Thought I would share the install my new friend John at Hand crafted Car Audio of Chandler AZ did for me a couple weeks ago.

I met John through a Second Skin sales rep named Bob Morrow.

Some of you guys already know of Bobs Tacoma which has been reviewed in this DIYMA thread:

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/member-product-reviews/60325-bob-morrows-h-t-tacoma.html

So Bob introduced me to John, one of the customers he calls on.

John is a true DIY guy turned professional.

He works out of the garage in his home in east Chandler AZ and within the first minute of walking in, I knew I was in the right place.

The tools he has and the cleanliness alone were enough to make most retail install bays jealous.

You can see a shot of his garage on the home page of his website:

Handcrafted Car Audio - Mesa, AZ - Car Audio, Video, Security and Accessory Sales and Installation.

After talking with Bob and John for a few hours, we came up with a game plan. I already have tons of amps, subs and components to choose from. Most all brand new, but some simply wouldn't work.

I really wanted to keep everything as factory looking as possible. I did not want fabricate pods in the dash, or put the tweets in the pillars. We did not use kicks, and I opted to keep the factory spare tire. My biggest concern here is that I travel to Mexico 6-8 times per year. It is a 4 hour drive to the beach so I would absolutely hate to blow a tire on the way and be stuck in the middle of the desert with no spare. The spare had to stay.

The problem with this was that it limited the space we could use for the amp rack, as well as the subs. We ended up glassing one sub on each side of the hatch while making the amp rack adjustable so that I could still access the spare tire with ease. It turned out better than I could have hoped for!

All in all, everything is very factory.

The mids are in the doors and the tweets are in the factory dash corners. I knew that I would be compromising on this but I honestly would rather keep everything factory, and take my licks afterwards.

Here is what we used:

Head Unit - Factory Infiniti integrated with:

Arc Audio SRI

Components

Ultra Subs SS-6

Subs

(2) JL Audio 8W7

Amps

(2) JL HD750/1's

(2) JL HD600/4's

I only needed one of the 4 channel amps so that one is sitting back in my closet.

Crossover

Arc Audio IDX

Sound Deadening

Second Skin Damplifier Pro

All in all, everything is still very factory.

The mids are in the doors and the tweets are in the factory dash corners. I knew that I would be compromising on this but I honestly would rather keep everything factory, and take my licks afterwards.

Here are the pics:

Overall I am very happy with the results

We still have some tweaking to do, but without messing with it too much it is very loud, and crisp. A bit too crisp o nthe highs in fact. Having tweets with 150 watts in the corners of the dash bouncing off the windshield certainly is not doing me any favors, so my one of my next steps is to kill the tweets and replace them with a with a set of HAT L4s that Scott just sent me.

Some time alignment would be great, as would an EQ.

I am looking at a 7 band Arc model but I am open to some suggestions if you guys have any. Today, Matt at Image Dynamics suggested an Audio Control unit. If anyone has some ideas, please throw them my way. The factory head unit is lacking for sure.

Manville sent me the bass controller for the sub amps, but I am not sure if I will need it once we get the EQ put in. Just gotta get the right EQ and find a place for it.

Enjoy!

ANT

awesome install wish i had those skills.

looks good, I like how you can still easily get to the spare.

so fresh....so clean

Thanks for your kind words guys!

Glad you like his work!

ANT

That's a really good work !!!

It looks clean professional!!

Wish I could find an installer with these skills in my country.

Why did you put only 8" subs? To keep a lot of room in the trunk ?

Thanks for your compliments guys, I'm glad you like it. I'm pretty happy with it too.

Thanks for your compliments guys, I'm glad you like it. I'm pretty happy with it too.

Glad you could join us, nice car and neat install. I always wanted to do a system where very limited trunk space is used but its something about opening my trunk and a big ass box saying hello listen to me. Enjoy it and good going ANT .

Looks great, wish I had those abilities.

Edited September 22, 200915 yr by dvalue

that's fricking amazing!!!

Awesome work John!

Very nice work. You should have sold those W7's for some Icon 10's.