as I haven't had any time lately. The car is still completely torn apart in the garage.

I did get to power up the HU to test the rear door drivers and very rear fill speakers last night. Sounds great so far. I've just about finished splicing all the wiring. The amp/sub unit is all done with brackets made. Just a matter of dropping it in and then I should be able to test the HU, amp, and all components.

An interesting observation is that the very rear fill speakers in the upper pillars are the same tweeters that are used in the front door. These use a mono source from the JBL amp. I've rewired them for stereo. These will be the only remaining stock speakers and will be powered off the rear channels of the new HU.

 

[TeCKis300]

Sub and amp mounted today!! And powered up everything for the first time. And....It sounds GREAT so far. :bigok: The front stage is awesome. So much more definition than the wimpy stock system. Haven't even dialed it in yet and it's already sounding great.

I have not powered up the sub yet...waiting for some sealant to set. Will try that tomorrow.


In the mean time, more pics:

Splicing at the rear JBL Harness

New Sub and Amp solidly mounted....almost like stock but with sooo much more power! :biggrin2:

Rear Fill Tweeters...Look familiar? Just liek the front tweeters.

Powering up HU and amp for the first time. Lots of wires here that need to be tucked away. That's for tomorrow.

 

[TeCKis300]

Last night was great. Got all the rear paneling back in and the sub/amp fits snugly. Fired up the whole system, sub and all and everything sounds awesome. Bass is much stronger than stock and hits much lower. Everything is soo clean and crisp...bass is tight and fast. It gets right on the verge of painfully loud before I run out of bass so it's enough for what I was looking for. There's more headroom with midrange and treble to get insanely loud but I don't need that. Staging is very very nice. The center speaker was BS and not needed with a quality setup IMO.

Got one pic of the rear all in except for sub panel which I still need to cut. It's great that I can still adjust all the amp settings without tearing apart the rear again. The sub sticks out just enough without being too intrusive.

The rear stock fill speakers worked out great. There's decent imaging in the back seats and nice fill from behind. Same for the front positions.

Let me know what you think of the inverted basket look. Once I get the sub panel back in...it should look nice and tidy with just a hint of aftermarket bass.

Now to finish mounting the HU in the front and I can take the car out for a spin again after 1.5 mths.

 

[jdub24]

Looks nice, man! I'm a big fan of how clean it looks. Nice work.

 

[work]

Very clean install. Nice job!

 

[Mashimaru]

i've got that exact same HU as yours, i love it. Lookin good on the setup, and for some reason i've seen your username somewhere before, i just forgot where.

 

[tomhaney1]

Did you have to make the adapter for the front tweets? Is there any way to use the stock location otherwise?

 

[TeCKis300]

I'm not sure I understand your question about the tweeter...

But there is no easy way to rip apart the stock tweeter to use the metal mount and even then, it wouldn't fit nice with the aftermarket tweeter.

The baffle was a super easy 10min job with the right tools. Router and circle jig. It's just as easily done with a jig saw and hole saw.

 

[crozhawk]

Do you have a photo of the sub with the rear panel back in place?
Looks nice. How close were you to being able to place the sub in the normal (cone facing out) position? Wondering if you could trim inside the box to make it fit?

 

[TeCKis300]

I have not cut the panel yet to fit it back in position. I've been working on the remote HU face this last weekend but unfortunately came down with the flu...all those hours at work is catching up to me.

The depth of the sub was about .75" too deep. I did cut the back ribbing to get more space but it was still about .6" too deep. It could probably be make to work in that orientation with a built up riser ring.

I'll have the pics of the completed system once it's all done.