# Simple audio upgrade in my 2004 350Z



## Mike1082 (Apr 8, 2011)

So I have had my Z for about 2 years, and it was time for the crappy Bose system to go. This is going to be a relatively basic upgrade, and won't rival most of the setups on this site. But hey... its DIY!

My goals are to build a decent sounding system on a budget, using some equipment I already have. I am fairly OCD when it comes to some things, so I want to keep it clean and stealthy. I also would like to be able to revert everything back to stock.

I would like to thank Bing from Simplicity In Sound for the inspiration. I can only dream of having his install skills.

Headunit: Somewhat undecided at the moment. Likely the Pioneer AVH-P8400BH.
Front Stage: Boston Pro60SE (purchased on ebay at a great price, got very lucky)
Front Stage Amp: SoundStream Rubicon 204 (already had this, came from a friends car years ago). Will be run at 2x100 RMS (bridged).
Rear Stage: None! not needed in this car.
Subs: 2 Infinity Kappa Perfect 10" DVC wired to a final 2 ohms
Sub Amp: Xtant A6001 1x600 @ 2 ohms (I have owned this amp for many years, and it has been in 3 of my previous vehicles)
Wiring: KnuKonceptz power, ground, remote, speaker, and RCA cables. Lots of heat shrink tubing and techflex.

On to the good stuff... pics.

Power cable at the battery end:









First time using tech flex... I got better at it as I went.









Heat shrunk... this will be a common theme in this build:









Other end of the cable, at the fuse block:









Attached...









Techflexed... all wiring will be done this way:









Ready to be installed:









Punched a hole in the huge grommet right near the battery and passed the cable through:









Next, I moved on to the doors. I wanted to pass new speaker wire through. This turned out to be much easier than I had anticipated. Before I started:









Plug out:









I pulled it through the speaker opening. I found that this gave me much more slack to work with.









After I used my dremel to open a path for the cable in an unused part of the plug:









Time to move on to the car side of the plug. This was as far as it could be pulled down from the dash.









This was done very very carefully:









12 ga speaker cable fits through nicely. It should be noted at this point that there is not enough room to twist the wire around in the opening. This means that when putting the plugs back together, careful planning was needed to make sure the wire was aligned, or the plugs would not fit.









Car side put back in place:









Ready to go back together:









This part was the most difficult by far. There is so little space to work, and I do not have small hands.









Not quite done yet...









Punched the wire through the grommet in the door and zip-tied in place for now. You might notice there isn't any techflex. That will come later. I did not want to make the already thick 12 ga wire impossible to feed through the plugs and the rubber boot. Ill just have to settle for a gap of "bare" wire through the door jam.









More pics coming shortly...


----------



## Mike1082 (Apr 8, 2011)

Moving right along...

While I had the door apart, I decided to take some pictures and measurements, as I did not have the speakers yet at that point.

Here you can see the window glass when lowered completely.









The glass sticks out about 2 1/4" from the edge of the opening:









And only about 1 1/4" deep from the surface of the door:









With the panel in place:









Much more room toward the front of the car between the door card and the door:









Bout 1 1/2" of room at the shortest place toward the back of the car:









Moving on again, running power and speaker cable down the passenger side:









Ziptied to the stock harness every few inches:









For now, the wiring bundled under the glove box behind the passenger seat. The amps will be mounted behind the drivers seat.









My speakers arrived! The Boston Acoustics Pro60SE. The neo magnets mean great power handling with much better clearance than conventional speaker designs.









Cut up some spacer rings with the plunge router and a Jasper 200 circle jig. Used 1/2" MDF, which will be stacked to make a 1" spacer.









The lower half of the spacer has a flange to use the stock speaker mounts. These will be cleaned up later.









I will be recessing the t-nuts into the back of the spacers using a forstner bit.









Used a dab of Gorilla Glue, then stacked an upside-down t-nut and a very large C clamp to squeeze the nut in place.









Long story short, once all the nuts were in place, the speaker holes did not align properly. Trial and error. I ended up having to scrap one of the rings and start over. Once I had routed a new ring, I found that the best answer was to glue the rings together first, then mark the BACK of the ring with speaker mounting holes. I then used the forstner bit FIRST for the recess, and followed that up with the 1/4" drill bit for the bolt. This yielded much more accurate results, and the t-nuts lined up perfectly. I mounted the speakers in the rings temporarily to allow the glue to set. Tomorrow (or whenever I have time to work on it again) I will be coating them with bedliner to protect them from moisture.









Here is the stock Bose "sub". This thing sucks. I didnt get any other pics of it, but there is a lot of room behind this for the amp rack to be completely hidden. I took out the sub and its plate, took some measurements, and got started on the amp rack.









The amp rack will be 2-tiered. After some planning, I decided the Xtant will be on top. The amps, and distribution/barrier strips will be mounted using t-nuts and machine screws, just like the speakers.









The bottom tier will house the SoundStream amp, along with the power and ground distribution, as well as 2 barrier strips. I laid out everything where I wanted it, then reversed it so I could press in the t-nuts. I recessed the t-nuts again with my trusty forstner bit. This is totally not necessary.









Glued and pressed into place:









I mounted the distro blocks and the barrier strips in the front, so they were easily accessible. The other 4 bolts you see here will hold the SoundStream in place. This is all temporary, to let the glue set.









Thats all for now, I will have more pics to put up tonight after work. Thanks for looking.


----------



## edwelly (Mar 29, 2006)

Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to seeing more pics. Maybe even one of the car - _hint hint_


----------



## KyngHype (Sep 7, 2009)

great attention to detail, nice progress bro


----------



## Mike1082 (Apr 8, 2011)

Thanks for the comments guys. Here is an old pic of the car (the only thing changed since then is mileage  )










I will take more of the interior when I get a chance.


----------



## Mike1082 (Apr 8, 2011)

Some more pictures... this is where I am at now.

I began mocking up the wiring on the amp rack. Committing to techflex and heatshrink makes this all take a lot longer than it needs to, but I am going to stick to the plan.

Remote wire fab'd up and connected. Working on the left channel wiring between the barrier strip and the front stage amp.









Crimped and soldered









Starting to take shape. You can see that I am using the red and black terminal covers here. While it may not fit with the other wiring, I decided to do this to make it clear when connecting the other end to the barrier strip.









Ready to be installed









One side wired up. It's at this point when my OCD tells me to shorten the remote wire.  Maybe later...









The other channel was much simpler. Still trying to ignore that remote wire. And the fact that the longer barrier strip is at a slight angle. Oh well, itll be less noticeable when the MDF is sprayed with bed liner later.









Power and ground will look something like this...









Taking a break from the amp rack, I decided to clean up the speaker rings.
You can see here that I gave the mounting tabs some much needed shaping and sanding. I also knocked down the sharp edges with some sand.









The OEM speaker spacers are much thinner than the 1/2" MDF. In order to make use of the stock mounting hardware, I needed to recess the mounting screw about halfway through. Out came the ol Forstner bits again. The Dremel was used to sand out that little notch.









Test fitted to the door. Stock speaker screws fit perfectly.









I'm very happy with how these came out. Any small gaps will be gone, as I will be using some deadener on the door, mostly around the speaker opening.









Next on my plate is to seal up and strengthen the rings with some resin, and cover in bed liner. Then finish mocking up the amp rack, seal it up, and figure out a good way to brace it (I have something in mind, thanks to another install log in a Z forum). That's all for tonight, hopefully more updates this weekend.


----------



## Mless5 (Aug 21, 2006)

Excellent work here, would love to see more! Keep it up.


----------



## 94VG30DE (Nov 28, 2007)

Tagged for reading when I get out from behind the corp. proxy. Love to see some Z33 action though!


----------



## Coppertone (Oct 4, 2011)

Bravo to a fellow NJ person, are you North, or South?


----------



## Mike1082 (Apr 8, 2011)

Coppertone said:


> Bravo to a fellow NJ person, are you North, or South?


I am a NY Giants fan, which means I live north of the Raritan River 
I'm in Passaic county.


----------



## Coppertone (Oct 4, 2011)

I'm in South Jersey not too far from Atlantic City. I was in that part of town earlier this year for business. We should meet up one day, kind of knock ideas off of each other.


----------



## quality_sound (Dec 25, 2005)

I'd leave the remote wire and lengthen the speaker wires on next to it. I like there to me more of a 90-ish degree angle but that's a personal preference.


----------



## Mike1082 (Apr 8, 2011)

Coppertone said:


> I'm in South Jersey not too far from Atlantic City. I was in that part of town earlier this year for business. We should meet up one day, kind of knock ideas off of each other.


Shoot me a PM when you are in the area again.



quality_sound said:


> I'd leave the remote wire and lengthen the speaker wires on next to it. I like there to me more of a 90-ish degree angle but that's a personal preference.


There IS someone out there more OCD than me 
Thanks for the suggestion, I will think about it.

Just got back from AutoZone during my lunch break. Picked up some bedliner spray for coating the rings, and 3M Molding Tape for mounting the X-overs in the doors. I also have a box of deadener burning a hole in the corner of my garage. The weather is supposed to be great this weekend, so I should have more updates and plenty more pics to come.


----------



## quality_sound (Dec 25, 2005)

Mike1082 said:


> There IS someone out there more OCD than me
> Thanks for the suggestion, I will think about it.


Dude, don't even get me started on my OCD. lol


----------



## Mike1082 (Apr 8, 2011)

Ok, time for an update.

I was able to get more done this weekend, and also settled on a source unit.
I ordered the Pioneer AVH-P8400BH. I chose this unit because it will allow me to use my iPhone for nav, as well as music, has HD Radio, and Bluetooth. I really would have liked a unit with a volume knob, but oh well.

On to the pics...

This is the trim panel from behind the seats. Note it is upside down.
The passenger side has a glove box door, which is actually quite large. On the drivers side, there was a removable panel/grill for the Bose sub. This panel is the exact same shape as the glove box door.
Since I will be mounting the amps behind this, another door would be very useful. Since this car is made Left and Right-Hand drive, the panel is designed specifically to have the same door on both sides...









I purchased a second glove box door on ebay from someone doing a part-out.
The door has a felt liner on the inside, an inner plastic skin, and an outer plastic skin. On the left lower side, you can see a small hole where the tension cord should feed through. The problem is that since I will be installing the door on the opposite side, the cord needs to feed through the right side.









Removing the felt reveals screws to separate the inner and outer panels.









After removing the outer panel, you can see the hole for the cord to pass through, and where the loop hook on to. This needs to be replicated on the opposite side.









Same spot on the opposite side. This should be easy.









Drilled a hole of the same diameter, and the cable passes through it nicely.









Test fit









The first time around, I looped the cord through, screwed the door back together, reattached the felt, and grumbled profanities as I realized that I needed the cord to pass through the rear trim before attaching to the door. This was take 2. Note the original cord spool is screwed in place still, and there is nowhere to attach the new one. I am by no means the first Z owner to do this mod. I knew ahead of time that the best method is to zip-tie them together.









Feels good to have something completely done! Wiped down with some 303 Aerospace Protectant and she's good to go. This stuff is great for cleaning interiors, forget greasy films and dried out cracked plastic... if you own Armor All, throw it in the garbage and check this stuff out.









Quick shot of the speaker rings after spraying them with a few coats of bed liner (yes, they are in a pizza box )









The amp rack got the same treatment









Lastly, I started assembling the amp rack. Having the SoundStream wiring mocked up made this so easy, I wish I had done the same for the Xtant.









It was getting late, and I wanted to get back to football and beer... I will try to get the rest of the wiring ready during the week. If all goes well, I hope to have the front stage up and running this weekend. Thanks for looking!


----------



## quality_sound (Dec 25, 2005)

Did you look at the Kenwood units? The 6990 will do all of this except you'd use the excellent Garmin navi.


----------



## Mike1082 (Apr 8, 2011)

quality_sound said:


> Did you look at the Kenwood units? The 6990 will do all of this except you'd use the excellent Garmin navi.


I did... but I did not want to spend extra cash to have built in nav. I actually prefer using Waze on my iPhone with the crowd sourced traffic, police sightings, etc... a lot of people in my area use it, and the info you get out if it is great.  Plus I'm on a budget, if I had the extra cash (which I don't... mortgage and planning a wedding) it wouldn't be an issue, and I would buy new amps and a processor.


----------



## quality_sound (Dec 25, 2005)

There's the non-Excelon version as well but a processor would definitely be a better option.


----------



## 94VG30DE (Nov 28, 2007)

Now that I've seen the pictures, great looking build so far. You have great attention to detail, and the hidden amp compartment is pretty sweet. 

One comment, based on personal experience: 


Mike1082 said:


> Punched a hole in the huge grommet right near the battery and passed the cable through:


This grommet in the G35C is directly over the ECM, and when it leaks it drips water onto the module it makes for very bad times. RTV, tape, whatever you can do to make sure that hole in the grommet is resealed is a good idea. You don't want to be like me and come out to standing water in the passenger floor and a motor that runs like crap.


----------



## Mike1082 (Apr 8, 2011)

94VG30DE said:


> This grommet in the G35C is directly over the ECM, and when it leaks it drips water onto the module it makes for very bad times. RTV, tape, whatever you can do to make sure that hole in the grommet is resealed is a good idea. You don't want to be like me and come out to standing water in the passenger floor and a motor that runs like crap.


Thank you for the advice! I will definitely seal it up with some RTV. I'm surprised I never saw this mentioned before.


----------

