# SI's SC400 install



## Electrodynamic (Nov 27, 2007)

Ok, first there is a LOT of work that was done prior to what I'm about to post that I will update the thread with at a later date (don't worry, I'll edit my first post - AKA this post - instead of posting it later).

Anyway, on to what happened this weekend. 

Ok...here is a BIG ASS update:

There was a LOT more work that went on other than what is pictured. I have to "give a shout out" (yes, I know that's gay) to Jacob, Brandon, and Justin at Sundown Audio. Without them, none of this would have been accomplished. I employed Jacob's OCD skills in sound deadening to do the doors "half-assed" as he calls it. From the following pics, you'll see that his half-ass is most people's over-kill. We had to keep the metal tape away from him or he would have gone ape **** and would probably still be deadening my doors.

Brandon did an excellent job on the door pods! They are smooth, fit perfectly, and are completely sealed. Thumbs up man!

Justin focused on the trunk portion and did a damn fine job! We tried to fit 3 Mag's but it simply wasn't working out with the diameter we ended up working with. Losing a Mag only lost 1.5 dB (theoretical), so it's no big deal.

The install isn't finished yet, but everything is neat and tidy. Wires are all tucked away, tied down, zip tied, soldered, shrink-wrapped, etc. It was quite the day! Now, on to the piczorz!!


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## Electrodynamic (Nov 27, 2007)

First up is a picture of my deadened door in progress:


















Notice the proliferous use of Second Skin deadener along with the gargantuan opening being filled with Second Skin Luxury Liner before it was to be sealed up. 

Here is the door panel sealed up (AKA: the huge hole taken care of):










And now onto the door pods.  The door pods from the factory are ported. We went sealed. The factory door pods are made out of stiff HEAVY plastic, so there was no need to strengthen the back of the door pods. The front of the door pods needed to have 7" adapters made and fiberglassed onto them in order to mate the Scan Speak Revelators into position. Brandon headed up this section of the install and he did a fantastic job. Here are some pics of the progress:


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## Electrodynamic (Nov 27, 2007)

And here are the sex pictures of the SS being mated to the pod:



































And here is the SS being installed onto the door:


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## Electrodynamic (Nov 27, 2007)

And here are the gold tipped, insulated, and color-coded female fittings used for the speaker wire to go onto the SS's terminals:


















Here are the RCA's I used for the install. The main run is a stereo pair of Tara Labs Prism 3A's to the RF 3Sixty.2. After the 3Sixty.2 it goes to AudioMagic solid silver RCA's and Y-splitters.


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## Electrodynamic (Nov 27, 2007)

And here are the SS's installed and the door panels put back on after being modified by Brandon:


















And before anyone says anything negative: YES there will be custom grilles made to cover up the mids at a later date.

Test fitting the sub enclosure, sanding, and the amp rack (notice the use of beer ):


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## Electrodynamic (Nov 27, 2007)

Last but not least, how it looks right now. Fully functional but without the trim panels.


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## sundownz (Apr 13, 2007)

Sounded great already with almost no tweaking... Nick told me it sounded terrible when I heard it compared to what he's done with it since


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## metanium (Feb 2, 2007)

Electrodynamic said:


> notice the use of beer


Glad to see someone else using this in their installs. It usually helps a little in the early planning and constrution stages. From there, things often take a turn for the worse for me, as my senses, my drive, and my general level of concern diminish. Then comes the "I don't give a F's" followed by the "F the neighbors! I crank it as loud as I wants", followed shortly by the "good evening officers".

BTW. Nice job!


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## Electrodynamic (Nov 27, 2007)

Oh yeah, beverages are a must.  I ordered Jake out to get pizza and beer about 3/4 the way through the install. I was going nuts and a beer helps calm me down. That, and it's more fun when you're done and you can crack open a cold one. 

I'm still tweaking the system. There were some major "oops" issues the more I looked into it. I couldn't figure out why the midbass was so heavy even after EQ...but then I found out that the Scan Speak's weren't high-passed. They were playing all the way down and the Mag's were playing all the way up to 200 Hz. Haha. The mids and tweets were also overlapping between 1k and 6k. Levels needed adjusting, more EQ work (not only by the meter, but also by ear), etc. It's been an interesting couple of days.


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## Electrodynamic (Nov 27, 2007)

PS: The trim panels for the trunk should be done by this weekend. The door grilles should be done in the next few weeks. I've got to employ Brandon again because he's a lot better at fiberglass than I am.


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## MaXaZoR (Apr 1, 2007)

ahhh...i wish I had local members that I could meet up and do installs with. Looks like you guys are doing a great job!


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## ssmith100 (Jun 28, 2007)

I can't believe those SEAS 7 inch drivers like that small of air space. My Morel's hated it. After I cut out part of the plastic baffle and opened them up my midbass just about doubled. Your going to have a fun time building the grills for the doors. That lower door section that the grill was in will come apart from the door panel. It might be easier to fabricate if it weren't attached. I did a ton of trimming on mine but was able to keep the factory grill. Don't no if you used any secod skin on the actual door panel but you'll probably need it. Mine buzzed like crazy. I do have my Morel's crossed over at 51 though. After you do your trunk panels you might want to take a look at were you have your 3sixty mounted every once in a while. After our cars get some age the seam sealant in the trunk lip starts to crack. Water will work it's way down the back of the tail light section and run right to the spot your 3sixty is in. Found that out the hard way on my last SC400. My 300 hasn't had that problem yet. I like the sub tub you did. I'm working on mine right now for my 13TW5. 

Shane


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## Electrodynamic (Nov 27, 2007)

Shane,

The location of the 3sixty.2 is bone dry (for now, haha). I'll keep an eye on it for sure, but the unit is actually mounted about a 1/16'th of an inch above the floor on a metal plate via washers to space it up. I didn't do it on purpose for the water issue, but it just worked out that way.

Morel's typically have higher Q's than the ScanSpeak Revelators do, which would lead them to prefer IB installs instead of tiny sealed enclosures. The Morel's probably sounded a bit muddy in the enclosures. My SS's have really good midbass. REALLY good midbass. If the enclosure size/type was going to be a problem I wouldn't have mounted them in the door pods. But seeing as how it didn't ruin the midbass / low end response of the Rev's and considering the fact that the back of the Rev's cone is a barely treated paper it was only logical to install them in pods. That, and I'm running a pretty high x-over point, so I don't need the Rev's to play down to 50 Hz or anything like that. Imaging is still really good with the Mag v4 bringing up the bottom end of the system - even with a 90 Hz x-over the Mag's disappear.  Extremely low inductance and linear BL and Le have their advantages. 

The doors are buzz-free now but and I just got done riding around with the ScanSpeak's playing all the way down to whatever (20'ish Hz) and the door skins rattled a bit then. Now that they're crossed over correctly I haven't heard anything coming from the panels. If I hear anything I'm going to hit them with SecondSkin Luxury liner.  That'll stop it. 

The Revelators were put in their locations so that I could get the most from them. Covering half the speaker up is a big no-no when it comes to midranges since they are directional and it also robs efficiency (especially off-axis efficiency - not literal efficiency, but efficiency when it comes to actually hearing what the driver is trying to reproduce). Imagine taking a piece of cardboard and covering the right side of your mouth while talking. That's what covering half of a midrange/midbass does. I wanted as much of the Revelator to be visible to me as possible without the grilles installed so that when the grilles are installed there is as much open area as possible.

The floor/trunk is going to look really nice when we get the beauty pannels put on because it's going to completely conceal the Mag's.


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## sundownz (Apr 13, 2007)

I heard it again last night - it is improving for sure


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## Electrodynamic (Nov 27, 2007)

Here's how the HU install went. For those of you who don't know, Metra recently came out with a kit for the SC300/400's. It's a pretty big deal because there was NO kit before they came out with this. You always had to make your own cover panels and such. Anyway, here is the process:

Here is how it looked prior to the install (the hole under the HU is what I was talking about - I was going to build a plate but decided on a single din swap and decided to live with the hole until the new HU became a reality):









After taking the top part of the center console off you are left with this:









You then take the 4 screws on each side of the double din out and remove the head unit:









What's left is the climate control unit attached to the metal brackets. You remove the four screws (two on each side) that hold the climate control unit in place:









This kit comes _with_ the brackets to mount it all back in place. You actually remove the metal factory bracket and install this plastic bracket.









Here's a pic of the Eclipse 7200 mkII before install. Notice the copper goodness.


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## Electrodynamic (Nov 27, 2007)

You have to test fit your HU to the bracket and the face plate. The face plate is odd because it is just held in place by friction - no screws. So with everything hanging free it's a little difficult to keep it together. The only bad thing about my HU is that the face plate is thick on it and it sticks out from the face. I could have inset the HU but there would be a hole all the way around it when the face wasn't on. And now that I think about it I'm not sure if there is enough depth to inset it without clearance issues from the back of the deck to the back of the center console.

















Next step is to secure the HU and climate control to the plastic bracket:









Then you put the face plate of the kit on and attach the whole thing like you normally would. What you end up with is this:









PS: I'm going to see if I can shove the HU back a little farther into the cubby this weekend.


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## beerdrnkr (Apr 18, 2007)

Good job man. I have a similar setup I'm working on and I'm curious on how you're going to run your HU w/ the 3sixty.2?


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## narvarr (Jan 20, 2009)

beerdrnkr said:


> Good job man. I have a similar setup I'm working on and I'm curious on how you're going to run your HU w/ the 3sixty.2?


Same here. I just bought a EPX2 off "the BAY" and then ran across MACS' CD7000. Couldn't pass it up but not sure what to do now that I have them both.


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## mSaLL150 (Aug 14, 2008)

Looks great! That HU is sexy.


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## beerdrnkr (Apr 18, 2007)

Don't mean to thread jack but I'm wondering if you're doing one of the following wiring options. However, I have the 800prs and I'm not sure how different the xovers and slopes are on the 7200. 

The 3sixty.2 allows 50hz-10khz on the front and rear outputs and 50hz-200hz on the sub output. The 3sixty also allows Bandpass, HP, LP, and Bypass on the front and rear outputs and LP only on the sub output. The 3sixty has a 31-band EQ for the Front Channels, 27-band EQ for the Rear and Center channels, and a 10-band EQ for the subwoofer.

The Pioneer unit has 25hz-250hz for LP (Sub Outputs), the mid has a HP (Front Outputs) of 25hz with a LP of 12.5khz, and the HP (Rear Outputs) goes from 1.25khz-12khz. The Mid (Front Outputs) for the xover/slope allows a Pass through, which I think means Full Range?

If I want as much tuning ability as possible which of these two configurations work best? In both configurations I decided to send the Front Outputs of the Pioneer to the 3sixty because it would send it a Full Range signal (?).

(1) Pioneer Front Output to the 3sixty Front Input.....3sixty Front Output to Midrange Amp....3sixty Rear Output to Midbass Amp....Pioneer or 3sixty Sub Output to Sub Amp? If I go from the 3sixty Sub Output I would run the Pioneer Sub Output to the 3sixty Sub Input....Pioneer Rear Output (HP) directly to Tweeter Amp

(2) Pioneer Front Output to the 3sixty Front Input.....Pioneer Rear Output (HP) to 3sixty Rear Input....Pioneer Sub Output directly to Midbass Amp.....3sixty Front Output to Midrange Amp.....3sixty Rear Output to Tweeter Amp....3sixty Sub Output to Sub Amp


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## Electrodynamic (Nov 27, 2007)

beerdrnkr said:


> Don't mean to thread jack but I'm wondering if you're doing one of the following wiring options. However, I have the 800prs and I'm not sure how different the xovers and slopes are on the 7200.
> 
> The 3sixty.2 allows 50hz-10khz on the front and rear outputs and 50hz-200hz on the sub output. The 3sixty also allows Bandpass, HP, LP, and Bypass on the front and rear outputs and LP only on the sub output. The 3sixty has a 31-band EQ for the Front Channels, 27-band EQ for the Rear and Center channels, and a 10-band EQ for the subwoofer.
> 
> ...


It depends on what drivers you are using and what you want out of your system. For me, the combination of the 3sixty.2 and the 7200 works out great because I am using the 3sixty.2 mostly for the x-overs. I do use the EQ portion of it but it's much easier to use the 7200 for smaller adjustments. The 7200 is just used for on-the-fly EQ adjustments. The 3sixty.2 does everything I want it do and I have no desire to cascade and/or use my 7200 as part of the x-over system. 24 dB slopes is just fine by me and the ease of tuning that the 3sixty.2 offers is fantastic and incredibly easy.


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## 92blacktt (Dec 18, 2008)

any updated pictures?


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## Therum (Apr 18, 2009)

Updates?


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## Luke352 (Jul 24, 2006)

Electrodynamic said:


> Here are the RCA's I used for the install. The main run is a stereo pair of Tara Labs Prism 3A's to the RF 3Sixty.2. After the 3Sixty.2 it goes to AudioMagic solid silver RCA's and Y-splitters.


You know what is interesting that wire they are using in those RCA's I have literally a hundred feet or more of it sitting in my shed. Didn't cost me a cent either.


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## Electrodynamic (Nov 27, 2007)

No updates as of now. Well, technically there are, but I would like to get my false floor done before posting up any pictures. I recently tore apart the RF3sixty.2 remote knob and incorporated it into my factory stereo volume knob so now the factory volume knob is the knob for my subwoofer volume level.  All of the wires that were under the CD player are now nestled in my center console so it's much cleaner looking. I also made a new rear deck lid. ...haha, I guess there are a few updates! I'll post up pictures tonight or tomorrow.


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## socal28 (Nov 14, 2008)

Wow, nice work!


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## Electrodynamic (Nov 27, 2007)

Ok, let me try to attach these files since I'm posting from a remote location.

I first took the volume control out of the car and started disecting it and the 3sixty's remote. You can see from these pics how I just tore apart the volume control section of the volume control, as I need the climate part to control the HVAC in my car. 

The volume control came apart pretty easy, but I was really hesitant to snip the tiny little circuit board traces and/or connections out of old habbit. However, the volume control wasn't going to be used ever again in this car and you can buy used assembly's on ebay for cheap. 

The metal "spider" carrier had to have the middle hole hogged out to accept the 3sixty's knob, but other than that the unit fit right up to it. Thankfully RF supplied extra nuts and washers to attach the remote to another face so I used that to secure the remote to the board.


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## Electrodynamic (Nov 27, 2007)

And then I noticed that the shaft of the 3sixty remote BARELY fit inside the white plastic housing.  What that meant was I couldn't drill a hole in the factory black extension to go over the 3sixty's knob. So what I had to do was sand down the factory plastic shaft and make a tiny blade so it would fit inside the 3sixty's slot.

I also had to cut slots in the outter housing to accept the 3sixty's board and also cut a hole in the back of the unit to accept the new remote's board. 

But now it all works! The old volume control now controls the subwoofer level of my system!!!


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## Electrodynamic (Nov 27, 2007)

And now for the false floor section.

I initially cut out a piece of wood that would fit over the two supports on either side of the subwoofers that was all one piece. However, you have to hinge it in order for it to fit inside the vehicle. So I took the solid piece and cut it on one end to make a hinge. 

I had my sign guy print me up a Lexus logo and then I used that logo to trace out the Lexus emblem on the piece of wood. After some jig saw work, I had a Lexus logo in the middle of the piece of wood.  

I bought carpet from Parts Express that was/is pretty close to my original carpet color and cut it out using the factory floor piece as a template. I then put the pice of wood on top of the carpet for a test fit. 










The blue tape is to outline the edges of the wood so when I put contact adhesive down I don't go overboard. I then coated the wood and the carpet with contact adhesive and put the two pieces together. 

After that, I stapled the carpet to the back side of the board and then followed it up by stretching grille cloth around the Lexus logo opening.


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## cheebs (Apr 3, 2009)

Electrodynamic said:


> Here's how the HU install went. For those of you who don't know, Metra recently came out with a kit for the SC300/400's. It's a pretty big deal because there was NO kit before they came out with this. You always had to make your own cover panels and such. Anyway, here is the process:
> 
> Here is how it looked prior to the install (the hole under the HU is what I was talking about - I was going to build a plate but decided on a single din swap and decided to live with the hole until the new HU became a reality):
> 
> ...


i had a sc300 and i had to fab a alpine cva in with some wood and a pocket from another metro kit i had. but i loved that car.


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## capnxtreme (Feb 5, 2008)

Awesome!

I love your attention to detail but with a simple, practical approach. Thanks for sharing, keep it up.


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## Electrodynamic (Nov 27, 2007)

Thanks guys. 

I'm going to start working on flush mounting the amps pretty soon. I don't really want to tackle making grilles for the front speakers quite yet, but I'll do that in good time. Before I make the grilles I have to almost completely re-do the door pods themselves to tame a resonance I have at/around 250 Hz.


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## thehatedguy (May 4, 2007)

Most small sealed pods will have a resonance there. Try some Variovents to help remove the resonance.


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## CAMSHAFT (Apr 7, 2006)

Electrodynamic said:


> Before I make the grilles I have to almost completely re-do the door pods themselves to tame a resonance I have at/around 250 Hz.


Still!!??! I will give you a call soon....


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## Electrodynamic (Nov 27, 2007)

I haven't performed the treatments yet.  I will though - I've gathered all of the materials and I'm just waiting to put them in/on.


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## CAMSHAFT (Apr 7, 2006)

Electrodynamic said:


> I haven't performed the treatments yet.  I will though - I've gathered all of the materials and I'm just waiting to put them in/on.


Gotcha... well good luck!


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## DATCAT (Aug 3, 2009)

Looks great! Thanks for such a great picture log of your install. Have you had a chance to finish the door pods yet?


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## Electrodynamic (Nov 27, 2007)

Nope, I still need to yank the door pods out and deaden the internally and then make the grilles. I'm moving into a new place to live this week, so the work probably won't start until this weekend at the earliest.


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