# 2013 Scion FR-S SQ Build - Arc Audio, Illusion Audio, Audiomobile



## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

To complete the trio of build logs i have for this day, i present last but not least, the most intensive effort of the three. a SQ build on a 2013 Scion FR-S. 

Having worked on two other FR-S builds before, this one is still unique that it had some different design criteria compared to the other two that allow us...(read JOEY!) to flex some of his fabrication skills.


ithout further adieu, lets take a quick look the car, nicely furnished with the TRD body kit and exhaust, clean and simple, i like it a lot:










the goals are:

1. to achieve a nice level of SQ throughout

2. maintain a totally stealth appearance in the interior

3. *maintain spare tire, take up as little room as possible other wise and try to keep things stealth.but have a lil show factor thrown in* this is the hard one, with such a small trunk to begin with, there was quite a challenge... luckily, Joey was more than up to the challenge

division of labor here is that Joey did the underhood, and the trunk, while i did everything in between and also the trunk wiring...so hes the bread in a Bing sandwich...wait..that sounded totally wrong! 

so first order of business was the underhood, and once again, Joey fabricated a trick mounting bracket that uses stock bolts to provide a rock solid platform for the stringer circuit breaker: here it is in its various phases of construction and prep, all the way to mounting in the vehicle














































The signal starts with a pioneer 5500 headunit, installed to the stock location via the beatsonic tabs:










the BT mic was mounted next to the steering column for a closer, direct path to the driver:










because the system utilizes a Mosconi DSP, full tuning can be done via a laptop from the front seat wirelessly:










here is the prep of the wiring harness with the antenna adapter and grounding ring attached:










the front stage is a set of illusion audio carbon C6 component, the tweeter went into the stock midrange location and is mounted via the supplied metal bridges:










i gave the tweeter a slight twist to angle them back slightly, which theoritically could help tame the reflections between the windshield and the dash a lil haha





































the midbass went into the stock door location, first, a new set of speaker wires were run into the doors:










next, 8 blocks of focal blackhole Tile went onto the outter door skin to help tame resonance:










then the entire door was smothered with focal BAM XXL composite damper, while the section around the speaker mounting got the thinner, easier to work with STP gold damper:










using the stock speaker as a template, we then fabricated these 1/2" mdf spacer rings and coated them with truck bedliner to protect them against the elements:



















and then this was bolted to the door:










and the carbon C6 midbass installed:



















the same procedure was then repeated on the passenger side:























































next comes a series of pics showing the wiring bundle as it travels from the front to the back of the car, and then into the trunk, ziptied and secured every few inches:




































































































to prevent the rear deck from rattling, i applied several piece of STP closed cell foam to the underside of the rear deck to decouple it from the metal panel beneath:


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

so now, moving to the trunk. as mentioned, the customer waned to RETAIN the spare but also keep as much trunk space as possible, and have just a touch of cool factor built in. so here is the normal view, as you can see, the only thing really visible is a single fiberglass side box on the passenger side. the box is unique in that it features a cool decorative grille, providing just a lil bit of show factor. the grille is actually a two piece design, with a vinyl outter, and a CF vinyl covered center ring with pressed grille. the rest of the box is done in carpet dyed to match the stock color. 





































this pic is to give you an idea how little room it actually takes up:










here are some build pics of the sub enclosure:

first the entire area was taped off, sheeting thrown down and the the back mold done up:



















this is the front baffle, with the edges rabetted:



















then the baffle was attached to the trimmed back section, with metal rods used to give it a more rounded shape at the top:



















resin was applied, when that cured, body filler was applied and over several processes, more and more filler was applied to match the edges to the car's carpeting precisely, the grille piece was also test fitted at the same time



















joey then made a press and fabricated the grille and test fitted to the wooden portion:



















for future FR-S/ BR-Z builds, we decided to make a mold of the back of the enclosure, so after much smoothing, gel coating etc, this is the finish product next to the subbox itself, with an air fitting attached to it to allow us to pop the new pieces easier in the future:




























going back to the subbox, the entire enclosure was then carpeted, dyed darker, and then the main baffle was cut out and a piece of red vinly was attached and cut precisely along the edge:



















and an Audiomobile elite 2208 8" sub was installed. total sealed volume is somewhere around .6.










the back of the enclosure:










the two piece grille was then wrapped in their respective vinyl, the grille mesh secured and then mated together:




























and finally, the grille was press fit onto the box for the completed design:





































so thats it for the subbox...moving on to the rest of the trunk. we removed the stock amp and in its place, located the mosconi 6to8 DSP:










once again, joey fabricated a cool bracket to secure the unit with oem mounting holes and bolts:


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

now, onto the amps...as you can see from previous sub enclosure pics, standing at normal height you cant see the amps at all, you would have go bend down to your knees to see the three Arc audio KS Mini amps bolted to the room of the trunk. we chose the arc minis because of their size, the three amps can actually go into the channel area under the rear deck, saving us quite a few inches of additional room:




























here are some fabrication pics of the rack. first, using our stronghand welding table and precision clamps, we made the rack out of metal stock:



















when that was painted black, the amps were bolted onto it (except the middle amp which had to go on after the center attachment point is secured to the car:



















we installed a total of four big rivet nut sets onto the rear deck to bolt the entire structure securely:




























after the amps were secured, i lied in the trunk and wired it all up in about 5 hours, working with the amps upside down and inches from my face was a bit of a challenge lol, but i managed it. but it is almost impossible to take pictures of the amp rack and wiring properly. so here are the best attempts from me. but everything is still neatly bundled, ziptied and secured every few inches...yo would really need to see the car in person by ducking your head into the trunk to see all the wiring.

one KS mini 125.4 is bridged powering the midbass with 250 watts each, another is bridged on the tweeter at 250 watts each (headroom ftw, but also gives him the flexibility to expand to a 3 way in the future if he wanted to) while on arc audio's recommendation, a 125.2 power the audiomobile 8" sub with 250 watts RMS.

these pictures also show how the entire structure was able to attach to the highest points of the trunk, allowing the amp rack to be tucked up and out of the way:














































so thats it...a few quick shots of the audiomobile 2208, if you want to know how its bigger brother preforms, go here:

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...udiomobile-sub-11-civic-si-morel-mosconi.html

but this sub is basically the same thing, moderately priced, nothing too crazy to look at, but boy does it perform...






































overall, the car sounds very nice, great detail with a nice center image, good height and width, the mdibass of full of impact and overall just a nice sounding car. the subbass, with the arc mini's BX^2 circuit engaged, sounds nothing like a single 8" in a sealed trunk with 250 watts, it sound much fuller and bigger. and infact, see this picture of the freq response, with the BX circuit off and on...really nice for a single 8. though it looks just like a low shelving filter, it SOUNDS much more than that...really i would have guessed single 10" for sure. once again, bravo to audiomobile on producing a fine 8" sub











so thats it, just spent the last 5 hours posting build logs...time to take a rest.

but one last thing, i made this quick video with my phone to perhaps better show the trunk:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KP67biB4uo

adios 

b


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## sinister-kustoms (Jul 22, 2009)

Man, you guys are really pumping them out with the new shop! Nicely done!

ps. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't UBER jealous of that Stronghand table!


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## Quicksilver337 (Apr 2, 2013)

all I can say is WOW!!! that is an awesome install!! thanks for sharing.


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## [email protected] (Nov 7, 2010)

The new table is AWESOME! The only problem with it is that with the level of precision it brings, it now makes me want to get a Tig welder!!!


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## Paul1217 (Aug 12, 2007)

I like the idea of the air chuck on the mold. Just curious what your plans are to keep resin from sticking in the chuck and not letting you blow the mold off?


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

would a lil bit of green tape not work in that situation? (i am just speaking for Joey, i have no idea what his plan is hehe) but air nozzle in molds is pretty standard from waht i know.


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## Mrnurse (Sep 8, 2011)

anyway I can get a sub enclosure built for my FR-S? I live in Texas so it would have to be by mail-order


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## innoV8 (Jul 6, 2010)

awesome job! we recently got our shipment of audiomobile subs for our shop, and we're excited to get them into our customer's vehicles. keep up the great work!


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## Lunchbox12 (Sep 4, 2011)

Another kickass build! All objectives realized! Underside amps really helped to maintain that stock/stealth goal!


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

Mrnurse said:


> anyway I can get a sub enclosure built for my FR-S? I live in Texas so it would have to be by mail-order


well, we can with the mold we made, but we really arent set up to do boxes like some of the other vendors on ft86club. the way we do it at least right now, would be far more expensive than what they want to sells theirs at, but what we can do is fully customize the front baffle to be a wide variety of shapes so it wont look like everyone elses.

if you are still interested, feel free to send me a PM 

b


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## Jeff Smith ATL (Sep 11, 2012)

Nice build.


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## captainobvious (Mar 11, 2006)

Nice clean job as always. I'm curious though, why the choice to go with the Illusion set? I thought the doors had plenty of space for a larger midbass with standard mounting depths...?


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## Mrnurse (Sep 8, 2011)

So who sells a "prefab" box that is molded like this?


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

captainobvious said:


> Nice clean job as always. I'm curious though, why the choice to go with the Illusion set? I thought the doors had plenty of space for a larger midbass with standard mounting depths...?


we chose the illusion set simply because it is an excellent sounding speaker. I like to say the illusion is awesome sounding and you dont need to qualify the statement with "for a shallow speaker" 

i myself will be putting them in my truck where i can prolly fit any speaker i wanted. 

b


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

Mrnurse said:


> So who sells a "prefab" box that is molded like this?


if you go on the ft86club.com's site, and the electronics/nav subforum, i think there are at least two vendors who are actively selling their versions of the enclosure?

we really dont want to price compete with them and the way we are set up, we'd like to do a few boxes for people who want a unqiue look on their enclosure, and do it to a slightly higher standard and dont mind paying 100-150 bucks more per box..


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## Coppertone (Oct 4, 2011)

So when do we get the pleasure of seeing what all is being done to your truck Bing?


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

Coppertone said:


> So when do we get the pleasure of seeing what all is being done to your truck Bing?


Likely in about... never lol

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk 2


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## Mrnurse (Sep 8, 2011)

simplicityinsound said:


> if you go on the ft86club.com's site, and the electronics/nav subforum, i think there are at least two vendors who are actively selling their versions of the enclosure?
> 
> we really dont want to price compete with them and the way we are set up, we'd like to do a few boxes for people who want a unqiue look on their enclosure, and do it to a slightly higher standard and dont mind paying 100-150 bucks more per box..


If you can do it with the grill in "86" logo I would not mind spending that.


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## koteman (Apr 20, 2013)

Nice build I'm starting my first Sq build in my frs now. How did u manage to get the white plastic grocery that attach to the rubber door wire conduit out of the body side of the car I can't for the life of me get it off to re connect the rubber 

Sent from my Galaxy S3


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