VW Passat install

[Adrian_D 520]

It's not actually a build log since it took place fast and I barely had time to sleep, let alone post. So I'm posting up the pictures

Equipment list:

Custom car-puter, with 8" touchscreen, 8 channels of processing, lots of bells and whistles

Peerless SLS 8's

A few 3" full-ranges to chose from: TB W3, Fountek FR88, Fountek FR89 and some Faitals

Seas H1396 tweeters

Nakamichi amps: two 4x100w and one 1200w mono

Subwoofer will be a BTL 15, as soon as the recone gets here.

The install is for a friend, we both worked on it for 7 days, getting ~12 hrs of work / day and it should have happened 2 years ago. Other things got in the way and we only managed to do it this summer.

[Adrian_D 520]

First thing first, front doors.

Thankfully VW made the inner door skin removable. Not easily removable though. We went with minimal deadening, to keep weight down:

OEM deadening:

Deadened:

Some Vibraflex to connect the door beam to the door skin:

Door panel has plenty of room, just needs some dremel love to fit the SLS 8

The window rails were in the way, so we moved the rivets holding the window rail to the inner door skin and with the help of an angle grinder and a hammer made room for the magnet:

Tight fit, but it fits !

The holes above the rings were deadened on both doors, I forgot to take pics of both doors finished

MDF and plywood rings installed and resined:

The fuel tank and trunk open buttons had to be removed to have good clearance for excursion. The white stuff is toothpaste, works like a charm to check if the door panel touches the speaker anywhere

[Adrian_D 520]

I'll post the rest tomorrow

[Shogen 325]

looking good... love VW installs!

[MikeMartel 64]

BTL 15... Nice choice. Hope we see one of those signature 8" flared aeroports.

[StreetLegal 119]

So much better access when the inner door skin can be removed, looking good mann...

[///M5 2,833]

front stage

[Sencheezy 689]

nice job so far! looks good!

[Aaron Clinton 2,372]

[Adrian_D 520]

Thanks for the comments

Onto the amp install. The idea here was to get rid of the wide spare tire, use a narrow spare and install the amps under the floor in the trunk.

1/2" plywood to hold the amps:

Clearance to the wheel well cover:

Holes for wires:

Carpeted:

All the cables except power are ran through techflex where visible. Between 2 people we couldn't find a better solution.

Everything in place:

Wiring and front stage pics tomorrow

[Aaron Clinton 2,372]

Pretty. Very interested in those amplifiers. I Have been trying to pick up Nakamichi for SSA, but no response. Anyway, those amps remind me of big JL Slash amps.

[Adrian_D 520]

In my opinion they are very nice amplifiers. When my friend snagged the two 4 channels I almost bought one too but I don't have room for such a big amp

[Sencheezy 689]

damn, amazing install Adrian!

[nem 2,019]

Looking Good!

[jcarter1885 995]

Sexy amps and stellar install, I always wanted to try out Nakamichi.

[MikeMartel 64]

Agreed, sweet looking amps indeed.

[lithium 358]

great so far. more pics!

[Adrian_D 520]

Wiring

Since the car-puter and the sound card are installed in the trunk, there was no need to run RCA's to the front. But we still had to run speaker wires, a couple USB's, a VGA cable, a Cat5e cable and a few other cables for possible switches. Turns out there were a lot of wires.

[Adrian_D 520]

The A-pillars and tweeter pods were a 1-day job, we didn't have any time to listen when aiming so everything is on-axis

One big issue with the midrange pods was the vent behind the A-pillar. Originally I would have liked to use the space behind the A-pillar and keep the intrusion to a minimum but it was not possible.

Milkshake on:

A-pillars sanded / primered and tweeter pods painted flat black, with a bit of texture to mimic the oem texture of the plastic panel:

The A-pillars were wrapped in fake suede later. Next up some pictures of the finished install, sans subwoofer. Turns out whatever I do on this level, the subwoofer is a low priority

[StreetLegal 119]

Awesome work man.

[edouble101 314]

Front stage looks nice!

[Adrian_D 520]

Wiring up the car-puter:

Touchscreen installed for testing:

Final install of the screen:

A-pillars wrapped in fake suede:

An aluminum or stainless steel ring is next, to conceal the mounting lip

Wiring under the amp panel, along with the narrow spare:

Everything up and running

Sadly the time was very short and I could only get 15 minutes of listening of the system. SLS 8's on 200w each are beasts

Next up is adding some sort of fan for cooling the amps and the car-puter and when the recone gets here, I will post up box build pictures.

Thanks for the kind comments guys !

This install was a ton of work, even for 2 people

[MikeMartel 64]

Wow.. Not much else to say other than awesome.

[ricksi30 923]

Wow very nice work! Everything looks very good.

[ssh 924]

A-pillars are stellar. I also love the lift up for spare, may steal that idea if I ditch the rear battery.