February 10, 20196 yr Author Popular Post Hey guys, I'm back with an update. Weather hasn't cooperator with me but what do you expect this time of year. I attached the tweeter pods to the mid range pods with some epoxy. Notice I had to print a new tweeter pod for the left side to gain some clearance. I'm using some camera tripod mounts and threaded inserts to hold the pods to the A pillar trim. I'm not sure if this will hold up but I'll see how it goes. On the rear of the A pillar trim I used some large round pieces of metal to reinforce the trim piece. I did a few test fits before getting things right but this is how the pods are installed for now. Sorry for the bad quality pics. I decided to throw these in there and go grab some late night Chinese food. This photo is from right above the driver side headrest. should give you an idea on how they're aimed. My lazer pointer worked pretty well! I'll play around with the tweeter orientation as I tune. So the whole point of this build was to see how low I can get these 4 incher to play and see if they meet up with the midbass in the 100-150 hz range. I haven't tested too much yet but I think that it will work. Unfortunately, my mdf baffle on the driver side door is complete fucked from water so I ordered some plastic cutting board material and a jigsaw to make a new baffle...
February 10, 20196 yr Author A few other notes. I sealed the wire hole in the back of the MR pod with duct seal (love this stuff) and I add some poly fill to them as well Edited February 10, 20196 yr by lithium
February 17, 20196 yr Author Popular Post updated pics. I'd like to get the left midrange a bit more to the left as it sounds very much from in front of me rather than the side. Edited February 17, 20196 yr by lithium
February 17, 20196 yr Author Since i'm rebuilding my midbass door baffles I wouldn't mind some suggestions on what drivers might be good options to swap into the doors (for mounting clearances). As I said before I'm trying to address the gab between midrange and midbass 150-300hz area.
February 17, 20196 yr 19 minutes ago, lithium said: updated pics. I'd like to get the left midrange a bit more to the left as it sounds very much from in front of me rather than the side. Order a custom fit dash pad for this vehicle. Once installed, Time alignment should be able to fix this with no problems.
February 17, 20196 yr Author 16 minutes ago, Randal Johnson said: Order a custom fit dash pad for this vehicle. Once installed, Time alignment should be able to fix this with no problems. i was actually thinking about that. I'll have to look around the interwebs for something.
February 17, 20196 yr Just by looking at the pics, and understanding the curvature of the dash can be a total bitch, it looks like the right driver is lower on the A Pilar than the left. Looks like it needs to be raised up to match the sail panel like the left. Could be a problem why the left seems stronger than the right. Understand what I’m trying to say ??
February 17, 20196 yr Author 3 hours ago, Randal Johnson said: Just by looking at the pics, and understanding the curvature of the dash can be a total bitch, it looks like the right driver is lower on the A Pilar than the left. Looks like it needs to be raised up to match the sail panel like the left. Could be a problem why the left seems stronger than the right. Understand what I’m trying to say ?? yeah you're right. The mounts aren't strong enough to lift the right speaker pod off the dash so this is how it will work for now. I can rotate the tweeter such that it's level with the left. Fortunately, the human ear is shit at localizing sound vertically.
February 17, 20196 yr If you plan to run this section passive on two channels, you should be right, but if you’re running four independent channels and pad that dash, you may catch hell with it. Just Saying The more I learn about this Helix, well, you know what I mean. lol
February 17, 20196 yr Author everything is active, which is preferable since the left and right are so different.
February 17, 20196 yr 8 minutes ago, lithium said: everything is active, which is preferable since the left and right are so different. Awesome brother, wish I could get a demo. Wish I could help with the mid bass driver part, but I’m still stuck with the same drivers I ran 8 or so years ago. Can’t seem to tear them up. lol
April 6, 20196 yr Author Hey guys, small update. I've been spending some time tuning the car and its going pretty well. I think the 4s are going to work great. In their current enclosure they can reach low enough to meet up with the midbass which was the whole goal of this build up till now. I've been doing some of tuning using REW and letting the AutoEQ generate corrections to a house curve that I've set up (I picked a popular one and plan to try some other out). The autoeq seems to work great at doing a first pass of everything before fine tuning by ear. I'm planning to start the A pillar build soon but first I need to figure out another issue that I'm having. I think I'll post the issue outside the build log so folks will see it.
April 20, 20196 yr Author Popular Post So the issue with the midbass is pretty much solved. see this thread: I'm planning to start the A pillar pods this weekend. But first I made a small upgrade to the amps. Polk must be clearing old stock because you can grab the PAD2000.2's for $50 each (these are the same as the PPI 600.2). Great $/watt. I'm running one to each midbass. These replaced some very old Kicker 250.2's I bought 10 years ago. I was planning to grab a second nvx 4 channel to clean up the install a bit but this was such a great deal. I considered grabbing another to replace the subwoofer amp. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07HNRLCXC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 some before and after pics. apologize for the wiring disaster.
April 20, 20196 yr Author anyone know if running 1 rca input to a bridged 2 channel amp causing issues? should I use a splitter for any reason?
April 21, 20196 yr Author 1 hour ago, Randal Johnson said: RCA “Y” cable to each amplifier making it a mono input amplifier. right, I'm just wondering how the summation occurs internal to the amplifier when you bridge the channels. 1 rca > Y adapter > 2 inputs on a bridged 2 channel amp > summed internally 1 rca > plugged into 1 of the inputs on the amp > summed internally does either case result in a different output from the amp? Edited April 21, 20196 yr by lithium
April 21, 20196 yr I’m not sure about those class D full range amplifiers brother. I know my pair of 2 channel class A/B amplifiers don’t give a shit about what either channel is doing. I tried looking at the specs on those but couldn’t come up with anything on this. There may be a setting, may not. I’m thinking it will work simple with a “Y” cable and work nicely stereo mono. Either way, your going to have Very nice left and right channel separation running an amplifier on the left and a amplifier on the right. If you look close to mine, it’s done similar.
April 22, 20196 yr I like the updates man. I got excited when I seen the price of those two channels that I went and looked at the 4 channel for my build but they are still $350 plus. How are you liking going from those class AB Kicker amps to the class D Polk amps?
April 22, 20196 yr Author 3 hours ago, jcarter1885 said: I like the updates man. I got excited when I seen the price of those two channels that I went and looked at the 4 channel for my build but they are still $350 plus. How are you liking going from those class AB Kicker amps to the class D Polk amps? The NVX 4 channel in my picture is probably the only 4 channel from that batch (PPI, polk, etc using same design) that you can still get for a decent price (under $200). I guess the PPI 600.2 sold out while these polk 2 channels are getting sold off at a great price. Ultimately, I hope to simplify my amp rack in my next car. So this will cut down on space requirements quite a bit. Very little seat time with the new amps but I haven't notice a huge difference between the two so far. I doubled power so the headroom should be nice given the giant EQ cuts I'm using to correct the cabin mode on the left driver. I got a sweet sunburn yesterday while swapping amps so I wont get to the A pillar pods till next weekend. 8 hours ago, Randal Johnson said: I’m not sure about those class D full range amplifiers brother. I know my pair of 2 channel class A/B amplifiers don’t give a shit about what either channel is doing. I tried looking at the specs on those but couldn’t come up with anything on this. There may be a setting, may not. I’m thinking it will work simple with a “Y” cable and work nicely stereo mono. Either way, your going to have Very nice left and right channel separation running an amplifier on the left and a amplifier on the right. If you look close to mine, it’s done similar. I might just try a Y cable just to see what happens. Pretty sure it wont make a difference but I'd like to know.
April 22, 20196 yr Sunburn in Illinois in April. Nice. Not sure what that amp will do. I'd split it, but easy enough to try both ways.
April 25, 20196 yr Author splitting the rca into 2 inputs increased the output quite a bit. Haven't pushed the sls 8s past xmax at >40hz before so that was cool. I'm absolutely doing door enclosures after these A pillar are finished. I need this midbass without door rattles. Edited April 25, 20196 yr by lithium
July 29, 20196 yr Author Been a while guys. I've made some progress despite the difficulties of working on things in my apartment. I think I got carried away with the size of these enclosures. These are my baffles, the ring is 3d printed petg. The white speaker mount is also 3d printed and will allow me to swap in other drivers easily. Starting the enclosures. Pretty standard stuff. I decide to build enclosure that sit on the dash rather then build off the A pillar. In retrospec I think it might have been better to put the 4 on the pillar and tweeter in the sail panel to cut down the size of these monsters. Next I aimed the speaker baffles the left side has to come out towards the driver quite a bit. I hope this doesn't kill imaging too badly. The pods where difficult to wrap, even with this spandex material I used. My solution to the creases in the fabric. After the first coat of resin on the spandex Test fit ya these look toooo big... Had to flock the enclosures in my kitchen... not the best idea Edited July 29, 20196 yr by lithium
July 29, 20196 yr Author I just need to find a way to bolt these the A pillars so they dont kill me in a car crash. I hope to install them this week and start on the door enclosures soon after that. Edited July 29, 20196 yr by lithium
August 19, 20196 yr Author A pillars are finished. Haven't played with the tune yet as I'm trying to move on to the midbass enclosure now. Before (w/ door trim cut) after (trying to maximize enclosure volume) Deadened whats left of the trim panel.
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