# 2011 Lancer Evolution X GSR budget SQ install



## sirsleepsalot (Mar 1, 2007)

Hi guys !

Well, I finally started the project in my Lancer.

So far, the system have the following :

Pioneer DEH-80PRS
Pioneer GM-D9500F 4 channel amp running mids and tweeters upfront. Rears will be disconnected.
Arc Audio KS300.2 for sub
Dayton RSS315HO-4 12" sub in a sealed box

Components up front aren't decided on yet, but I'm leaning towards the Dayton RS180 mids with Seas 27TAFNC tweeters. If anyone's got different components to recommend, I'm all ears.... or eyes in this case.

I'm not looking to go all out, but want to do a nice, clean install that sounds good to me.

Anyways, today I started tossing some B-quiet Ultimate in the trunk and the front doors.




















I'm most likely going to continue the rest of the install only in a few weeks, when I have more than just 1 or 2 days to work on it.


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## strakele (Mar 2, 2009)

The Seas tweeter should be a good match for the Dayton woofer since they can play low enough to keep the RS180 in its best sounding passband.

Looking good so far. Are those stock fluid/battery locations in the trunk?


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## sirsleepsalot (Mar 1, 2007)

Yeah, those are stock locations for the battery and windshield washer fluid. Having the battery in the back is fun but that washer fluid placement is horrible. Near impossible not to spill any when refilling unless you have a funnel and tubing on hand.


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## sirsleepsalot (Mar 1, 2007)

Ok, so I started work on the subwoofer enclosure.

I'll be installing it in the stock location, but without carpet panel to be able to build deeper into the quarter panel. 


So here's the section taped and foiled up, ready for the fiberglass.


And here's what it looks like so far after removal from the car. It still needs quite a few layers to get it strong enough, but it's a start.


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## WhereAmEye? (Jun 17, 2013)

Funny how much room there is above the rear wheels hiding behind the carpet. You'd think the company would utilize it somehow...guess that's good for us :guitarist:


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## sirsleepsalot (Mar 1, 2007)

Finally got a bit more work done.

Tweeters were installed in a really simple way, so not much to say about it. I used perforated metal strapping to make a super-high-end-ultra-high-tech-mega-deluxe-super-coliding-super-bracket.



And then, I moved on to the subwoofer box.

So we've got a nicely thickened up half-mold lying around after cutting off the edges. The darker parts are where I used bondo-glass to fill up some awkward crevices to decrease my chance of getting air bubbles in there.



I then moved on to making the baffle for the sub to be attached to. with a second ring for that cute recessed look.



In the back, you can see where I stuck my ever so lightly modified T-Nuts. I cut off the extra prong that would've been bothersome.



MDF baffle is now secured to the mold via more perforated metal straps and attached by screwing them to the T-Nuts and some hot glue on the other end.



And finaly, a quick test fit to make sure everything lines up right.



I've wrapped the box up and coated it in resin. I forgot to take a picture of that step and the other test fit with the cloth over it, but aside from one or two studs that are a problem, it should all work out well for fitting.

I also forgot to take pictures of the 1¼" baffles I made for the door speakers.

I'll most likely go back to working on this tomorrow, so an update shouldn't be too far in the future.

More to come tomorrow most likely.


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## sirsleepsalot (Mar 1, 2007)

Ok, got some more work done and forgot to take some more pictures of the progress...

So, here was the box when I started up this afternoon with only the coat of resin. It's now up to 3 coats of glass (2 outside, 1 inside).



Between coats and goofing off, I started work on getting some wiring and amps installed. I forgot to take the picture of the wiring, and the amp in place. So here's a shot of the support I made for the amp out of ¼" Lexan that bolts onto the studs for the factory amp.



I also got the headunit in today. I got the PAC SWI-PS steering control adapter up and running. I used the wiring harness and moved some wires around to the pins for the steering wheel controls so I didn't have to splice into the OEM harness to get it to work. I stuck the bluetooth mic in place of the OEM one.



So, anyone looking will be none the wiser.



Since the 80PRS has very practical USB ports, in a non-practical location, I figured I'd remedy that problem in an elegant way. I got some USB panel mount connectors off of ebay and stuck one in the back of the "pouch" in the Scosche dashboard adapter.



... and I put the other inside the armrest compartment (where my iPod will permanently reside). 



I also tied down the wires to make sure they don't interfere with the hand brake.



And finally, a quick test to make sure it all works. IT'S ALIVE !!!



So tomorrow, I'll try to get the speakers wired up, the sub amp installed along with the power wiring. I'm pretty sure my sub box won't be done for a couple more days, but the rest just might be up and running by the end of the day tomorrow.

On that note, I think it's my bed time.


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## sirsleepsalot (Mar 1, 2007)

And a bit more work done today. I'm starting to see the end of this project ! 

So, here's where I left my sub box yesterday, with it's few coats of glass.



And here's how it is today. I filled up some weird gaps I had with some bondo glass again, and have added 3~4 layers of glass over it. It's still not as thick as I want it, but it's getting there.



After, I turned my attention to what's been scaring me for a while; getting new wires into the doors. I tried and tried, when I had my Ralliart, and ended up just cutting a hole in the grommet and passing the wire on the outside, but I wanted to do things properly this time around. So I cut a length of metal strap and rounded off the tip I'd be pushing through so it wouldn't catch on anything or worse, cut wires. Well, much to my surprise, to worked great. I fiddled a bit on the driver side but once I got the hang of it, it went in like a charm, and the passenger side was done in less than 5 minutes.

So I got the baffles I had made and prepped with bedliner a couple days ago and predrilled them for the speaker and mounting to the door.





And here are both doors with the RS180s in. It was a very tight fit because of the weird triangular opening in the door, so I had to cut off the tab on the speaker basket where a second set of connectors would go I guess. 





I also had to cut the plastic lip inside the door card that went around the speaker by about half an inch to clear the added thickness.

Now, here's where I left off yesterday with the wiring.



and today, the amp for the frontstage is all wired up.



I hooked up the amp to the battery to give it a test run to see if everything works so far... well, it does.... kinda... I know the RS180s aren't beasts for midbass, but right now, i've got NOTHING in the low end. The crossover on the headunit is set to 80hz high-pass for the mids, but if I move it up all the way to 250, I hear no difference. The amp is set to fullrange on both channel sets. So, I'm thinking there's maybe something wrong with the amp. Seems like it's stuck on highpass at 500hz or something. I'm gonna try swapping channels to see if it works. If not, maybe try different speakers or a different amp for the sake of trying it out.

Next time I work on the car, I'm hoping to get the last amp in, and my power wires installed properly as well as FINALLY getting my rear seat back in. (That thing blocks a LOT of noise !) And of course, sorting out my no-midbass issue.


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## JVD240 (Sep 7, 2009)

Hmmmm. That's weird. I never experienced crazy midbass from those but they're not horrible.

Mute your tweets and just listen to the mids. Lower the highpass and see if you notice anything. Lower the lowpass to see what you're really getting for lows.


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## sirsleepsalot (Mar 1, 2007)

JVD240 said:


> Hmmmm. That's weird. I never experienced crazy midbass from those but they're not horrible.
> 
> Mute your tweets and just listen to the mids. Lower the highpass and see if you notice anything. Lower the lowpass to see what you're really getting for lows.


I tried that. At first, I was even wondering if the mids were playing at all so I muted the tweeters. Then I muted one mid at a time, to see if I was getting some sort of really insane cancellation. After a while, with only the mids playing, I tried playing with the highpass and I could notice the change quite easily. Then again with the lowpass, and no change.


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## sirsleepsalot (Mar 1, 2007)

Well, I found the problem and.... well... I'm kind of ashamed to admit it, but I had my mid and high RCAs reversed.

Unless my memory fails me, all the other headunits I've used in the past had Front on top, Rear in the middle, and Sub at the bottom for the RCA outputs on the back of the unit. And the 80PRS has, from top to bottom, Rear, Front, and Sub, which in 3-way are High, Mid, and Low. I remembered there was something "weird" to me going on in that High was Rear and Mid was Front... however, I forgot that Rear was on top.

*lowers head in shame*

On the bright side, the Seas 27TAFNCs seem to not have suffered any damage by performing midrange duties for a whole day as they sound great with everything connected properly !

I'm really happy that it was just a mistake on my part and that nothing has been damaged because of it !


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## sirsleepsalot (Mar 1, 2007)

More was done....

I applied a first layer of putty and sanded that down to shape with 60 grit paper, then with 100 before applying thin second layer to try and get rid of any crevices. I sanded that with 100 again, and finally with 220 with my trusty orbital sander.



Then it was time to prime the sucker for painting ! I covered up the screw holes to prevent anything getting in the threads. After a 3 coats of primer, I sanded it smooth with 600 grit paper.



Then it was finally time for a few coats of flat black paint !




While the paint was drying, I went on to work on installing my second amplifier and running my power wires correctly.

So I drilled and tapped some holes in the steel bars that run behind the rear seats. I hooked up an aluminum flat bar to the top and bolted the amp to this and to the steel bars at the bottom. The power wires were then run through the top part of the trunk before coming out in front above where the cover will be going for access to the wires if need be.



This gave enough time for the paint to dry enough to handle, so it was time to install the sub in it.



And here is the final results for the trunk.

No visible wires when standing and no amps in sight. Just a flat black sub in the corner.





I have to say, I'm quite impressed with the sound I'm getting from this relatively inexpensive setup ! I'm not getting as much really low end as I had hoped, but I'm still very happy with how the sub sounds.

The front stage really impressed me. Maybe it's because my expectations weren't all that high after reading a lot about how the RS180s lacked midbass an everything. I have the crossed at 80hz with an 18db slope up to 20KHz, 18db slope and I really like what I'm hearing. The tweeters are really detailed without being too harsh like other metal domes I had heard in the past.

However, I'm really gonna have to do something about the rear deck cover that rattles like crazy with the sub. I should pick up some CCF and MLV for my floors in a few weeks, but I'll definately be using some of that CCF on the deck.


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## strakele (Mar 2, 2009)

Glad it's working out well for you.

Are there any holes you can open up in the rear deck to help get some more bass into the cabin? From what I remember the new Lancers have rear speakers in the doors rather than the rear deck. It just seems like a lot of your bass is getting trapped in the trunk since there's no clear path to the cabin, since it first has to get through the panels covering the battery and stuff, and then the rear seats.

Doing a bunch of CCF in my rear deck helped a lot.


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## basshead (Sep 12, 2008)

Very nice!

I have a bunch of polyfill here if you want to add some, also give it some play time before judging the superman track...


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## sirsleepsalot (Mar 1, 2007)

strakele, when I first tested the sub, the rear seats and panels weren't back in, and I was barely getting any 20hz ish stuff. As basshead said, I'll give it some time to break in before judging it too harshly.


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