2002 Mercedes C230 kompressor coupe

[bigrank916 72]

Damn dude Ive seen 4-5 other MB forums but not that one!! Awesome find dude I appreciate it. Ive seen the steering wheel adjustment on other forums which Ive tried to no avail. So now I'll go off that link you had and try the brake light switch and possibly get a scanner for the hell of it. Ordering that part off amazon today so we'll see what happens

[bigrank916 72]

Ordered the brake light switch today off amazon for $15. Kind of a pain in the ass to get to but it came out. 

Gonna fumble around the dash and look for a 12V constant so i can at least install the HU this weekend.

Singer Alts gave me a quote for a 270A alt with 200+ amps at idle for $800. Steep...very steep but its the only guy that will make one besides Ohio. Gonna start w/o it and get a XS D4900 for under the hood. Then the XS D3100 in the back.

I'd still like to do an all SSA Evil system. Sub, mid-bass, and tweets. Wondering what i should use for the midrange tho. Would it make sense at all to place the midrange in the rear of the door, mid bass up front, and tweet in pillar? Its all the stock locations.

Will be adding some damplifier mat on areas in the trunk and doors.

I'm thinking 2 runs of power wire will be sufficient at 1/0. Need to tackle the big 3 as well this weekend if I have time. Build is back on. Fuck it, drive her till the wheels fall owff!

[bigrank916 72]

Decided to do some more removal of the interior and Im glad i did. Removed the center console. Then worked on the pass side floor board which revealed a few things. Some one left their Pioneer AVIC unit under there and I figured out why my radio reception was horrible. My factory antenna was hooked up to the dead Pioneer unit. Also the antenna plug that I was plugged into my radio was actually my power antenna that I didnt even know I had...or if it even belongs to my car lol. Shit was comical. They stuffed it in the pass side molding and pulling it out was like a rabbit in a hat trick.  No wonder my shit is so fucked up  

This kinda gets me excited tho. I can see what's goin on and the vision of the build becomes a lil more clear. Hell I might even take the back seats out and put in a wall 

[djjdnap 78]

lol nice.

Glad its coming together

[bigrank916 72]

Ok...nowwwwwww were cookin!!! Everything but the main dash and the headliner have been removed. Fuck it. If you're gonna do it, do it right huh?

[jcarter1885 762]

Im glad you kept with it  If you wall it, what will be your plans?

[bigrank916 72]

16 hours ago, jcarter1885 said:

Im glad you kept with it  If you wall it, what will be your plans?

Thanks bro. I had to do it this way or I would have had stupid shit probs all the time. It's nice to see what's actually there. I know for sure Im gonna lay a shitload of mat and prob some of that spectrum sludge as well. 

A wall would be fun but i havent done one yet so the learning curve would be there. I've seen enuf of the build logs here tho that I could take a good stab at it. If thats the case then I would go with a pair of 15/18 Evils. Strap a pair of synergy 35.1Ds and be g2g.

This could be a monster build...I would need a lot of direction and help tho lol.

I'm already wanting to take suggestions on what else to put in here now that I have all this shit out. I saw Djjdnap used a Xbox 360 in his trunk. I have a PS4 but that bad boy rides my madden franchise so it stays put lol. Anything that would boot up to my Pioneer DEH80PRS. Maybe a seperate Nav system? Idk give me some ideas fellas

[bigrank916 72]

Got the headliner removed tonight so its completely ready for sound deadening.

I'm thinking of using CLD with CCF/MLV combo on the entire floor, doors, and side panels. Then use CLD  with a radiant heat barrier under the headliner and hatch. I'd also like to hit the bottom side of the floor pan with spectrum but that can wait.

Going to recover my headliner and A/B/C pillars with a black vinyl as well. Maybe some kind of leatherette. It is originally a light grey fabric which after 15 years is pretty dirty in spots. I want to be able to wipe it down and clean it so i dont wanna use fabric again. I might adapt some tweeters to the a pillars too. One extra set could't hurt.

[bigrank916 72]

Found some nice black reptile vinyl fabric for my headliner/pillar recover project for only $65!!! Shit is gonna be dooooope lol

[bigrank916 72]

Got my brake light switch in and installed that today. Seems like the old one was definitely broken. There was a small peg that was supposed to spring back but it would get stuck. Havent tested it yet since the car is torn apart and the batt is disconnected. Went on to the trunk release latch prob and figured that out. Not sure how to fix it tho. Its the small button inside the green housing that is supposed to click when it is depressed by the metal arm that comes down. But when the arm comes down, it wont push the button in far enuf to make it click. I cant see how either the metal arm or that tiny plastic head have been worn away. The tip of the sensor looks normal and no wear pattern crossing down on it. I've heard of people gluing shit to the sensor tip but that sounds ghetto. Idk but i guess i buy another sensor and see what happens.

[bigrank916 72]

My horn works now!! That switch did something for sure. I haven't been able to drive it yet since its taken apart but I moved it the other day and accidentally hit the horn while pushing the car. Shit surprised me since i'd never heard it work before lol. Forgot to order a new switch for the trunk release but I did order a few things to keep me busy for awhile. 

Got a 50ft spool of Mechman 1/0 ga cable for 2 runs of power and ground with 15 copper lugs. I debated using 2/0 but I think that woulda been overkill.

32 sqft of damplifier b stock

3 yards of black faux leather gator fabric and some thin foam for headliner and A/B/C pillar recover

I'll start with the damplifier then work my way to the headliner and pillars. I pretty stoked to see how this will turn out. Once those are done I will get some heat barrier product applied the the roof and attach the headliner. I didn't see any spots where it was glued to the roof so hopefully the marriage they had before will continue. After I get the pos/neg cable runs laid out, I'll look into applying more sound deadening and thermal barrier layers.

 

 

 

[djjdnap 78]

So far for mounting your mids. I have seen people use self tapping screws, create there own ring with some mdf, or if you have enough room(speaker shallow enough) and the window doesn't hit attach it directly to the door. The ones i have seem different.

[bigrank916 72]

5 hours ago, djjdnap said:

So far for mounting your mids. I have seen people use self tapping screws, create there own ring with some mdf, or if you have enough room(speaker shallow enough) and the window doesn't hit attach it directly to the door. The ones i have seem different.

Yeah from what I've been researching, making my own rings from mdf would be the best option. Maybe I could use self tappers but I'm not at the point of the build process yet to have even bought the midbass or midrange to check. I planned on using the PRV neo 6.5" mids with SSA Evil midbass in the same door. I know the PRV is pretty shallow but the Evil is like 3.25" depth so we'll see. Idk how the imaging will be affected by having the midbass behind me on the driver door. Besides making my own pods, which I've considered, I've got to start by using what I've got first. I think lol. 

[///M5 2,469]

PRV Mid and Evil will not mate nicely...if you are going 3 way there are way better routes.  Real question comes down to space and processing...

[bigrank916 72]

I recovered the headliner today. Made a few mistakes along the way but overall its not bad. Learned my lesson on a few things if I ever try this again. Wasn't too hard either. Two people would make this job much easier. If you try to remove it once you laid it down on the glue and have too thin of foam it will rip that shit right off and you are basically stuck at what point it has settled into. Get thick foam like at least 3/16" thick and if you get fabric w/o foam attached already, make sure you join those two layers together instead of trying to apply one at a time. I knew I should have done that but I took the advice of my uber crafty gf and didn't stick with my gut feelin lol.

[bigrank916 72]

Just now, ///M5 said:

PRV Mid and Evil will not mate nicely...if you are going 3 way there are way better routes.  Real question comes down to space and processing...

I'm not sold on the Evill especially cause of the depth but I really would like to incorporate the PRV. I've heard many good things about them. With my placement of the second speaker in the rear of the driver door, should i abandon it altogether and just use midrange and tweet? W/o building pods, I'm not sure how this will work. What do you think is a good way to go about this?

[///M5 2,469]

The prv is loud and crappy sounding.  Terrible as a midbass and terrible as a mid range.  Does lower midrange loud and anyone that says differently is tone deaf.  Not saying it isn't loud but you have to be VERY particular about what drivers you mate with it....even then I would never use it in a car.

[bigrank916 72]

2 hours ago, ///M5 said:

The prv is loud and crappy sounding.  Terrible as a midbass and terrible as a mid range.  Does lower midrange loud and anyone that says differently is tone deaf.  Not saying it isn't loud but you have to be VERY particular about what drivers you mate with it....even then I would never use it in a car.

Well I do want loud midrange. Crappy sounding, not so much. I'm really not that knowledgeable on how to mate drivers together. What should I be looking for?

[///M5 2,469]

What are you using for processing?  What is loud to you?

[jcarter1885 762]

So far in my current testing, driver door has Eminence Alpha-6c and passenger door has SSA Evil. Im enjoying the passenger door more and more everyday. Yes the Eminence is louder but sound quality wise the Evil wins hands down and I've been using Eminence drivers for 10 years and love them. The Evils are also upgrades over my Silverflutes and SB Acoustics drivers I've tried lately.

[j-roadtatts 884]

10 hours ago, bigrank916 said:

Well I do want loud midrange. Crappy sounding, not so much. I'm really not that knowledgeable on how to mate drivers together. What should I be looking for?

 On the low-end of a driver/tweeter you are looking for an Fs that is one octave below where you plan to cross them.  The Fs is the resonant frequency of the driver in free air,  basically were the structural sound/ vibration of the speaker will start  being audible.  And become hard on the speaker parts.  So basically if you plan on crossing the mid at 80 Hz, you would want one with an FS of around 40 Hz. Since the mid is mounted to a solid surface and not free air, there is a some wiggle room there.  In real time Fs can be a little bit higher.  On a tweet I would stick to the one octave higher rule.  As far as the top end of the mids go, you want to look for any major spikes in the frequency response graph.  Again ideally you would want the peak to be at least one octave above where you plan to cross then.  The top end of the tweeter really depends on where you plan on mounting them,  weather they're on axis or not. (pointed straight at you, or playing at an angle to the listener position)  if you can mount them straight are you that is usually preferred imo.  If they must be mounted on angle from the listen position,  then a tweeter with a slope up in the frequency response would be preferred. 

  After that I would say a lot is preference of cone material,  as each one will have its own acoustical signature.

  The better processing you have the less some of these things are concerns such as the peaks in the frequency response.  I personally prefer to pick drivers that don't need much electronic processing,  but that is just for ease of tuning. 

[bigrank916 72]

10 hours ago, ///M5 said:

What are you using for processing?  What is loud to you?

I have a DEH 80 PRS head unit. Do I need something more? It has a DSP already no?

[bigrank916 72]

8 hours ago, jcarter1885 said:

So far in my current testing, driver door has Eminence Alpha-6c and passenger door has SSA Evil. Im enjoying the passenger door more and more everyday. Yes the Eminence is louder but sound quality wise the Evil wins hands down and I've been using Eminence drivers for 10 years and love them. The Evils are also upgrades over my Silverflutes and SB Acoustics drivers I've tried lately.

I almost got the Alphas when i was looking at the MLI5s. I've known that you have had them a long time too. The Evil must be good

[bigrank916 72]

7 hours ago, j-roadtatts said:

 On the low-end of a driver/tweeter you are looking for an Fs that is one octave below where you plan to cross them.  The Fs is the resonant frequency of the driver in free air,  basically were the structural sound/ vibration of the speaker will start  being audible.  And become hard on the speaker parts.  So basically if you plan on crossing the mid at 80 Hz, you would want one with an FS of around 40 Hz. Since the mid is mounted to a solid surface and not free air, there is a some wiggle room there.  In real time Fs can be a little bit higher.  On a tweet I would stick to the one octave higher rule.  As far as the top end of the mids go, you want to look for any major spikes in the frequency response graph.  Again ideally you would want the peak to be at least one octave above where you plan to cross then.  The top end of the tweeter really depends on where you plan on mounting them,  weather they're on axis or not. (pointed straight at you, or playing at an angle to the listener position)  if you can mount them straight are you that is usually preferred imo.  If they must be mounted on angle from the listen position,  then a tweeter with a slope up in the frequency response would be preferred. 

  After that I would say a lot is preference of cone material,  as each one will have its own acoustical signature.

  The better processing you have the less some of these things are concerns such as the peaks in the frequency response.  I personally prefer to pick drivers that don't need much electronic processing,  but that is just for ease of tuning. 

It seems I have a lot of home work to do lol. I'm not very familiar with octives. I heard all the terms you speak of but I don't know what they mean. It's been a long time since I've read and tried to retain what little knowledge i did have about that stuff.

I have made a 2 way active system in door pods before using Mach5s and some Vifa tweeters i think. Sounded good to me but i hardly doubt I have the ear to know what to listen for. What sounds good to me prob sounds like shit to most of you guys. Theres no car audio places around here that carry anything I would want to buy. 

M5 asked me the same thing about processing. Idk much about that either but i have a DEH80PRS head unit. 

[jcarter1885 762]

2 hours ago, bigrank916 said:

I almost got the Alphas when i was looking at the MLI5s. I've known that you have had them a long time too. The Evil must be good

Yeah the Evils are pretty damn good and I was skeptical at first with it's specs vs other drivers I have used. When I first installed my one Evil to do some testing, I also installed a used Pioneer double-din that I got from my cousin. The midbass alone is what stood out to me, for some reason it seemed like I had subs again. Come to find out that my cousin had a customize preset set on Performance on the EQ and it didnt reset when I isntalled the h\u. It just showed me the potential of these drivers. Since I have very efficient and loud tweeters, I dont need my mids to play that loud or into higher frequencies. Just midrange output, the Eminence wins. But output over a larger bandwith without sacrficing the tonal sound and clear midrange, the Evil wins. 

 

I also read up on facebook, where SSA posted about a guy doing a swap from his PRVs to Evils and loved them. Yes with the 80PRS you have great processing, so need to worry there.