# 2008 Civic Si : My Novice Build



## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

Well after months of planning, and weeks waiting for all the pieces to come in I've finally started to work on my build this week. Aside from swapping HU's and adding a sub in my last car, this is my novice build. I've spent a long time lurking around here trying to get as much knowledge as possible.

* Summary of Build*

*The car:*
*2008 FG2 (Coupe) Honda Civic Si in Nighthawk Black Pearl*
-Affectionately named "Koemi" which is Japanese for "Little Smile", at my old shop, EPiK Motorsports, we named cars based using letters from the chassis code, the engine code, or some other name associated with the model of the car. Koemi comes from the K20 engine code.










My setup:
*Source:* 
-Pioneer Premier DEH-P980 BT HU : Has time alignment and a little better EQ and processing power than a normal HU, but still limited in a lot of ways.
*Amps:*
_-Bass:_ Kicker ZX400.1
_-Front Stage :_ Alpine PDX-4.100

*Speakers:*
_-Bass:_ Rockfort Fosgate Punch 10" 4ohm DVC wired for a 2ohm load in a .6 cubic foot box.
_-Front Stage:_Alpine SPX-17 REF Components passively biamped.

*Processing*
-HU built in functions (for now)

*Deadening/Insulation*
-Second Skin Damplifier and Overkill. My goal is to add a minimal amount of weight to the car so I'm going to be very selective in what I deaden.

*Wiring*
-KnuKonceptz 4AWG Kolossus Fleks, very nice wire, KnuKonceptz Karma SS speaker wire 12AWG and 16AWG and Karma SS RCA's. I'm also using one of their fused distribution blocks with the Kompression fittings.

*Setup*
Trying to be as stealthy as possible and keep the car light and fully functional since it's my daily, and my wife and teenage daughter ride with me on a regular basis. Amps are going under the seats, sub box in the trunk, the midbasses are going into the stock door location and the tweets are going to go where they sound best, most likely the A-Piller.

Currently here's the planned layout for the car... please excuse my Paint skills... I was basically just trying to get a diagram to plan the layout and figure out the routing... nothing is drawn to scale or anything.










*Approach*
I'm going to install things in stages because of my work load and deadlines I can spare a few hours here and there, but won't have huge blocks of time for a massive all or nothing effort, so I've broken the upgrade down into tasks that can be accomplished with a few hours work. That way I can also appreciate each upgrade and see how it contributes to the overall improvement of my sound. 

This is my first true DIY build. I've always had an interest in good sound in my car, but my previous cars have all had performance as the prime goal of the car. I'm a former tuning shop owner so I've got some decent skills with a soldering iron, and I'm not afraid to tear into my car and make things work. With this car, I'm happy with the level of performance (even though it's a serious downgrade from what I'm used to), and with this car I want reliability, comfort, enjoyment, and the fun to drive factor without having to live with the sacrifices required for ultimate performance.


* Progress*
I've already put the HU into my car, so I've been able to tweak the stock amp and speakers a little and learn a little bit of practical tuning working with what I have.

To test my wiring skills I decided that re-wiring my sub box was a perfect place to start, since the wiring is inside a sealed box that nobody else will see. It had originally been wired with 16 AWG so I decided to use some of the KnuKonceptz 12AWG and practice heat shrinking, crimping and working with the Techflex.

Overall I enjoyed the experience immensely... I took my time and didn't half-ass anything. I was proud of what I'd done when I finished and was semi-disappointed when I was finished that I didn't have anything else to work on just yet (still need to tear into the car and do some final measuring.

The next night I Techflexed and shrinked my power cable. Not to the level of what I've seen on here... but as a second effort I was pretty pleased to get decent looking results.


















My street wires grommet.









Ready for Stealth Install


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

*Sound Deadening : The first night*

Friday night I got a bit stupid

I began the night thinking that I'd only just finish doing the ground wires and mess around with the rest of the wiring for the subwoofer... but like all best laid plans... something goes horribly wrong. I was minding my own business when I accidentally took the door apart.

Well since that wouldn't do to just leave it partially apart... I took it the rest of the way apart. I tell you, that stuff that Honda seals the doors is the UCKIEST stuff to clean up... like that scene in "Independance Day" where the dude-who-plays-Data-on-Star-Trek says "this is what we refer to as the really ucky part" I dunno what I expected but I guess from the pics I expected it to be solid and have to work to get it off because it's a solid. No... you have to work to get it off because it was an ucky mess. No pics until I was almost cleaned up because it was just getting everywhere... used 2/3 of a bottle of goo gone on the stuff.

This is what you can expect to see when you get the door panel off. This is Honda's attempt at sound deadening. That line around the outside is the ucky stuff. It is a real trick to get the plastic off without getting that stuff everywhere... 









When you get that off, assuming that you haven't totally made a mess of everything, you're still left with about an hour's worth of cleanup. This time I tried all sorts of things and almost resorted to brake cleaner (serious bye-bye on the paint). Goo gone was the gentlest on the paint... but since the paint that's there is barely more than overspray, don't expect it to stick around.


















This my friends... is the Ucky Part!!! I've done a lot of dirty jobs when it comes to working on cars, but I think this has to top my book of unpleasantness. 









As I sat cleaning for an hour or so, I had interesting flights of fancy about meeting the guy who created the stuff and the guy who decided to use it in the doors of our cars... and kicking them in the balls.

It takes about 3-4 passes to get all this stuff off... the goof off does turn it into a more liquidy mess, but it doesn't come up quick.









Finally after what seemed like forever... we have reached the end of the ucky part. The sad part is that my paint really suffered... the good part is that this will be under a layer of Damplifier by the end of the day tomorrow so it's not going to matter.

I don't know what I expected... but there is not a lot of room in there for me with big hands. Needless to say my job of laying the Damplifier is probably more fit for the Special Olympics of car builds. I did much better with the wires... 










Laying Damplifier is addicting, but it was slow going and I was trying to take my time and smooth everything down good. What was fun was listening to the tone of the door change from clunk to thunk as I added more mass to the doors. I might go back and add a few more sheets to a few key places, but I want to make sure that I have enough for the driver's door. It goes quick tho.

I'd decided to get some of that plasticized cardboard for signs to fill in my gaps. I thought it was better than cardboard, and I rejected MDF for the same reason.









The first one didn't go so well and I'm a little unhappy about the fitment, but I'll seal it up with duct tape and nobody'll know the difference.


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## vtec_king (Sep 26, 2008)

Hey I saw this same post on 8thcivic


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

*Sound Deadening : The next day.*

I had to make the second panel to cover the other big hole, and I was very unimpressed with the job I'd done on the first one, which involved a lot of fitting and cutting and the inevitable "cut too much away" ooops. I'd tried to make it sit neatly underneath all the harnesses and decided that I needed a simpler approach. So this time I decided to create a template instead of messing up my expensive sign board.









That made it a much easier process. I traced the template out onto the sign board. I then traced the outline of the panel onto some Damplifer and cut it out. I then applied the Damplifier to the panel and it was ready to go. A lot easier than the last time... and changing the blade in the Utility knife (and having sleep) helped a bunch as well.









The next step was to cut the Overkill to fit. The template idea worked so well I decided to use it again.
I did a rough template using newspaper knowing that I'd probably be doing a lot of trimming down.









The Overkill closed cell foam is actually sold in sheets big enough to do the door in one go... no need to piece it together. Traced my rough template onto the Overkill. I found scissors better than the utility knife for cutting the Overkill.









I hung the overkill in position on the door and then started to trim and make holes for all the fasteners to come through and all the harnesses and the door mechanism. It was tedious work, but I'd locate where the hole was needed, mark it with a sharpie, then use the scissors to cut it out.









Once I had the Overkill finished I pulled it off and pulled off the access panel I'd just created and set to work on the Speaker Tweaker pad. The purpose of this pad is to break up the back wave of the speaker so it doesn't reflect back through the speaker.

There was an issue tho, there is a side impact beam right behind the speaker, and for the pad to work it's best it should be as flat as possible.









I couldn't get it perfectly flat because I was worried about the clearance between it and the window, but to flatten things out a little in true DIY fashion I decided to build a foam block out of the Overkill scraps.

I first cut the scraps up into fairly equal pieces. Then I took some of the 3M spray adhesive and coated one side of each of them. I combined two of them together, then put the resulting pieces together until I had a block of 4 layers of Overkill.









I took the two blocks and used the 3M adhesive to attach them on either side of the side impact beam like so.









To give the pad a smooth surface for the best adhesion, I took a sheet of Damplifier and laid it overtop trying not to crush my blocks down too much. I added a few scrap strips on either side of the beam to build it up. The result wasn't flat, but I didn't have clearance issues, and it was a lot flatter than it was.









At this point I was ready to put on the pads, when I discovered that both of the tubes of adhesive that had been sent with it had air leaks and the adhesive was solid in the tube. I read on DIYMA that this glue is the only stuff that will stick to the rubber of the pad, so I'll have to shoot Ant an email and see what I can use as a substitute... very frustrating after all that work.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

vtec_king said:


> Hey I saw this same post on 8thcivic


I've actually had to condense it a little more... DIYMA only allows 10 pics per post so I'm editing myself as I go.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

While I had the door apart I decided to test my speaker fitment. I created a few rings out of cardboard and tested the fit of the woofer. It looks like I'll have to trim those tabs, but with the basket placed right it will fit without trimming. I'm cutting some baffles out of a poly cutting board, and bikinpunk actually suggested doing a second ring behind the door to create a "sandwich" and stiffen the area even more.









While I had the speaker out... I decided to do the obligatory stock versus aftermarket comparison shots. 


















With all that done, it was time to get the door back together. Since I'll be coming back in to install the speaker and the back ring... I decided to just use tape loops to fasten the Overkill temporarily... I'll go back and use adhesive when I'm finished installing the speakers.









I test fit the door panel, and then wound up having to trim a bunch more overkill... also had to remove some around the factory speaker too since the tolerances were pretty tight already and I wound up using a hammer to get the bottom tabs to go in correctly. :laughing:

I went through the whole "reassembling-the-door-and-realizing-that-I-forgot-to-plug-in-the-control-harness" thing so I disassembled the door again, plugged up the harness and practiced getting the door back together again. I tested the windows, door locks, and the door latch and everything worked and I was pleased.

Decided to sit down and listen to it. Even though I only had one door done I decided to sit in the driver's side and the passenger side to see if I could hear a difference.

Boy is there a difference. The passenger side sounded much more fuller... the driver's side is very "tinny" in comparison. It's a noticeable difference... even with just the stock speakers it's worth all the effort.




I took more time on the driver's door, enjoyed it a lot more, some of the above pics are from the driver's door build.

The one thing that I did differently was the mounting for the speaker tweaker.
Decided to build up the driver's side location for the speaker tweakers a little more... will be going back and redoing the passenger side I think.

Instead of using 4 layers of Overkill scraps... I had enough for 8 layers, and it proved to be the ticket.









When they went in they were flush with the side impact beam. 


















I glued them in place and used Damplifier to cover it like I did the other. The result was about a 5 inch square flat surface to attach the speaker tweaker to so it will sit totally flat. I tested the window once I had it reassembled so I think it's safe... we'll see once the pad is in there.










Ant was very apologetic about the glue issue and told me to shoot him an email so he can take care of the issue first thing tomorrow. Good customer service.

I'm holding the pad in place with this shot... but looks very good and will sit flat behind the speaker. 









By the end of it I was tired and sore, but very satisfied with my work, and sat in the garage annoying my neighbors and cranking out some tunes. Even on the factory speakers and amp I was very impressed with the sound... and I haven't even installed the good stuff yet. I highly recommend if you're doing the install a door at a time, that you listen to the difference between doors... I wouldn't have said that my speakers sounded tinny until I heard the difference.

More updates to come. Wiring the car for power is next.


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## vtec_king (Sep 26, 2008)

I really want to know how it sounds when you're all done with it. You will be the deciding factor on wether or not I install a system in the Si I am about to get. I want to know the level of difficulty.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

vtec_king said:


> I really want to know how it sounds when you're all done with it. You will be the deciding factor on wether or not I install a system in the Si I am about to get. I want to know the level of difficulty.


I've really enjoyed everything I've done so far... it's tedious work at time, but I've just had fun with it. Basically I think it depends on your comfort level. If you're worried about messing up your car, then it's going to be harder... I scratched up a few things by mistake, but I've just taken an "Oh Well" attitude. You're going to make mistakes... you just try to avoid the expensive ones.

Patience has a lot to do with it I think. If you can take your time and not get frustrated, then you can do it. 

There's an immense feeling of satisfaction when you finish something. I'm very weary and sore right now... I'm 40 so spending 18 or so hours on my knees and butt doing contortionist movements and chewing up my fingertips takes a toll on me. But I have an intense feeling of satisfaction, and I'm really looking forward to my commute tomorrow so I can enjoy my changes.

It just takes practice and patience... so I think you should go for it.


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## M3NTAL (Apr 9, 2006)

Looking good so far. Those stock speakers are very interesting looking!


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## vtec_king (Sep 26, 2008)

Is this your first install?


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## lyttleviet (Sep 11, 2008)

Very nice


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

vtec_king said:


> Is this your first install?


It's my first serious install. I swapped out my HU, front speakers, and added an amp and a sub in my last car. This is my first build where I'm running speaker wire and doing sound deadening, and trying to assemble an SQ system. I've done power and grounding before, but intend to do a much more professional and safe job of it this time.

I do have some experience with performance modifications, so that's helped me a little, but I'd still consider myself a newb... I've got to the point where I've learned a whole lot, and realize that I have so much more to learn...


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## vtec_king (Sep 26, 2008)

Where did you get all of your wiring from? Where are you grounding your amps at?


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

I'm going to try to ground the amps off the bolts holding down the seat rails as my first choice. If they won't fit there or if the ground isn't good, then there are a few places under the center console that ought to work well.

For wiring, I started off planning to use a Rockfort Fosgate kit that I'd found open boxed on Ebay for dirt cheap. I needed a bit more than what came with the kit so I decided to augment my install with some wire from KnuKonceptz. After doing some comparisons and seeing how nice the KnuKonceptz wire was in comparison to what I had, I decided to use the KnuKonceptz products exclusively. 

I bought one of their Kolossus 4AWG amp kits because it was a good price for what I needed, then ordered some extra wire on top of it. I have about 20 feet of red Kolossus Fleks 4AWG power wire, 3 feet of carbon Kolossus Fleks 4AWG for the amp grounds. I also bought 100ft of 16AWG Karma SS speaker wire for my mids and tweets, an then 20' of 12AWG Karma SS for my sub wiring. I also have 2 ft of Kolussus Fleks 0AWG for reinforcing my engine and chassis ground to the battery. I also got one of their fused distribution blocks with the Kompression fittings and some Karma SS RCA cables.


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## Irishfocus06 (Sep 11, 2008)

Looks very good so far. I hate deadening myself as well and took me over 3 months to just do my whole trunk, upper rear deck and front doors. I still have the inside of the rear deck and back doors and maybe the roof. Floor will wait for now. 

I work 50 hours a week and then get home to have to watch my kid and literally have 1 day a week of free time, which I usually spend with my wife. 

And to think, I have been trying to get a 2nd job to make ends meet.


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## Babs (Jul 6, 2007)

yay! I get to live vicariously through the sweat, time and cash of another Si owner. 
Saw this one I think at 8thcivic as well. Lookin' good! Ain't bad at all for a self-proclaimed newb. Far better/more than I've done to doors. Bravo!


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

subscribed. 


Great work so far. Let me know how sandwiching the door skin goes for you. I never got to try it so am living vicariously through you. 

Keep it up!


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## SteveH! (Nov 7, 2005)

*Re: Sound Deadening : The first night*



WolfSong said:


>


 do you think there would be enough room to fit an mw172 into that door if you used a 3/4 inch thick baffle? i am loving the easy access to the inner doorskin.


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

I could've fit one in my sedan. My only issue was the molding of the door card itself. But, the coupe's are better off in this respect. So, I"d say you could make it work without serious work.


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## capnxtreme (Feb 5, 2008)

*Re: Sound Deadening : The first night*



SteveH! said:


> do you think there would be enough room to fit an mw172 into that door if you used a 3/4 inch thick baffle? i am loving the easy access to the inner doorskin.


IMHO (I have an 06 coupe), there would be enough depth, but I would worry about the funky small keyhole shaped cutout when using a beefy 7" driver. Might have to do some minor cutting on that, at worst.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

*Re: Sound Deadening : The first night*



capnxtreme said:


> IMHO (I have an 06 coupe), there would be enough depth, but I would worry about the funky small keyhole shaped cutout when using a beefy 7" driver. Might have to do some minor cutting on that, at worst.


When I was test-fitting the REF woofer... it would not fit until I oriented the speaker basket a certain way. Once I get the baffle created there should be plenty of clearance for cone movement, but to be on the safe side, I think I'm going to trim off those two pieces.

I took a few more pics of the space that are still at home and not uploaded to the server, but here's a few more shots of the area.



















Looking in from the side panel towards the opening.









Same view from the driver's side.









With the REF woofer sitting in place


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

Figured I'd post an update for those of you who aren't on 8th Civic.

Long story short, I have an old back injury that flares up once or twice a year, usually caused by excessive stress (deadline at work that I was getting behind on) and I've been forced to take a break or risk injury that could put me down for days.

That's not to say that I haven't made any progress in that time. I have literally torn the rear of the car apart (from the rear seats back) trying to figure out the placement of my various components and the wiring of the car.









I'd originally thought to put my distribution block behind this rear seat panel, but from a practical standpoint, that didn't work out to be such a good idea. On the driver's side of the Civic... the bottom of the seatbelt is mounted to the chassis, and the bolt passes through the bottom of this panel. With a bit of finagling, I think I could've got the seatbelt off without having to remove the driver's seat, but it was going to be a pain to remove this panel any time I needed to check fuses or modify something, so I was forced to rethink the distribution block location.

After going through a number of alternative mounting locations inside the cabin, all of them being impractical or otherwise unacceptable, bikinpunk finally suggested tearing apart the trunk and looking for suitable locations there for everything and using wood panels attached with some sort of strong adhesive to mount them.









At this point, the whole "under the seat" plan went out the window. In crawling around the car trying to look for locations for the distro block, I'd realized what a pain in the rear adjusting the PDX under the driver's seat was going to be.



















So the current game plan is to mount both amps on wood panels that are going to be glued to the outside of each fenderwell, the fuel filler is on the driver's side, so I didn't want to try to blindly put in some self-tappers. I'm going to paint the mounting panels black, and then cut holes in the trunk panels so that the amps can sit outside of them. I'm going to locate the distro block on the driver's side a little further back in the trunk behind the panel. The crossovers are going to be mounted on the passenger side further back.

The way the car is laid out, there are two tunnels going into the trunk on either side, so the power run will be straight down the driver's side rail, and the speaker run will be straight up the passenger side rail to the dash (Hence the PDX-4 and the crossovers being on the passenger side of the car). I'll run the RCA's down the middle under the center console so that all of the runs are very isolated from each other.

This actually simplifies a lot of things and now I can either get at the amps from the back seat, or from the trunk if I need to. Not quite as stealth as I intended, but still very effective and I can still make full use of my trunk.

Now if only my body would co-operate... I picked up some 2'x2'x1/2" birch plywood yesterday for mounting everything... but considering that I can barely sit in this chair to type, it's going to be much later on in the week before I can hope to start the work.


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

Great progress! Hope your back gets better soon.


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## lyttleviet (Sep 11, 2008)

get better soon! us 8thgen guys will finish together


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## Duce2k (Mar 18, 2008)

Good progress so far, looking forward to more


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

Well after a bit of an enforced vacation from the project... the doctor actually gave me some good pain meds and a more aggressive anti-inflammatory, so I've actually been able to get a few things accomplished today. It's slight, and my only goal for the weekend is to get power to the back of the car, but I've actually made some headway.

I picked up a 2'x2'x1/2" sheet of birch ply last weekend, with the decision to move everything to the trunk, I needed places to mount things.

I cut the sheet up into 
-8"x5" panel to mount the distribution block
-13"x5" panel to mount the two crossovers.
-11"x11" panel to mount the Kicker on the Driver's side
-11"x9" panel to mount the PDX on the Passenger's side.

I hit them with some flat black paint and laid them out to dry for the day.









Checked the layout a little bit later with the distribution block and one of the crossovers.










The distri block is off to one side because I was going to mount my relay for the remote turn on beside it on the bottom.

The panel for the distribution block and the crossovers will be hidden behind the side panels in the trunk, but both of the amps will be on the outside of the side panels. After a lot of debate today, I decided to just go ahead and use self-tapping screws to mount the crossover and the distribution block panels. 

I don't really have that same option for the current location of the Kicker amp tho, because my fuel filler neck runs through that panel it's behind and I don't want to drill blindly into that area... too much potential for disaster there.










Before paint, I test fit both of the amp mounting panels behind the side panels and they seem to fit with some finessing.









What I'm considering doing, because I'll want the ability to remove the panels, and I can't just use self-tappers on that one side, is that I was thinking of maybe just using adhesive and attach the amp panels to the back of the interior trim panels, and then use Velcro to attach the back of the amp panels to the sheet metal and give them some more support. That would make the trunk interior trim panels totally removable if necessary.

Any feedback on this idea would be appreciated... good bad or indifferent. The alternative is to attach the mounting panels to the sheetmetal with adhesive and the cut holes in the trunk interior trim panels around the amps (which is why they were painted black)... but that could wind up looking very bobo if I don't get the cuts just right.

Finally, some success... I finally got my distribution block mounted.


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## capnxtreme (Feb 5, 2008)

I was thinking that you were just going to have wood behind the factory carpet, and then screw through the factory carpet into the wood. All you need to molest in the factory carpet is the holes for the screws. And you don't need to paint anything.


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## lyttleviet (Sep 11, 2008)

Hey buddy, glad you are feeling better and gettin' to work! I hope to be done right on Nov. 9th... I set up an SQ meet in Houston and would like to be a participant at my own event so lets pray for that..

Your build is coming along as well.. Hopefully you feel better so you can finish it up


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

Well my back and shoulder are holding out pretty good. Didn't even need to take any pain medication today. Wound up working for about 5 or so hours running the power wire. I took my time and tried to run it as cleanly as possible.

Under the Hood:



























On the 2006 and up Civic, you basically have to run the wire down into the top of the fender liner, then into the car on the driver's side behind the fuse box. I used a street wires grommet, and then ran the wire down the door rail on the driver's side, back behind the rear seat panel and up into the trunk through a tunnel that's absolutely perfect for this sort of thing.









I used a lot of split loom for protection, and to make things look as stock as possible under the hood.









The KnuKonceptz distribution block uses their Kompression fitting system, the details are here: http://www.knukonceptz.com/assets/Tech/knfhowto.pdf , Unfortunately my pics of setting it up didn't turn out. Basically you put the wire through a fitting, then fold the strands around the fitting and then the fitting screws into the distribution block and presses the wire strands into the end of the block. Kinda neat, but took two tries to get it right the first time, had to strip a bit more insulation off and fold over quite a bit.

The Knu block with the cover in place.










I ran out of power wire, my routing took a bit more length than I'd expected, so I'll have to re-up on some 4AWG to hook up the amps. I have enough to run to the Kicker on the driver's side, but I wanted to route that a little better and I'm about 6" short of what I need.

Back and shoulder feel fine... though there's a lot of cuts and scrapes on my hands... running the wire through the fender was extremely tight and painstaking.

I took my time, and I'm happy with the results.  Could probably get the Sub in and running tonight if I pushed things, but I'm actually going to just relax.


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## tuff57 (Oct 20, 2008)

car looks good so far good luck with it


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## slvrtsunami (Apr 18, 2008)

you obviously have a lot of patience. That's a good thing. Take your time and do it right the first and only time. Don't think you HAVE to hurry and finish. BTW, its looking great and hopefully I can get some ideas about my trunk when I eventually get around to it.


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

looking very nice so far. Keep pics coming! 

- Erin


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

slvrtsunami said:


> you obviously have a lot of patience. That's a good thing. Take your time and do it right the first and only time. Don't think you HAVE to hurry and finish. BTW, its looking great and hopefully I can get some ideas about my trunk when I eventually get around to it.


I can post a few more pics of the trunk stripped out if you like or even email you the high res versions if you will think that will help.

I accidentally stepped on the camera lens on Sat while I was trying to paint. I managed to get the mechanism aligned again, but I've noticed that it's not focusing as well as it used to on quick snaps... looks like I'll have to budget for a new camera shortly 

As far as being patient, I'm not as good as you think... but I'm very meticulous about things and pay attention to the details. I'm definitely not the best installer, but I'm taking a lot of pride in doing the best job that I possibly can. 

I've worked with friends on their cars, one was the master tuner at the tuning shop I ran, and the other is a friend from work, but he's actually become a certified Subaru master tech because of all the work he's done on his car. Both of them have extremely high standards of work and it's rubbed off on me.

I think I'm actually going to try the Velcro on the mounting panel for the Kicker and see how that holds up. I wanted a bit of extra slack in the power cable so I could get the trunk interior panel off and have space to work without disconnecting the amp, but I have enough 4AWG to hook up the amp and test at least.

It would be very nice to have some full bass in the car again and be able to actually switch off the rear speakers and work on my stage.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

Forgot that it was "Heroes" tonight... so I took it easy.

However I did decide to try a proof of concept.



















I cut myself a smaller board since it didn't have to show behind the panel... think it's about 10x9 but I actually just used the mounting holes for the Kicker to measure it.

Decided I wanted to torture test it before I hooked it up. This is the amp that I don't care about, I've already checked for the best price on a PDX-1.600 just in case.  The pull test is fine, seems to take some force to get the panel to come off. 

Figured I'd test it like this before hooking anything up to it first. If it holds then it's all good. If it doesn't... then I'll have to come up with something else... and maybe another amp. 

If it's still holding good tomorrow night... then I'll consider it proofed and hook up the sub.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

Well the Velcro held, but as I was trying figure out the wiring for the remote turn on, something occurred to me... I was already using the remote turn on with the stock amp in the car.

With this being my first multi-amp setup, I did some reading and found a few warnings about putting too many devices on the remote turn on circuit, and that with multiple amps that I should use a relay instead, and use the relay to supply 12V and just use the remote turn on to power the relay.

So I was just expecting to have to wire up the relay and connect the Kicker amp to it, and hook up the PDX once I installed it, but in the meantime... I've still got the stock amp to turn on as well.

After some pondering, I decided to wire up the relay based on the directions here: http://http://www.the12volt.com/relays/page5.asp#rtol

I was hoping a more elegant looking solution would present itself... but this has to be the ugliest setup I've done in a while.









I spliced into the remote turn on lead for the stock amp in the currently unused plug that I unplugged from the OEM radio with the steering wheel audio controls on it. I decided to take a piece of speaker wire from an old install kit, and use one side to carry the signal back from the remote turn on from the HU to hook into the relay (blue shrink). I used the other side to carry back the signal to go to the stock amp (yellow shrink).









I wanted to get a little bit of feedback on this before installing it... the smallest ATC fuse I had on hand was 7 amps, and based on what I read, I wanted either a 5.5 amp to protect the 18AWG wire I was using from my kit or 3 amp, which is the smallest ATC fuse value I could find.

Is there a better solution to doing this??? Eventually I'll have a processor so there will be 3 units that need to be turned on.

I spent the rest of the night trying to clean up the poly cutting board rings that I tried to create. Using the jigsaw was an exercise in frustration because the heat melted the board and fused it back together behind the saw... the same results when I tried to use the dremel. Once it solidifies its even worse than it was the first time to cut and won't cut smoothly. Any suggestions on this as well? 

At the rate I'm going, I'm probably just going to go buy some 3/4 birch plywood and make rings out of it. I didn't want to use MDF because of the moisture break down issue, which is why I tried the poly cutting board.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

Well I finally got off my butt and got a few things done this weekend.

The distro block was really not positioned well for the PDX4, the run to the Kicker was only 2', but the run to the PDX was going to be 6.5' once I routed it nicely. This made me decide to rethink mounting it in the back of the trunk.

In my quest for a better place, I started to look under the rear deck and found a suitable place behind where the stock subwoofer was. Fortunatly I had just enough wire to do the relocation. I also wound up just drilling some holes and mounting it straight to the bulkhead.









This made things a lot easier for the power runs and both of them are under 18 feet now. I ran the 4AWG to the Kicker, not the shortest run possible but I was trying for it to "flow". The reason why I used so many of those adhesive tie mounts is that I bought these ones at Lowes, and they tend not to hold as well as I'd like. I'm going to have to pick up some of the industrial strength ones and redo them as they give out.









Now it was time to tackle the RCA cables to get signal back from my HU. My backseat's been pulled for a while, but I had to pull apart my dash and my center console to get at everything I needed







.

It was all ugliness under there... I did my HU adapter harness very early on in my DIY phase and now it looks just like one serious mess. Unfortunately my soldering iron gave up the ghost and I have a new one ordered, but I was going to have to leave it for when I did my front stage install. 

I started from the backseat and ran the two RCA cables and the remote turn on wire up to the break for the center console, then routed them up on the driver's side under the console. I used some split loom around the bracket at the end of the console and around the parking brake mechanism for extra protection.









I ran the wires up the reinforcement tube into the area behind the HU. I was hoping not to have clearance issues and wound up moving the wires a little from this position more to the center of the tube because the console was right against them and didn't want to sit right.









I tried to neaten up the stock wiring harnesses and keep the space behind the radio open. I'm wanting to fit a W505 in here so I decided that I'd start making room for it now.









Once I had everything situated up front, I routed the wires over the hump for the back seat and tied it down so it wouldn't move. There's a stock harness beside it so it shouldn't even be noticable.









I pulled all the wires through to the trunk, made sure the lengths were good, and used a piece of wire loom to protect the wires going through the tunnel. I routed the wires around the seat itself so my daughter can't do the "Princess and the Pea" bit.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

I hooked everything up and then routed the wires neatly. I went through the spare tire well to avoid any possibility of getting any noise off the fuel pump. I wrapped the RCA's for the PDX in duct tape and then taped them out of the way so they'd stay out of trouble.









I then reassembled my interior and even put the back seat back in... it's been out since I first started trying to figure out the wiring and it was nice to finally put it back in... when I do my front stage it's coming out again... but it's nice not to have the interior in pieces for once.

The next thing I tackled was to pull the stock sub out of the rear deck. I wanted to have some way of venting my "violent bass air" into the cabin so I didn't blow out my trunk. 









I of course, had to do the cliched comparison to stock and aftermarket pic.









I reassembled the rear deck and it was time to take on the thing I'd been avoiding... grounding the amp.

In the 8th Generation Civic, there are NO bolts in the trunk, save for the taillights and the stock grounding location on the back of the trunk. The bolts that hold the hinges for the back seat are good grounds, but the closest one of these was over 3ft away once I routed the wire nicely. After careful deliberation, I decided that I was going to have to drill a hole in my floor... which in a car that's less than 3 months old, can be rather traumatizing. Yes I know I drilled holes to mount the crossovers and the distribution block... but those were little holes. 

I spent a long time checking and rechecking possible locations, and finally picked the easiest looking one and went for it. I drilled a small pilot hole in the first of the formed bumps, it was easy to find that underneath so I knew I wouldn't hit anything, but it's easier to fix a small hole than a large one. I then drilled it out with a 5/16" drill which was the size of my bolt, washers, and the hole in the ring terminal as well. I test fit using another ring terminal and marked out the shape of the contact area with a Sharpie.









It was time to clean off all the paint from the location, so I reached for the safety goggles, my headlight, and my Dremel. My neighbors think I'm a nutcase when I work on the car... I wonder why?









I won't go into the gory details, but the wire wheel didn't work quickly enough, so I wound up using the sanding bit to clean up the gouges that I made with the grinding bit. A Dremel is a handy tool... but only if you have some clearance to work with it. I finally got things down to bare metal tho. I also attacked the underside as well to clean that up as well.

I had my daughter help me and we got the bolt tightened down. I went with a sandwich from top down of bolt-washer-ring terminal-floor-washer-nut. I tested the ground afterwards against the ground for the taillights and there was only .1 ohms resistance... so I was happy. 

I cut down the cable leaving a little bit of slack so if I needed to get behind the panel once it's mounted, I don't have to disconnect the amp first. I hit both top and bottom of the assembly with some clearcoat so I shouldn't have to worry about rust.









From there it was a simple matter of putting the sub in the car and hooking it up... and then hooking up the battery. Everything worked right and pretty soon I was playing some music and setting the gain on the sub by ear... I've got it a little less than half way and it blends with the stock amp very nicely.









I played around with the setting on the HU and then went out for an hour's drive to take a listen. Wow!!! What a difference. I set it flat and didn't touch the EQ, just did a quick time alignment and set the high pass and low pass filters on the HU... and it was amazing. I definitely have some tuning to do, but the fullness added by the sub really blew me away.

Looking forward to getting to work on the front stage now...


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

Well with two days driving under my belt, I'm just absolutely loving the setup. Taking the stock subwoofer off has let me put the crossovers on my HU on both the front and rear speakers, and also has let me move the front stage foward using the fader. With the stock setup, the stock sub was being run off the rear speakers, so when I moved the stage forward, I did so at the cost of bass.

I still haven't really messed with the EQ... the "Powerful" factory setting on the Pioneer does pretty good with most of what I listen to so I've been just listening to it flat or on that setting. 

I did do a quick time alignment which brought the instruments together and made them more cohesive. I didn't really notice how much until last week when I ran the power wire and had the battery disconnected which wiped out my custom settings. Even with all the other settings in place, it just sounded "wrong" until I added back my time alignment settings (based purely off speaker distance to each ear).

I did find a couple of leaks in my sub box, my buddy constructed it a few years back and so plugged a few holes were amps were screwed in. This seemed to help the bass output so I was going to take out the sub and use some of my Damplifier to seal everything up again on the interior and add a little bit of deadening. I was also considering constructing just building a new box from scratch when MaXaZoR got in touch with me on 8th Civic. He let me know that he had a couple of fiberglass enclosures that he'd custom molded for the coupe. He had one with an Infinity Perfect 12 12" DVC sub in it. I did some quick checking and it was going to be "perfect" for my current setup from the power/load standpoint, and his price was very reasonable. My wife gave the thumbs up so I have the enclosure/sub on the way as a slightly early birthday present.

Working through my front stage now... I'm assembling the harness, and the only other thing I really need to work out for the moment is the mounting rings. 

I'm having a lot of issues working with the HDPE cutting board, it likes to melt and re-fuse itself back together past the cut. I've been practicing cutting the rings with the scraps of 1/2" birch and the results are prettier than my first attempt, but still far from what I'd like. I have a HDPE cutting board sitting there, waiting to be a victim, but I was hoping to get some good rings out of the birch before trying.

As a backup, I've found a couple of places on eBay that will do MDF rings to my specs for pretty cheaply (< $20 shipped for two 1/2" and two 3/4 rings for my "sandwich" on either side of the mounting hole). I'm tempted to pick these up so I have something for the install if my skills with a jigsaw don't improve.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

Quick update:

I have some MDF rings coming from MaXaZoR with my enclosure, so that's what I'm currently waiting on right now to do my front stage.

I went ahead and constructed my harness for my front speakers.

I decided so I wouldn't have to rewire in the future until I go 3-way, that I'd run lengths from the trunk. With some careful measuring and a fudge factor at both ends, I decided to divide the harness into three sections.

1) Individual runs from the drivers and passenger side corners into the doors, up to the tweets. Decided to give myself 3ft on each as a generous fudge factor.
2) Merge these into Dual runs for left and right channels routed along the firewall. 30"
3) Merge the dual runs into one 4 wire run routed through the center console, under the back seat and through the same access tunnel to the trunk that my signal wires are running. 10 ft.

I rounded up and decided to do 18ft total on each of the wire runs. I'm using KnuKonceptz Karma SS 16AWG which is nice twisted pair cable. To cut the lengths, my wife and I marked off 18' with tape on the floor to measure each run. 

The next step was to color code each cable so that I could know what was was at both ends of the harness. I used different colored shrink for this purpose. I also covered the 3' of the individual ends with 1/4" techflex while I was doing this.









The next step was to line up the wires and then create the dual wire runs to run across the front of the firewall. I used 1/2" techflex for this since it wound up being easier than the 1/4".









As you can see... I got some twisting under the techflex... not a big deal with the two wires... but 4 wires was going to make a bulky/uneven mess.









To avoid this, I laid the the two harnesses beside each other, and using zip ties, bound them together one atop of the other along the length.


















The next step was to put the 1/2" techflex over top. Once I had it in place, I stretched the techflex and poked through the head of the zip tie, and clipped them and pulled them out. It was painstaking, but the result was well worth it, straight runs under my techflex.


















I'll trim these down once it's installed into the the car and things are positioned. I've also got some clear shrink so that I can create labels because I'll probably forget what the color coding means. 

In the trunk I'm going to run this into a barrier strip, so that if I change my setup or locations I'm only moving wires around my trunk.


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## Mack (Jul 27, 2007)

Very solid work. I'm jealous.


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## ocuriel (Oct 7, 2005)

That is a great job. Love the wiring and front door deadening!


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

Thanks for the compliments. In both the wiring and the deadening I tended to just lose myself in the job because I enjoy it so much. My wife commented the other night when I finished my shrinking and techflexing that I looked lost because I didn't have any more to do.


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## Extreme SE-R (Oct 31, 2008)

PDX FTW!!!


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## lyttleviet (Sep 11, 2008)

You have passed me... I am still idle waiting for my stuff ... GG!


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

lyttleviet said:


> You have passed me... I am still idle waiting for my stuff ... GG!


I'm not sure about passed... maybe more like inched ahead. This weekend is going to give you some catch up time because we have a wedding to go to. I've had a pretty rough week as far as my back and my health in general, so I might be on doctor's orders to relax and rest. Most likely I'll listen to him and try to catch up on my sleep.


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## IrishChamp (Oct 9, 2008)

Lookin good! keep up the good work and progress pictures!


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

Thanks for the encouragement.

I got my MaXaZoR fiberglass enclosure and Infinity Perfect 12 DVC sub today!!!


















I rewired the DVC for a 2 ohm load. One of the wires came loose in shipping so while I was in there I decided to redo the whole thing.


















Think it's worth putting some polyfill in there? If so, is it better to just stuff it in, or would it be better to spray it down with some adhesive so I can cover the whole interior?

I still have my interior panels out, but I actually test fitted it against the panel out of the car, and the fitment is perfect. 









In the car it's out of the way and gives me back a bunch of trunk space. I'm very very happy with it.









I spent about 45 minutes listening to it, using the same settings as I had the Rockfort on as far as gain, crossovers and alignment. All I can say is wow! It's fuller, deeper, and a lot smoother. The RF was very snappy in comparison, with more of a bite to it, but not much followthrough after the initial hit. This has a much warmer tone to it.

MaXaZoR also sent me a set up custom MDF speaker rings he made for me since I was having a lot of issues with the HDPE and my jigsaw skills in general. They fit my 6.5's pefectly.


















Here's the setup I'm thinking of for mounting the drivers to the door. The inner/outer ring setup is to try to stiffen up the door and prevent flexing, it was originally bikinpunk's idea but since he went to kicks and didn't have anything mounted in the door he explained it to me so that I could try it.









The driver itself is going to be held on with bolts and T nuts, I kept those out of the diagram so it wasn't totally confusing. A new twist I was thinking about was to protect the bolts from vibrating as they pass through the holes in the door, was to oversize the hole through the MDF and the door and add a sheath of rubber tubing around the bolt so that there could be no metal on metal contact (pink thing in the diagram). Is this pure overkill or is there some merit in this idea?


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## syd-monster (Jan 7, 2008)

That idea for the mounting of the driver should work. Try and make the rear piece of MDF as big as possible and screw/bolt it through the door skin in more places (in adition to the bolts you're already going to use.) This larger MDF will help stiffen the door skin.
Also don't forget to make sure no air can leak in and through the rubber tubing, it could cause some funny cancelation or wistling... The tubing will help also in the dampening and reduction of any metal to metal noise, if it did occur.
Other wise very good work mang!


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

syd-monster said:


> That idea for the mounting of the driver should work. Try and make the rear piece of MDF as big as possible and screw/bolt it through the door skin in more places ![/U]


x2. Make the back 'brace' as large as possible. The more area it covers the stiffer it'll make the "baffle". I'd also suggest you use the hdpe for at least the inner door unless you can coat the mdf in something that will not allow moisture to penetrate it. Being inside the door is a horrible location for that stuff, knowing how easily it turns to mush.


anyway... nice setup so far. Good luck with your back stuff. Have you considered surgery yet?


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

Yeah, I still have some birch and the HDPE attempts... since they're inside the door there shouldn't be an issue with how fugly they are. I was a little reluctant to use the MDF because of the moisture issue so I'm going to see how the sealing job turns out. toxin/capnxtreme voiced some similar fears over on 8th about putting the MDF inside the doors. I have some clear coat that I was going to use on both sets of MDF rings (and the birch ply) to seal them, and I was going to seal the drill holes as much as possible.

I've still got to put the Speaker Tweaker pad in and see how much clearance I have back there once I put it in. I built up the area behind there, but I didn't remember to actually measure the space I have.  I also need to check the window clearance again just to be safe. I could possibly double up the rings on the interior or stack the birch and HDPE rings together which would give me an inch on the inside and shoot the back wave straight into the speaker tweaker pad.

I was worried about clearance to get a wrench on the nuts in back, but I could probably use T-Nuts on the inside so that I won't need to get my hand in there to attach them.

I'll see what space and clearance issues I have once I get the doors off again.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

And currently my back has calmed down considerably, but my shoulder hasn't. I had an MRI on it last Friday and hopefully they'll come up with something from that. The diabetes diagnosis has been the more serious issue right now with trying to get my blood sugar under control/adapting to the medicine to control it.

When they X-Rayed my back my doctor said he could see some degenerative stuff in there but thought that it might be arthritis now. Once we get everything else taken care of I'll see what he thinks about surgery but I'm not sure if it's operable.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

Thought I'd update my driver mount diagram to show the changes proposed:


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

quote myself..


Look into appropriate ‘breathing’ space behind drivers. I know that some have said when they make a ring for their midranges they tend to bevel out the inner portion so that the driver’s cone has room to breathe (hybrid L3 comes to mind). If you’re doubling up layers behind the driver’s mounting ring you might have an issue with this, too.  I’m not sure. But, it might be worth making a post about on DIY to get some perspective.


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## t3sn4f2 (Jan 3, 2007)

bikinpunk said:


> quote myself..
> 
> 
> Look into appropriate ‘breathing’ space behind drivers. I know that some have said when they make a ring for their midrange they tend to bevel out the inner portion so that the driver’s cone has room to breathe (hybrid L3 comes to mind). If you’re doubling up layers behind the driver’s mounting ring you might have an issue with this, too.  I’m not sure. But, it might be worth making a post about on DIY to get some perspective.


x2

Also, I really don't think an MDF sandwich with foam gasket is going to help strength the baffle much unless it covers a _very_ larger area like mentioned earlier. In order for it to solidify the area you would need a rigid ring made of a thick metal like aluminum and those rings would have to be bounded to the door skin with an industrial adhesive that is as strong as a metal weld. This way the force is transfered to the solid baffle rings and held in check.

You can avoid doing this by running some type of I-beam metal bars over a large area of the door skin and BOLTED at several point. It would not need to be connected to the MDF baffle rings, just around them and on the other point around the door skin. 

Basically what you are trying to do is add structural beam to a thin base, the baffle rings would then have a solid baffle to lay on with them not needing to clamp down structurally for add support. Which IMO would not help much if attempted, but would be better then nothing. 

A heavy gauge boxed metal tube would work as well as an i-beam


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

^ good ideas.

I saw some steel sheets at Lowe's a few weeks ago that I thought would be a good option. They ranged from 1/16" to 1/2" thick. They'd likely have a lower Fs than most other materials. Could even try lead sheets. I would think as long as you can strengthen up that thin sheet metal door, you're doing _something_ which is better than nothing.

There's a lot of ways to go about this. I suggested the cutting board on the back because it's pretty easy. But, I'm sure there are a lot of better ideas.


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## t3sn4f2 (Jan 3, 2007)

I suggest this mounting config from behind the door skin if possible, using at least a 1" heavy gauge square tube bar bolted at several points, along with your sandwich idea (just be careful with the speaker breathing issue). The other area around the speaker is already secure by an L type structure of the door perimeter. 

You can always add tubing to other parts of the door to help those areas as well.

And again, adhesive would be better then multiple bolts in any case.


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## t3sn4f2 (Jan 3, 2007)

bikinpunk said:


> ^ good ideas.
> 
> I saw some steel sheets at Lowe's a few weeks ago that I thought would be a good option. They ranged from 1/16" to 1/2" thick. They'd likely have a lower Fs than most other materials. Could even try lead sheets. I would think as long as you can strengthen up that thin sheet metal door, you're doing _something_ which is better than nothing.
> 
> There's a lot of ways to go about this. I suggested the cutting board on the back because it's pretty easy. But, I'm sure there are a lot of better ideas.


A 1/2" steel baffle in that area would be would be awesome. Use the perimeter of the door to keep it steady and you're set. You'd probably need an acetylene torch to cut it though.


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

t3sn4f2 said:


> I suggest this mounting config from behind the door skin if possible, using at least a 1" heavy gauge square tube bar bolted at several points, along with your sandwich idea (just be careful with the speaker breathing issue). The other area around the speaker is already secure by an L type structure of the door perimeter.
> 
> You can always add tubing to other parts of the door to help those areas as well.
> 
> ...


I like this. This would bridge the panel and increase rigidity substantially.

I think I remember Geo doing something like this, too. 



At one point I was going to brace up the inner skin via tubes and wedge the tubes b/t inner skin and outer skin. But, honestly, that seems like too much work; would be a huge PITA to get things cut to the right lengths (and we’re talking mm’s here if you wanted it to work right). I like the idea posted above. Maybe do a second strap brace for kicks (not kickpanels … ).


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

t3sn4f2 said:


> A 1/2" steel baffle in that area would be would be awesome. Use the perimeter of the door to keep it steady and you're set. You'd probably need an acetylene torch to cut it though.


They were sold in sections. Just guessing here, but I think they were probably 4”x12”. I could be wrong about that, though. I just remember thinking to myself “whoa! That would work”. lol


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## t3sn4f2 (Jan 3, 2007)

bikinpunk said:


> I like this. This would bridge the panel and increase rigidity substantially.
> 
> I think I remember Geo doing something like this, too.
> 
> ...


Yeah it's a mission, the farthest I would personally go is bolted tubes where need be.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

Wow... a lot of good feedback.

I created a separate thread to discuss the driver mounting/door stiffening since I figured there might be more throughput on a shorter thread and would get some more input.
http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/showthread.php?t=49442

bikinpunk was kind enough to quote what's been said here so far in the other posts. 

Excellent feedback so far.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

Over on 8th I had fun with this, but I think I'll keep this straight and to the point. 

Since I'm finished with the driver's side of the trunk... I wanted to get it back together this weekend, but really didn't feel like doing anything.

So I bit the bullet tonight, and disassembled everything with the intent of putting the side trim panel in.

Unfortunately, it looked like crap.









There was just no way that the trim panel was going to look decent with that 1/2" panel of birch underneath... and I'd really come a bit too far to have it not look decent.

So I was back to square 1... except that my amp was now all disconnected and un-mounted and I'd have to put everything back together or not have any bass for my commute.

Then inspiration hit me... what if I could find something thinner to fit in that area, and then mount the 1/2" panel on the outside, and run the screws through the inner panel into the outer panel. Something like that old 1/16 fiberboard paneling that they used to use in furniture. 

Unfortunately Lowes was going to be closed by the time that I got there. So I wound up tearing apart the house to try to find some of this stuff that I could swipe. I had no luck until I found that the bottom panel of my ex's old stereo used this as the bottom panel.


















I used the old painted panel from a few weeks back... fit perfectly and gave everything the support it needed.









The end result in the car.


















There's a slight chance it might rattle, but with the eye side of the Velcro there I doubt it... it's held pretty firmly in position with the panel secured.

Now I have to finish the wiring in the trunk so I can get the other panel on now. The crossovers won't really fit with the new sub box... it would be actually against them rattling and that can't be good for them. I'm thinking of just putting them on the back of the 40 side of the 60/40 rear seat, I rarely would use that side as a pass thru.


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## capnxtreme (Feb 5, 2008)

Nice!!


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## lyttleviet (Sep 11, 2008)

Looks great again.... I posted some updates in mine as well .. Should be done by Friday.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

Started to seal the rings tonight. 

I'm using something else on the inside, but I decided to seal the smaller set of rings for the inside while I was at it... I might wind up using them to add a bit more space to clear the "ears".

I think I'll use the HDPE rings I have cut on the inside of the door for the support.










I had a couple of cans of flat black high heat engine paint lying around that I can't remember why I bought them, so I decided to use one of them on these... 









The MDF seems to be soaking it up, so I'll hit it with some clear tomorrow. I have two coats on the front and back now. Took this pic after the first coat.









I'd hoped to run my speaker harness tonight but I was woozy when I got home from work and wound up sleeping for a couple of hours.

Still thinking through where I'm going to mount the crossovers. Since the particle board panel thing worked well, it's opened up a few possibilities. Once I get the PDX-4 mounted then I can see what type of space I have left over in that section.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

Since I was painting... I decided to cut a new panel to mount the PDX on. My freehand cutting with the jigsaw is improving... but still far from professional looking.










I used the high temp paint on it as well. should be dry tomorrow when I get home from work and get started on mounting the PDX.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

Well my exhaustion from the last couple of weeks of insomnia finally caught up to me last night. I pushed way too hard (until 5am this morning) and today I've been totally useless and I'm worried that I might screw something up without some decent rest. I haven't been thinking too clearly. 

I installed my speaker harness last night. Spent most of my spare time yesterday at work reading Doitor's CX-7 install thread... really inspired me so I was pushing to make some real progress last night and fell a little short.

I got the harness into the car, but still need to pull the wires into the doors.

Few progress shots.






















































The bad news is that I was shaking so badly from low blood sugar and exhaustion that I didn't do quite as cosmetically nice a job on the wiring as I'd like to have. For that reason I've been afraid to tackle anything today... like drilling holes for mounting my drivers and such... wouldn't want to ruin the stuff I have with a stupid goof up.

I'm hoping I'm tired enough to get a good night's sleep tonight that I can get some stuff done tomorrow.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

Saturday was pretty much a washout for me, and actually so was most of Sunday...

I did manage to tie up a few loose ends and get a little closer to the final product tho.

With a lot of finessing, I was able to get the passenger side woofer wire snaked into the door through the boot. The Knu wire is pretty thick, so I was able to do it without a coat hanger... just a lot of manipulation through the boot itself. I also lucked out that despite the fact that the Civic has Motex connectors in the top of the boot, the bottom of the boot is an open space that's perfect for sending wires in.... thanks for that one Honda.  You can barely see the Motex connectors above the wires, one white plug and one blue plug.










Unfortunately the exhaustion kicked in again, so I didn't get a chance to work on the passenger door... though I did check the fitment of the drivers in the door and installed the Speaker Tweaker pad.


















When I regained consciousness... I reassembled most of the car and decided to turn my attention to the trunk. I finished running the power and ground runs. The only wiring left back here is the connections to and from the crossovers once I determine where to mount them.









In order to determine where I was going to mount the crossovers... I decided to fully reassemble the trunk with the PDX in place so I could scope out locations... plus I was tired of looking at the bare trunk.


















I'm basically down to installing and wiring up the crossovers... then installing the drivers and then my front stage is installed. Currently I'm thinking of ditching my more complicated mounting scheme for the old standby "mounting ring and modeling clay" approach and go back later and reinforce the area.


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## slvrtsunami (Apr 18, 2008)

It's funny how hard it tis to recover from exhaustion but yet so easily and quickly to get that way. Take care of yourself first, the car isn't going anywhere!

I can appreciate your attempt to maintain as much trunk space as you have, it looks great. Unfortunately, all the REAL talent is hidden, but it doesn't matter once YOU know what is done. Is it time to think of upgrade yet or your done for a while?


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

slvrtsunami said:


> It's funny how hard it tis to recover from exhaustion but yet so easily and quickly to get that way. Take care of yourself first, the car isn't going anywhere!
> 
> I can appreciate your attempt to maintain as much trunk space as you have, it looks great. Unfortunately, all the REAL talent is hidden, but it doesn't matter once YOU know what is done. Is it time to think of upgrade yet or your done for a while?


Thanks!!!

Nah, I'm not done by a long shot... already saving up for the H701 and some kind of Navi HU...  I'd like to build a proper amp rack as well. Seeing all the incredible work on here from the mild to wild really gets the imagination going.

I've been bitten hard by the bug... It's the point of obsession. Heck... I'm not finished installing the basics yet and I've already kept on coming up with improvements.


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## slvrtsunami (Apr 18, 2008)

True, can def. understand where your coming from. I am thinking about a support group for this. Right now, my support group is my wife wnating to see receipts for ANYTHING I spend money on. Can't even sneak it by her! (That's ok, for now).


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

slvrtsunami said:


> True, can def. understand where your coming from. I am thinking about a support group for this. Right now, my support group is my wife wnating to see receipts for ANYTHING I spend money on. Can't even sneak it by her! (That's ok, for now).


LOL... my wife is actually an enabler... so that's no help to me. When MaXaZoR offered me the FG enclosure and sub, I told her about it just because it was tempting... and she was the one saying, "Well if we put the money back in savings as soon as we get it, I guess it's okay."

Now my ex-wife was a different story...  So I can understand where you're coming from.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

Figured I'd post a couple more pics... I drilled the holes for my mounting ring last night:

I'm using hex head bolts and T-Nuts to secure the drivers, then using larger Hex head bolts countersunk into the ring to secure the ring to the door with rubber washers, washers and wing nuts. I decided to go with a simpler mounting scheme for now

Test Fitting the T-Nuts and bolts



























The ends of the bolts extend slightly past the ends of the T-Nuts. 1" are a bit too long and 3/4" seem to be a bit too short. To be on the safe side I decided to cut a couple of gaskets out of closed cell foam to ensure a tight seal. I also have modeling clay as well which would be a more solid solution.









I'm going to drill fresh holes into my door for mounting... the OEM holes are rather irregular and one would be placed roughly where I needed to place a driver mounting hole. I basically offset the holes 45 degrees and drilled pilot holes, then the width of my threaded part of the bolt, and then countersunk about 7mm for the head of the bolt.

Test fitting the bolt.









Once I had all the holes drilled and tested... I cleaned up the rings with some sandpaper... then hit them with another coat of the flat black, spraying some into each of the holes. I'm going to hit them with some clear tonight when I get home and hopefully they'll dry enough by tomorrow or Sunday to install.

I'm going to use Gorilla Glue to secure the T-Nuts to the back of the ring, and will probably use the same to glue the gasket to the back of the ring if I go that route.

Only two other tasks remain.
1) Mounting and wiring up the crossovers.
2) Pulling the wire into the driver's door.

Hoping that I can get those finished this weekend.


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

Have you fired this car up yet and listened for any noise? Hondas are electrically VERY noisy and I see some places you have run wires that raised holy hell in mine.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

chad said:


> Have you fired this car up yet and listened for any noise? Hondas are electrically VERY noisy and I see some places you have run wires that raised holy hell in mine.


The PDX isn't hooked up yet... so I haven't had a chance to check for noise yet. The first chance I'll get will probably be Sunday.

The Kicker and the sub are quiet but I'm only running them at part gain to match levels with the stock amp and speakers.

Which wires should I look at? Signal or speakers?

I read your post about the fuel pump noise, so I've stayed as far away from that as possible.


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

Dude, your install is coming out great. I probably wouldn't go with some of the locations you've gone, but that's just personal preference. The work and attention to detail is very nice. Hard to believe you're new to this. 

*thumbs up*


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

Signal, and stay away from the main harness running down the center of the car thru the console if there is one. I thought it would be neet and tidy to use that path, but in reality I was WRONG, Epic fail and out came the interior again. also stay away from the ECU wiring.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

chad said:


> Signal, and stay away from the main harness running down the center of the car thru the console if there is one. I thought it would be neet and tidy to use that path, but in reality I was WRONG, Epic fail and out came the interior again. also stay away from the ECU wiring.


Thanks for the heads up Chad...

I'm going to check ASAP when I get the PDX fired up.

The speaker harness is near the main harness coming down the console, but the signal harness is away from it for most of the run. I have enough slack in both harnesses if noise is present to move them down to the floor of the car if necessary.

The only thing close to the ECU right now is the passenger side speaker wire. Not sure where the routing is for that harness through the dash but it should be pretty obvious when I find it.

At several times during this... I'd really wished that I'd sprung for the Factory Service Manual, and I think that'll be at the top of my shopping list once Christmas is over.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

bikinpunk said:


> Dude, your install is coming out great. I probably wouldn't go with some of the locations you've gone, but that's just personal preference. The work and attention to detail is very nice. Hard to believe you're new to this.
> 
> *thumbs up*


LOL... it's strange that you mention locations. 

Actually I think my lack of experience is biting me... the more I look at other people's installs, I've been thinking the whole false floor setup was the way to go. 

I'm probably going to end up like you and Doitor and countless others in that once I'm finished... it's only to rip everything up and "improve" it once again.

My brother-in-law used to be a carpenter, so I'm thinking that I'm might ask him for some help so the woodwork doesn't wind up looking as "special ed" as some of the other things that I've turned out so far. 

Heh... you might want to stop reading at this point because I'm about to get introspective and long winded again.  

// begin long-winded introspective part of post 

Very easy to get lost in the details when you're enjoying something. When I started this whole thing, I thought I was going to run a few wires, splice a few things here and there... and then fudge everything together until it worked. 

Then I learned about TechFlex, Sound Deadening, RTA's, Crossovers... I realized how deep this actually got... and unfortunately I've always done deep. 

The install became a project and the project invariably becomes a journey. Each time you think you know what you're doing... you learn something else that just proves there's so much more to learn.

If what I do looks good, it's actually a reflection on the rest of you. Sometimes I'm so far out of my comfort zone in the stuff I'm doing, but I'm doing it because it IS outside my comfort zone, and the reward afterwards is being able to sit there, look at the finished product and say. "I did that s***!". 

//end long winded introspection part.


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

Lol. The install takes forever, but that’s how it gets done right. Heck, it took me forever and I cut corners. I wound up giving my car to someone else to get the kicks done because I KNOW if I had done it myself it would’ve looked like butt, and probably taken 100x as long to complete.


Keep charging forward. It seems to me you’ve gotten the real hard stuff out of the way (running wires, speakers in doors, and deadening). Tuning is *easy* in that it doesn’t require manual labor. You can go out to your car whenever you want and tune and you don’t have to worry about putting it back together before you drive to work the next morning.


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

WolfSong said:


> Thanks for the heads up Chad...
> 
> I'm going to check ASAP when I get the PDX fired up.
> 
> ...


Hang tight on that.... gimme a bit I'll try to find one.


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## WolfSong (Aug 16, 2008)

Been a little while since I posted an update.

That's because I've not gotten anything done on the car for the past two weeks, in spite of my best intentions. A combination of exhaustion and trying to balance out my blood sugar left me with little energy to tear into the car. I'm on vacation for next week so I'm seriously hoping to get something done.

I've not been idle while I've not been working on the car... I'm starting to rethink my "distributed" setup and how to consolidate all of my gear into one neat package that isn't going to interfere much with using the trunk space and offer some better protection to my amps and processors. Something with a bit of room as well so when I upgrade, I'm not struggling to find a place to put it.

What I came up with was a flat box between the wheel wells similar to what arrivalanch did with his Civic. Something like this:









I actually toyed with gutting one of my guitar cases but they are just slightly too long to fit in that area by about 1" or so depending on the manufacturer.
I was thinking of constructing it from 3/4" Baltic Birch ply and creating the frame and putting a 3/4" platform around the bottom for the amp mounting board to sit on. This would give me space underneath for the wiring.

This would give me about 38" W x13" D x 3.5" H interior space for mounting my gear. Overall exterior dimensions would be 40"x13"x5.5" tall.

I was going to cut some holes in the back to mount fans but probably would only close the cover when I was actually using the trunk for transport, so that would be the only time that additional cooling would be necessary.

I'd make the amp mounting board removable (as opposed to being part of the structure) so that when it came time to upgrade, I could cut myself a new mounting board, wire it up and then swap it in and hook everything up without having to drill new holes and keep it looking clean.

It will certainly be a challenge... I've never built something like this, nor have I ever worked with carpeting. I plan on taking some more precise measurements and figuring out exactly what I need to pull this off. I was very happy to cruise through the Fabrication section on here to find 95% of the questions I had with building this were answered in the first 10 pages of posts. 

I decided on using Baltic Birch Ply because I felt that it was going to be easier to work with than MDF, more element safe, and lighter as well. I'm going to carpet the visible surfaces of the frame, but I'm still trying to decide if I'll carpet the amp mounting board or to just use paint. 

I'm toying with some means of holding the lid open like gas struts or the like, and a lockable latch for when I want to make sure everything's safe from prying hands. Suggestions are welcome in these areas.

If anyone can tell me the allowances in dimensions I need to make for the carpeting, I'd appreciate it... I was figuring on about 1mm, but someone with experience confirming this would be very much appreciated.

Feedback on the design is VERY welcome. Thanks in advance!


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## slvrtsunami (Apr 18, 2008)

I think its a good idea. I will be haeading that way myself as well. However, IMO I woul dmake provisions for some sort of circulation. That way you don't have to worry about keeping the lid open and all that stuff.


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## distronic (Dec 14, 2008)

Pictures are gone in the initial posts =(


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