# Fake floor with Spare: 1995 Lexus SC400 - Morel, Mosconi, Audiomobile



## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

As many of you know, i am a big fan of fake floor installs, since i often value space and ultimate stealthiness more, most of them involves removing the spare. but once in a while, the stars align and i get a vehicle where the truck is well suited to a fake floor build while retaining the spar tire. this is just such a vehicle...the customer wanted to keep the spare and of course, relatively easy access to it...to go along with a pretty simply SQ build.

the car is a 1995 Lexus SC400, shes got quite a few miles on her and her interior was showing the age, i was at first a bit worried about rattling but in the end, i found out that concern was unfounded 

the goals:

1. to achieve a nice level of sound quality
2. maintain a totally stealth appearance in the interior
3. save as much trunk space as possible while maintaining the stealth factor and access to spare tire.

lets get started.

signal source is a pioneer 80PRS, chosen for its balanced of cost and sound quality:










Front stage consists of a set of Morel Elate 602 two way component set, installed in the stock factory location to maintain stealthiness. Since the car originally came with a ported 3 or 4" driver, i was initially worried that a 6.5" would not fit, and we'd have to fabricate a door pod, which is both not good for stealthiness AND due to the fact that the door card is cracked at half a dozen places and held together by the plastic welds and leather, it probably didnt hvae the integrity to hold a heavy pod.

but after some thinking we managed to get it to work. 

first new speaker wires were run into the door, two pairs each:










then the outter door skin was dampened with some blackhole tiles:










the inner door skin was then sound proofed with a combination of STP foam and Bomb cld damper:










then i fabricated two mounting adapters to go in place of the stock hole, shapped so it would sit in the door flat, they were then coated with truck bedliner to protect them against the elements:



















these baffles were then mounted to the car via straps and stock mounting points, and then it was sealed to the car with more STP bomb:










then the morel speakers midbasses were installed:










meanwhile, the morel MT250 tweeters were secured to the factory mounting bridges:



















and those were bolted in place as well:










the same procedure was then repeated on the passenger side door:























































i then decided to open up the stock grilles a bit to allow better performance of the drivers, so i stripped the old grille cloth off, drilled a whole bunch of new holes, and then recovered them in new cloth:





































so that was it, my biggest worry, like stated before, was the amount of rattle that could come from these old and tired door cards, and also the fact that the midbass driver doesnt line up 100 percent with the grille opening, so it would be a small wave guide effect, but as you will read later, it didnt come to pass 

next comes some wiring pics as the bundle travels from the front of the car into the trunk, on the driver side with speaker wires and the main power cable, and the passenger side carried RCA cable, the driver side speaker wires cross under the back seat to join up with the other signal cables and run into the trunk together, around the gas tank:


















































































so thats it for the interior, i also took out the factory sub and speakers mounted on the rear deck for better bass response, but forgot to snap a picture of it 

moving onto the trunk, as stated before, the goal ist hat when not displayed, it still retains a bunch of trunk space...so here is the view with everything buttoned up...a fake floor raises the factory floor by about 4 inches, and a side fiberglass box with a grille houses the sub, entire trunk is fully usable:


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

being flashy or showy was never part of the goal, so when you pop off the covers, you get a simple vinyl trimmed amp rack housing three mosconi amps and a DSP4to6, while an audiomobile elite 2210 resides in the side box. A ONE240.2 powers the midbass with 240 watts, a 120.2 sends 120 watts to each tweeter, and another 240.2 powers the sub with up to 700 watts. simple and understated 









































































so...on to accessing the spare...here is a quick step by step of what you do, the only tool you need is a single philips screw driver. first, undo the screws holding the top floor to the amp rack, and lift off the left side of the floor panel, which has its own support at the very end:










next, simply lift off the right hand side trunk floor also with its attached support, and you are left with the bare amp rack:










on the passenger side of the amp rack you see that it is hinged:










while the driver side features a bracket that holds down the amp rack to the floor via a single wingnut and rivetnut:










undo that wingnut by hand, and now you can hinge the entire structure up and out of the way of the spare. entire process, depending on how fast you are with a philips screw driver, takes about 1-2 minutes 







































onto some fab pics of the trunk, first up is the trunk enclosure, we tasked our third guy Jesse (killahsharksjc) to do the back mold, and he did a superb job, masking off the area, and then applying 6 layers of heavy mat:



















when that cured, i pulled it out of the car, and trimmed it to the desired shape. i also added a flat piece of mdf to serve as the bottom front of the enclosure so it would line up well with the side of the fake floor:










next a mounting ring with low heat plastic wall was aimed and secured to the mold:










and mold cloth, in this instance puppy love fleece was attached, resin applied and allowed to cure. it was then reinforced from the inside via duraglass, resin and chopstrand, when that cured, it was trimmed out and sanded down a bit:










a support piece was test fitted to the enclosure:










and then the entire enclosure was wrapped and mounting brackets attached, the sub was then secured in place. the enclosure is held in the car tightly by the fake floor at the bottom, and by a bracket that secures to sheet metal uptop, you can rock the entire car with it 





































the amp rack itself is pretty self explanatory, here are three rivet nuts i installed to bolt in the main spacer piece that the hinges mount to via threaded inserts:










here is the amp rack cover before and after vinyl:



















here is the top floor before and after carpet, note the support structures that actually mount to the floor pieces and lifts out with them:














































and here are the two breathable cover pieces before and after carpet:




















and finally, some shots of the wiring in and around the amp rack:




























so thats it...how does it sound? well, like i mentioned above, my biggest concern was the interior rattles and the midbass response...but much to my surprise, the car was quite nice! infact, there was almost NO RATTLES!  maybe the fact that the old interior is so thin and resting on waferboard and foam meant it couldnt really create a racket, and the midbass response i was worried about due to the location of the driver, wasnt bad at all. the stage is nice and really wide, center image is fair, height and depth are both very good. midbass impact is quite quite good with great extension, and the highs, as weith all the new morel products, is smooth yet never lacking detail. the sub also blended really well with the front stage. overall, very cool. after an hour of playing with the rta, i netted this graph, whcih is pretty close to the target curve i try for everytime. the one unique thing is, usually, after getting close to this curve, i go in and then change a few things while listening by ear, but this was one of those cars that the target curve sounded really good withOUT much additional change. pretty cool 










anyway, onto other projects, until next time, cheers! 

Bing


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## [email protected] (Nov 7, 2010)

What the heck? Where are the pics of my part of the build?????


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## ALan Z (Oct 9, 2013)

Thank you for sharing. I really like the clean stealthiness of the whole install and maintaining the ability to get to the spare. When the floor is lifted to access the spare how does it stay up? Is it held up by the trunk lid or are the hinges designed to hold it in place?

Looks great


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## [email protected] (Nov 7, 2010)

ALan Z said:


> When the floor is lifted to access the spare how does it stay up? Is it held up by the trunk lid or are the hinges designed to hold it in place?
> 
> Looks great


Yeah, Bing, tell us....


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

ALan Z said:


> Thank you for sharing. I really like the clean stealthiness of the whole install and maintaining the ability to get to the spare. When the floor is lifted to access the spare how does it stay up? Is it held up by the trunk lid or are the hinges designed to hold it in place?
> 
> Looks great


in the pic a simple prop rod was used that goes between the L bracket (where the wing nuts tightens) to the latch on the trunk lid. the customer will get a more solid telescoping one you can get from sears. 

or he can call Joey and he will come and hold it.

Joey suggested that i build it so it can hinge past 90 degrees and rest on the trunk opening, and that was the plan, until i realized there simply isnt enough room to do that and still clear the trunk lid and trunk opening


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

[email protected] said:


> What the heck? Where are the pics of my part of the build?????



i dunno, didnt see the pics of the circuit breaker holder bracket in there, did you forget to take em? or maybe i thought it was part of another build lol, you snooze, you lose!!


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## ALan Z (Oct 9, 2013)

Also, thanks for sharing the rta. Now I (noob) have a better idea of what tuning to aim for.


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

i dont deserve any credit for it, I got a curve from Casey from Morel, its a average of several big company's target curves. it isnt exactly like this, and nor should you use this as some type of standard, as evreyones listening taste is a bit different 

Joey for example, likes quite a bit more highs than i do.


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## justicepool (Feb 5, 2011)

That is a great looking install. Love it.


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## ALan Z (Oct 9, 2013)

Damn - thought I could steal the graph from you and be done. Trying to speed up my learning curve


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## Coppertone (Oct 4, 2011)

Great job as usual, any photos of the exterior of the car ?


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## hurrication (Dec 19, 2011)

Excellent job!!! :bowdown:

As a SC owner myself, I share a lot of the same concerns you mention about the front doors and all the crumbled panels but because of that I never got around to installing anything in the car. I'm thrilled to see that mids in the stock location with the grilles opened up will work fine. This build log really makes me want to pull my car out of storage and get to work on it.


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

the exterior just looks like a bone stock black sc400  

Hurrication, yeah i was really surprised when i pulled the door, but this car was also on its 6th owner and had a previous "system" installed consisting of sound storm speakers hehe, so i dont know where the door broke from age, where it snapped due to messy installers before. but yeah...really surprised, i suppose fiberboard dont really rattle as much as plastic hehehe


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## copter (Aug 10, 2011)

> puppy love fleece


Hope there's none of that in my install :laugh:


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

copter said:


> Hope there's none of that in my install :laugh:


no you got the my little pony treatment


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## copter (Aug 10, 2011)

simplicityinsound said:


> no you got the my little pony treatment












SICK!!! You stole JOey's blanket.


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## KarateDoc (May 27, 2013)

I am the owner of this car and like Bing said I am the 6th owner. The car's exterior is stock and is need of being repainted again. I had someone repaint the car but the body work was done poorly and after a couple years the body work has shrunk showing sand marks. Because I drive a lot often up to 4 hours away I wanted to be sure I wouldn't get stranded without a spare. The car is mechanically sound except the door cards and will eventually be replaced when I can find some good ones. The next part of the project will be coilovers and staggered rims and then a body kit and new paint.

Thanks again Bing, Joey and Jesse for doing an amazing job on an older car. It sounds great and I am getting nothing but compliments on your work. 

I haven't forgot about you guys and I owe you a couple of treatments. 

I still need to come by so you can show me how to use everything lol.

Whenever I get some free time.


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## HondAudio (Oct 19, 2006)

Another bulls-eye!


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## Installer Josh (Sep 9, 2013)

Nice build as always. One might even say its off the hinge.:laugh:


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## turbo5upra (Oct 3, 2008)

very nice! can we see finished door card pics?


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

turbo5upra said:


> very nice! can we see finished door card pics?


it would just look 100 percent stock


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## copter (Aug 10, 2011)

simplicityinsound said:


> it would just look 100 percent stock


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## Schizm (Jun 12, 2011)

copter said:


> Hope there's none of that in my install :laugh:


Use hello kitty!

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Xparent Green Tapatalk 2


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## ssmith100 (Jun 28, 2007)

Bing,

Looks great. I myself was worried about the doors as I tried to get my Morels lined up to the factory opening the best I could. I used some foam to seal up the opening to the factory grill though and it made a world of difference. I have a shop water jetting the factory grills for the morels to 1/4" holes (Same size as the port hole holes) and then will reinstall factory grill cloth. Hope that makes a big difference too. My tweeters were done a little different but same concept.

Shane


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## mklett33 (Dec 7, 2009)

Nice build!


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

ssmith100 said:


> Bing,
> 
> Looks great. I myself was worried about the doors as I tried to get my Morels lined up to the factory opening the best I could. I used some foam to seal up the opening to the factory grill though and it made a world of difference. I have a shop water jetting the factory grills for the morels to 1/4" holes (Same size as the port hole holes) and then will reinstall factory grill cloth. Hope that makes a big difference too. My tweeters were done a little different but same concept.
> 
> Shane


do you have a picture of the baffle with the door card off?


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## ssmith100 (Jun 28, 2007)

Bing,

I think this is what you want.

Shane


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## ssmith100 (Jun 28, 2007)

Couple of more.

Shane


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## tru tech99 (Jan 3, 2011)

Man….. i love your work….. like how you guy did the amp rack….. thinking shipping my car for a SQ set Up but that would cost me so much $$$$  but looking at you Installation make feel a lot more confutable to start my own… Can you PM my how much your guy charge if i provide all the equipment...


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## jpeezy (Feb 5, 2012)

nice job on an old school ride, nice save on the spare too!


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## colled96 (Feb 2, 2010)

Now that's what I call "user friendly." Totally awesome install of the amp "rack.'"


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