# 2002 Corvette build



## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Hi folks, this build log will be more in real-time than previous logs where I just photo-dump after I'm done. This is mostly because I'm treading in new territory with this car and could use some advice along the way. I actually posted an advice thread ( http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...7-help-c5-vette-plan-working-out-details.html) but haven't received **** so I figured the build log may be a better way to share and work through it.

Now this car is my father's, and it is a near-mint condition 2002 C5 with about 22k miles on it. I actually sold it to him when I worked as a car salesman in Kansas City, years ago, and it has sentimental value to my dad and will be probably with him always. I live in Las Vegas now so I actually flew down, and drove this thing back. 

Here's some pics I took before I drove it back, of the space available in the car, things I could change and things I couldn't (to properly fit the targa roof, and meet the needs he had for storage.)


"Trunk" space, C5 Vettes have a nice well of space in the rear.

















Behind the seats, there's a shelf of sorts


























After I sized up my options, I took off toward LV and here's a couple progress shots just because they are cool (to me.)

HUD is awesome









Definitely outside its native environment (in Flagstaff)










As soon as I got home, I realized that our Double D Mods center console was sitting on the porch. So I opened that up to inspect it. An EXPENSIVE ass piece, and I'm not happy with the finish so I'll probably figure out another way to cover it. I'm thinking sand it, and hydro-dip or something.

















This is the factory one for comparison









I've been acquiring gear steadily to get this build underway, and have chosen the JL XD series to get it done. I purchased all three of these from here and CAC, and each one is in amazing condition, thank you to all for that. Here's the arrangement I'm planning

















[continued]


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

So next, I started the teardown. These are mostly for people (like me) who've never torn one of these down. They are built in a fascinating way!




















































































Next up, the deadening. Being fiberglass/plastic/metal/balsa and everything in-between, I used a conservative approach because there's just no reason to make a Vette super-heavy with deadening...you just can't quell it all. I went conservative but still used a bunch of material. This is Knu Konceptz Kolossus BTW, big fan of this stuff. 





























































So this next product I used is a new one to me. I hunted around for a cost-effective, light-weight, highly insulative, and relatively thin barrier product, and I believe I found it. It is "Low-E" from eBay and online, a foil-bubble foam-foil product and it is a joy to work with. The package I purchased included tape, and some installation materials like a box cutter knife, etc, all nice touches for the money (about $65 for 2' by 50'!) 









































This is a closeup of the product and its layers


























I've got more to go on the deadening/insulating front, which I'll finish later this week or so.


I decided I best tackle the battery situation, while I was this far torn down. This is with the battery and tray removed. 









As soon as I pulled the tray and shields, I realized that the ground cable was really tiny, and figured it would be best to upgrade this right away, while in here. Here's the factory wire









I went with 1/0 gauge because I can









While in there, i also upgraded and techflexed all the wires I could









Comparison shot of the factory ground (guessing 10 gauge?) vs. my Radaflex 1/0 gauge upgrade









And a bit more subtle, the factory fuse block wiring (guessing 6 to 8 gauge) vs. my upgraded 4 gauge










And for now here's where I'm at. I've placed orders for an App Radio 4, Sundown SA-12 D4, battery terminals, more deadener, RCA's, distribution and fuse blocks, and other stuff I've forgotten about now. Point is, it's all coming together.


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## optimaprime (Aug 16, 2007)

Dude you gotta tell me how that deadner works ! Your car and build are looking fantastic! Can't wait for up dates


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

optimaprime said:


> Dude you gotta tell me how that deadner works ! Your car and build are looking fantastic! Can't wait for up dates


Well the Knu Kolossus deadener, that's well established as "amazing" and remains my favorite

But the barrier stuff is new for me, we'll see how it goes. I can tell you it has amazing properties on the thermal side. I found this out because it has been literally freezing here in Vegas (kinda a big deal out here) and my garage has been extremely cold because it can't be sealed off, we have ventilation holes on the top and bottom of the walls and I assume it is for venting the gas-fired water heater which sits in the garage as well. Point is, it gets F-ing cold in there. Well, I had to walk out there, but I was barefoot and dreading touching the floor. There happened to be a piece of scrap sitting on the floor and I hopped onto it, and it was as warm as the inside of my house. I skittered on that little scrap piece all the way around my garage floor and got the item I needed, then skittered back and never once felt like my foot was getting cold. So at least on the thermal side of things, this product rocks. It cuts nicely with a sharp knife or scissors, things stick to it so it works great with the aluminum tape they supplied, and it feels like a good, simple product. It doesn't "pop" bubbles like other kinds of bubble foil I've seen in Home Depot, Reflectix I believe. It is more of a tiny bubble foam, feels more like a plastic version of Ensolite in the middle. It is a little cheaper than Reflectix too.

edit: here's a brand that pretty much looks the same. They go over the major differences. 

http://www.insulation4less.com/Insu...eflectix-Tekfoil-Eco-foil-Tempshield-etc.aspx


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## optimaprime (Aug 16, 2007)

Sorry I meant the insulator I have the knu deadner in my car&#55357;&#56833;


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

OK minor update just to cover the latest progress, lots of stuff is coming so this build is now on a fast(er) track. Here's the trunk area with the targa installed in its locks. Basically I only have to work around this. Anything that can go under that targa is fair game which means the SA-12 D4 I purchased for this build should be very happy in there.









In this shot you can see the targa is installed, there's tons of room under it









Started working on each panel, which will get deadener and insulation.










































Popped the passenger door to get a better look at my options, before I ordered a midbass driver

























This thread gets more precise about measurements, if you need them.
8" and 5.25" in C5 Door? - Corvette Forum

But here's my basic run
































































So much space!

Something like this maybe









Sub came in

























Head unit came in, just test-fitting in the double-din console, nothing is mounted so it is not quite straight, just looking at how things will go together visually.

















And with MiniDSP remote in a possible spot, still want to figure this out


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## Lycancatt (Apr 11, 2010)

i love those cars, and i think you will like that single 12 out back in it a lot.


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## Brian_smith06 (Jan 31, 2008)

That insulation stuff is pretty decent. Have a friend who is restoring a 68 corvette and that's what he installed. 

The corvette is looking good though!


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Lycancatt said:


> i love those cars, and i think you will like that single 12 out back in it a lot.


I've always wanted to play with the SA series Sundown sub, and this is a good opportunity. What I haven't decided yet is to run sealed, or ported. I've modeled both, and I'm not really sure porting would benefit in this car, given the absolutely insane cabin gain that will come from the car. I think wedging the sub as far back as I can and trying to make sure cancellation is minimized will produce a lot of clean bass even just from a sealed setup. I have more than enough power so I doubt porting would even be fruitful. 

I really wanted to do a 15 but the sale price on the 12 (during Cyber Monday) was just too good.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Brian_smith06 said:


> That insulation stuff is pretty decent. Have a friend who is restoring a 68 corvette and that's what he installed.
> 
> The corvette is looking good though!


Yeah I'm pretty happy with it thus far. I like having a piece underneath me while I work, because the cold floor can suck the life out of me. One piece of this and it feels so much better. 

This plus some Ensolite and I think this car will sound pretty doggone dead.

The doors of course will be the real challenge.


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## SQLnovice (Jul 22, 2014)

I was just playing around with the app radio 4 at best buy. Waiting on your opinion of this head unit.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

I really wanted to be the first guy to install an ipad mini into a C5 but I chickened out, since these console/dash parts are nearly impossible to find. I still want to try it, but for now I'm just going w/ the SPH-DA120 (Appradio 4) and hoping it sounds great.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Got a lot of work done recently, let me update this:

Went forward and fabbed a decent box for the subwoofer, something that uses that angled space in the trunk well. FYI the "magic" angle is 35 degrees. Using that angle and of course standard right angle cuts, you can easily make this box. I left the top cover oversized, because the factory carpeted cover panel is the same size and has left an indentation in the carpet. I'll round and bevel this part later, this is just set up this way to get started.










































Next, I dug into deadening one of the doors. I started with just one, to get my speaker measurements. I'll get the other one later after all the parts come in.

Empty door
























Can't cover 100%, would make the door too heavy to be useful. I kept it minimal.

























I added Ensolite to the backside behind the speaker area










Now I had a set of CSS LD25X and VWR126 planned for this along with the ZR800-CW's, but that combo just won't work with the space the doors have. The ZR800's are a MUST-have, so I decided to order up Fountek FR89EX in the 4ohm variety, which has a much smaller diameter to fit more appropriately in the door with the ZR800's. Well, that's the plan at least, we'll see when Madisound delivers them. I also decided to simplify the tweeter plan, and work with something I hope just literally pops in or grafts in with minimal effort to the pillars, and that's the SEAS Neo textile tweet. I've always wanted to use them, never had a good excuse to until now. 

So equipment setup as currently on order or in my hand:

Sub - Sundown SA12-D4 
Midbass - JL Audio ZR800-CW
Midrange - Fountek FR89EX 4ohm
Tweeter - SEAS 27TFFNC/G
Amps - JL XD200/2, 600/6, 1000/1 
Processor - MiniDSP C-DSP 6x8
Head unit - Pioneer SPH-D120 (Appradio 4)

When I'm all put together, I'm hoping for crossover points in the 60-70 range on the midbass, 300-500hz on the mid, and about 4k or so on the tweet. Of course, I've done so many MS-8 installs that I forget other processors can under and overlap cross points, so I may need to experiment with that.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Shipment for drivers came in, they look so cute!

















Compared with with the big LD25X and VWR126 I had originally planned, these little guys should fit much more easily.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

This is the door grommet to wire through. Officially the easiest door to run wire, EVER. 

I'm running 16 gauge 2 conductor to the midrange, and 12 gauge 2 conductor to the midbass. This little seal is how you run your wires through the door, super easy.









I slipped the wires through that little slit/grommet up top of this plastic piece and pushed it back into position.









Wires ran


















Next, I put effort into the door baffle.


First I traced the factory part and made copies, with a little extra space around the edges.

















I made a bunch of rings, my plan is to glue them together and create an enclosure for the FR89EX's. 









I cut the midbass rings as well










A little something like this, keep in mind the rings will be behind the baffle.









Turned out to be a lot of rings









Hoping it works like this


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## optimaprime (Aug 16, 2007)

Looking pretty man !


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Time for an update:

I put a bevel in the baffles for the FR89EX mids. There are many unsafe ways to do this, but I found one safe way so I went with it. What I did was use template tape (aka double-sided tape from Harbor Freight) to stick two of these together, and then I taped it to a much bigger piece of wood, so I could safely work it on my router table, without my fingers in harm's way. So I beveled one, and then flipped the pair over and stuck them again, and beveled the other one. Be safe around router tables, kids! 









I then cut notches for the speaker terminals









So I glued all the pieces together and clamped them for a while

















This big piece at the bottom is just stabilizing the clamps while it dries. In this shot you can see the ring that is under the main baffle, I had to trim this piece down and make it more square, to actually fit the door panel. The other rings are full size, and my plan is to slide the baffle into place in the car this way.









You can see how I had to notch the baffles to clear









It will be 3" of depth by the time the beveled baffle is installed on top.









Once my little baffle/enclosures were glued up, I hit them first with primer, and then rubberized spray deadner which will make them waterproof

























Here it is, test-fit in the door. 


















This is how much the door panel will cover the mid. It is unavoidable I guess.


































Here is where my MiniDSP remote will go 








Or maybe here









I plan on building a flush panel to hide the remote.



And finally for the weekend, I finished up the power and ground wiring in the battery tray


















So that's enough for now I think.


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## Kazuhiro (Apr 28, 2015)

Really nice work. With the location etc, I don't know if having the midrange will be all-that beneficial.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Kazuhiro said:


> Really nice work. With the location etc, I don't know if having the midrange will be all-that beneficial.


This is a problem that the stock speaker also has, I've learned. It is only partially exposed. But if the speaker is crossed before beaming begins and I can operate the speaker in its omni-directional range, it should sound right. I'll be sure to cross it before it can begin to beam. I have SEAS Neo tweets which can plan fairly low for as small as they are, so that should work. The ZR800 is only good up to ~500Hz so I need that mid. In the cup I built around it, my Qtc is somewhere in the .8 range which is pretty good, and I'll poly-stuff it and add some open-cell foam too, probably. That will get me a mid that won't reach X-max even on 75W of power, if cross steeply at ~300Hz. With the MiniDSP I can cross at a very steep slope if needed, to minimize driver interactions so I'm going to try for that and cross in the sweet spot. I'll add some foam to try and reduce the diffraction effect that the door panel edge will give me. I think the factory had a similar setup, with a partially hidden mid. If I cross steep around 3k, that should keep this small cone out of beaming and keep the sound dispersion.

For reference (and I'm just doing this to keep track of it myself), 

Sub from ~5-10Hz to 60-75Hz (depending on door resonance)
Midbass from 60-75 up to 250-500Hz (depending on how ZR800 sounds in upper midbass range
Midrange from 250-500Hz up to 3K-3.5K or so.
Tweeters on up


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## Babs (Jul 6, 2007)

Great Ceasar's Ghost!
Mighty Thor's Hammer!
I'm in!
Subscribed.


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## Kazuhiro (Apr 28, 2015)

Will be interesting; Did I miss pics of tweet location/placement? Would larger tweets with a ~600hz fs be possible?


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Kazuhiro said:


> Will be interesting; Did I miss pics of tweet location/placement? Would larger tweets with a ~600hz fs be possible?


Tweets will be in pillar. I cut a hole just to flat-mount the tweeter first to see how I liked it, but I don't (because the tweeter won't lay flat on the surface), and I'll be doing some sort of shanty with fiberglass soon. YAY. Tweets need to be relatively small, pillars are pretty petite overall.


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## rton20s (Feb 14, 2011)

fourthmeal said:


> Tweets need to be relatively small, pillars are pretty petite overall.


Ah, come on. You don't want to go all Skizer with it?


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## Kazuhiro (Apr 28, 2015)

Hahah....Is this too large for you? They are kinda medium-sized


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Yep I've run them before, in my signature you'll note I've got them in my ST. I did it like this with a little shaved spacer, just to get them in and functional for a while


















They are nice, but unnecessary for this job. They also are so big that they beam early, not a problem on-axis but can be a little dark off-axis. Still a great tweeter for the buck. They get a lot smaller without the mounting flange!



Kazuhiro said:


> Hahah....Is this too large for you? They are kinda medium-sized


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Some update pics, working on the doors.

























































For the midrange enclosures, I cut in some speaker terminals
























The weather took a turn for the worse so I'm going to put this away for a couple days, but its coming along.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

The slow march forward continued over Christmas break, managed to get a couple more hours in here and there and I finished one door completely.

I had some terminal cups, they worked well here.









Some trimming of the baffle was required, I got it a little oversized in places and it ended up interfering with the door panel, especially by the window switch area. 

























Speakers are in, and cleaned up









I lined the inside edge of the grille opening with Ensolite, hoping to create a little bit less audible diffraction (we'll see how it goes in practice.) Not pictured but done was a full barrier treatment to the inside of the door panel, after the deadening. Also that mounting tree at the bottom right in this picture, the plastic platform holding the tree had to be cut a bit (just a sharp box knife got it done) to allow the big midbass with its baffle to clear. And it just barely clears, in fact even with a little bit of that plastic cut out, it is an interference fit.









With a little super-sticky HF double-sided tape (3M wouldn't stick), the JL ZR logo fits perfectly in place of the Bose logo.









One down!









It is impossible to show after the grille was reinstalled, exactly how much of the midrange is exposed, but I would say it looks to be about 60%. So as long as it is crossed before beaming point starts, it should still sound good.


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## optimaprime (Aug 16, 2007)

Looks freaking great .!!!!!


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Oh ****, I haven't updated this in more than a month.

I've been working on the LED lighting for the interior and exterior. I also got all the DSP, speakers, and amps operational just to test, all rigged up. But it all works, sounds pretty doggone good just "raw" (no eq, just basic crossovers.)


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

OK let's update this:

Didn't show it last time, so here's what the speakers look like in the door

















Not audio related, I worked on all the stock interior lighting and swapped as much of it to blue LED as I could
















Installed Halo LED tails (gorgeous)









And I built the amp rack and cover, finally
mock-up

























So obviously when gluing, body-filling, and sanding and stuff, the phone stays tucked away so I don't ruin it, so this next shot is more of an "after" but what you might see here is 6 pieces of wood (top, 45 degree sides x2, bottoms x2, and rear) have now all become one, and the basic shape is coming together.









The clearances are tight, with this targa top needing to mount in the factory location!

















Final sanding and filling, I wanted a nice soft shape that goes with the car's curves, but still all-business

































So after some seriously tough vinyl work (I suck at it to begin with, can't believe I made some of these curves work! 

















So I had to ditch the small 2ch JL amp, which means I'm down to processor (on the driver's side of the amp rack, hidden underneath), the JL XD1000/1 sub amp, and XD600/6 main amp. I tested the JL ZR800CW's with that 600/6 and found that if I cross in the 65hz range, I can bring the volume up without any clipping, to the point where I would say my dad would back it down, and he loves to jam. So with the 600/6 in charge of all 6 channels, I think I'll be good. Space is a premium in a Vette, who knew!?

BTW this vinyl is amazing. It stretches better than any I've ever used, and it even looks like real leather. You might notice "flaws" in the covering, like marks or small irregularities. Turns out that's exactly how it is supposed to look, like leather with natural variations and stuff. Crazy! But at first I thought I laid it down wrong, so I was freaking out about it not being perfect. Turns out the whole roll has little tiny variations and I realized the look is basically exactly like the factory parts on the car, especially the seats. Very pleased with this stuff.


Anyway, it is slow going but mostly I was waiting on the double-din to come back from the carbon fiber dippers, and that's come back so next up is to drill out the rivets in the factory dash area, and come up with some sort of solution for the double-din. Always fun.


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## PorkCereal (Nov 24, 2009)

Looks good


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## Lycancatt (Apr 11, 2010)

I'm honestly shocked that the eights were happy off that power from the 600/6, but glad it worked out for you.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Lycancatt said:


> I'm honestly shocked that the eights were happy off that power from the 600/6, but glad it worked out for you.


You and me both. 

The relatively high efficiency seems to pay off though. I do wish I had the extra power of bridging but I flat out ran out of space. I'm not 100% committed to the design I have so if I connect it all and tune it, and it clips before I'm "done" with how loud it gets, I'll make the change in some way and make it fit.


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## sicride (Oct 26, 2014)

Wow, great job! I wish I had the motivation, commitment, and talent to doing something like this.

Looks like those mids are going good to be challenging with the door panel kinda blocking them. If things don't sound right, relocating those might be something to keep in the back of your mind.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

sicride said:


> Wow, great job! I wish I had the motivation, commitment, and talent to doing something like this.
> 
> Looks like those mids are going good to be challenging with the door panel kinda blocking them. If things don't sound right, relocating those might be something to keep in the back of your mind.


It sounded good during my power-up tests I did a while back. I am keeping the driver well below beaming point, somewhere in the 4k to 5k range is where they'll crossover to the tweeters which will be in the pillars are the corners. Near as I can tell, other than the early reflection/refraction the door panel is causing (it is covered with Ensolite foam on the other side just because I had it), the speaker should still radiate to the cabin omni-directionally and should still have good output.

No question though, I wouldn't want to use larger drivers in these doors. This is the absolute limit, near as I can tell. I'm within fractions of an inch of clearing in some places, and in others I'm almost touching. The "cups" I made for the speakers needed clearancing just to fit in the door cutout, etc. I have ~4.5" CSS mids that are sitting unused because I ran out of room, for example.


If I were to do this again, I'd probably still go for the ZR800 mids and Founteks, but I'd probably make changes to the amps (smaller than the XDs which are already quite tiny), and I'd absolutely turn down doing the double din install. That part is going to kill me.


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## KrautNotRice (Nov 2, 2015)

It's looking great!
I like the stealthiness of the doors and the blue LEDs are a nice touch.
Curious how you like the SA-12?


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## rton20s (Feb 14, 2011)

Those ZR800s are pretty spectacular 8s from everything that I have experienced with them. I've heard them in a few cars and they are always great performers. They model extremely well. They are efficient enough to match the maximum output of other drivers with even less power, but they can handle so much more. Taking the ZR800s to Xmax vs most comparable drivers usually shows a significant increase in output. Along with the need for more power.


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## rockinridgeline (Feb 2, 2009)

sweet ride and well done install!


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

KrautNotRice said:


> It's looking great!
> I like the stealthiness of the doors and the blue LEDs are a nice touch.
> Curious how you like the SA-12?


It hasn't been fired up yet, but if it is like any other Sundown sub, I'll be happy.

And thanks on the LED, they are tricky sometimes but it is easier while the whole car is apart. I actually have two nitpicks: First, I actually pulled the cluster and installed some LED's in the there but I pulled them out and returned to stock because parts that can't be LED-upgraded ended up far too dim relative to the LED parts.
Second, if it were mine, I'd be using ICE BLUE color LED's, but my dad likes this really deep blue look instead. The deep blue LED's are hard on my eyes, and fuzzy. So in this case, it isn't my style.

Oh and not pictured but I have done it, I've installed strips of RGB LEDs (5050 type) strategically in the footwells, and will be using the same run of LEDs in my other lit parts of the car, controlled by an RF controller and possibly by a phone app. And those are pretty sweet! I spent a long time soldering tiny 22 gauge wires to get the result, but so far I'm happy with the lighting. 

I also have to do a full Stealth Light Cannon v3 (Radioflyer Innovations makes them) install, which will be tricky but it should transform the car.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

On the ZR800's, if you run them without a highpass filter at all, they "bottom" readily but as soon as you put a mild filter on the bottom end, they feel invincible. Truly great speaker IMO.


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## optimaprime (Aug 16, 2007)

Those tail lights are the tits!! I am on a two year plan for my vette! 09 to 11 I hope !!


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

This last weekend I managed to get almost a whole day free, so I set out to try and finish the trunk.

First, I wanted to show the clearances involved in keeping the targa top's mounting structure fully operational. This has proven to be the trick of all of this build! You can probably also see why I used the shape of wood that I did.


























So the sub box was next. I took the box out and cut the edges with a 45 degree angle, to more match the angles used in the amp rack. I used some of the really nice matching vinyl on a portion of the box, and the rest is a carbon fiber vinyl. You'll notice there's a little bit of bare wood between the two vinyl coverings, this will be dealt with coming up.









I wrapped the sub in protective tape for the rest of the process, don't want that big foam surround taking a splinter or something. 









So I cut some shapes to match the trunk's cubby corners, and also made a bridge of sorts


































So these are the cubbies "before"

















And this is the "after", to get this shape I built a 1.5" spacer out wood, and then carpeted it. IMO, I think it came out great!

























This is the "bridge I made, which is meant to be covered in matching vinyl once I buy more of the stuff. 









This is a mock-up of the planned shape


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## bradknob (Oct 26, 2009)

Not sure how I've been missing this build... But I love it. Great work dude.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

bradknob said:


> Not sure how I've been missing this build... But I love it. Great work dude.


Thanks man, it is a bit unconventional but I hope it comes out as good as I see it in my head. I'm still drooling over your work as well, especially since I have a similar vehicle to do next.


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## Kellyo77 (Dec 5, 2009)

Really good work so far! Doors turned out great. Very interested to hear what you think when all done. Ready to see what you do with the tweeters. Keep up the good work!


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## bradknob (Oct 26, 2009)

fourthmeal said:


> Thanks man, it is a bit unconventional but I hope it comes out as good as I see it in my head. I'm still drooling over your work as well, especially since I have a similar vehicle to do next.



Gotta do it different sometimes.

I usually have the same issue, my ideas and visions surpass my skills. Lol. Usually if the finished product falls somewhere in between there I'm happy.

You will love working with this platform. Very easy to work with


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## cvjoint (Mar 10, 2006)

Awesome car and skills! I've read through the build. I'll give it some thought and see what I can say.


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## captainobvious (Mar 11, 2006)

Great work thus far. Way to go bud. Your skills keep getting better.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Kellyo77 said:


> Really good work so far! Doors turned out great. Very interested to hear what you think when all done. Ready to see what you do with the tweeters. Keep up the good work!


Ah, yes. Scared to death over that part, to be honest. But I better get crackin, I have a deadline of 2 months from now (including the lighting, seats, suspension, tuning, etc.) YAY


Thanks, all, for the kinds words, it is good motivation


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## cvjoint (Mar 10, 2006)

There are many similarities between what I am building and your install! The amplifiers are in an identical position and location. Both of us tried to fit the largest midbass in the doors. The subwoofer fits under the targa top to keep the top's storage functionality. The tweeters are also both in the a-pillars. 

So as far as those go I think we optimized the opportunities given in the 'vette. :laugh:

I'm curious to hear more about how to run wires through the door wire loom. I have to do that on Saturday and I presume there will be many similarities. Did you have to chop up the grommet at all? It's hard to tell in the photos. 

My take on the whole midbass power issue is to replace the JL with an 8" that can cross higher, such as the Seas Excel Nextel or perhaps an Acoustic Elegance driver if they make them in that size. That way you can run both the channels intended for midbass and midrange on the 8"s. I find that small midranges have a prohibitively low dynamic range and I avoid them at all costs. Beaming of a 8" driver is nowhere near as offensive as midrange distortion and the way that small mid is blocked by the panel. 

Another option is to keep the 3 way but replace the mid with something that's high output and smaller and mount it coaxially with the woofer and point it upwards at the listener. The downside is it cannot play as low. A 2" self enclosed dome for example would work great. 

If you trim the sub box a bit is there a way to add a second row of amplifiers?


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

The mid issue is an interesting one, as I can't hear anything bad about the setup I have it in. I experimented and found if I use a passband up to about 4-6kHz and let a tweeter take the rest, no information appears to be lost. If I run that speaker without a tweeter at full-range (with a crossover on the bottom end of course) I lose top end detail unless I'm staring at the speaker, so clearly beaming is causing issues. Same with the woofer. 

I'm not understanding the thing about a non-dynamic midrange. This little guy can boogie at 4ohms, in its passband. Am I missing something?

Guys, this setup sounds amazing so far in testing (just crossover and level work on the DSP, no EQ and no time alignment yet.) Seriously, am I missing something that I haven't accounted for? 




cvjoint said:


> There are many similarities between what I am building and your install! The amplifiers are in an identical position and location. Both of us tried to fit the largest midbass in the doors. The subwoofer fits under the targa top to keep the top's storage functionality. The tweeters are also both in the a-pillars.
> 
> So as far as those go I think we optimized the opportunities given in the 'vette. :laugh:
> 
> ...


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## cvjoint (Mar 10, 2006)

fourthmeal said:


> The mid issue is an interesting one, as I can't hear anything bad about the setup I have it in. I experimented and found if I use a passband up to about 4-6kHz and let a tweeter take the rest, no information appears to be lost. If I run that speaker without a tweeter at full-range (with a crossover on the bottom end of course) I lose top end detail unless I'm staring at the speaker, so clearly beaming is causing issues. Same with the woofer.
> 
> I'm not understanding the thing about a non-dynamic midrange. This little guy can boogie at 4ohms, in its passband. Am I missing something?
> 
> Guys, this setup sounds amazing so far in testing (just crossover and level work on the DSP, no EQ and no time alignment yet.) Seriously, am I missing something that I haven't accounted for?


It's just that it only has about 100db of output. By the time it gets there the harmonic distortion is massive. I tried various small cones in my old car with them right in the a-pillar inches away and I would easily overwhelm them. Then I tried to EQ them to get a flat frequency response. In the places where it had dips harmonic distortion would sky rocket at medium volumes. You could hear them shriek every time there was content in that band. I ended up forgoing a flat frequency response so that I can play them at moderate volumes. 

As far as the panel goes, deflection could mean that you get wildly different frequency response as your head moves just a tiny bit. The midrange is omnidirectional sure, but that means some of the content makes out undeflected and some gets deflected and interacts with the rest of the output and door card. Even if you tune it out by flattening the FR the time domain response will never be right. 

For most of these you have to start with the reference, say a large midrange pointed right at you with no deflection and then add deflection and reduce the size of the midrange. For example, you could have a home theatre bookshelf 3 way all active. Vary the crossover point between the mid and woofer and then start putting things in front of the speaker. Then you get to see what you are missing. 

Have you tested the FR yet? I'm curious how much cabin gain you have. I bet the 'Vettes are monsters when it comes to that.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

I'll have to listen again, but playing in the passband of around 400/500-through-5000hz or so, it got plenty loud and clean in the garage, on random Soundcloud music with my phone on a phono to RCA to the MiniDSP, and that no doubt was a very low gain compared with a typical head unit. The excursion was low so the distortion should be low as well. 

If this doesn't work, I'll swap those little guys for something else but so far, so good. 

I'll do some FR work after everything is patched back together, as right now the seats are out and the trunk is still in-progress. Then I'll be able to properly assess how it will sound and tweak or replace from there.

Also, despite possibly maybe not carrying the tone of appreciation in my words, I DO appreciate everything that's been said and I will take everything under advisement. 



cvjoint said:


> It's just that it only has about 100db of output. By the time it gets there the harmonic distortion is massive. I tried various small cones in my old car with them right in the a-pillar inches away and I would easily overwhelm them. Then I tried to EQ them to get a flat frequency response. In the places where it had dips harmonic distortion would sky rocket at medium volumes. You could hear them shriek every time there was content in that band. I ended up forgoing a flat frequency response so that I can play them at moderate volumes.
> 
> As far as the panel goes, deflection could mean that you get wildly different frequency response as your head moves just a tiny bit. The midrange is omnidirectional sure, but that means some of the content makes out undeflected and some gets deflected and interacts with the rest of the output and door card. Even if you tune it out by flattening the FR the time domain response will never be right.
> 
> ...


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## cvjoint (Mar 10, 2006)

fourthmeal said:


> I'll have to listen again, but playing in the passband of around 400/500-through-5000hz or so, it got plenty loud and clean in the garage, on random Soundcloud music with my phone on a phono to RCA to the MiniDSP, and that no doubt was a very low gain compared with a typical head unit. The excursion was low so the distortion should be low as well.
> 
> If this doesn't work, I'll swap those little guys for something else but so far, so good.
> 
> ...


No harm no foul! The beauty of this hobby is that you can personalize it to taste. 

Soundcloud does have a lower output level. Not sure why. I was also not able to find a high quality streaming option like Spotify has.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Time for a big update, as the trunk is nearing completion and I think it looks GREAT so far, but let's see how the pics go. 

So I started in the morning by cutting the top boards, first roughing them in. Surprisingly, each side needing to be cut differently for the wheel well parts as they are not symmetrical.


















I cut the subwoofer panel's opening


















Oh how much fun it is to wrap complex shapes in vinyl!

























The side panels are now shaped and sanded

























Here's a shot with the targa reinstalled, and cleaned up









The clearance to the targa's mechanism is pretty close!









Started the next day and got the other panels wrapped, after I picked up some more short staples for my gun

























I'm pretty happy with both my wrapping work, and the quality of the vinyl used here









This is the metal I'm using for the grille, it is some nice, heavy gauge steel normally used to construct parts of a bus stop. This is from the surplus of that project at the metal shop. I LOVE this stuff (but I do hate cutting it!)









And finally, I cut the metal grille, primed, painted, and cleared it and then epoxied it in place. I think it looks really sweet now


























What's left for the sub area is to finish the area under the panels, and add lighting possibly. The amp rack also needs lighting if I can get it in there, and I need to finish the wiring fully and get it all 100% functional. Then I need to start the daunting task of fiberglassing tweeters to the pillars in the corners, and complete the double-din custom mounting work. I have a deadline since my father is picking his car up less than two months from now, so there's a fire under my ass now.


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## carlr (Feb 27, 2011)

That came out absolutely awesome!


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## bradknob (Oct 26, 2009)

Bravo dude! Looks awesome. And to still have the top squeeze in there is the icing on the cake.

That metal is nice too, I need something like that for my build to protect subs and amps. Looks cool


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## KrautNotRice (Nov 2, 2015)

Looks really awesome! Love that metal grille material, too.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Thanks guys. I've used that material before but last time I just did a rabbet cut on the top-side, dropped the steel in, and then covered the whole thing in carpet and made the grille disappear. I figured this time I needed to stay clear of carpet, as it just didn't suit the vette.

So far so good!


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Ok, time for another update, after another semi-productive weekend. I started by working out how I wanted the cubby and subwoofer area to look, all finished. It ended up becoming a bit of a 3D puzzle, and mostly I did this to prevent parts of the sytem from shifting when the car ends up being driven hard. Also, if the car ever needs to be stripped down for repair or for a race track event, or whatevs, then all the parts can be removed in a particular order and all will be well. So here we go:


What you see here is the mockup of the boards that will sit under the vinyl top boards. This hides many things and gives me a chance to do some lighting for the sub.


















The boards have a big rabbet taken out, to facilitate strip lighting. The depth of the rabbet shifted on me in my cut, but it will still work as it is.



























Here's one side carpeted and matched up










Once carpeted, I connected these two together, along with the long connecting panel that sits vertically. The idea here is to make them all as one, but easily removable for the reasons listed above. I also set up the lighting while at it.


























I spliced and soldered the RGB LED wires up to make a sort of harness. Damn these wires are tiny

















And also spliced in a quick disconnect for these types of LED wires









I laid the panel back into position and finally uncovered the blue-taped sub









I tested the lighting, and I'm very pleased to report that it works as desired. It doesn't quite go over the sub, and merely gives a halo effect around the sub's surround. Perfect!

































This shot shows that the lighting works in concert with the previous LED work I did in the cabin









Here's a closeup of how it all locks into position









The factory cubby location, plus my little additions, has a net depth of ~10". This should be useful for storing cleaning products, tools, cleaning towels, and the car's cover.










Here's a shot of how I wrapped it all up. The subwoofer and cubby area is now 100% complete. Each part locks in and doesn't appear to want to move, once placed together.


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## bradknob (Oct 26, 2009)

That's looks great! Beautiful fit and finish.


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## optimaprime (Aug 16, 2007)

That looks fantastic


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## RandyJ75 (Dec 4, 2006)

Very nice work. 

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Thanks, all. We'll see how it all turns out here in a couple weeks. Progress reports as always


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

OK, this update won't include a bunch of pics, mostly because I forgot to take much during the process. 

The amp rack got its grille installed


















And on the non-audio front, I started on the Stealth Light Cannon (v3) RadioFlyer projector setup

















Everything is loose so this is by no means a set beam, but it gives an impression










So after some hemming and hawing, I decided to redo the amp rack underside stuff so I could run all 3 amps. I remade the main bottom board out of thinner 1/4" MDF, which was reinforced with a 3/4" board on one side. I then installed T-nuts which allowed me to install the amps safely, and carpeted the top. The lower board thickness gives me the little extra bit of height that I needed to install that grille, AND so the LED lighting I planned would work (pics on this later.) 

The move to put 3 amps in the rack means that the processor needs to be relocated. This was the part that caused me to hem and haw. In the end, I decided to mount a board using Don's (Sounddeadenershowdown) butyl caulking to mount it in the area behind the driver's seat. The decision to move means I need to rewire some things, but it should be better in the end.

So the deadline is May 15th, as in literally my dad is flying here and picking the car up then. This is the to-do list:

Finish the projector light project by getting shrouds painted, installed, and lights need set up/aimed
Build tweeters into the a-pillars
Complete the double-din installation
Install the processor behind the driver's seat and re-wire
Complete the LED lighting wiring, and install lighting controller/test
Repair the seat foam with the repair kit per seat, and re-cover the seats with the factory leather
Lower the suspension with the factory adjustment bolts front and rear
Full 10/10ths detail inside and out, 3 to 4 stage compound and polish
Tint the windows
Install and program SCT tuner and tune


Later I'm going to work out the "done" side and compare


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## optimaprime (Aug 16, 2007)

Looking sick buddy


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

So the seats are next, here's the pics I took of that project. I was unable to acquire a proper heavy-duty foam seat so I took the next best thing which was a repair kit. 

The seats were of course already out so all I had to do was get the trim parts off, and then clip these hog rings, as well as the rings required to get this flap that I'm holding off









From there, I didn't pull the upholstery off the foam, I just loosened everything up and lifted the bottom cushion, exposing the poorly designed Vette seat frame

















Once the seat foam was pulled up, I investigated the potential damage done by the factory design. This proved very hard to photograph but what I want you to know that despite this car only having ~14k miles, there were deep cuts in the factory foam and it is clear that there's a design fault here. During my ride from KC to LV, I felt all of that. 









First, I glued in this piece of ballistic nylon, really tough stuff. This should stop the cuts from getting deeper









Next, I added foam in strategic areas (this was all part of a kit's directions, so I'm just following a proven solution here), and also added in some more material to go over the sharp edges










I tested the seat and then re-opened it, not quite 100% pleased yet. I decided to add some of Don's (of sounddeadenershowdown.com) super lush 1/4" closed-cell foam to the side bolters, and most importantly in the critical spots that the frame touches the foam in thin areas. These small touches really helped!


















I'll snag some pics after I finish the other seat and get those babies back in the car. They've been out since November so I still have to dust them off and such. 

The shrouds are getting painted in the next couple days, and once those are back I'll complete the projector setup.


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## cvjoint (Mar 10, 2006)

Corvette's seats have come a long way. but still a bit behind most designs. Mine were crumpled up on the surface when I picked up the car from the dealer new, a year ago. The seat is also jammed against the center tunnel. Maybe it's a feature...

Oh someone just pointed me to Rogers silicone foam. Amazon has some in three different densities. Check it out.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

cvjoint said:


> Corvette's seats have come a long way. but still a bit behind most designs. Mine were crumpled up on the surface when I picked up the car from the dealer new, a year ago. The seat is also jammed against the center tunnel. Maybe it's a feature...
> 
> Oh someone just pointed me to Rogers silicone foam. Amazon has some in three different densities. Check it out.



There's some awesome foam stores here in Vegas (for some reason), as well as upholstery shops like the one I use. BUT, for this I just went with something tried-and-true because I'm nearing a deadline wall.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Spent some time last night doing some final wiring, including wiring new RCA's from the processor in its new relocated position. Afterall, I HAD to get that 3rd amp in the rack, just on principal, right? 

So these are screwed in via T-nuts, what you have here is the 1000/1 on the sub, the 600/6 powering the midrange on ch 1/2, and midbass bridged 3/4 for left and 5/6 for right woofers. The 200/2 at the end will power the tweeters.









This is the underside of this amp rack cover, complete with RGB lighting strips glued in









So the DSP had to be relocated to pull this off, and that's here behind the driver's seat. In the end, I didn't want to do this but there some advantages to this location. For one, plugging in the usb lead for computer hook up will be easy. But the main reason was to fit that 200/2 in the system, so I could successfully bridge the midbass to the 600/6 and have sufficient channels. Since my dad is a professional drummer, I felt that not giving him a powerful midbass was selling this system's potential short. In other words, those of you who have been following and giving advice, thanks for pushing me to get that other amp back in there, I'm sure it will make a difference.










Amp rack fits very well, now that all the wiring is in place and letting it fit as it should









With natural light (no flash), the vinyl matches the factory plastic/vinyl panels pretty much perfectly. I also just love the gloss grille, very happy with my paintwork on those (just rattle canned with some good gloss black, and 1k clear.) 










We're getting there. I should have the lighting shrouds back from the body shop on Friday.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Update time, this has been a very productive weekend!


I don't have tons of pics of the process because it is so messy. I stripped the vinyl off the pillars, and started the process of getting a good angle. These are tricky, the pillars angle in severely, the windshield lays low, and there's some blind spot concerns at the A-pillar so I decided to compromise partially on my angle for the tweeters. I settled on this angle here, and used my hole saw bits to make some donuts for mounting the tweeters, affixing with hot glue and toothpicks to secure.


















This is a test fit of the tweeter, one primary concern was getting the tweeter to clear the very large chassis structure that makes up the pillars. Behind the plastic a-pillar parts, its just a big chunk of metal. So to fit the tweeters, I needed to make sure the spacing was just right. But also, clearing the windshield became a priority, while maintaining a good angle. All a balancing act.


















From here, I grabbed my fiberglass resin container, but I realized it had completely gelled over, likely due to being a couple years old in storage. So I pitched that, and weighed my options. I decided to try something I've never tried before, and that was to use a truckload of super glue to serves as a "resin". I've seen it done before, but I have never tried it so I ran off to Harbor Freight and picked up a bunch of regular and gel-type super glues, about 10 of each in the .1 oz size. Then stretched some of my grille cloth over to make a nice shape and doused it with the glue, brushing it over the cloth with some chip brushes
















Now I let it sit a while and realized that the damn glue just wasn't setting up. I researched the issue and found that given the ultra-low humidity here today, super glue needs a little moisture on a molecular scale, it uses hydroxl ions in water to "kick off". (good resource for the basics Tech Tips - Good to Know About Superglue ) So to fix this, I experimented with two different products, first was isopropyl alcohol, brushed on lightly. This sorta worked but it really didn't get it done. So next I tried baking soda (again with a brush) and this nailed it. I laid the glue down, lightly stippled on some baking soda, and the form hardened nicely in seconds. 

Note the discoloration on the left, that's the iso alcohol reaction









After this I didn't take many pics of the process due to the mess as stated before, but I first used my short strand fiberglass filler on top of the form as well as underneath inside, adding rigidity. I then sanded down to the basic shape, and got this


























Nevermind the gap seen here, the pillar isn't fully clipped in so its just slightly off for the test fit










Continued in a bit


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

So I got back to it early in the morning (that would be this Sunday), and used some Bondo Gold light filler on the forms, getting a nice, smooth final shape that I am happy with.

























I then struggled with something I'm getting WAY better at over the years, and that's wrapping complex shapes in vinyl. I'm SUPER stoked over just how good these came out. I would say my skill is better but mostly I'm thinking the high grade vinyl I used is what made this possible. 

























I then mounted these babies up


























This is as viewed from the driver's seat, at my eye level









The fit is just awesome









While not perfect, I'm very pleased with how they turned out









As viewed from the passenger seat

















As viewed from the trunk area, so you can see both tweeters...and the huge remaining mess of work to do. 










Next up will be the rest of the lighting work (shrouds are back from the painter), the double din install, and final test and tune.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

edited a few pics


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## bradknob (Oct 26, 2009)

Those came out great! Tweeters that far up front should sound real nice.


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## Coppertone (Oct 4, 2011)

Great job that is being done here.


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## rton20s (Feb 14, 2011)

Your dad is a lucky man. I may have missed it, are those the Seas 27TFFNC/G?


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Thanks guys!

Getting them to look the same with regard to angles and stuff proved difficult, because they are slightly different shapes as it turns out. So getting a good point of reference to match them up for that was a real struggle.

Yeah I tested the tweeter location just by throwing some towels in the corner and positioning them, raw output (other than crossover at ~5k, 48dB/oct) during the system's first power up test while it was just in pieces. No question, the corners are the best place I could find for this car, and originally I was thinking of firing off the windshield but it just didn't sound quite right (no EQ though.) This position, more or less, appears to be a great cosmetic, aesthetic, and acoustic compromise for this car. We'll see how it turns out once I get the whole system operational and tuned in the next few days.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

rton20s said:


> Your dad is a lucky man. I may have missed it, are those the Seas 27TFFNC/G?


They definitely are! They will be crossed fairly high, and I'll let the mid handle the rest (but will experiment with different setups to try to get the best image.)


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## rton20s (Feb 14, 2011)

fourthmeal said:


> They definitely are! They will be crossed fairly high, and I'll let the mid handle the rest (but will experiment with different setups to try to get the best image.)


Good deal. Where is your dad located? I fear that none of us will ever get to demo this thing.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

rton20s said:


> Good deal. Where is your dad located? I fear that none of us will ever get to demo this thing.


He's in KC, I'm in Las Vegas and I have the car until May 15th. He's flying in and driving it back at that time.

Deadline LOOMS!


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## Anguish (Jan 19, 2010)

fourthmeal said:


> I then struggled with something I'm getting WAY better at over the years, and that's wrapping complex shapes in vinyl. I'm SUPER stoked over just how good these came out. I would say my skill is better but mostly I'm thinking the high grade vinyl I used is what made this possible.


What vinyl are you using on this project? I have a black on black 2003 C5 that I'm doing some work on and would love to have some input on good vinyl.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Anguish said:


> What vinyl are you using on this project? I have a black on black 2003 C5 that I'm doing some work on and would love to have some input on good vinyl.


I do not recall the brand but I'll check the backing and see if any markings are present. I don't recall any though.

There's a local upholstery supply shop here in Vegas, and that's where I buy my stuff. They really are an exceptional place, with reams of materials high to the ceilings, and rooms and rooms of different materials for home, boat, car, etc. This stuff was recommended to me by the owner, after he took one look at a factory vinyl panel I brought in. This product has exceptional stretching properties compared to others he has. I'll try to find out what I've got here.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Happy day, I managed to finish the powers and grounds for each amp, and successfully powered up the whole thing with just my phone as a source via phono-to-RCA. I then set up the processor with a basic starting point, and listened for any issues. Honestly, it sounds damn good just in semi-raw form. Here's my DSP settings for now:

Tweets 4k @ 48dB/oct
Midrange 400 - 4K @ 48dB/oct
Woofer 65 - 400 @ 48dB/oct
Sub - 65 @ 48dB/oct

To deal with time alignment, I just measured distances with a tape measure and then calculated from the closest driver, which in my case happened to be the left midrange. I then dipped some of the output of the closest speakers to get a balanced sound stage, and did some very crude EQ'ing of some irritating sounds that were occurring, such as a little "honking" in the woofer and midrange, which sounded a little like the door's interaction with the speaker. The sub also was very boomy at around 53hz, which is probably cabin gain doing its thing. Once I quelled that with a little manual EQ, I was doggone pleased. It sounds about as good as I'd expect prior to a true tune.

I REALLY like the C-DSP processor so far. It may not be as easy to set up and tune as an MS-8, but the controls are simple, intuitive, and since the changes are real-time, you can close you eyes and tap the keys and just listen to the difference as you go, which really helps dialing it in.

Next up, I need to button everything down in the trunk, get myself a nice squeak-free setup with some strategic use of materials like felting, because vinyl-to-vinyl squeaks are insanely annoying. 


After that, I need to actually learn how to use REW and the C-DSP features together. I own the mic from MiniDSP and I just need to learn how to work it properly, and get a few multiple sweep checks, etc. This will be something I need to learn from the ground up, I'm virgin with this.


Finally, I still need to finish the dash/console which is a ***** to do (because it is all from scratch as far as mounting everything!), and the headlights need finished. Still have ~2 weeks to go, I think I'll make it.


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## rton20s (Feb 14, 2011)

One step at a time. And getting everything in and playing is a big step. You'll get it done.


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## Anguish (Jan 19, 2010)

fourthmeal said:


> I do not recall the brand but I'll check the backing and see if any markings are present. I don't recall any though.
> 
> There's a local upholstery supply shop here in Vegas, and that's where I buy my stuff. They really are an exceptional place, with reams of materials high to the ceilings, and rooms and rooms of different materials for home, boat, car, etc. This stuff was recommended to me by the owner, after he took one look at a factory vinyl panel I brought in. This product has exceptional stretching properties compared to others he has. I'll try to find out what I've got here.


Thanks. We've got a PerfectFit here in the Portland Metro area, which is where I will probably source from. I'll just do as you did and pop off a panel and take it in to them.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Update time

If you are using a C-DSP, be sure to do this if you are using the remote turn on

















That said, I'm dealing with a particularly nasty turn-OFF thump and it is truly pissing me off, but to be fair I am currently in "rig mode" by using the 12v power socket's battery voltage and a wire that I just push in, and out of the socket to get my 12v "switched". Still, there's zero turn-ON thump, so I think it is a fault within the C-DSP on how it doesn't have a turn-off delay, only a turn-on delay. Not sure how many turn-off thumps my speakers can withstand, tbh.


Now then, here's some pics of the amp rack, _almost_ done, I just need to tidy up the relay and associated wiring, as well as the LED controller and its wiring. Since I'm not 100% happy with how the relay is working right now (got the pop I talked about), I'm not going to commit to finishing it up until I solve that.

















Flash on










There's some light bleed in the subwoofer area that I need to address, but otherwise this looks pretty cool to me
















Lil blurry

















The footwells also light up to match


















Now most of my time last night was spent setting up these badass projector lights. This isn't fully done, and you can mostly tell because there's no plastic cover on top of these, but I had to see how it looks so I just placed the shrouds into position and closed the hood. Note the sharp break in the paint, that's just from it being dirty but with a bra on during the road trip to get it here. Before I hand it back to my dad, it will be getting a full 2-day 10/10ths paint correction, polish, and seal coat.

















Shockingly, this is just the halo LED's, the main lights aren't even on here


























Tonight I'll be fine-tuning the lights, and hopefully completing them for the most part. I need to also install fresh fog light bulbs and run around the car to make sure all the incandescent bulbs have been swapped for LED (like the backup lights, markers, etc), so I've got a little work to do.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Last night was a great success. I decided to tackle the part I was dreading the most, the head unit mounting. You see, there's no simple way to install a double-din head unit in a C5, especially when you opt to have a no ashtray mod done to the console. Doing that changes the alignment of everything, so nothing fits properly on the factory mounts. The "kit" I bought to mount this was just two pieces of fairly robust angle iron with slots in it. Here's the install PDF so you can see http://nebula.wsimg.com/7837e9c34c4...F56318F96ED92BB09&disposition=0&alloworigin=1 Note in those pics that he removed the whole cage, and in practice this isn't possible unless you either remove the whole dash or break some mounting tabs of the dash to clear the cage out of the car, so in my case I left mine in the car and worked on it inside. It looks like this (when hydro-dipped), note that to get to this point, you also have to drill out some really strongly-mounted horizontal brackets, so expect to go through some hell to get to this point:

















Mounts and secures with these









Sorry for the fuzzy pic, but this is how it looks on the passenger side, where it sits in a notch of the dash panel, and rides that down to the parking brake

















Here I was test-fitting a plaque that was in the car, which hides the boring blank space where the ash tray delete is at the bottom. This isn't mounted yet so it just is sitting there for a test.

















So, what I decided to do was mount the console, use tape on the inside to draw out the anticipated opening, and measure mounting thicknesses and so on from those tape marks relative to the console opening. Once I had a reasonably good measurement, I test-fit the head unit many times and tried to get an approximate fit

This was the first try, way off. I used a factory mounting bolt here, so I didn't expect a perfect fit but I wanted a reference point









Here, it was off about 1/8" or so, which I got there by using the factory bolt hole and simply enlarged the mounting hole in my bracket to allow some "wiggle".









Close! I also had to watch out for bracket mounting depth. That was tricky to juggle.


This got it, a couple test-fits later


















With that done, I feel like a large weight has been lifted off my chest.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Weekend update:

It started off on a bad foot. I plugged in my engine tuner and got this:








and this









This unit was a "refurb" from Torrie my tuner of choice. To his credit he responded late in the evening as soon as I discovered this, and set a new one aside to ship out (for a bit more since it is new.) Scared the bejeezus out of me though, because when these errors came up the car threw all sorts of dash messages, lights, and it wouldn't start for a while. So that will be a few days before I can try the new one out.

Back to the audio side, if you are installing in a C5, you want to check to see if you have this cable, the one with orange, yellow, and black.









Its here located on the passenger footwell, found just by pulling a quick access panel, you can see it at the top left here









That connector just disconnects so you can solder to it outside of the car, and it has B+, ignition switched 12V, and ground all in one. Out of all the tough things this car can throw at you, this isn't one of those things.









So I wired that to the head unit's harness, and I added a relay that turns on the 3 amps, processor, and lighting. Then I wrapped these wires in the closest thing I could find to the factory wiring looms, some friction tape I had in the storage cabinet. 









In order to mount the HVAC unit, I had to find a way to attach it to the console. It doesn't work mount it in its stock location, thanks to how everything moves around with the double-din console mod, especially without an ashtray. Even the angles change. So, I used hot-glue to "tack" the HVAC unit, and I used some powerful epoxy to affix it permanently to the console from behind. This was tricky work, and many cuss words were uttered, but in the end it looks good and it works. This HVAC unit is also serviceable (if a light or board fails) from behind so all is not lost if it needs fixed down the line in life. 

Here's the head unit and the HVAC unit all mounted and finally ready to go. And you can see the LED's in the footwell doing their thing too

















The APPRADIO4 is annoying but it sure does look good










The rest of my weekend was spent figuring out the projector light setup. What a tedious job! Every little bit of adjustment of either the projector frame, the projectors themselves, the shrouds, or the clear covers required micro-adjustments of the other items to get things to fit right in the end. For instance, if I needed to aim the low beam some, I might have to adjust the jam-nut/screw setup but that also changes the depth of the projector, which caused the projector shroud to poke or hide the projector. So many rounds of fitting and tweaking, an entire afternoon went by in a flash. BUT now, the projection output is solid and straight, the shrouds fit, and as soon as I get my fog light setup done, I can say I'm finished with the lights for good. 

Example of a bad fit, notice the halo is partially covered as viewed from above









Example of an improvement


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## bradknob (Oct 26, 2009)

Ha, made that center bezel ur *****! Looks like the most PITA head unit install I've seen. Came together quite nicely tho.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

bradknob said:


> Ha, made that center bezel ur *****! Looks like the most PITA head unit install I've seen. Came together quite nicely tho.


LMAO, yep!

I'm not sure what has been more difficult, the head unit / center bezel or the projector headlight system. Both have delivered choice cuss words routinely.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Minor update, since the audio is almost done (just need tune and final wipe down/tidying up), I've just been working on all the other stuff that's in the laundry list, plus things that I just decided need done. I ordered up a replacement shifter-adapter thing to put on a ball knob, ordered up some bright-ass LED's to replace a few straggling lights in the car interior/exterior that I feel could use some extra pep (like marker lights), and I got my new SCT X4 tuner in to program. The new tuner also failed to unlock the PCM but it failed in a different way with a different error than the X2 did, and SCT help desk provided some tips that I need to try today and tomorrow to get the tune done. 

Not good tho:










And on a whim, I decided the chalky stock turn signal/DRL lenses needed something done to them, something to bring them to the modern era. I decided to _very_ lightly smoke them with lens tint, which was then wet-coated with some really nice automotive clear (1k, but good and tough stuff), which after a day to cure then was wet-sanded with 1000 and then 2000, and polished with Chem Guys polishes to a better-than-new shine.









This previous pic shows the "before"










What's really cool though is that the light is still very strong, and easy to see. This is with the camera focused on the light, so it has adjusted









This is with the camera focused on the black paint, so it has exposed a bit more










Anyway, that was a first for me, to try and smoke a lens. I can say I'd do it again in a heartbeat as it made such a visual change and still functions.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

All right all you audio geniuses, I need a little guidance on how to best use REW with the C-DSP to get this baby tuned. I did it by ear and got it listenable, but I know this system can do better. I have a laptop, a Mini DSP mic, and I'm not afraid to use them.

Aside from tune, one frustration for me is I can't get the remote to work any more, so I'm stuck at -16dB on the master volume. That really should be adjustable without the remote.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Micro-update:

Tint guy did a sweet-ass job. If you've ever tinted, you know that doing a Vette back window is really difficult










Also I have prep-mounted the projectors, and will be finish-mounting them this weekend. What a process!


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Does anybody know why a MiniDSP C-DSP 6x8 would be mildly warm (on the left power input side, where the power supply is internally, I believe) even with the car off and closed up? That means I'm going to have a serious battery draw if it is always on, that heat is coming from electricity of course.

Other than that issue, setting up the processor with REW has been an interesting, complex, but very enlightening process so far. I've been in the car for all the sweeps, and I'm taking multiple measurements per all the drivers, and doing combined sweeps to look for phase issues and such. I'll get some of those screen caps up later but I'm still hammering out what I hope will be a decent response plot.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Still battling the always on minidsp, working through that with minidsp support themselves. Did about 50% of the paint restoration work over the weekend, and when taking breaks from the back-breaking labor that this is, I did REW sweeps and tweaks to the processor. I just cycled back and forth as I couldn't take too much of each one at a given time.


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## KrautNotRice (Nov 2, 2015)

Great progress, I love the new headights / eliminating the C5's popups, the smoked lenses and tint. Your dad left his Vette with you and gets back a Batmobile


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

KrautNotRice said:


> Great progress, I love the new headights / eliminating the C5's popups, the smoked lenses and tint. Your dad left his Vette with you and gets back a Batmobile



LOL, I like that idea!

I'll have to screen-cap the new splash and background screens I made for the head unit. BTW, people hate on this head unit but I've not really had any problems yet. It is slow to pick up on my big USB drive at first bootup, but other than a super-glossy screen which can make it a little hard to see sometimes, it really is an amazing piece (so far.)

The shift knob and adapter should be in today, I'll be working on that and doing some more polishing tonight. I hope minidsp guys get back to me on what to do to fix the darn thing.

Also, would anybody benefit from the screencaps from the tuning process with REW?


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## Anguish (Jan 19, 2010)

fourthmeal said:


> LOL, I like that idea!
> 
> I'll have to screen-cap the new splash and background screens I made for the head unit. BTW, people hate on this head unit but I've not really had any problems yet. It is slow to pick up on my big USB drive at first bootup, but other than a super-glossy screen which can make it a little hard to see sometimes, it really is an amazing piece (so far.)
> 
> ...


Those of us with very similar C5 setups would definitely benefit from the response graphs, combined with what you did to tune it in.


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## captainobvious (Mar 11, 2006)

Pop up the screenshots of your measurements if possible. I assume you are still in the tuning process and need to tweak?

If possible, show me a full left side-only response and full right side-only response. If you have the patience, an individual driver screenshot would be great too. Also let me know your crossover points and slopes.

From that, I can give some good feedback for tuning her up.


-Steve


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

captainobvious said:


> Pop up the screenshots of your measurements if possible. I assume you are still in the tuning process and need to tweak?
> 
> If possible, show me a full left side-only response and full right side-only response. If you have the patience, an individual driver screenshot would be great too. Also let me know your crossover points and slopes.
> 
> ...


Don't worry, if anything going through 100's of sweeps has taught me, I have patience for this! LOL.

Yes I'm still in the tweak and tune phase. I really wish I could get Jazzi's awesome spreadsheet to export the text files for the proper house curve as it won't work in Open Office. Right now I'm just fudging things with REW's EQ feature, just over-extending the range I want it to tweak for me (like 350-4000 when I am crossing at 400-3500), and this seems OK. But what I'm failing on right now is speaker to speaker levels, and I'm going to be working on new sweeps and a new tune with new crossover points, to try to get the SEAS tweeter to play higher. The damn thing is really brittle sounding at times (even on well-recorded music like A Perfect Circle), so I wonder if they need to be broke in before I measure again. Maybe I'll just let it play white noise all night or something.


So while I gather my plots and screenshots tonight or close to, I'll give you where I've got for crossover points so far (these are all 24dB/oct Linkwitz-Riley):

1-70 - Sundown SA12 sub
70-400 - JL ZR800-CW's
400-3500 - Fountek FR89EX's
3500 SEAS Textile tweets


I feel like the sub and midbass are in pretty good shape, but I want to re-sweep the midbass to see where they really want to cross over. Because I went forward and added the extra JL Amp to the system, that means the midbass now have more than sufficient power to get moving, and that means that I need to watch for excessive resonance on things I can't stop like mirrors and glass frames, etc. So I feel like 70hz gets it done, especially with the target curve up a few dB's in the midbass. 

The midrange, I'm not sure what I want to do but I want to experiment. I want to balance their lower position with their excellent midrange. They need to cross early on the top end to avoid beaming, and late on the low end to get the SPL I need (and besides, the ZR800's can play up a bit.) They are extremely clear even down in the door, and they can hustle when I need them to.

Tweeters...ah man, so sharp I feel like I'm handling glass. The left tweeter just stands out all the time, even when I kill the gain by 3dB or more compared with the tested/tuned config. 


My target curve started out as Jazzi's, but then I swapped to something more like JBL/Andy's after the tweeters nearly ripped my head off. And then I started straying with manual tweaks and balancing, but I decided to stop when I realized that I just need to keep working on it.


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## PorkCereal (Nov 24, 2009)

Might want to touch base with pops and see how he likes his music. My dad always like his systems to sound like older records where when i tuned it i liked more Crystal clear sound. That's assuming you haven't. 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk


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## captainobvious (Mar 11, 2006)

PM me your email address. I'll help you out with some info/files.


-Steve


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

PorkCereal said:


> Might want to touch base with pops and see how he likes his music. My dad always like his systems to sound like older records where when i tuned it i liked more Crystal clear sound. That's assuming you haven't.
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk


Absolutely, finding out how a person likes their music is one of my favorite parts of planning a build! But I have an advantage here, because I already know. He's a pro drummer (aside from a regular job with Sprint as a project manager) and I used to "roadie" for him / with him when I was younger; I also designed and built his home audio setup, his hot tub / deck sound system, and I have tweaked endlessly on his EQ's so I know he enjoys a lot of punch and a lot of clarity. He really likes it when the midbass is up front and engaging, and the percussion sounds accurate, real to the instrument. 

Anecdotal data, he's even been known to pick a new car out based on the acoustics the dash provides when he drums on it. I've been on test drives with him, where he liked the car enough to drive it. We hop in, drive it a bit (with the sales guy in the back), and then at some point he'll perform a little mini-solo on the dash, steering wheel, center console pad. I remember one car he did that in front of the sales guy, said "this sucks!", and we literally moved on based on that parameter. It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen, with the sales guy just in awe of the decision-making reasoning of that, but that's how he is. 

He was an early adopter of digital audio tech. He didn't enjoy much of the vinyl era and preferred going to CD very early on. We've converted all his vinyl over to MP3 many years ago.

This is him, he's in the back, the drummer (and they got the name of the band wrong, it is KC _Groove_ Therapy. I had a fun time finding this video as the name was wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QSROICYMy8

Anyway,

My thoughts were to build in a nice, clean and punchy tune like the JBL/Andy curve, which accounts for a person sitting in the seat during the tuning process like I am doing. Then I thought about using the coarse but effective EQ built into the Appradio4 and its two custom settings to make a targa-off and targa-on setting. That targa, being completely made of polycarb, is probably screwing with the response big time.


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## PorkCereal (Nov 24, 2009)

Good stuff, figured you had it covered 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

PorkCereal said:


> Good stuff, figured you had it covered
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk


Well sorta, but I love the input from different folks, it helps me see things in new ways and it has really helped this build become something special.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Here's some screen caps of the REW work I've done this evening. First, let's cover distortion plots. These were taken with the mic directly in front of me, since they are distortion plots you can't do averages so this will do. All of these were taken at about 6-10dB higher than I would consider normal, for the purpose of finding distortion issues when "pushing it", and keep in mind distortion in this case also means resonances and stuff besides the actual speaker, but to me it makes sense to know of any distortion you could consider audible, so I think this is useful.

Mids, which are crossed only at 100hz to protect them
Left mid distortion









Right mid distortion









Left woofer distortion









Right woofer distortion 









REW couldn't detect distortion in the tweeters, so skip that



Sub distortion










And this is one of those mids with a crossover engaged, 350 hz. This distortion (or lack of) plot is encouraging!










Next up, some speaker and system measurements


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

OK, so here's some individual speaker average responses. These are all fairly high SPL

Sub (no crossover)









Left woofer average (no crossover)









Right woofer average (no crossover)









Left midrange 350 crossover









Right midrange 350 crossover









Tweeters with minimal (1000hz) crossover









I put some crossovers in the system, tweaked a 65 / 400 / 4500 crossover setup, and got a nice untuned starting point









Here it is with psy average









So from here, I'm going to start working on which curve I want to start with (lots of great ones with Steve's help), and then start the EQ process. But that's for another night, this took a while to do.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

I got some videos updoaded, be sure to watch in HD, its the best I can get for now until I use a better mic to record (maybe get the Umik to do it for me?)

Clipped the **** out of the mic, sorry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNM6mG8ytVk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVAxqEijdcU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNpWVWCLJVQ

and a quick one of the lights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzdYuqRndVo


Here's some pics of the latest work. I'm all over the place on this one










Smoked the side marker lenses








They are still quite bright with good LED's installed










Shift knob adapter


















I've been working hard on the paint. Lots and lots of passes thus far. Chem guys 32, 34, 36, Meg's ultimate compound, ult polish, mirror glaze polish, Chem guys Blacklight, etc.










































For now the tune is pretty great, but I'll let my dad hear it before calling it "done", and tweak from there. Also still need to complete the rest of the detailing, get some trim back on, and finish the headlight project with a final mount of them (which calls for drilling holes in that plastic...and I'm not looking forward to that.)


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## bradknob (Oct 26, 2009)

Idunno man, kinda sounds like ****. You should start over...





lol, jk..... I know how it is. Can never come close to capturing the actual sound in a video. Seems like you're getting real close. Nice work


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

bradknob said:


> Idunno man, kinda sounds like ****. You should start over...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



LOL!

Yeah, video isn't going to cut it.

Starting to really enjoy the power of REW and the C-DSP 6x8 too. Wish it could handle some center steering algorithm. If it did, I'd put two of these side by side and rock a very killer multi-amp setup in my Durango.


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## bradknob (Oct 26, 2009)

That interface is pretty badass looking. 

Nice work on the paint too. That's my next venture when I get a few free days. My jeep had 27k miles when I got it and the previous owner must have lived in a drive through car wash. She mighty swirly


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## Anguish (Jan 19, 2010)

Love this entire thread man. Great work!


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Final update, I've been a busy boy!

First, here's pics of the paint "after". It is vital to know these are all untouched Galaxy S6 pics, no HDR or any tricks.









































































































As you can see in the pics, the headlights with their covers aren't fully mounted. I'll have some "done" pics up in a bit.


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## bradknob (Oct 26, 2009)

Mother of god....


That still the factory paint on there?


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

pics continued, here's a shot with the lights final-mounted









Dad's hopping in, heading back to KC
















































Here's the finished pics of the system itself


































My dad absolutely was floored with everything. I had him do final system tuning along my side, so we could get the sound just like wants. I toss up my REW screenshots here in a bit.


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## beak81champ (Oct 2, 2015)

WOW.....just wow!!!


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Here's the distortion plot info first. 

I mostly used these to learn my optimal crossover points. The most important one was the midrange, so I ran this one first with no crossover at all.









So there was appreciable distortion (by mic, I couldn't really hear it in person while messing around with music between sweeps), remember these midrange are in nice little sealed pods so bottoming them out even without a crossover is difficult. So this had me try a few different crossover points, but I eventually settled on 375 Hz @ 24dB/oct. I also toyed with 12dB/oct and while it was "smoother" that way it also had more of a time-smear or lack of imaging effect in the driver's seat. So, 24dB/oct became the setting I went with and this works really well within the system a whole









With the midrange crossover chosen, I then went to the woofer and set the crossover at 70 to 375, which gives me this










The tweeters had no measurable distortion so I'll skip those.

The subwoofer of course has distortion, and going by what my ears are hearing, some of it is of course the car's resonances itself, but also some is probably the paper cone. Being largely 2nd order distortion, it doesn't sound bad in there, that's for sure. This is heavily zoomed in










The system overall is pretty doggone great on the distortion side of things. I expected far worse given the nature of the materials of this car, how many compromises I had to make. It really came out great.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

BTW, while I am processing all of these images, everyone gets why the trunk's shape came out the way it did, right? That targa top has to fit in there, so I couldn't just make a flat, simple false floor arrangement. Each shape had to accommodate the targa with its original mounting points. Now that I am done with it, if I had to do it again I'd do it just a bit differently, buy I can confidently say I'm happy with the crazy shape.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

The curve I chose to follow to get started was the Hanatsu curve. My father really likes the smooth progression in the curve and how that related to the ear, but I will admit we tweaked by ear afterward and didn't measure, so the final results probably deviate from the curve a bit. If I recall, we pulled a dB out from the midbass as a whole, and added 2dB to the tweeters.

What I decided to do was whittle the system down EQ by EQ, meaning I started at the sub, then sub and woofer, then sub, woofer, and mid, and finally all of them. I adjusted to the curve at each step, and given how the PEQ/Biquad system works on the MiniDSP, this worked out (but it took a while, and a LOT of sweeps.)

Anyway, here's before-after EQ of the subwoofer 









Here's before-after of the sub and L woofer, that peak was VERY audible and I think it was mostly door resonance.









Here's a before-after of the sub, woofer, and mid EQ's.










Here is the left whole system vs my target curve before EQ but after some basic leveling









Left system after EQ against the curve









This is the sub and left/right woofer and mid EQ'd together, so this is useful up to around 400 Hz or so.









This isn't a perfect screenshot so I apologize, but this is the EQ of both sides, minus a little extra DSP input filter work I did in the last steps










I was running out of time so I didn't do my best taking pics of the rest of this, but I want to explain my solution. After I used up all the PEQ / Biquad abilities of each channel on the outputs, I realized I still have some input EQ control so I took the EQ measurements from above and let REW create me one last set of Biquads, and I inserted those in the input side. This got rid of most of the dip in the 1k region and got the tweeters more matched. AFter these last changes, I sampled the system for about an hour using all manner of music, with my Dad in the passenger seat for 1/2 of it, and then I swapped with him for the last of it to tweak to his personal satisfaction. He was already extremely happy but he felt the bottom end was a bit strong so I pulled that down, and upped the top end by a couple dB, and got him in acoustic heaven.


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## Lycancatt (Apr 11, 2010)

glad it all worked out and everyones happy, great gear choices in a difficult car.


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## rton20s (Feb 14, 2011)

This is great! And most importantly, it looks like you made dad very happy. Very cool.


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## juiceweazel (Jul 28, 2014)

Truly an awesome build. I love that you took the time to rebuild the seat. I'm sure it's much more comfortable. I also love the understated look. That paint looks like a mirror now. I'm sure dad was happy. Early fathers day gift lol.
So what are your final impressions? How does it sound compared to other cars you've done? And I've got to ask, how did that "Low-E" foil-bubble foam-foil product work? Was it as good as other products?


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

bradknob said:


> Mother of god....
> 
> 
> That still the factory paint on there?



YES!

Completely original paint. A good masterpiece starts with a good canvas. I can thank my dad keeping it in good condition overall over the years. The rest I credit to my equipment, my compounds/polishes, and what I've managed to learn about paint restoration/polishing over the years I've taken this up as an active hobby.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Lycancatt said:


> glad it all worked out and everyones happy, great gear choices in a difficult car.


Thanks! And I'm sorry you didn't get to hear it when you were out here. I was about 2 months behind schedule so nothing was ready yet. But I hope to meet you at some point and pick your brain some for acoustic insight.





rton20s said:


> This is great! And most importantly, it looks like you made dad very happy. Very cool.


Thanks, he was in a state of happiness that really was contagious. As the builder all I see sometimes are the things I wish I could have done better, but all he sees is "perfection". But I am absolutely happy with the outcome and I really am appreciative of the opportunity to build something like this from beginning to end. 





juiceweazel said:


> Truly an awesome build. I love that you took the time to rebuild the seat. I'm sure it's much more comfortable. I also love the understated look. That paint looks like a mirror now. I'm sure dad was happy. Early fathers day gift lol.
> So what are your final impressions? How does it sound compared to other cars you've done? And I've got to ask, how did that "Low-E" foil-bubble foam-foil product work? Was it as good as other products?


Thank you! The seat thing could have gone better, for instance I wish I would have replaced the foam with high-density modern foam (like a Euro seat these days), but the damn vendor never got back to me and there's only one. That said, I'm happy with how they feel compared with the relatively torturous ride they gave me on my trip from KC to my home initially. Amazing the fails GM made on that seat, bare metal against foam will not end in happiness long-term. The Low-E product worked out great overall. It isn't as blocking as MLV but it really did a good job on the insulation values for temperatures (during my extended "after" test drives), and in places where I needed a bit of decoupling. There are no major resonances inside or out even when pushing the system to its limits, and that's the goal. If I were doing the job again, I'd order it again but I'd also try to source some thick waterproof types of non-squeaky closed-cell foams. MLV would also be a great choice on a non-Vette project (serious weight concerns for doors like this.)


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## PorkCereal (Nov 24, 2009)

How did you end up liking the mini c-dsp in the end?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

PorkCereal said:


> How did you end up liking the mini c-dsp in the end?
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk


While not perfect, it is an extremely powerful device when paired with REW. I also had good results with their customer service but you must be mindful of the time zone differences. I had some serious tribulations which I expressed in a few posts here and there, but I'll explain them here just so people know things that can go wrong.

First, my remote control was dead. It turned out to be a bad cable (which is just phone line), but that was important to have because you can't truly control master volume without it. I didn't install the remote in the end but I did need it to get to a higher master volume, so the whole system could reach its potential output without bottoming out the head unit or the digital gains on the DSP's in and outs. Balancing hiss against these ins and outs also proved tricky, especially prior to gaining control of the master volume.

Second, you must know to swap the jumper in the unit, to enable remote-on. Otherwise the unit will stay on full-time as long as 12V power is given to it. A few CS emails went back and forth over the unit staying powered up, because I made an incorrect assumption that this jumper was for remote OUT, not remote IN. My fault but the manual is a bit vague so I assumed too much.

Third, I had a problem with the firmware. I upgraded to the newest firmware and my device had even worse volume problems than before, even when I finally gained control of the master volume. I was a good 15 dB down. So I frantically searched for previous firmware, found nothing online, and had to contact their CS to get the previous gen data. Once I got that back in, my problems with volume evaporated and I was able to complete tuning.


All of that pales in comparison to the quality of the product, and its performance. The only thing I'd trade it for would be something like it that can do proper center channel. In builds where center is a key factor, it can't hang. edit: Oh and more channels. Just because more channels means more opportunity.


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## PorkCereal (Nov 24, 2009)

Nice, i know you said it showed promise. Guess at its price point its going to have some flaws

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk


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## a_ahmed (Jul 25, 2017)

This is the most inspiration corvette interior project i've seen.

I was searching the forum for corvette projects and well it's pretty much the only one that came up.

I'm a newb...not sure I know how to do 5/6th the things you did lol... but I would love to accomplish something like this..

The reason I first came on this forum was in hopes of uncovering how to quiet down the vette... I have B&B Bullets and Michelin pilot super sports... car is loud stock... louder now...

I was thinking of using b-quiet products to quiet it down but I am sure people on this forum would know what's better... I too don't want to add massive weight.. after all I got a vette for performance and speed not for a parking lot show queen... but I do love nice clear thumping base sound too 

All the road noise, tire noise, squeeks, rattles... it's disgusting, can't hold a conversation.

All the prebuilt precut solutions are overpriced and junk in my opinion... I want to do it myself.... and hope to learn what to use...

The first stage in my project would be to quiet the car down... then decide how to build a proper audio setup with a touch screen (using a double d mods console too)


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

a_ahmed said:


> This is the most inspiration corvette interior project i've seen.
> 
> I was searching the forum for corvette projects and well it's pretty much the only one that came up.
> 
> ...


I pm'd you back on most of your questions, but maybe it might be good to start a build log or a question-answer thread to help, since I'm just one voice of many, and many are much more experienced than I am. But link me to your thread so I can try my part.


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## Swaglife81 (Oct 15, 2016)

I can help you on that and give a little input. Those B&Bs are just loud as hell, not to pleasing in my eyes and drone. For quality, great sound, and one of the few mufflers made that are pretty much a No drone at all muffler. They get loud though but will sound great and a reason Corsa has been big on Vette, LS, LT platforms. More exotic sounding instead of b&b. 

In my opinion in 2017 BBK varitune is the type of muffler everyone should look at if they aren't sure the sound they want, to loud vs to quiet. The varitune is an adjustable muffler, from a nice quiet rumble to a full out loud ass pipe. It's a damn great sounding muffler and only costs $100-$150 a piece.

To quiet that car down, apply the usual sound deadening, CLD, foam and it'll do a world of difference, keep it light and don't add mlv unless you have the power and don't mind.


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## Swaglife81 (Oct 15, 2016)

OP, like the build. I was more intrigued by all the graphs. Love the projectors. Which one's did you retrofit in


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## corvettec5dave (Sep 23, 2013)

I am currently working on refreshing the 2002 C5 with some new changes for 2019. Your post was very helpful on the tuning side of things.
Thanks
DS


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