Project Raab - the project that never ends

[DeeCee 0]

Who wants a build log, I've got one sitting here with some tasty sundown amps powering the system :bigclap:

Edited December 1, 2008 by DeeCee

[RobClay 20]

[DeeCee 0]

94 photos strong....

[RobClay 20]

[LDW3RD 0]

is it loud?

[DeeCee 0]

Its not that loud as the box isn't tuned right. It hits lows, but doesn't suck the air out of your chest as you would expect.

Owner is currently using my RE XXX V3 in an RE box until we get him an Ascendant Havoc 12 to New Zealand

[RobClay 20]

come on with some pics

[DeeCee 0]

Owners wish was to have a system that was integrated and hidden away as much as possible while still maintaining a high level of installation.

In the end, the install turned into a monster which just never seems to end. I think that nearly everything got modified from the headunit brackets to the battery bracket to custom pods with colour coding for the vinyl and the grills and a custom amp rack.

The installation was setup so that the owner has the options of going passive via the Image Dynamics XS65 components or active using the pioneer headunit network mode. There is also the option of running active off the amplifers with the Sundown Audio amplifiers extensive crossover options.

The installation is setup in passive configuration so that the owner may learn more about his system before moving to active and tweak the extensive options of the Image Dynamic XS65 crossovers.

Big thanks to Scoob for helping out with the wiring in the initial stages of this installation and Mudzuki for providing the awesome components in a timely manner.

Car:

1997 Caldina GTT - Manual 2L Turbo with Gen 4 3sgte

Gear:

Pioneer P80RSII

Pioneer CD IB100II Ipod Adaptor

Sundown Audio SAX 100.4

Sundown Audio SAZ 1500D

Image Dynamics XS65 Components

Ascendant Audio Havoc 12

Soundquest 0awg kit

Stinger Pro3 RCAs

Stinger HPM Distribution Blocks

Tsunami Battery Terminals

Exide Orbital Bluetop Battery

Bostik 3mm Sound Deadening

[DeeCee 0]

Product Pics:

Pioneer P80RSII, Pioneer CD IB100II Ipod Adaptor, Soundquest 0awg kit, Stinger RCAs

Stinger HPM Distribution blocks, seperate headunit fuse (waterproof) and Tsunami battery terminals.

Image Dynamics XS65 Components. Some pretty nice components I must say.

Interesting notes, the surround is a higher than most speaker surrounds, and the basket is made of plastic with cooling vents under the spider. The tinsel leads are woven into the spider and there are two sets of terminals on the basket allowing for a dual voice coil option on the speakers (though I don't believe that they do a DVC version).

The Image Dynamic XS65's have the flexibility of mounting the tweeter in 3 different mounting positions: Surface mount, flush mount, and coaxial mount. I played around with the coaxial configuration as shown in the pictures.

When mounting in coaxial configuration, the tweeter wire is fed through the middle of the speaker and a removable garnish plate on the back of speaker is lifted up to allow the tweeter wire to be placed in a channel in the back plate of the speaker. Nice design touch Image Dynamics!

In this installation, the tweeters were mounted in under the factory tweeter grills in the door sails to maximise factory integration.

The crossovers are also chock full of tuning options

Crossovers and extensive options

Speaker pics

Coaxial Configuration

Tweeters

Sundown Audio SAX 100.4 and SAZ 1500D. Underrated and understated amplifiers.

[DeeCee 0]

Wiring:

First of all the battery was disconnected and the seats removed from the vehicle. The seats have factory fitted side airbags, so I carefully removed the wiring to the underside of the seats.

Boot was cleared out for the amp rack and for sound deadening by the owner. A nice blank slate to work with.

Side shot of the cabin. Lower B piller plastics were also removed to allow for routing of any cable through the cabin. As you know, a lot of modern cars now use moulded carpets and any wiring going through the cabin can make the carpet lumpy, so the wiring was routed along the sides of the sills, run up against the side of the transmission tunnel or laid flat under the carpet where required to be run.

Power cable was run on left hand side of the car through the factory loom access point and RCAs run on the other side of the car.

Something funny that Scoob found - directional RCA's

Routing cable through the cabin

Factory Sound deadening on the floor

Of the joy of sorting out cable at the other end and yes, all cable was labelled before it was run to ensure that we didn't have to chase phase gremlins later on.

and the mess once in the car

power and speaker cable run along the sills. Speaker cable was routed into the doors via the facotry grommets. Required carefully taking off the doors and routing the cable through into the doors.

[DeeCee 0]

Headunit:

Please note, that I've broken this down as a little reminder for myself if I have to work on a caldina again.

Factory headunit with 6 disk in dash changer

Carefully lift top fascia piece out and up

pull vent/stereo/ac fascia out

disconnect hazard and seatbelt light plugs

disconnect ac unit plugs, remove fascia

remove screws to side of headunit and remove headunit out, remove brackets

Headunit uses a seperate power feed which runs directly to the battery. Headunit and Ipod controller use the same seperate power feed and the Ipod controller is hidden behind the AC control unit with the ipod cable coming through underneath the ash tray.

As you can see, once the headunit and pocket are mounted on the standard bracket positions, there is a gap around the din space.

On to the drill press to make some new holes for mounting the headunit and pocket

And remounted on the new holes

Headunit and ipod connected up sweet as a bell

[DeeCee 0]

I think that will whet your appetite for now

[RobClay 20]

nice equipment. very good choice on the amps

[DeeCee 0]

Battery mounting and Wiring:

Standard battery - tiny little thing.

Test mount of the orbital in place of the factory unit

main power feed and seperate power feed for headunit

Tidied up with split loom

Factory power cable from alternator extended and tided with split loom. Anl fuse holder and headunit fuse holder mounted between airbox and body.

battery terminals connected and cable tided up with split loom.

Battery mounted with extensively modified bracket to allow for cabling to be routed under the bracket. Battery earth cable upgraded to 0awg.

[DeeCee 0]

Boot and Amp Rack:

The owner decided to SD the boot. Clean slate to start off with

Half way there, no other pics of SD sorry, but the boot floor is 98% covered in SD

No pics of the creation of the amp rack. Was a bit of a bitch to construct as the boot floor is not flat. Original plan was to cut into the factory plastic tray underneath the floor cover, but it was decided that a better option was to create a new amp rack that would allow for amp height clearance as well as allow more ventilation.

Rack is not covered or painted at owners request. Handle was built into the rack to allow for access to the spare wheel as required.

Cables were neatly routed for presentation. Note zip ties all face outwards away from equipment.

[DeeCee 0]

Doors and Pods:

More notes for myself

Trim pops up and handle surround comes off via clips top and bottom. Surround slides forward to remove.

Speaker are integrated units with weathershield and are riveted into the door. Rivets are drilled out to remove the speakers from the door.

Speakers were cut up and the weathershield portion retained. The weathershields were then urethaned into the doors to ensure no small leaks

One of the main requests of the owner was to ensure that the speakers integrated into the doors to retain a factory look.

Initially the plan was to mount the speakers in the factory door positions and hide behind the factory grills, but due to the size of the speakers, the speaker installation would have required cutting metal to fit the speakers.

There was also the issue of mounting depth, and there wasn't enough room between the window all the way down and the speaker if mounted in the factory position.

To mount the speakers, pods were fabricated to integrate with the factory lines of the door panels and colour coding to integrate with the colour of the trims. Map pockets also retain full usage.

As the speaker grills have a rounded over edge, I was unable to recess into the pods, so colour coding was required on the grill surrounds.

Disassembly of the grill surrounds.

Finding position of the speaker relative to the factory hole. Note that speaker intersects into the 60 degree angled line going down. This required some more lateral thinking to ensure pod was integrated.

Taping up the door trims. Required a little more work than straight tape as the door trim is multi angled. This is the top corner where passengers and drivers can see down upon, so it was imperative that the fibreglass was as moulded to the trim as possible. Some nicely placed cuts in the masking tape allowed for coverage of numerous angles and rounded surfaces.

All taped up and ready to glass. I have doubled up the tape to create a barrier that won't allow resin to pass beyond.

Some evenly laid chopped strand matt was used for the base

Once set, the pod was test fitted onto the trim to ensure no shrinkage

Rear of door trim with speaker grill to cut out

speaker grill cut out. As you can see, the speaker area intersects with the line of the door going down.

Pod base cut to match trim speaker grill hole

both pod bases trimmed and cut ready for rings and cover layer

rings routed out and mounted with rounded edge on angle line. This was to allow for ease of final shaping of the pod.

Mounting holes were predrilled for ease of installation later.

spray glue ready for lycra. Lycra was used to ensure that the pods did not gain significant thickness at the edges which would offset the fit of the pod base to the door trim. Block to the left is a mounting point for a screw as that area would be inaccessible once the pod has outer covering applied.

lycra stretched and glued/stapled down

oh the fun of resin and glass

after bogging and shaping.

Vinyling

pods were colour coded after vinylling as well as the speaker surrounds.

Vinyl and surrounds required a paint adhesive before colour coded paint was applied.

Factory plastic was removed and doors cleaned before sound deadedning and covering of utility holes

pods after factory colour coding and mounting of speakers with colour coded grills.

Sub and Box:

To be completed once Ascendant Havoc arrives from the US. Currently owner is using my RE XXX V3 until new sub arrives.

[RobClay 20]

very clean install. good job man

[johnecon2001 82]

Nice camera

[DeeCee 0]

Nice camera

Its only a 5mp Sony camera I got a couple of years ago. I just snap as I go

[ratten46 0]

Are there any images of the amp rack in its final destination? I assume it's installed in the spare tire well, based on the description? Let us see more. :-)

Nice work...and lots of it.

[Penguin4x4 1,761]

Ouch, I see a problem. Looks like the steering wheel was installed on the wrong side. I think you need to take it back to the dealership so they can fix that. :lol2: :lol2: :lol2:

[DeeCee 0]

The steering wheel is on the correct side of the car, just like it we drive on the correct side of the road as well

I'll get some pics of the rack in its final place later

[ratten46 0]

Along with the steering column on the wrong side...it's no wonder they wanted to replace the head unit....the buttons are in some other language.

[dbjunior 0]

the comps are sick the flexability of the crossovers is really nice and the butt of the woofer looks like a btl but its a neo magnet for more strength than a standard magnet. id love to hear them.

[DeeCee 0]

Along with the steering column on the wrong side...it's no wonder they wanted to replace the head unit....the buttons are in some other language.

Actually, the headunit is all in english. The japanese buttons you see at the top are for the trip computer etc.

The fun ones are the japanese OEM navigation systems that are integrated in with the AC control as one unit that displays on a screen.