# 350z SQ Install



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

Finally I am getting some traction on this build for my 2003 Nissan 350z. I have done an enormous amount of reading on this website and others in planning this install so thought I should let everyone see what I am up to.

The setup will will be:

Headunit: Pioneer MVH 8300 BT (installed)
Front Stage: DLS Gothia 6.3 (purchased) Big thanks to South East Customz for sorting these out for me
Rear Stage: Deleted
Sub Stage: DLS Nordica 12 (planned)
Amps: Alpine PDX F4 (purchased), Fusion FP1402 (already owned), Unknown
DSP: Mini DSP 8x8 (planned)
Sound Deadening: Dynamat Xtreme

The third amp will most likely be a second of one of the two that I already have, depending on how they perform. I can get a second hand fusion for about 1/4 the price of another Alpine so I am leaning that way.

The DSP will not be installed straight away, I'll use the included passive crossovers while I get everything up and running, which will probably be over the next two months.

I am taking / uploading pics right now so will add them to next post.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

Gothia 6.3









6.5" Driver









Starting to make some Speaker Rings....

Arc Jig came with the router, but was only good for the largest radius cuts









Made my own jig for smaller cuts









Cut out rings as so:









Clamped the rings down to make the final cuts manually









And ended up with a bunch of speaker rings, later sanded down the rough edges









I routed out the edges of the rings which the speakers would actually be mounted to









The oversized spacers and the routed edges are because the DLS manual (http://dls.se/files/701/2/baffle_installation.pdf) suggests that the woofers need good airflow to perform to their best.

The next day I got onto stripping out my car...



















I gutted the boot a bit ahead of time because I wanted to play with the car with a bit of a weight reduction. removing all that gear from the rear end definitely made a difference, the car is louder, faster and quite a bit looser...


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

also reserved


----------



## sinister-kustoms (Jul 22, 2009)

Good to see another Kiwi round here! That's a nice front stage you've got!
Looking forward to seeing the rest of the install.


----------



## Angrywhopper (Jan 20, 2010)

You're steering wheel is on the wrong side! 

Looking forward to seeing more pics.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

Cheers guys, this will be a reasonably slow build as I am tight on time, but I will try to post plenty of pics. 

Hoping to pick up fibreglass supplies during the week and start on some front speaker mounts on Thursday, weather permitting. It doesn't look like those woofers are going to fit comfortably just with a few spacers up front, so I may as well pull my finger out and custom make some pods that I can bolt directly to the door frame and which properly align with the factory holes in the door skin.


----------



## strakele (Mar 2, 2009)

Looking good so far!

Just a tip... this forum only allows new members to edit posts for a few hours, so there's no point in "reserving" posts at the top unless you plan to go back and edit it to post pictures the same day.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

strakele said:


> Looking good so far!
> 
> Just a tip... this forum only allows new members to edit posts for a few hours, so there's no point in "reserving" posts at the top unless you plan to go back and edit it to post pictures the same day.


Thanks for the heads up.


Anyway I made a tiny bit of progress this week, and grabbed a few new pics.

Went out this afternoon and got some fibreglass so I can start working on the front door pods and reinforcing the kicks:










I pulled out the stock Bose sub and amp... not an incredibly impressive looking piece of hardware, but I think someone tested it and it's not actually as useless as it looks.


















I was plesently supprised to see how much space was in the cavity behind the sub, I am planning on mounting a lot of gear in there...









Here is the old Fusion amp I will be using to power the front woofers. I stripped it down and cleaned it and de-badged it a few weeks ago, will probably mount it upside down with some perspex as a bit of a show piece, not that's it's much to show off I think it still looks cool. The Alpine amp should arrive tomorrow.
(Pre clean)









(Cover removed)









Finally, this is the Pioneer headunit I installed a while back, got to do something about that ugly ipod USB cable, I'm just keeping my eye out for a slim black right-angle USB adapter.


----------



## eltico7213 (Oct 26, 2011)

I like where this is headed. Looking forward to it!


----------



## eeclipse16 (Jan 16, 2011)

Is this car a right hand drive?

Sent from Tapatalk.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

eeclipse16 said:


> Is this car a right hand drive?
> 
> Sent from Tapatalk.


Correct!


----------



## Atlanta007 (May 6, 2009)

subscribed. Looking good. I have some DLS speakers that I've yet to install. The literature that came with them recommended those same angled inside edges (i think they call it chamfered) of the mounting rings to provide adequate airflow. Curious to see how it turns out.


----------



## n_olympios (Oct 23, 2008)

Nice start, great car!  Although I have to admit, I hate HU's with a front USB slot.


----------



## jschrauwen (Oct 30, 2006)

This install would do nicely on Nissan 2004-2009 350z Roadster and 2011 370z Roadster - Parts, Wheels, Nismo, Turbo, Reviews, Specs, Pics, Price, Forum and more if it isn't already there.


----------



## eviling (Apr 14, 2010)

that doesn't look like a sub, it looks like a passive radiator. I an see the engine tho


----------



## phryed (Aug 5, 2011)

subscribed. 

can we get some pictures of the outside of the car? (always helps give some overall perspective.)


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

jschrauwen said:


> This install would do nicely on Nissan 2004-2009 350z Roadster and 2011 370z Roadster - Parts, Wheels, Nismo, Turbo, Reviews, Specs, Pics, Price, Forum and more if it isn't already there.


I actually had a thread going on that form in the Audio/Video section when I was initially trying to design the system. I have already linked this install thread there but maybe I should link it from the DIY Audio/Video section as well.




phryed said:


> subscribed.
> 
> can we get some pictures of the outside of the car? (always helps give some overall perspective.)


I don't actually have any exterior shots at the moment so I'll take some this weekend, after I wash it!




n_olympios said:


> Nice start, great car!  Although I have to admit, I hate HU's with a front USB slot.


Yeah it's not that great, that head unit was a bit of an impulse buy, main reason I went for it is BT hands-free integration. Part of this project is actually wiring up my Android phone properly, I have 3.5mm adapter that plugs into the ip-bus in the back of the unit. So what I may do is migrate my music to my Android then I can get rid of the iPod and that cable all together.


----------



## Joehs (Apr 27, 2010)

Looks like it's going to be a good build! Good work so far!


----------



## ElectroToph (Nov 30, 2011)

looking good so far, and it sounds like you have a good plan. In for some more pics and finished product.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

Amp arrived today, Wahoo! The box is a bit banged up, thankfully Alpine packaged it well enough to be dropped from a plane, because it looks like that's what happened to it.


















Today I made the bases for my door pods, pics provided:

Door skins off









Stock speakers out, they are a pain to disconnect so I just stuck them to the door frame with their own magnet to keep them out of the way.









I want a layer of Dynamat between the pods and the door to eliminate any buzzing from the midbass, so I lay that down after cleaning the surface with meths. I need to get myself a roller for this, but for this small area a rubber mallet worked fine.


















I'm keeping the off cuts because I will use them to target any vibration on interior panels later on.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

Then I masked the area with mighty blue masking tape









I used a spray adhesive to stick tinfoil over this









And then more spray adhesive to stick the first layer of chopped strand mat down. I found a paint roller and gave all of this a good going over to make sure all of the layers contoured well to the door frame.



























I left the resin (unmixed) outside while I ducked inside for 20 seconds, and naturally the wind blew it over so I spent a half an hour scrubbing the bloody driveway. This was particularly annoying because I made sure there was plenty of newspaper down, I weighted everything down so it wouldn't blow away and I still managed to get crap on the driveway.

Anyway I mixed some resin and wetted out the chopped strand matt. I did each side with the first layer, then went back and applied a second layer once the first had had 5-10 minutes to get a little bit tacky. This is the first time I've touched fibreglass since making a 7ft long spud gun out of the stuff when I was 15.




















Leave that to dry while I go to the gym


----------



## Angrywhopper (Jan 20, 2010)

Nice update! I love lots of pics.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

Just a bit more on that Android integration...

I have this gear sitting at home to hook up power to my phone dock and get sound back from it. I also just bought a relay, an inline fuse and some wire so that I can get this all hooked up.









Here's what I'm planning on doing while I have the dash out:

Re-ground the head unit directly to the chassis. Wire up the double power socket, one slot will be for the USB power adapted which will run to the phone dock. I'll put a relay on that circuit so that the socket only gets power when the ignition is on, I'll just splice into the ignition wire on the head unit for that. However there is already an unused switch under my dash for a now obsolete FM modulator, so I might wire that in as an override switch so that I can power the socket (and hence my phone) when the car is off if I want to. I also want to mount the hands-free microphone so that I can use my head units hands-free functionality. That operates over Bluetooth.

I mocked up a diagram so that I wouldn't forget to anything when I went to the electronics store during my lunch break.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

After looking at the problem of wiring in my phone, a bit more I decided not to wire in a relay, I'm just going to hook in to the same circuit that the rear cigarette lighter runs off, that will simplify things a bit.

I also had a nice surprise when I looked at the birth certificate of my Alpine amp and found that my particular amp had been tested to 125w RMS per channel, 25% more power than manufacturer specs!

Unfortunately other than that it's been a pretty unproductive weekend, yesterday I was busy most of the day, but I did manage to cut down the pod bases. However I soon realised that the oversized baffels I wanted to use are never going to fit behind the door, so I am currently in the process of hacking them up to try and get them to fit. Today it is hosing down with rain so I don't like my chances of getting much else done...

For the pod bases:

I trimmed away the excess cloth with scissors and then used an angle grider with a cutting disk to trim down the fibreglass. When I had both bases roughly the same shape I bolted them together and sanded them so that they ended up identical.

The inner circle was a bit more work to get right, I used the grinder to cut a rough shape and then spent about 45min sanding it to shape by hand.


----------



## eviling (Apr 14, 2010)

I really dig how you are doing those baffles, great idea!  im consideirng redoing mine that way. but how thick exactly did you make that?


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

eviling said:


> I really dig how you are doing those baffles, great idea!  im consideirng redoing mine that way. but how thick exactly did you make that?


Yeah I was really hoping I could pull off a nice clean over sized baffle, however they will not fit inside the door skins with my driver unless hack the door skins up and make some pods as a facades. That's definitely an option that I have considered but for now I just want to get the woofers behind the stock door skins and see how they sound. 

I started with an interior cutout diameter of 162mm (DLS Spec) and an outer diameter of 220mm. However I have now cut this to more of an elliptical shape (imagine an egg shape with a circle cut out). I think it's going to take a bit of playing around to get them in place. I have already made a few strategic cuts to the insides of the door skins (ie attacked them with a hacksaw, side-cutters and a grinder) and I think I'm pretty close now.

I would note, that if I were not using monstrously deep drivers and had for example gone for the DLS UP36i which has a much smaller magnate structure, I would fit the full sized baffles in. Due to the depth of the drivers I need to push the baffles quite a way off the door frame in order to clear the window glass.


----------



## toxtreme (Nov 22, 2011)

Nice project!

I must say it's alot of fun to see you use DLS! Swedish speakers kick ass  DLS is actually located and manifactured about 40km from here so it's not bad that a guy on the other side of the earth use it! Thumbs up


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

Bit more work done thisafternoon...

Decided to wire in my phone.

Better disconnect the battery for this









My car looking like a bomb just went off inside, I ran the power wire to the fuse box by the accelerator pedal.


















Running microphone wire up the a-pillar









microphone mounted with a little bit of double sided tape









Wires run for cigarette socket and USB power









And into the back of the dock, I will get some black nylon sleeving to dress this up a but when I have a chance.









And for those who asked, some exterior shots of the car. I still haven't cleaned it but due to the torrential rain last night it's actually reasonably clean.


















Now while this all looks good, it was actually not all that successful...

The IP-Bus to 3.5mm headphone jack adapter doesn't work for some reason, this one really bugs me because it's going to be a pain in the ass to track down the issue.

The microphone picks up way too much outside noise where it is mounted so I'll have to move it, that's not a massive deal because I have plenty of slack cable under the dash and a sun visor clip to hold it elsewhere.

Even though the fuse box says that the existing cigarette lighter power wire which I spliced into runs in the accessory ignition position, it's actually always on. I didn't plan on that but don't really mind.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

Just made a thread about the head unit to see if there is anything I can do with it...

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...oneer-head-unit-tuner-ip-bus.html#post1495439


----------



## Smash (Oct 4, 2011)

Nice car.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

Making progress...

Today I spent about 3 hours getting the door pods aligned so that they would:
1) clear the door skins
2) ensure that the driver magnets cleared the windows
3) point in a somewhat useful direction

It took sooooo many attempts to get the left side right, I used wire, dowel, measurements over and over again and slowly inched it into the right place, having to clear a mess of hot-glue every time I re-positioned it.






































Thankfully after spending a little time measuring against the left side, I was able to get the right side almost exactly right on my first attempt.






































When I was happy with both, I mixed up a little bit of resin and gave them a coat to keep everything in place. I wanted to go over the bases again anyway because I ended up using some material on the extremities of where I coated the first time and they really need a bit more. Then hung them up to dry.


----------



## Xandr (Jan 17, 2011)

Nice job!
Like the way you go


----------



## eviling (Apr 14, 2010)

wow i didnt realize thats what you were doing, that is damn ****ing clever! O_O i like this ingenuity. It'd take me days of tinkering to think of a great idea like using wires to get a rough set than the wooden dowels to finished the positions, i might even try that on my next pillar build see how that works for getting them in place, because it can suck to sit their for 5 mins while something drys and sets enough to move to the next dowel. plus your neighbors look at you like your restarted sitting in your car so okwardlyf or sol long.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

Fibreglassing was on the agenda thisafternoon.

I put a 4th piece of dowel on each pod for a bit more rigidity









Took both kick panels and masked them up


















Cut out a few sheets of cloth in approximately the right size, this ended up being totally the wrong approach, but more on that shortly:









Started glassing them but soon realised that the cloth was too stiff to contour to the ridges in the panel and so ended up ripping the whole lot off and throwing it away in one big gooey mess. I stuck with it for a while hoping that as the resin got tackier the glass would stick into the corners, but that never happened.









So I decided to just stuff it and cut out a crap-load of individual little squares and stick them in. This took ages but the end result was much much better...









After realising how stiff the cloth was I decided to forget trying to reinforce the pods with glass and just put a coat of resin on them to harden the new pieces, hung them up to dry. I'll have to think of a way to strengthen them more after I've pulled a cloth over them.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

eviling said:


> wow i didnt realize thats what you were doing, that is damn ****ing clever! O_O i like this ingenuity. It'd take me days of tinkering to think of a great idea like using wires to get a rough set than the wooden dowels to finished the positions, i might even try that on my next pillar build see how that works for getting them in place, because it can suck to sit their for 5 mins while something drys and sets enough to move to the next dowel. plus your neighbors look at you like your restarted sitting in your car so okwardlyf or sol long.


Thanks man, pretty much everything I've picked up has been from this site and links that have been shared here, hopefully a a few people pick up some tips off me in return! And as you can see from my previous post, there is still a fair bit of trial and error going on haha.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

Well the glassing I did on the kick panels yesterday was a wasted of time, it dried nicely and looked really solid, but when I flexed the panel to see that it was hard the pieces of fibreglass started popping out like ice cubes. The polyester resin didn't stick to the panel at all.

So I have two ideas:

I can try to re-glass it. I will get some epoxy resin instead of the polyester I've been using, scrub the panel down with some sort of degreaser and then try and roughen up the inside surface with sandpaper and possibly drill through some of the ridges so that the resin can interlink them.

or...

2) Just put a few layers of Dynamat on the back and call it a day. Might need to make some sort of backing ring for the speakers so that they have something solid to bolt into.

I think I will go back to the fibreglass store during the week with one of the panels and ask the guys there what they recommend.

Also today someone knocked one of my woofer pods off the coat hanger and it broke on the floor, so I'm going to have to do a repair job on that.


----------



## n_olympios (Oct 23, 2008)

The best way to bond fibreglass and other materials together, is to mix part of that material with the resin before applying. For example, to integrate an FG baffle on an mdf construction, I use MDF sawdust in the resin compound. Naturally it's more difficult with plastics, but it can be done. 

Edit: let's also not forget the very crucial scraping of the surface, and/or drilling through it (wherever possible) so the resin can build into the material.


----------



## tr0y_audi0 (Feb 13, 2007)

Sux that one panel busted..
On the plastic you can try a few things if it dose not work out with what you have..

1) hit the back side of the panel with 40 grit then clean it.. you may need to add a ring at this time mount with some strong CA glue. then lay the glass like you had already. cut to shape wet it out then apply it to the plastic panel.

2) tape the panel on the outside, cut glass to shape wet it out, lay in on like 3-4 layers and use that save the plastic for another day..

keep us posted..
here is a cool enclosure my old workmate made.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

n_olympios said:


> The best way to bond fibreglass and other materials together, is to mix part of that material with the resin before applying. For example, to integrate an FG baffle on an mdf construction, I use MDF sawdust in the resin compound. Naturally it's more difficult with plastics, but it can be done.
> 
> Edit: let's also not forget the very crucial scraping of the surface, and/or drilling through it (wherever possible) so the resin can build into the material.






tr0y_audi0 said:


> Sux that one panel busted..
> On the plastic you can try a few things if it dose not work out with what you have..
> 
> 1) hit the back side of the panel with 40 grit then clean it.. you may need to add a ring at this time mount with some strong CA glue. then lay the glass like you had already. cut to shape wet it out then apply it to the plastic panel.
> ...


Cool thanks for the tips, I will try them out. That's a tidy install in the stock Bose location.

Today I only did a little bit of work, been a busy weekend. I mended the broken pod, pulled cloth over both and applied some resin, then hung them up to dry in my usual spot, hanging from from coat-hangers and wire in the entrance way.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

Slow week this week, we've had pretty shocking weather so it's been hard to get much work done. However, weather permitting (and a bit of luck) I hope to get a few things tidied up this weekend:


I will get some epoxy resin and have another attempt at glassing the insides of the kick panels, this time I will prep the surface with a low-grit sandpaper and I'll drill through the ridges in plenty of places, hopefully that will give me a strong bond.

I'll also get some polyester fibre filled putty to finish the door pods off, I don't like my chances of laying down any mat on the inside of these pods, and I wont get away with adding any to the outside due to space limitations, a milkshake made with this looks like a good alternative for the inside. I'll also use a thin layer on the outside for a little extra strength and a nice finish.

I've ordered a 0 AWG wiring kit which I'll want to get laid out.

I want to re-wire the USB power for my phone so that it is not visible and get a USB extension cable to expose the spare USB power slot somewhere discrete.

And finally I wouldn't mind getting the base of the amp rack measured up, cut and secured to some sort of level platform, but that might be pushing it 

My main issues at the moment are to do with the head unit. The IP-Bus to 3.5mm adapter is not working. According to my manual when an IP-Bus connection is detected an external (EXT1) should become available, this is not happening. This could be due to a faulty cable or my head unit may just be a bit too smart for the IP-Bus hack. I may try and order another cable, or I might try stripping the cable I have and hard wiring it to the socket on the HU... not too sure with that one.

The Bluetooth hands free calling quality is also shocking, the echo make it totally useless. After doing a bit of research I think this can be solved with the right combination of modem, microphone location and phone volume. I have downloaded all of the modems available for my phone (Samsung Galaxy S II) and will have to flash them one at a time and test which works best, the try to fine tune with the phone settings and mic location.

If I can't solve both of these issues then I will be looking for a new head unit and hands free combination, because at the moment all I have is a glorified iPod adapter sitting in my dash.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

I visited the fibreglass store on the way home today and had a chat with someone there. I found a product which will solve all of my problems! (I hope). It's polyester fibre filled putty, this is a repair putty not a filler so it dries very strong.

It's "space age", so you know it's the good stuff









The first task was to use it to reinforce my speaker pods, I can actually see glass fibres in it so it looks like it will do the job well.

Cut out the excess fabric from the speaker rings


















I then mixed up some putty in one cup and resin in the other, apologies there are no photos for this bit because my hands were covered in crap and there was no one here to take them for me.

I poured the resin into the putty mixture bit by bit as I mixed until I had what I thought was a good consistency. Then I poured some of that mix into the pods and just slowly rotated them so that it spread over about 1/3 of the pod each pour. I used a hairdryer when the putty was well spread to kick start the drying so that it wouldn't move when I then did a pour on the next area. This system worked pretty well for me, pour, spread, heat, move on to next section.




























Next I will use the same formula to reinforce the backs of my kick panels, I will give them a roughen up first and maybe drill them out in a few places. The guy at the store said epoxy would be no better than polyester resin because the plastic has a bit of wax in it, this stuff however bonds stronger than either so is my best bet.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

ok... I did say I would be taking my time on this didn't I? 

Test fit a speaker into a pod:


















And then proceeded to attack them with a grinding disk to remove all of the excess hardened fabric from the bottom lip









Because of the way the cloth overhung the top lip quite a lot in places, it made an uneven surface for mounting the speakers. This was just an oversight when I first applied resin to the cloth. Anyway I decided to put my repair putty to more good use and spread a layer of that over the top surface:









I think I used too little hardener, and that combined with unusually cold weather made it a real pain in the ass to get this last layer to dry. I left it overnight, still wet, that evening I hit it with the heat gun every 15-20 minutes for a few hours, little better, and finally I left them face down on top of the hot-water cylinder for 2 days and they were just about there.

Then I sanded them down with some wet and dry. I took the bulk of it off with a sanding block, but to get a flat final surface I taped a piece of paper a solid piece of ply I had lying around and lapped them on that.










It took about half an hour all up to sand them down and the result is pretty good:


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

I also measured and cut some pieces for my amp rack:



















I mucked around with a few layouts, haven't really made a decision yet but something like this might work, or I might put all of the crossovers on one and both amps on the other...









I will mount the smaller piece to the larger piece to create a second level. Also keep in mind that there will be more components to come when I get the third amp in, and the crossovers will at some point be replaced by a DSP. Therefore I don't want to put too much effort into this first setup because it will no doubt be changed several times early next year. 

I spent a while today playing around with them in the car and have got a few ideas how to mount them. I'll pick up some bit's and pieces from the hardware store and see what I can come up with.


----------



## toxtreme (Nov 22, 2011)

Looking good (Y)


----------



## maxxis (Jun 10, 2008)

Sub'd. 

Looking great so far. Like your attention to detail.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

Ok this will be a big update, I have done a few patches of work over the last week, and then yesterday and today I did about 12 hours each day in an attempt to have my car in a decent condition so that I could travel away.


Starting a few days back...

I sanded the kickpanels with 100 grit and then drilled out lots of the ridges, This was hard on the fingers but gave me a nice surface to work with. I gave them a wipe down with turps when I was finished.









I mixed up a batch of resin and a batch of putty









And then mixed them together and put a good coat down over my kicks:


















This worked SOOOO much better than the fibreglass. The result is a dense, flexible coating which has bonded very well to the panels and does not flake.

A day or so later I did some work on the amp rack, I made a cradle to hold the front edge.



















Then while thinking about where the hell to go from there with the amp rack, I laid down some dynamat in the trunk.









The stock Bose amp was removed at the same time


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

Then I got on to mounting the door pods. Unfortunately they did not quire sit flush, I think that I flexed the base slightly when I pulled the cloth over them. I really should have made a thicker base when I first moulded the door skins.

Anyway they went on fairly well and once they were bolted in and dynamatted over they were very solid.









The next job was to try and run the 0 AWG power wire. After poking around with a screw driver from the passenger footwell I decided that this grommet was a good place to run the wire through the firewall.









I put a few slits in it and fed the wire through, nothing too exciting. I will seal up the hole with silicon in the next day or so.









Onto the kick panels, I drilled out both holes for my tweets and mids. I put down a layer of foam before screwing the speakers in place and for the mids I used the supplied brackets. It actually took quite a while to measure, drill, sand, prep and mount these speakers


















Then installed them in the car:









No worries with clearance for the pedals on the drivers side


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

That afternoon I did some more wiring...

Pulled out the dash and ran the remote and RCA lead down the centre console. The electronics store wasn't open today so I couldn't pick up the triple shielded RCA's I was meaning to use, I had some cheap ones that came with my wiring kit so I'll just use them for now.


















I disconnected and taped off all of the unused wires behind the head unit, plugged in the RCA's and soldered the remote wire in place.









Running 12 AWG wire to the doors for the woofers was a nightmare, I totally butchered my hands. The first side took me about an hour and a half, thankfully I had tried just about everything on the first side, so I was able to do the second in about 15 minutes.

It took so long because I wanted to run the wire through the stock loom that runs to the door. This can only be disconnected with the door approx half open, so there is no room to work. After trying numerous methods of fishing through the wire, I eventually just gave it a rub with some Vaseline (petroleum jelly) and jammed in through.




























I also ran some cables for the mids and tweets, 14 AWG. I marked each length at both ends with tape so that I could tell them apart once they were bundled up in the amp enclosure.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

I need to get some sleep now, but I'll post more pics tomorrow


----------



## duro78 (Dec 24, 2011)

Ever thought about a cented channel in cubbyhole above the HU.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk


----------



## duro78 (Dec 24, 2011)

Did u have clearance issues with the kicks on the fuse box side? Awesome work I have a z also and I hate the cheap plastic interior, scratches so easily. Bought mine new in 04, would of expected a better interior for a 40k plus car. Then again vettes cost a lot more and there just as bad

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk


----------



## glidn (Apr 21, 2007)

Damn can't believe I only stumbled across this thread now.

Nice to see another fellow kiwi doing his thing. I'm in your neck of the woods, let me know if you would like any help.


----------



## south east customz (Jan 17, 2011)

Looking good! I'm sure you'll be happy with the gothia's in the kicks


----------



## P8ntballa57 (Jan 3, 2012)

I love the car! Good work sir!


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

Appologies for not updating for a few days, I was rushed to get away for my New Years celebrations and have only just got back home, and I'm off again shortly.

Here are a few more pics...

Continuing work on the amp rack









Supports screwed in









Platform attached









Had to go and grab a few more supplies









Amps and distribution blocks in place









Crossovers in place









Holes for wires routed out and crossover platform mounted









end result:


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

I then got the woofers installed:



























Here's the stock tweeter compared to the DLS tweet and mid









I added some glass to reinforce the bracket I made for the amp rack









Amp rack wired in


















I had a bit of trouble with the left and right fade so I made this little contraption to quickly test all of my speaker wires, its just an AA battery with two pieces of wire taped to it, place it on a terminal on one of the crossovers and you can here a corresponding pop from the speaker which is attached.









The left and right fade turned out to be a fairly stupid oversight. I built the amp rack from the perspective of myself looking at the front of the rack, so when it went into the car the right hand crossover was actually on the left. This meant that the mids and tweets were reversed. This was easily re-wired.

I did however get completely screwed over by a faulty Alpine quick connector. I lost power to the right hand mids and tweets and spent about 6 hours pulling the amp rack to pieces and testing every single connection. Eventually I narrowed it down to one of my amp output wires. (I was bridging ch 1&2 into one mid/tweet crossover and ch 3&4 into the other). I pulled both connectors off this lead and tested them with a metre, I found that the negative terminal on one was faulty. Luckily I was using the negative from one connector and the positive from another in order to bridge so I only had to swap the connectors around to fix the problem. An easy fix, but a nightmare to diagnose the problem, I'm a bit annoyed that a nice quality amp like and Alpine PDX relies on such flimsy quick connectors, I would much prefer the old fashioned terminals where you simply screw the wire in. Furthermore I will have to replace this connector before I can go active where I will need 4 individual channels. 

The other issue here is that I pulled the amp rack in and out so many times trying to find the above issue that I broke the cradle I made and am currently using a polystyrene block to support one side.

The whole amp rack is only a prototype so I'm not too fussed that it's ended up a little bit hacked up and is obviously just unfinished MDF. What I hope to do is tweak it a little bit more and then get all the pieces cut out of clear acrylic and re-build it.


----------



## JWAT15 (Mar 6, 2011)

just a question about staging in the kicks as i have never heard a vehicle in person with the mids and tweets there. does it bring the stage down and how can you correct that or is it just a basic time alignment fix?

im acctually thinking about picking up a Z within the next month or so for my birthday.

my question is about the years and models of 350z

What would you suggest as i've heard the 03-05 had some minor issues. have you had any with this car? also anything i should look for in perticular while inquiring about these vehicles while im at the dealer? probably going with an 05 - 06 350z or g35. comments?

thanks build looks great and ill be definitely thinking about your build when i start mine on the new car!!


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

I still need to grab a few more pics to put up, I will try do that in a day or so.

I had to ever so slightly cut the door skins to get them over the front woofers, I was hoping to clear them but I really don't think I could have done it, the clearance from the door frame and the window is as tight as I could possibly get it. For now the woofers are exposed, but I will make up some facades which just screw or maybe velcro to the door skin and wrap them with plain black grill cloth.

Anyway as for results....

The dynamat in the trunk has most defiantly made a difference, it really took the edge off my exhaust rasp and the road noise from those big rear tyres.

The sound from up front is crisp and clear and does not appear to come from the foot wells. 

In the absence of a subwoofer (for now) the Gothia 6.5's provide enough bass to keep me happy, they move a lot of air! I have yet to dynamat the doors because I am waiting on a replacement window motor, but I expect that once they are covered that will further improve the bass from up front.

The sound, although much louder than stock, does not fatigue my ears nearly as much and I catch myself listening to music at much louder volumes. One clue is that I find myself thinking, "hmm it's not that loud after all", then I floor it and can't hear my exhaust at all and I realize that I am totally drowning out my (very loud) exhaust note. The dynamat is obviously helping a bit here, but previously at full noise, the exhaust was always the dominant sound (I have a Stillen true dual setup with test pipes)


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

JWAT15 said:


> just a question about staging in the kicks as i have never heard a vehicle in person with the mids and tweets there. does it bring the stage down and how can you correct that or is it just a basic time alignment fix?
> 
> im acctually thinking about picking up a Z within the next month or so for my birthday.
> 
> ...



Hey, I have not yet put any DSP into this car (I plan on doing so). I don't really have much experience with high quality sound systems so I don't really know what a "good" stage should sound like. But when I close my eyes I can hear the music coming from about dash height and the vocals centered fairly well. I was originally hearing some sounds from down low on the passenger side of the vehicle but I think I have a bit too much gain on that side, it was fixed when I faded the music to my side by one point.

For mids that size, there is really no other location for them on a 350Z, and if you don't want to separate the mids and tweets then the tweets have to go down there as well. I plan on beefing my kicks up a bit more by adding a layer of dynamat, then foam padding and then vinyl to the outside surface. This will add a bit of mass to them and make them look better cosmetically at the same time.

These early model Z's have a few issues, the big one is the manual gearbox. They are notorious for 3rd gear grind, mine suffers from it. I am currently in the process of taking the people who I paid $160 to inspect it to court for clearing it as in perfect working order the day before I purchased it (I was not able to test drive myself so had a testing station do a full mechanical inspection) This issue was fixed with the later model gearboxes which I believe added a 3rd synchro cone to 3rd and 4th gears. 

Also as already mentioned in this thread they have a fairly poor quality interior, it scratches easily and is prone to rattle, the leather seats scuff easily and exterior paint chips easily. Also for a 2 seat car with next to no luggage space, it is the size of a small tank.

Having said that, you will not give a s**t when you have the windows down, music blaring and are caning your Z through some back mountain roads  They are not crazy fast, but have a smooth torquey engine and handle very precisely. Try to find a track or touring spec model, they have the Brembo brakes and an LSD, they ride a bit harder but meh, it's a sports car.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

duro78 said:


> Did u have clearance issues with the kicks on the fuse box side? Awesome work I have a z also and I hate the cheap plastic interior, scratches so easily. Bought mine new in 04, would of expected a better interior for a 40k plus car. Then again vettes cost a lot more and there just as bad
> 
> Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk


The mids are very shallow. I couldn't mount them directly over the fuse box, but they were fine when moved slightly to the rear. I did have to glue the fuse box cover in place so that I had a solid mounting surface but that's not really a big deal, only takes a minute to remove the whole panel. 

I know what you mean about the scratching, my kicks have ended up pretty scratched up, I plan to cover them with a layer of dynamat, and then some padding and some vinyl to give them a cleaner look and a bit more weight.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

duro78 said:


> Ever thought about a cented channel in cubbyhole above the HU.
> 
> Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk


Yeah for a while I was keen to set up a 5.1 system because I heard they can sound really good with some processing behind them. But after doing more and more reading I decided I'd get a better system for the money by deleting the rears and the centre and putting the money into higher quality components. I don't watch movies or anything in my car so a high quality stereo setup will probably suit me better than a surround system with lower end gear.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

*Amp Rack v 2.0*

Ok, so before I start on the next phase of this project (sub), I'm have a few things to tidy up.


The amp rack looked pretty rough, and the brace actually broke because it couldn't take the weight. I am building a new rack and laying the gear out differently.

The kick panels don't look fantastic, so I want to finnish them off. I plan on adding a layer of dynamat to the outside, them some foam underlay and finally some vinyl for a plush look.

There are are currently large holes in my door skins, and the stock speaker grills won't fit back in place. I am going to build some grill covers which attach to the door skins to clean that up.

 I need to run a new RCA lead from the head unit, the one I'm using at the moment is just a patch cable, I have got myself a nice triple shielded cable and I'll get that run next time I have the plastics over the transmission tunnel out. I've had no noise issues with the patch cable, but piece of mind...

So this weekend I started work on a new amp rack. I'm building this one with expandability in mind, I will be adding a third amp to in the next few months to power a sub so I have been taking that into consideration.

First thing was to build a new front brace. This thing is solid...



























I decided to move the larger amp over to the glove box. In my car the glove box is behind the passenger seat, it is essentially an identical compartment to the one I was already using to mount my amps, except on the other side of the car. I originally didn't want to do this, but I am going to have to use that space eventually, and I don't store anything in there currently so I figured I may as well make my life easier and spread the components out a bit. Here some feet test fitted:









I cut the new amp rack in a slightly different shape, here is a mock-up:


















I then routed the edges and stretched some vinyl over it. It is hard to get a good picture of a black base with black components but here it is...



















This is the base for the amp which will fit in the glove box, again it's it's hard to see in the pic. I will try to get some more pictures this week in sunlight.










All of the bare wood will be painted black, I also want to lay down black carpet in the compartment so that when I eventually get a perspex cover for it and add some lighting it will look clean.


----------



## Tarheels1 (Jan 20, 2011)

Looking good!


----------



## bigaudiofanatic (Mar 1, 2009)

Cool, maybe you could fix the 1st set of pictures on page 1?


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

bigaudiofanatic said:


> Cool, maybe you could fix the 1st set of pictures on page 1?



Ahh damit I moved some pics around on my web album, I did check the thread straight after and they were still all there, though probably just in my cache. Will fix tonight


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

BronZy said:


> Ahh damit I moved some pics around on my web album, I did check the thread straight after and they were still all there, though probably just in my cache. Will fix tonight


Hmm I cleared my cache and tried two different browsers and all the images on page 1 still load. Is anyone else having trouble viewing any of the images?


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

Ok...

So here is the main amp rack installed. Using the terminals made it much quicker to hook up the speaker wires than the previous version where I had to wire everything into the crossovers.


















and the wiring is pulled through to the passenger side ready for the other amp.


















Unfortunately I didn't have long enough runs of speaker cable left, so I had to solder and shrink wrap to lengths, I'll replace next time I have the amps out.










Needed a few more supplies to split the signal to both amps, and some right angle connectors due to the tight space. While testing the amps the patch cable I was using broke and left the central pin of the plug inside the 'out' socket on my amp. Instead of pulling the amp apart to get it out I just got splitters so that I can split the signal before that amp rather than through it.


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

So I still have further plans for the amp racks, I want to line the inside of the main compartment with carpet to tidy it up a bit, then add some clean white lighting and some perspex covers.

Before I get onto that I will probably finnish off the kick panels with extra deadening and a vinyl covering and make a grille for the door speakers.


Anyway, a little bit about how I am finding the performance of the system...

Performance wise there is obviously a massive improvement from the stock stereo, the sound is very clean and gentle on the ears. I can crank the volume right up and it doesn't fatigue my ears like the old stereo did, it's a little deceptive and I often find myself with the volume up quite high. 

The weakness is definitely the low end and there are two parts to that.:

The mid bass is not at 100% yet because I have not yet deadened and sealed the doors, I am waiting on a window motor which I will need to install first. 

Added to that they are being asked to take on subwoofer duty because I have not yet installed one. I'm not high-passing them and I don't believe the passive xover is either (I notice a difference playing with the subsonic filter so they are clearly being asked to hit some notes down around 35Hz). Because of this I have to leave the gains down because they hit xmax on the low notes. Once they are filtered I'm sure I will have more room to push up the gains. I tested this with some rock music, I high passed them at 63Hz and EQ'd up the midbass region and they really came to life and kicked out some hard crisp drum notes.

So.......










I have this "thing" sitting in my garage. It's a limited edition 15" sub made by a company called Fusion. I am determined not to install it, it weighs as much as a body and I don't want to drive around with it in the back. It used to shake my poor old Subaru to pieces on about 380 watts so I'm sure it could do some damage to the much smaller Z. Having said that I may just mock up a temporary box and buy a cheap amp for the hell of it, it depends how bored I am once I have the other tasks finished off.


----------



## duro78 (Dec 24, 2011)

Love the install. Are you experiencing any noise in the system with the fuel pump right under the rack? I'm redoing my z and my mid bass will be in stock location, mids in kicks exactly where you mounted yours and tweets in the door vents. I'm curious how you would rate your setup as far as sound? Are you satisfied with the chosen locations? 

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

duro78 said:


> Love the install. Are you experiencing any noise in the system with the fuel pump right under the rack? I'm redoing my z and my mid bass will be in stock location, mids in kicks exactly where you mounted yours and tweets in the door vents. I'm curious how you would rate your setup as far as sound? Are you satisfied with the chosen locations?
> 
> Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk


I spent a long time researching whether to put my tweeters in the sails, pillars or kicks and eventually decided on the kicks. Without processing, the kicks are really the best option. For one, you don't want to separate your mids and tweets unless you have time alignment and can play around with the crossover point, and two, the kick panels give you the most equal path-lenghts between left and right. This also important when you don't have time alignment and is especially true with the Z which has quite a deep footwell. 

To sum it up, if you have a DSP, know how to use it, and don't mind your sound being a bit biased towards your drivers seat then putting the tweeters high and away from the mids can improve your stage, otherwise kick's are the simpler and more reliable option. Most of what I read indicate that the sails (stock locations) were the worst place to put the tweeters because of unequal path-lenghts (drivers side is very close to your ear). I didn't really think of putting them in the door vents, but that seems quite similar to putting them in the sails...

>>> Home <<<
Check out some of these installs, there are heaps of 350z / g35 installs with DLS components down in the kicks, the guy is a regular on my350z and I think he is on this board as well, you will find plenty of ideas in his build logs.

I have not had any noise issues from the fuel pump, when I had the sound deadening out and all of the speakers disconnected it was a bit annoying because I could hear it humming away and flicking on and off while I was at a stand still. But that was direct noise from the pump and not interference with my speakers. I just took basic precautions like good quality RCA's, running them away from power sources and good grounds and I've had no unwanted noise. If I start getting issues then that's probably the first place I will look, I will re-route all of the wiring to the edges of the compartment and cable tie it in place, at the moment a lot of it is just lumped under the amp rack (RCA's are routed away from power).


----------



## duro78 (Dec 24, 2011)

Thanks for the info, using the sail/vents was more of a lazy solution I must admit. I'm using an ms8 so ill see how it sounds once I'm done. I've had the car since 04 so I've tried a quite a few things over the years so guess the time has come to try something new. I've been on my350z for several years and Bing has done some nice z installs over the years. I think I'm stuck with that old rule of having the stave as close to ear level as possible and that's why I've avoided the tweets in the kicks. I can't argue with what works though. One last question since the speakers on the drivers side (tweet, mid) will be off axis would it make sense to mount the pass kicks on axis as possible to compensate for the higher path length? Yes I have the ms8 but since ill be modifying the interior I'd rather get in right the first time. Been in car audio for years but sq is new to me. Thanks again for your time

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

duro78 said:


> Thanks for the info, using the sail/vents was more of a lazy solution I must admit. I'm using an ms8 so ill see how it sounds once I'm done. I've had the car since 04 so I've tried a quite a few things over the years so guess the time has come to try something new. I've been on my350z for several years and Bing has done some nice z installs over the years. I think I'm stuck with that old rule of having the stave as close to ear level as possible and that's why I've avoided the tweets in the kicks. I can't argue with what works though. One last question since the speakers on the drivers side (tweet, mid) will be off axis would it make sense to mount the pass kicks on axis as possible to compensate for the higher path length? Yes I have the ms8 but since ill be modifying the interior I'd rather get in right the first time. Been in car audio for years but sq is new to me. Thanks again for your time
> 
> Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk


Sounds like you've got a lot more experience with this than I do. However from what I understand it will depend more on your crossover points. Drivers will beam when the wavelength they are playing is less than the diameter of the driver itself. If you cross individual drivers below the point when they beam, then on-axis vs off-axis shouldn't make any difference as they will be omnidirectional. 

Here is a simple wavelength calculator
Wavelength

Tweeters are the drivers which will sometimes have to play above their beaming frequency, for 1" that is about 14kHz. 

So anyway for my setup, I decided that the mids and woofers would definitely be mounted off axis because it makes the install simpler and they would be crossed below their beaming frequencies. I spent a long time thinking about what to do with the tweets and couldn't really make up my mind, however like you said, you can't argue with what works, and having looked through all of Bing's installs with the DLS tweeters mounted low and off axis, I decided just to go with that.

After a lot more reading I think I understand the logic behind that... 

A lot of people recommend aiming tweeters at the opposite head rest, this would mean that your opposite tweeter would be on-axis, and your nearby tweeter would be off axis. This is very similar to what you propose to do with your mid-ranges. From reading some of the more technical posts, I decided against this because switching from on-axis to off-axis will do more than just affect the overall loudness of a driver, the driver will respond differently or the same depending on the frequency. Below beaming frequency the near speaker will sound louder, but when they start to beam the far driver which is on-axis may become dominant

I'd would always prefer to keep either both on-axis or both off-axis and if necessary adjust loudness with my gains. Now I don't want a one seat car so for me the best approach seemed to be both drivers off axis, the same as Bing's installs.

So I've got a little bit off topic talking about tweets, but I think the same logic can apply to your mids. I would recommend keeping them crossed below their beaming frequency and mounting them off axis, shove them as far forward as you can to minimize the path-lenght difference and I don't think you can go wrong. If you think that your near side driver is more dominant, then the solution is just to push up the gains slightly on the far side driver (or down on the near side driver). Mounting one off axis and the other on axis should make no difference below their beaming frequency, if you ask them to play above that frequency then your stage may shift on higher notes when the on-axis driver becomes more dominant.

This is all information which I've found on this site on some of the very technical threads, if anyone notices something is incorrect then please step in.

BTW duro, I don't suppose you know what frequency the cabin gain in the Z kicks in do you? I'm trying to choose a sub and plan where to put it at the moment.


----------



## duro78 (Dec 24, 2011)

I don't happen to know the cabin gain but I will research it for us. I don't really concern myself with the passenger side as far as imaging because I rarely have anyone else in the car. Plus if I did they wouldn't know anything about listening position anyway, unfortunately I'm the only one into sq in my inner circle. I decided to follow suit, so Ive been buying materials for a mid/tweeter fiberglass kick panel project. For the longest time I was thinking of a way to mount my midbass just like you did, to avoid a large percentage of the sound going in the door cavity or being blocked by the stock location. I love what you came up with. I have 2 questions for you. With the 3way completely coming from you're feet would a person be able to locate the source of the sound or does it fill the front cabin without being able to locate the source. Hope that makes sense lol. My concern is when part of the stage is at ear level its more of a natural reproduction of the sound because of the leveling opposed to being in the foot well. I'm sure you've probably had both setups in the past to compare it to. Trust me your more knowledgeable in the sq realm before this I came from 2700 watts extra batteries shaking the hell out of the Z's body panels, dashboard and steering wheel. To be honest with you if I get the 3 way right I'm considering not running a sub at all or maybe one ten. Sq is a completely different beast, kind of like learning the hobby all over again. I like it because there's so many different aspects of it and its a bit more technical. This is the noise maker I'm gonna keep the box and put my old 10w6's in there. With the box, subs and extra battery close to 100lbs was added to the rear. I'm def eager to shed some weight lol kind of defeated the purpose of having a sports car. Ive been wandering about the cabin gain but never got around to researching it but ill ask around.









Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

duro78 said:


> I don't happen to know the cabin gain but I will research it for us. I don't really concern myself with the passenger side as far as imaging because I rarely have anyone else in the car. Plus if I did they wouldn't know anything about listening position anyway, unfortunately I'm the only one into sq in my inner circle. I decided to follow suit, so Ive been buying materials for a mid/tweeter fiberglass kick panel project. For the longest time I was thinking of a way to mount my midbass just like you did, to avoid a large percentage of the sound going in the door cavity or being blocked by the stock location. I love what you came up with. I have 2 questions for you. With the 3way completely coming from you're feet would a person be able to locate the source of the sound or does it fill the front cabin without being able to locate the source. Hope that makes sense lol. My concern is when part of the stage is at ear level its more of a natural reproduction of the sound because of the leveling opposed to being in the foot well. I'm sure you've probably had both setups in the past to compare it to. Trust me your more knowledgeable in the sq realm before this I came from 2700 watts extra batteries shaking the hell out of the Z's body panels, dashboard and steering wheel. To be honest with you if I get the 3 way right I'm considering not running a sub at all or maybe one ten. Sq is a completely different beast, kind of like learning the hobby all over again. I like it because there's so many different aspects of it and its a bit more technical. This is the noise maker I'm gonna keep the box and put my old 10w6's in there. With the box, subs and extra battery close to 100lbs was added to the rear. I'm def eager to shed some weight lol kind of defeated the purpose of having a sports car. Ive been wandering about the cabin gain but never got around to researching it but ill ask around.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wow, that must be seriously loud. Unfortunately I wont get away with a box that big, between my gear bag(s) and my girlfriends handbag(s) I need all the space I can get!

Awesome, if you find anything on the cabin gain that would be great, I am looking into it as well. Sure, you can EQ the sub once it's in, but I would prefer to build my sub box right rather than relying on large amounts of EQ later down the track.

Regarding the midbass in the doors. This being my first attempt, I learned a few things. The first is that slightly shallower drivers would have made my life much easier. Second, I only laid down two layers of glass on my base, when I pulled cloth over them it flexed the edges slightly so that the pod no longer sat flush. I had to pad them out with dynamat to get them mounted nice and solid. I would put down at least 4 layers of glass as a base if I rebuilt the pods. Finally, I spent a lot of time and trying to fit the woofers in behind the stock speaker grills and it ended up being so tight that I decided to cut a bit away from the door skin anyway, just to be safe. What I should have done is mounted the drivers exactly where I wanted them and just cut a larger hole in the door skin. Because I have cut it I have to scratch make grill covers anyway, may as well have just gone all out. If you are using shallower drivers then fitting them in behind the stock grills will be no problem if they are as deep or deeper than mine, then you will have to cut your door skin regardless so just make your pods exactly how you want and then cut the door skin wherever you need to.

I am seriously considering re-building my door pods, now that I have the process down I'm sure I can knock them out fairly quickly. I may even build some full sealed or ported pods to really add some kick up front.

I strongly suggest you work with the repair putty / resin milkshake that I used. Repair putty is not like body filler, it contains glass strands and dries very very strong. I used it to reinforce the insides of my door pods and the backs of my kick panels and they came out seriously solid. It also sticks to the plastic interior panels much better than polyester resin alone.

As far as the kick mounted tweets dragging the stage down? I have no issues at all, I have on many occasions closed my eyes (not while driving!) and knowing that the speakers are near my feet, listened for sound coming from there and I just can't pinpoint them. The only time I could localize sound was when my drivers side woofer stopped playing due to a faulty connection, the passenger side became quite dominant and I could hear it coming from down low, it made the stage kind of slant down from my head height in front of me, to the floor on the passenger side. A few passengers (who know nothing about car stereos or SQ) have sat in the car for a while and then gone "what the hell, the speakers are all down by my feet, how does that work?"

Having said all of this, if you are only worried about the sound from your own seating position, and you have the MS-8, putting the tweeters in your A-pillars might give you a slight improvement. It will depend on driver choice and how harsh you like your tweets but in theory it will lift your stage even further.

As for the sub woofer, I am in the same situation as you, I want to keep the weight down. I am looking at a single 12. Quite likely the DLS Nordica 12. I am not sure where I'm going to mount it at this stage.

Long reply, but its good to have someone working on a similar project and the same car!


----------



## duro78 (Dec 24, 2011)

Missed the email about your last post, if I didn't I wouldn't of made a mistake with my fiberglass project. I only put one layer of resin and I found out later on I would need extra thickness to get everything level after sanding. Ill add another layer of bondo and sand it down that should work. Overall I must say its really not that difficult. I actually enjoyed doing it.

When looking up specs and reviews trying to find a midbass driver its hard finding a one shallow enough with good output. It was driving me crazy looking for new speakers. Theyre either too big or have to be mounted in an enclosure. I went with raw drivers tbis time around and i must say im very impressed. I really wanted to try out the exodus anarchy but there was no way those will fit. 

Your right its different following along when someone is working on the same vehicle. Unfortunately the members on my350z don't really post anymore sq builds. Do you think i could add another layer of resin to the bondo and then add bondo once its dry. Basically just start the process over again. I dont forsee it being a problem but just want to make sure. I saw a few guys using the milk shake method but I didn't do it because a few others were opposing it, can't remember why. So I just stuck with the traditional method.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

duro78 said:


> Missed the email about your last post, if I didn't I wouldn't of made a mistake with my fiberglass project. I only put one layer of resin and I found out later on I would need extra thickness to get everything level after sanding. Ill add another layer of bondo and sand it down that should work. Overall I must say its really not that difficult. I actually enjoyed doing it.
> 
> When looking up specs and reviews trying to find a midbass driver its hard finding a one shallow enough with good output. It was driving me crazy looking for new speakers. Theyre either too big or have to be mounted in an enclosure. I went with raw drivers tbis time around and i must say im very impressed. I really wanted to try out the exodus anarchy but there was no way those will fit.
> 
> ...


I cant see any reason why layering resin and bondo would be a problem, other than that it probably has little structural strength. I found the same comment as this about the resin/filer milkshake, that it would have little strength and should be used for finishing only. I used a repair putty instead of basic body filler / bondo, it has glass fibres through it and dries very strong.


----------



## creepycrawl (Feb 2, 2012)

I also have a 350Z and I must thank you for posting this build. It has been really helpful. ! question from a noob. Why would you eliminate the rears?


----------



## duro78 (Dec 24, 2011)

creepycrawl said:


> I also have a 350Z and I must thank you for posting this build. It has been really helpful. ! question from a noob. Why would you eliminate the rears?


Consider what your trying to accomplish with your front stage. Centered vocals on the dash and lower frequencies surrounding the vocals appearing to be coming from your hood. The rears directly behind you contradict your imaging goals. Plus as you've noticed half the seat blocks them also. When it comes to the rear pods Nissan did a good job in the looks department but failed when it comes to functionality. For those who like the rears, IMO they have never gotten the front imaging right because there is no comparison. There also a pita to change out so don't bother.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk


----------



## duro78 (Dec 24, 2011)

Hey bronzy, I did there additional layer and it worked great, only minor fitment issues due to the added layers. I originally planned to paint the kicks but once I realized how much sanding was needed that went out the window. So I decided to just wrap them with speaker carpet. It was a lot easier then I thought it would be. Got everything put back together and I must say this is the first time I truly had depth to the music. Need to play with the tuning a bit but I'm definitely happy with the outcome. 

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk


----------



## creepycrawl (Feb 2, 2012)

duro78 said:


> Consider what your trying to accomplish with your front stage. Centered vocals on the dash and lower frequencies surrounding the vocals appearing to be coming from your hood. The rears directly behind you contradict your imaging goals. Plus as you've noticed half the seat blocks them also. When it comes to the rear pods Nissan did a good job in the looks department but failed when it comes to functionality. For those who like the rears, IMO they have never gotten the front imaging right because there is no comparison. There also a pita to change out so don't bother.
> 
> Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk


Thank you for explaining that. It makes perfect sense


----------



## BronZy (Sep 19, 2011)

creepycrawl said:


> I also have a 350Z and I must thank you for posting this build. It has been really helpful. ! question from a noob. Why would you eliminate the rears?


It's a matter of whether you want stereo purely for music, or 5.1 surround sound for movies. I don't plan on watching movies in my car so I went for a stereo setup. As duro said, in that instance the rear speakers stuff with your staging, stereo should come from two sources in front of you, in a larger car you need rear speakers for the rear passengers, but in a two-seater they are basically a waste of space unless you purely want to add SPL to your system. A sub woofer is the exception because at the frequencies it plays, your ears cannot locate where the sound is coming from and so it is fine to place them in the rear of the vehicle, non-the-less a lot of people will still try and cram their sub(s) up front to reduce localisation.




duro78 said:


> Hey bronzy, I did there additional layer and it worked great, only minor fitment issues due to the added layers. I originally planned to paint the kicks but once I realized how much sanding was needed that went out the window. So I decided to just wrap them with speaker carpet. It was a lot easier then I thought it would be. Got everything put back together and I must say this is the first time I truly had depth to the music. Need to play with the tuning a bit but I'm definitely happy with the outcome.
> 
> Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk


That's great to hear, did you frame up MDF rings and pull cloth over your kicks or did you just reinforce them and mount your speakers directly to the panel? I'm re-doing my kicks soon and I think I'll uses some MDF rings to give a more solid mount and a more custom finish. I just need to keep them very low profile. 

Not looking forward to the hours it's going to take me in the workshop to cut the 14-18 rings of varying sizes which I need to flush mount my mids and tweets, re-make the woofer pods and make a facade for the door skin... I may alter my design a bit to cut down that number.


----------



## duro78 (Dec 24, 2011)

BronZy said:


> It's a matter of whether you want stereo purely for music, or 5.1 surround sound for movies. I don't plan on watching movies in my car so I went for a stereo setup. As duro said, in that instance the rear speakers stuff with your staging, stereo should come from two sources in front of you, in a larger car you need rear speakers for the rear passengers, but in a two-seater they are basically a waste of space unless you purely want to add SPL to your system. A sub woofer is the exception because at the frequencies it plays, your ears cannot locate where the sound is coming from and so it is fine to place them in the rear of the vehicle, non-the-less a lot of people will still try and cram their sub(s) up front to reduce localisation.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks bro, I used the skeleton with mdf rings. Driver side is off axis and passenger on access. Since you have passenger's I definitely agree keeping them low profile since they seem to be careless. I was gonna do exactly what you did but I always wanted to try fiberglassing. I suggest just mounting the ring to the kick and wrapping it with some speaker carpet. I was surprised how easy it is to wrap plus you can pull it up and stretch it to get it just right. Also spray the carpet with vinyl spray its an almost exact match to the z carpet. That should look awesome. After I did the drivers side and found out sanding would of been too tedious, that's when I decided to wrap them instead. By the time I got to the passenger side I just did two layers of resin and that was it since I was just wrapping them anyway. If you want just mount the ring and use a couple layers of resin just so you can get that slope effect. That would probably work out better. It sounds very solid with the base, it sounds like that's exactly what your looking for. 

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk


----------

