# Charliekwin's 2007 G35 Sedan build log



## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Alright, I've had this thing for a few months now and am no longer willing to deal with the miserable excuse for an audio system that Nissan put in here.

*Goals:*
I want to make this sound as good as I can while still retaining all the stock locations and making the system as invisible as possible. I've hacked up cars in the past and want to avoid that this time. I want be have the option of returning the whole thing to stock sometime down the road.

*The plan:*
Phase 1 -- the head unit has to stay, but everything from there and back will be replaced. Wire everything, sound-proof and install the amps and speakers.

Phase 2 -- build the enclosure and and install the subwoofer

Phase 3 -- permanently mount an iPod Touch (or similar) in the console's ashtray and hook it up via the aux input. Thanks to Nissan for failing to include any kind of iPod integration on a luxuryish vehicle in 2007. Sheesh.

*Equipment:*
Speakers: Morel Virtus 603
DSP: Helix P-DSP
Amps: 2x NVX JAD 800.4 (another of the PPI, Hertz, Polk clones)
Sub: IDQ12v2 that I rescued from my old car

No speakers yet, but rest of the big stuff is around the house somewhere...










*Let's get to work!*

The trunk in stock form. That stupid CD changer is the first thing to go:










The trunk, cleaned out. Driving the car like this didn't lead to a major increase in road noise. Encouraging.










With a 10-month old running around, trunk space is at a premium, so false floors or anything else that takes up an significant amount of trunk space is out of the question.

First plan was to mount everything symmetrically under the rear deck:










No-go...seatbelts got in the way. Arts-and-crafts time: some cardboard mockups can fit under the rear deck, but it's pretty tight. Wiring everything would be difficult. Making changes later would be worse. Hmm...need a Plan B.










Plan B: mount the amps to the back of the seat. Not ideal and a little more visible than I'd like, but maybe I can do something interesting here. DSP stays up top, along with the power and ground distribution.










A bit of Raammat on the back seat. Sound proofing in the G is actually pretty decent and with the stock system at least, no rattles. In the interest of keeping the weight down, a minimal application here for now.










And beginning work on power. A little convincing with the Dremel and Channellocks and the lug fits perfectly.










Tomorrow: the door cards come off and more sound proofing goes on. Molex connectors fill my nightmares and swear jar.


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## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

Like the mock ups!! ! Really cool way to plan things out that I haven't seen in some time.

good work, keep going!!!!


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

A bit of minor progress, along with a significant change in plans.

Pulling the door card revealed at least a little bit of happiness: there are no holes that need to be sealed. This must be about as closed-off as a door can get.









That was the end of the good news for the day. I knew there were only two sets of speaker wires for each side coming from the Bose amp, but 3 speakers in each door, so it must be getting split/crossed over somewhere. Where? Right here, in the door.









So I need to run a set of wires. This is how much space I have to work with in the door:









Worse, there is no room on the driver's side molex:









Best as I can tell, the only possible way to run new wires to the doors would be to completely remove the doors from the car. I'm not doing that. So, my initial plan of using the stock locations and keeping it all invisible is dead. Looks like tweeter pods just got added to the build list. ::sigh:: This little chunkster was pretty upset about it too. Baby! Y U NO NAP?









Moving along, got some Raammat stuck onto the outer door skin.









And on the rest of the door. After spending hours laying on sheet after sheet of this stuff on my previous cars, I'm a real fan of this new way of doing things.









Now on to the MLV. First thought: wow, this stuff is _heavy_. Second thought: how the heck am I going to fit this to the door?









My approach...tape an outline on the door card where the MLV should sit.









Then transfer it to the sheet and rough cut









On the door, about halfway done









And finished trimming for now. Will do some final adjustments when the speakers are in place and everything's clipped in.









Now to deal with the CCF and some velcro to attach. Turns out the wrong foam was shipped, and I got one with an adhesive already applied. The velcro has an adhesive too. The package says it's not for use on dashboards or vinyl. Uh oh. Better test this out first. I put a strip of both on a scrap of MLV and stuck in a low over for about an hour. The foam mat looks good. The velcro is a disaster. That black stuff is the melted glue.









If anyone knows of something heat resistant that'll stick to metal, vinyl and velcro, I'm all ears! 


Next up: the UPS Fairy be delivering a bunch of miscellaneous installation bits in the next day or two so I can start running some wires and putting stuff _together_.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Parts Express, Sonic and Amazon are all conspiring against me...none of the orders that I placed last weekend have been delivered, so I'm still unable to get the wiring in place.

But a phone call on Friday afternoon made me forget about all that for a little while, since these guys showed up! 














































I won't be using it, but it looks nice:










Main focus for this weekend was to get the mounting plates for the amps cut out and installed in the trunk.

Had to fashion some kind of brackets to secure them to the rear seat support. I'm decent with wood, but metal working is most definitely NOT my thing. Fortunately I found some sheet aluminum in the garage that was soft enough to cut with a jigsaw (sadly, the only saw I have  ) and bend by hand.

Cut:









Bent:









Hammered flat:









And drilled. For those who don't know, Home Depot sells an 8pc set of Quick Grips for $30. Maybe the best $30 I've spent lately!









The mounts were cut out of 1/4" MDF and the back lined with CCF to avoid any possible squeaking when they're up against the rear seat:









And installed. Finally, I put something _in_ the car! The amps are considerably smaller, but I plan on fashioning covers for them later, so I went big to give those a place to attach to.









A look at the other side. The brackets are free to move, but the bolt heads are fixed with construction adhesive. The idea is that once the seat goes back in, the plates can be adjusted from the trunk without having to take the rear seat out.









It's been about 100 degrees in my part of SoCal this week. I gave up and found something that could be done indoors. So the door card was stripped and CLD tiles were added wherever the knuckle test failed:









Finally, I made a real effort, but at this point, I think I have to abandon any pretense of organization.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Progress this week went a little slower than I'd have liked. Some delayed installation hardware finally arrived on Friday, and as soon as I manage to drag out my workbench and tools, it started raining for the first time in _4 months_. In Los Angeles. In JULY. If I were a more egotistical person, I'd swear the universe had it out for me...

Got to work cutting some baffles, which mate up to the stock adapters. The woofers have a fairly shallow mounting depth, so one layer of 1/2" MDF was more than enough to clear the door.










Cut and drilled










Then given a few coats of some rubberized undercoating I had in the garage.









I still haven't taken off the driver's side door card since I'm driving the car, so the second baffle is just a mirror of the first. I'm confident that I won't later regret this decision...


Started work on power and ground. Fuse holder was attached to the main fuse box. It's a *really* tight fit in here and I'm embarrassed to admit how long it took to finish this.










On to tackle some speaker wiring. I've been on a mission to figure out the wiring for the stock tweeters. Here's a look at the harness for the Bose output. 









The big wires on the left are for the woofers; they're about 14AWG and go all the way to the speakers, so they're being reused. The small ones on the right are probably 22AWG and are for the tweeters, but _somewhere_ in the car, they get bumped up to ~18AWG. Not great, but usable if I could find where to splice into it, especially since running wires into the doors is so difficult (see post 2). I've been unsuccessful the last three times I went looking; today I would not be denied. More stuff out of the car:










I finally found my answer. And of course, it happens at the door molex, worst of all places. I really don't want to use the puny wires for my midranges, so I bit the bullet and decided to run new ones










I wish I had the success picture, but after the time spent, I guess I forgot. But I DID IT! The much-tougher driver's side still waits. Send help.


Oh yeah, and I put the amps in. They're held on by bolts and lock washers. At least that part was easy.



















Coming up this week: more wiring! I might even get to put a trim panel or two back in. Then I'll really feel like I'm getting somewhere!


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## lithium (Oct 29, 2008)

nice build.

why not tap into the stock speaker wire at the door. it would save alot of head ache


every time i see a build for a g35 i hope to see someone go with huge midbass in the doors but it never happens.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

lithium said:


> why not tap into the stock speaker wire at the door. it would save alot of head ache


I'll probably have to do that on the driver's side, since 1) the molex connector has very little free space, and 2) access looks much more limited (unless I remove the whole dash, which I don't really want to do!).

I couldn't tap in on the passenger side because the wire bundle runs across the car behind the dashboard. Not many good options here. Now I know why Bing puts everything in the A pillars! 




lithium said:


> every time i see a build for a g35 i hope to see someone go with huge midbass in the doors but it never happens.


Ahh, sorry to disappoint! I originally considered putting some bigger drivers in there, but decided to go with a packaged set. Not ready to go that far into the deep end yet!


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

nice job so far...if your car has the same options as the late model Gs i have worked on, i found that the passenger side molex has plenty of room to run wires into, but the driver side molex is stuffed and almost every pin used...so...let us know how it worked out.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Another weekend gone, but some decent progress made. Between work and family obligations, it's tough finding large blocks of uninterrupted time to work, but the wife and I have a little road trip planned for Thursday, so I parked my butt in the driveway all weekend and got down to business.


The midranges are staying in the stock location. The driver fits perfectly between the mounting studs with no room to spare.










A bracket was cut out of 1/4" MDF. Without much room for error, this turned out to be a little more difficult than I anticipated. 3 failures later, and I got it right.










And from the front. Nice fit. Lines up perfectly with the opening in the stock grill.










Some beginning work on the the power/ground distribution and DSP installation. They'll be mounted underneath the rear deck on MDF. Used existing holes and glued in the bolts so everything can be put in/out from the trunk.










In case anyone else is planning on hanging equipment upside down in their trunk, I would like to take a moment to officially discourage them from doing so. There is nothing fun, easy or fast about this.


Time to tackle the driver's side door. The card was it's own special project (below), but the door got the same RAAMmat treatment as the other side. Also, it was 5pm on Friday and about 100 degrees...beverage time! This stuff from Rogue is easily in my current Top 5. The door is back there, too.










Now, about that door card. I'm the 3rd owner of the car, and while it looks like it's been treated pretty well, somebody went HULK SMASH on this door some time ago. The armrest had collapsed and the top and bottom were coming apart:



















Let's find out how bad the damage is...well, hoever pulled the card before did a ham-handed job of it. 3 broken clips, a broken pin, broken screw stud and 2 missing screws!










Door surgery. The broken screw stud was reattached with CA glue. The broken piece from the armrest was also glued back into place.










The armrest needed to be reinforced, so a matching piece was cut out of 1/8" MDF.










And glued into place. Tough piece to clamp!










Some CA glue and plastic epoxy to fix the connecting piece for the top and bottom halves. The finished door card, about 95% as good as new for about $500 less!










Door and wiring update coming up...


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Finishing up the door baffles. Decided on t-nuts held in with a dab of CA to mount the speakers. Put a layer of RAAMmat on the back and gasket tape to get a good seal on the stock adaptors. CCF mat on the stock adaptor as well.










Wrapping up the doors. The glue that came with the velcro wasn't able to handle the heat of a car interior, so the velcro strips were soaked in lacquer thinner and the glue removed. In case anyone's looking for adhesive solutions: CA glue on the MLV side. Epoxy on car side. CCF mat was added to the MLV and cut to expose the velcro.










Then some final trimming to fit on the doors.



















As soon as the heat shrink I ordered shows up, the speakers can be installed and the doors finished.


Took care of wiring from the front doors. Right side: power and speakers along the rocker, zip-tied to the stock wiring.










Left side, I had to tap into the midrange speaker wire, where I made my first bonehead mistake: tapped into the wrong end. Whoops. Speaker wires and the USB cable for the DSP were run along the rockers and zip-tied to stock wiring, same as the other side.










Last bit from the weekend: USB jack for the DSP. There's an empty switch plate on the lower steering column trim. Taped out the area to remove:










Used a Dremel and drill press to remove the bulk of the material, and a box cutter to clean up the edges, then hot-glued the cable into place. I'd like to finish the edges somehow, but don't have a plan yet. Oh well, a project for later.










That's all for now. Hoping to have the speakers in and power/ground to the amps finished tonight, leaving two days to get all the signal and speaker wiring finished.


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## hybridamp (Oct 10, 2006)

Nice work, I'm subscribed. Really makes me regret selling my '07 G; really fun cars to drive and own. I had to replace my door handle trim pieces due to that soft touch black paint scratching off.


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## BurnOut956 (Sep 3, 2007)

does the head unit have to stay because of aesthetic reasons? There is nothing like a good clean signal coming from the source.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

hybridamp said:


> Nice work, I'm subscribed. Really makes me regret selling my '07 G; really fun cars to drive and own. I had to replace my door handle trim pieces due to that soft touch black paint scratching off.


Yeah, Infiniti _really_ blew it with that paint on the 07's. I also bought new switch bezels to replace them. $35 each, which is well worth it, IMO. They're getting installed in a day or two.



BurnOut956 said:


> does the head unit have to stay because of aesthetic reasons? There is nothing like a good clean signal coming from the source.


Technical more than anything. Nissan/Infiniti uses CANbus in their cars, so removing the head unit would muck up (if not outright break) other systems like HVAC. Like anything else, I'm sure it _could_ be done with the right combination of money, patience and know-how, but I certainly don't have it, and actually, I haven't seen anyone who's done it yet. That said, I do have a clean low-level signal that I'm tapping into. Probably not perfect, but probably good enough.


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## hybridamp (Oct 10, 2006)

I agree, my dealer actually replaced my steering wheel under warranty due to the issue, but the door trim was cheap so I didn't mind doing it myself to avoid arguing with the service manager again.

Also second your choice to retain the factory head unit, the signal from the deck should be fine with a quality interface/converter and replacing it would be a nightmare; especially if you have the studio on wheels option, which actually has a nice DAC in there, I had no complaints with that headunit and the nav was good too. Wish I could have gotten that option on my FX also just for the headunit.


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

looking good, please let us know if you seem to get more than your share of background hiss out of the stock signal source.  I wanted to confirm or deny one of my own suspicions.

b


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## chevbowtie22 (Nov 23, 2008)

Looking good so far. I don't blame you for leaving the stock head unit. Leaving it in some vehicles can save a lot of headaches.


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## hybridamp (Oct 10, 2006)

Not a lot of vehicles under 40k have a 24-bit Burr-Brown DAC in the stock headunit neither.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Also worth mentioning that 95% of the time, my music source will be an iPod hooked up through the aux input (no iPod integration in the 07's that have Bose and Nav!). So yeah...forest for the trees and all that....


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## Rifken (Jun 14, 2011)

So you guys are saying that the driver side door is a no go for running new wire? I want to place my midbass in the doors and comps in the kickpanels. I was able to run a new wire to the passenger side and squeeze the wire through a small grommet but that grommet on the driver side has no opening to the kickpanel as near as I can tell...

This is on an '03 G35 Coupe btw. 

Not sure if what you mentioned is true for all G35s or the later models but I did replace my headunit with a Pioneer 8400. The JDM dash kit cost more than the headunit... it was $350, but the bulk of that expense is the new HVAC controls they include... Don't even ask what I did to the old headunit that came out. Needless to say, this Pioneer head will stay in the car when I sell it... the old one can't go back in...


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Rifken said:


> So you guys are saying that the driver side door is a no go for running new wire? I want to place my midbass in the doors and comps in the kickpanels.
> ...
> This is on an '03 G35 Coupe btw.


I have the 07 sedan with Bose, nav and premium, so your car is obviously going to vary from mine -- the only way you'll be able to tell for sure is by digging in.

That said, it was impossible for me to run a new wire to the driver's side because there was literally _zero_ open space in the molex. Also, I've seen some people on G35 Driver who have run new wires to both sides so in some cases, it can be done.

Also, if your issue is just finding a hole to go through -- that's what drills are for


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## Rifken (Jun 14, 2011)

Drills... Yeah... I'll get right on that! 

Looks like I will find the existing wiring for the door speakers and tap in to that... oh well!


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## bassfromspace (Jun 28, 2016)

Rifken said:


> Drills... Yeah... I'll get right on that!
> 
> *Looks like I will find the existing wiring for the door speakers and tap in to that... oh well!*


That's what I did. Tapped it behind the radio.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Well, ****.

After working like a crazy person for the last few days, I finally got everything connected and ready to go. Fired up the car 5 of 6 speakers were fine. Static in the driver's side woofer and some electrical smoke from the amp. We have ourselves a problem here.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

So, back from our wine tasting getaway and back into the trunk.

Ran into no small amount of weirdness when trying different combinations of connected speakers on amp #1. At the end, reconnected everything and all channels worked. But, had _horrible_ noise issues in the system (sounded like some kind of alien being got in there). Removed all the outputs from the DSP and started reconnecting one at a time, expecting one to be the culprit. All are reconnected with no noise. Go figure.

So, long story short, everything _seems_ to be working fine, so I'm gonna leave it and hope nothing unfortunate happens. Having spent a lot of time working in IT, I shouldn't be so surprised that "unplug it and plug it back in" solved the problem 

Pictures tomorrow. Time to start putting the car back together!


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Time for a proper update. Picture taking the last week took a bit of a back seat to frantic working in an attempt to get everything put together by Thursday afternoon. And while I made it, the gear apparently wasn't up for it.

Here we go! The wires for the woofers and mids were all terminated and everything was connected and given a bit of heatshrink. The Virtus woofer got a bit of gasket tape:










And in the door:










The mids were screwed to the adapter and that was screwed to the door with the factory studs. This is tight enough that it actually would have been fine with just a press fit.










New switch bezels, to replace the old ones with the badly-chipped soft touch paint. They reworked the formula for the 08's, so this shouldn't happen again. Little stuff like this makes a big difference, IMHO.










The completed, reconstructed driver's side door. Aside from turning everything on the first time, I think finishing the doors is my favorite part of a build. Very satisfying to have it put back together. Obviously, everything was repeated for the passenger side.










On to the trunk to finish wiring. This is the tap from the Bose head unit for the left, right and sub channels. (Not really sure how the sub channel is generated and I probably won't need or use it, but I tapped it anyway just in case.) Not gonna lie: I was more nervous about this and the speaker wiring than anything else so far. Repeated testing with a multimeter and aggressive labeling prevented any problems.










A fistful of speaker wires, labeled, terminated and heatshrinked. There's 3x more in the trunk.










In the middle of wiring. I planned for the terminal strips to go under the rear deck with everything else, but there wasn't enough space to fit, so this was Plan B. The trunk trim piece will cover without any modification.










Power and ground distribution blocks; wired but not cleaned up yet.










And the Helix P-DSP. Mounted and ready to go under the deck.










Now this is when it all went to hell. With everything hooked up, I started the car. A little smoke and electrical burning smell from the amp for the woofers and mids and no audio from the left woofer. Disconnected/reconnected and got more of the same thing. Tried different combinations of connections but the most common occurrence was that 3 worked fine, but adding the 4th speaker knocked 2 of them out.

And then, for some reason, all 4 worked fine. But: there was a LOT of noise. Kind of a warbling/hissing/whining sound, which would sometimes change pitch and was present whether the car was running or not.

My first thought was to blame my signal taps and/or the DSP, so I did more disconnecting and reconnecting. Removing the outputs from the DSP seemed to help once, but after starting the car a few minutes later, the noise returned. I finally dug up an old eD Nine.2 I have in the garage, hooked that up, and had no noise at all, so it HAS to be the amps.

Honestly, I haven't been impressed with the NVX amps so far. The build quality seems questionable (here's what Monoprice RCA cables did to the input connectors),









the receptacles for the ground and power wire are a little too small for 4AWG, the manual is underwhelming and the gain and x/o screws have no indicator markings on them. All that I can live with. The noise is a dealbreaker. They're going back to Sonic. A pair of JL XD400/4's should be here on Tuesday.

So now the trunk looks like this:










Last thing I got in was a layer of MLV under the rear seat. I've been hesitant to add more sound deadening to keep weight down, but have been noticing a lot of road noise from this area. Did this as a test and am happy with the results, so it stays.


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## Rifken (Jun 14, 2011)

Noticed you had aftermarket wire in the door. How did you pull that off?!


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Rifken said:


> Noticed you had aftermarket wire in the door. How did you pull that off?!


Umm...I didn't 

The speaker brackets have a clip at the top, but the stock wiring from there wasn't long enough to reach the terminals on the new woofer (6" vs. the stock 10"), so I cut it off at the clip and replaced it with new wire. The aftermarket run is only a few inches long.


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## Rifken (Jun 14, 2011)

Cool... Cause I was going to have to fly you out to Arkansas in the 105 degree heat to run mine...


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Update time, since I finally have something to update.

The old NVX amps went back to Sonic (and a refund is still pending, <sigh>) and new JL XD amps were ordered. They said they were in stock...they weren't, so I'm done giving them my money.

Went to eBay and picked up two of these guys. Kenwood XR-4S. If nothing else, the build quality is leaps and bounds ahead of the NVX units. I like them so far.










I maybe should have measured before ordering. It's a tight fit..but they fit. The trunk trim pieces will need to be modified a bit, thought.










I didn't like the positioning the first time around -- too tight around all the connections -- so I pulled them back out and moved them up about an inch. Also cleaned up most of the wiring. New interconnects are on order, so I can wrap this up soon. Not bad so far, right?










Power and ground distribution finished up:










On to the A-pillars. First time doing this, so I was a little nervous and spent A LOT of time measuring and double checking. 

Mis-matched pieces are one of my particular pet peeves, so my plan/hope is to be able to stretch and reuse the stock cloth on the modified trim pieces. Here they are, stripped and bagged:










Morel provides about 4 different mounting options for the tweeters. Originally, I wanted to use the cups, but I wasn't happy with the way they were fiting into the pillars.










Surprisingly, the oval piece fit the best, so I'm going with that one. Cut out a 1/8" piece of MDF the same shape as the tweeter cup and hot-glued into place.










Removed a bit more of the plastic to get a better shape:










Then covered with cloth. Protip: if your wife was a Catholic school girl around the turn of the millennium, ask if you can "borrow" her knee socks. These things are *totes awesomesauce!* (am I saying that right?) for covering A pillars. (Side note: I can't wait until my kid is old enough to be embarrassed by me!).










Original idea was to have a concave "cutout" shape for the tweeter to sit in, but it didn't quite work out that way. I _hope_ they end up looking good! Here they are with a layer of resin. And that's where we leave it for tonight.










I'll cut out the excess fleece tomorrow and fill the back with some duraglass, then touch up with some body filler.

Meanwhile, it's been well over 100 here in SoCal for over a week, which my fellow Angelenos will tell you is _way_ out of the ordinary. Working all day in the heat, it's time for a reward  Plymouth, dirty, two olives. It could be better...but not by much!


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## IBcivic (Jan 6, 2009)

charliekwin said:


> If anyone knows of something heat resistant that'll stick to metal, vinyl and velcro, I'm all ears!


Try PMing member troy audio and ask him where he gets his "chuck norris" tape from


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Pretty busy week, but got a bunch of stuff finished up.

The rear deck and rear seat were put back in. Pretty impressed at how much quieter the car is now with the MLV+CCF on the bottom of the rear seat.

Took some measurements of the RCA lengths I would need and couldn't find anything close to the right length (or at a reasonable price) so I went the DIY route. 3 hours later, and I end up with this:










Kind of a lot of work, but this kind of wiring sexiness makes it worth the extra effort! Cheap, too! 










And that wraps it up for the trunk. Trim pieces all went back in. Next step is to make a vanity panel to cover up the amps. That will get tackled along with the subwoofer.










I took a bunch of pictures of the A pillar build, but sorta forgot to put the memory card in the camera. Facepalm. You can always look at some of Bing's threads if you really want to see pictures, since I did it the same way he does: Duraglass and resin on the back side, body filler on the front.

When I remembered to put the card back in, the pillars were already finished and rewrapped. The extra effort of carefully unwrapping the pillars paid off -- stretching the stock fabric over the pod worked great. No mismatching fabrics!










The hardware Morel supplies with the Virtus line is kind of a drab gray-green, which doesn't match anything in my interior, so I masked off the tweeter cups and gave them and the grills a couple light coats of satin black spray paint. They came out really well.










And now in place. You can see the original color here, too. Press fit would've been enough, but I added a couple dabs of hot glue on the back for good measure.










A pillars in the car, speaker wires terminated and heat shrunk.










Here's both of them installed (excuse the mess!)










All finished up. If you've followed this thread since the beginning, you may recall that I didn't want to do tweeters in the pillars, and while I would still prefer to have avoided it, I gotta say, I'm pretty damn happy with how they turned out. 










So that concludes Phase 1. Next weekend, I'll get started on the subwoofer enclosure and the amp panel. And the tuning. My god, the tuning.


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## strong*I*bumpin (Oct 3, 2005)

Pillars came out awesome,the whole build is really coming along nicely.What's your plans for the sub enclosure?


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

strong*I*bumpin said:


> Pillars came out awesome,the whole build is really coming along nicely.What's your plans for the sub enclosure?


Thanks!

Nothing too extraordinary as understated looks and space preservation are my two biggest non-sound related goals. Current plan is to build the enclosure into the back corner of the trunk on the passenger side, trying to match the contours of the trunk trim. I have an IDQ12v2 ready for that.

Also have some ideas about doing some backlit inlaid acrylic Infiniti logos set on black vinyl on the amp trim piece and carrying over some of the visual cues to the sub as well. It looks pretty good...in my head.


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## strong*I*bumpin (Oct 3, 2005)

Sounds good,I hope your ideas become a reality.In this hobby of ours we all know how difficult it can be to execute & execute properly.I currently have the same sub in a FG enclosure in my Accord and loving it.I had it for about 6 yrs. and wouldn't trade it for nothing,well maybe a ARC Series or ARC Black Series(it's closest cousins).Definitely won't be disappointed with the IDv2 it's rare to come by one these days.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Been a while without an update. Turns out that life gets in the way of my hobbies sometimes, so for the sake of a happy household, I haven't been able to camp out in the garage lately  The time I've been able to find has been spent trying to get the sub put together. Pictures are a little limited, since this is messy work...

The trunk corner all taped up and the first layer of glass put down:










Here with about 5 layers down and trimmed roughly to size. Haven't done a box like this in about three years...took a layer or two to get back a feel for what I'm doing.










The front of the box is going to be 3/4" MDF that'll get glassed into place. Here's the face with the hole routed out:










Test fit. The hole is cut large to allow room for the vinyl.










And a ring that'll be glued to the back side of the face for extra mounting support:










By the way...I know the Jasper jig is popular around these parts, but unless you're running a shop and cutting circles all the time, you really don't need it. A piece of scrap and a drill bit will do the job just fine.










Goal for the coming week: get the face cut and glassed into place.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Slow progress on the box over the past couple weeks. Getting the front stage done and the car back together kind of took away any sense of urgency on the project and the start of football season means a new top priority on weekends. Oh well.

Centering the ring in the tub, so I can cut out the face:










Face cut, with the ring glued to the back










T-nuts in place. Edges of the face cut down to match the slopes of the box so everything fits nice and tight.










Face glassed in place. It's a whole box!










A quick look at the mounting plan. There are two popup clips that keep the trunk liner in place. Bolts are run through the holes in the body and held in place with some nuts and construction adhesive. Two matching holes are drilled in the back of the enclosure. A couple of nuts and fender washers will hold everything in place.










You can kinda see the bolt ends if you look closely:










Since the enclosure shrunk a bit when it cured, the top edge didn't butt up to the trunk liner the way I wanted. Used a bit of Duraglass and cleaned up with body filler to get the top edge nice and tight.










And in place:










Next up: starting work on a face frame for the box that'll close up the gaps against the trunk liner and give me a place to set the grill.


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## metalball (Sep 8, 2010)

Great work. Sub'd.


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## strong*I*bumpin (Oct 3, 2005)

Bravo on the enclosure fab,get her done already.Oh yeah the dreaded tuning good luck with it.


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## FLYONWALL9 (Nov 8, 2009)

The photo of your child brought a smile to my face on a 
dismal day... Thanks for that!

Your install is great also!

Cheers,
Scott.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Big thanks for all the comments guys, I really appreciate it 

So, box is basically done, now time to pretty things up a little bit with a face frame. This needs to fit tight up against the trunk trim, but since I have gaps where the enclosure shrunk, I can't just trace the box, so I cut a whole bunch of small cardboard pieces to fit:










Which then got pulled off and transferred to 1/2" MDF and cut with a jigsaw.










Taped up around the edges and laid in a strip of fiberglass and stuffed the rest with Duraglass to match the trim contours:










Cleaned up and sanded a bit. Nice fit!










Time to work on the cutout. Snapped a photo of the piece by itself and dropped it into Illustrator and started playing around with some shapes. Here are two of the better rejects...one a freeform that's roughly the same shape as the box, another a square/circle combo thing. The circle in the middle is the driver location.










The shape I finally settled on:










Scaled it up to actual size and printed out, then glued onto some thick paper:










That was cut out and transferred to the MDF, and some VERY slow, VERY careful jigsawwing later:










A little bit of touchup sanding and time for the moment of truth. Positioning the cutout was a big worry because I had nothing to use for a center point and the shape would look funky if it was off. Sweet relief:










So now I'm working on getting the frame to attach to the box and upholstering everything, but that'll come in the next update.


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## ironchariots02 (Aug 14, 2012)

sorry to ask after you've gotten so far with your install but do you remember which wires for the front stage minus the center channel you tapped into from the head unit before they reached the bose amp and what color were they? i'm trying to install a 3sixty and i would like to be sure before i splice anything. thanks for any help that you can give me.


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## dales (Dec 16, 2010)

Looks good


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

ironchariots02 said:


> sorry to ask after you've gotten so far with your install but do you remember which wires for the front stage minus the center channel you tapped into from the head unit before they reached the bose amp and what color were they? i'm trying to install a 3sixty and i would like to be sure before i splice anything. thanks for any help that you can give me.



I have Bose and navigation, so wiring _may_ vary with different options. Check first! Here's the relevant portion from the FSM. You'll want to tap wires 33-36.










Here's the tap (I also tapped the subwoofer wires just in case I would need them; haven't used it):


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## metalball (Sep 8, 2010)

Looking good!


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## chevyrider96 (Mar 5, 2010)

Good stuff here! Use a file to clean up the edges around USB.


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## ironchariots02 (Aug 14, 2012)

i guess i should have been a little more specific. i also have the bose system with nav. do the 10 inch woofers in the door have their own separate signal coming from the head unit or do they share pins 33-36 with the mid and tweeters for the incoming signal to the bose amp before being split into terminals 1-9 by the bose amp for the outgoing signal?

would it be safe to say that i would tap into pins 16 and 17 for a signal for an aftermarket sub? my front stage is also a morel three way system.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

ironchariots02 said:


> i guess i should have been a little more specific. i also have the bose system with nav. do the 10 inch woofers in the door have their own separate signal coming from the head unit or do they share pins 33-36 with the mid and tweeters for the incoming signal to the bose amp before being split into terminals 1-9 by the bose amp for the outgoing signal?
> 
> would it be safe to say that i would tap into pins 16 and 17 for a signal for an aftermarket sub? my front stage is also a morel three way system.


Based on my research and personal experience so far, pins 33-36 are sending a full-range signal from the head unit. Since you're using a DSP (the 3sixty), you should be able to get everything you need by tapping those wires. I'm honestly not sure what exactly is being carried on the sub pins (16-17). I tapped them at the time because I thought there was a chance I _might_ need them and didn't want to have to tear things apart again to get them.

As for the front stage, be aware that while the car has 3 speakers on each side, you only have *2* sets of wires and there's no room to run another pair through the door molex. The takeaway is that if you're planning on going 3-way active, you cannot reuse all the stock locations without drilling through the door.

Hope that answers some questions.


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## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

nice, neat work here!! This build is really coming along! Those A pillars are sweet!


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Time to get this subwoofer finished up! Original plan for attaching the face frame was simply to hold it in place with a few drywall screws, but I didn't like the one-time-onlyness of that, so I went with some threaded inserts instead. Those four round dots around the corners are neodymium magnets...we'll deal with those later. The box is all finished up.










Face frame is covered with black felt. It's a little bit darker than the trunk trim, but the closest color match I could find. Took two tries to get it right:










The box was much easier. Felt on the top with black vinyl on the face:










Top of the box:










With the face frame attached:










A little more Raammat on the rear quarter panel:










The box is in!










Done!



















Vanity panel for the amps and a grill for the sub are next up, but might take a bit of time....wife wants to have her husband back


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## metalball (Sep 8, 2010)

Nice finished product


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## vwtoby (Oct 28, 2005)

great attention to detail! how do you like the Kenwoods?


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

I'm probably not a great person to ask, since I'm in the "wire-with-gain" camp when it comes to amps and sound. That said, I've been happy with them so far and they deliver what I would expect for the price. Pretty good (though not outstanding) build quality with nice connections. Look and feel nicer and more substantial that what you'll get from most of the build-house amps that are similarly priced, though that doesn't necessarily say anything about quality or longevity. No reason to think they don't deliver their rated power. Small size.

Only real concern I have so far is that they seem to run pretty hot -- hotter than I would have thought they should. But I've never had the thermal protection kick in, even during a 4hr road trip in 100+ weather, so I guess they're okay with it.


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## Malv1 (Oct 2, 2010)

charliekwin said:


> I'm probably not a great person to ask, since I'm in the "wire-with-gain" camp when it comes to amps and sound. That said, I've been happy with them so far and they deliver what I would expect for the price. Pretty good (though not outstanding) build quality with nice connections. Look and feel nicer and more substantial that what you'll get from most of the build-house amps that are similarly priced, though that doesn't necessarily say anything about quality or longevity. No reason to think they don't deliver their rated power. Small size.
> 
> Only real concern I have so far is that they seem to run pretty hot -- hotter than I would have thought they should. But I've never had the thermal protection kick in, even during a 4hr road trip in 100+ weather, so I guess they're okay with it.


Awesome build OP! One thing I can lend to this is excelon amps from when they first launched them have always ran hot. I mean Hot! But like you said they very rarely shut off if ever but they will get quite hot. I haven't ran the newer stuff but the older ones did it consistently.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Time for a small update. Been working on strictly cosmetic pieces now, so the pace has slowed considerably.


First up is a grill for the subwoofer. I looked around for perforated aluminum sheets, but that stuff is expensive! However, I found a 15" subwoofer grill on Amazon for $12 shipped. Much better, just needed to cut it down to size:










I saved the cutout that was left from the faceframe:










And cut out the center with a rabbet around the edge. In case anyone hits this page on a search result for "cutting circles without a jasper jig", here's how to do it. Cut a router baseplate out of scrap, measure your radius (remember to measure to the FAR side of the bit) and drill a hole. Drill a center hole in your work piece and through a piece of backing scrap (if you're cutting all the way through). Use the same drill bit as a pivot and get to routing.










Here it is. The more observant readers will notice a problem here.










My second stupid mistake on the build. I cut the recess for the grill on the wrong side. Unfortunately, I didn't realize it until I had already glassed the grill in place. Double stupid.

At least the shape has some symmetry, so it's fixable. Traced and cut out a copy on cardboard, flipped it around and marked the corners:










Then cut them off with a jigsaw and moved them to the other side, using the negative of the cardboard as a jig:










Then cut a groove into the sides and filled with resin:










And some more fiberglass on the back side, just for good measure:










Some body filler and a lot of sanding on the front:










Neodymium magnets on the back, which match up to the ones in the enclosure:










And here with a few coats of spray paint. Once the paint cures, it'll be covered with grill cloth.










Also working on the vanity panel that covers the amps. Here's the stock piece:










Useful to get some rough shapes, but the angles in the new one are all different. This has turned out to be surprisingly difficult. Some cardboard pieces to start with:










4 out of 5 cut:










Last one cut and test fit:










Next up is cutting the hole for the passthrough and glassing it all together.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Hey everyone,

A short update here now that I've gotten everything pretty much buttoned up.

The subwoofer grill got covered in cloth. Unfortunately, the Parts Express black doesn't match the rest of the trunk. Looks like it has a pretty strong blue/purple tint to it. I may consider dying another piece and rewrapping, but since the grill isn't on much, it's not a priority.









Couple quick shots of the vanity panel build. I photographed the pass-through cutout and traced and blew it up in Illustrator, then cut the panels. Here the two pices are held in place with some hot glue and bamboo skewers:









Then a combination of tape, 3M 90 and staples to get the shape (I wasn't quite sure how best to do this at the time )









A couple layers of glass, then body filler and A LOT of sanding gets to the rough state:









More sanding and final shaping, test fit in the trunk. Looks good. 









A look at the back, with the remaining pieces put together. The panels have to flex, so I cut some fabric strips and held them in place with 3M 90, then saturated the edges with resin.









I'm a little worried about heat/ventilation. Left it in place in the car for a week with no issues, but it's been cool lately. Summer will be the real test. Good chance I'll have to cut some vent holes.

Covered the whole thing with a single piece of felt, which I'm fairly proud of (for now).









There were a couple areas where I guess I was a bit short with the adhesive, and I'm not convinced that glue on the curved section will hold up long term. I'm leaving it alone for now just in case heat issues pop up and it needs modifying later. Camera exaggerates the colors...the match is better in person.









Closeup on the side, which tucks up nicely to the stock trim pieces:










So that pretty much wraps it up. I've got some cool ideas for integrating an Android device as a source, but getting hung up finding a capacitive touch overlay. If I can ever get it worked out, I'll be sure to update. Thanks for reading, and Merry Christmas everyone!


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## blazeplacid (May 19, 2008)

Nice write up. 

I have a 2011 G37 sedan. Basically the same as far as audio goes. 

I drilled through the use molex on both sides. Took 6 hours but I feel good about it. 

I have an audison bit ten d I just installed today. Makes the 3sixty.1 I had sound like a stock radio. 

I'm working on mounting my bit ten and amps somewhere. I too have a young child so I need some trunk space. I'm thinking if mounting the bit ten where the factory sub is/was and mounting Mt amp to the rear seat. 

Nice build you have so far. 

I remember each part you took a pic of. I'm in about 8 weeks. Still have a good two weeks of installing ahead. 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

very cool dude. that false wall looks awesome. and i really like what you did with the sub baffle. i did a similar enclosure with my wifes 2011 golf 2.5L. 

all in all, great attention to detail - the pillars came out fantastic with the re-wraped cloth. that is a brilliant touch.


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## jhunter936 (Aug 1, 2008)

Very nice build.
I like your grill idea. How did you cut it down to size?


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Just a Dremel tool and a bit of patience.


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## bigaudiofanatic (Mar 1, 2009)

Great build, in one of my favorite cars. Glad to see you have a manual as well


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Time to get started on a new part of this project! A tablet install...in a manner of speaking. This is a little different than the way most people do it, since I can't really remove the stock HU and screen.

The car does, however, come with a composite video input. The plan is to run the tablet video through that, then remove the digitizer (touch overlay) and mount that over the stock screen with the tablet body put in the glovebox.

Today was proof of concept day, so let's see how this is gonna work...

The hardware: the tablet is an Ainol Crystal.










Ainol (<snicker>, I know) is a Chinese company that makes cheapo hardware. This thing was $130 shipped via a US seller on eBay. I'll be real here, this is *not* a high-quality item. I picked it for two major reasons: HDMI out and readily available replacement digitizers. Unless you have a similar situation to mine, I can think of NO reason to recommend these things over a Nexus 7. Dealing with hardware/software issues figures to be a big part of this job.

So here's the basic setup. HDMI out to composite video in. 










Video quality is....not very good. Album art looks okay, but text is pretty hard to read. Hopefully I can find a music player that supports large fonts, or maybe there's a way to trick the unit into thinking it has a lower native resolution.



















Maps? At this point, almost unusable. I haven't tested out driving directions (still have to set up a GPS tether and do a video bypass), but I'm hoping the direction prompts are large enough. Fortunately, I almost never use navigation.










A detour to audio output. The Helix P-DSP I'm using has optical in. Just for kicks, I wanted to test it out to see if there was any reduction in system noise vs. the analog input. An old DVD player was all I could find with optical out.










Good news was there wasn't any improvement, so that means I don't have to worry about input switching or another volume control. Bad news is that I have a little more hiss from the amps than I'd like...oh well.

Audio quality from the headphone jack is bad. Even with all "enhancements" turned off, the bass is clearly boosted and I swear the _tempo_ of the music keeps changing. I wonder if this is what people mean when they talk about digital audio jitter? Interacting with the tablet causes skipping during playback. Bad all around. On the plus side, there were NO problems with the HDMI audio, even through the $30 converter. There should be support for USB audio, so a standalone DAC is on my shopping list.

Wrapping this up: there's enough good here that ought to make this worth pursuing. If nothing else, I'll have my full music library on hand, which is my main goal. The video quality is a stumbling block for sure. I wish I could replace the screen, but keeping the system overlays is more important. If only I were a smarter guy....


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## ocuriel (Oct 7, 2005)

Wow you are talented. Good job!


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Update time! A longstanding annoyance with this car is that it only has an aux in -- no iPod interface. I've been looking for a way to get around that and have been leaning towards Android, but previous attempts haven't worked. So trying again.

Starting with relocating the stock screen. I have to keep it: it displays all the HVAC, volume, some car status info, etc. So maybe I can make this work:











Props here to Nissan: the shifter trim was the only piece held in with clips, everything else is screws and metal tabs. Super easy to disassemble and nothing to break or squeak afterwards. Removing the shift knob, however, took 30+ minutes of all the strength I had, and I'm a pretty big guy with decent grip.

Next up, extending that harness...all 21 wires of it. At least I could do half of it on the kitchen table:











4 very sore fingers later, all finished in the car. Only took 6 hours! (Would've been 5, but I was lazy and saved 5 minutes by not disconnecting the battery...then blew a fuse and spent another hour dealing with that.)











It works! Will drive around like this for a week and see if it's usable. And look at that nice big hole up there!


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

And in this post, I scream into the void, bemoaning Android fragmentation.

That big dash hole up there is supposed to house a Nexus 7. Picked up the 2013 model for a great price on craigslist, which is when things stopped being easy. The developer community has done a nice job of putting together ROMs and kernels that allow for fixed installs of the 2012 Nexus 7, but the 2013 isn't there yet.

Problems abound...audio from the headphone jack is audibly inferior, so a USB DAC is a must-have. Cyanogenmod is apparently the only ROM that has real USB audio support, thanks to one developer who baked it in a while back as a pet project. CM recently broke away from other developers and have starting building their own version of Android, so most custom kernels no longer work with CM. That's a problem: a custom kernel is the only way to get USB OTG and charging at the same time.

Tried to get around that by using a wireless Qi charger. Wireless charging provided enough current to keep the device charged w/ the stock ROM and no connected devices. With CM and the USB DAC and a jump drive, the Qi charger can't keep up. Managed to flash an older version of the ElementalX kernel, which supposedly allows USB charging + OTG. It no longer supports CM, but it hasn't crashed on me (yet). Waiting on delivery of a Y cable from China. Fingers crossed, because I'm running out of options. Otherwise might have to downgrade to the 2012 version.

Really, this should be easier.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Nexus 7 still doesn't have a kernel that'll do what I need, but there's other stuff that needs attention, and since I had a nice break from work over the holidays, that allowed some time to work on the screen relocation. 

All taped up to work up a new bezel:










The pros out there probably have better ways of doing this, but I didn't have any other ideas, so just stuffed everything with a ton of Duraglass:










All done:










But problems...I don't know if hardener gets less effective over time, but I had a hell of a time getting the ratios right. That bottom piece never set right. And that was the last of the Duraglass. It's just filler and fiberglass right? Well I've got plenty of that! So let's just go with a little homemade job instead:










For some 1/32" thick stainless steel sheets at my local hardware store. Perfect size to get nice straight edges on the inside of the bezel. Matched up to the screen, then glued into place.










Lot of Dremeling later, and coming into shape:










But more problems with the hardener: the whole thing never set like it should have and the bottom left corner broke:










Unsalvageable. Starting over from the beginning. Plenty of hardener this time around! Boy, that's ugly:










Some rough shaping:










I didn't really want to re-do the whole thing, but honestly, version 2 is a lot lighter and stronger than the first one. Coming along:










Happy New Year!


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## Rifken (Jun 14, 2011)

Demand more pictures!!!


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

The Nexus install -- henceforth to be known as *Project Boondoggle* -- is back on! Of course, it's coming with no shortage of problems and a constant drip, drip, drip of money trying to fix it. Not that anyone around here knows what that's like! 

First problem was mounting. Some guy on one of the G37 boards put on in his car w/ rubber bands. That's not really a long term solution, but I did try it for some test fitting.










First attempt was making some fiberglass and body filler "sleeves" to fit around the tablet and then screw those into place. Didn't work.










Tried making a fiberglass hook-shaped thing. Didn't work.










Finally ended up hacking apart a case and rigging together a way to bolt that to the stock screen mount. Success!



















And had to trim the dash a little.










In place:



















All hooked up and ugly, but at least it works:










And the problem/project list:

1. *Power*: the cheap buck converter I got on eBay is 1) way too noisy to be usable, and 2) doesn't seem to put out the amps it says; it's not keeping the tablet charged. Have this one on order: DC to DC Buck Converter High Power Step Down Car Power Supply Voltage Regulator | eBay

2. *Heat*: been over 100 in SoCal lately, which is hot enough to shut down the N7. I can't think of a way to totally avoid this, unfortunately. Current plan is to cut a hole in one of the vents and try to shunt some of the AC flow to the back of the tablet where my fingers are.










3. *Sound*: the output level of the USB DAC seems to be on the low side (it's quieter than the stock CD player and an iPod Nano). Might have to add a line driver or something.

4. *Connections*: I only have one aux in, located in the armrest, which I don't want to lose. Have this little guy on the way: Sescom SES-AUDIO-AB RCA Stereo Audio MP3 iPod FLAC WMA A/B Switch SES-AUDIO-AB and a bunch of RCA connectors to put together some custom interconnects.

5. *Software*: had to throw down $40 for Timur's 2013 kernel, but at least it works well and does exactly the things that the other kernels don't (USB OTG + fast charging + USB audio). Have a lot of work to do with Tasker, Xposed and whatever else comes up.

6. *Space*: gotta stuff everything under the dash somewhere and hopefully keep it all serviceable enough.

What made me think this was a good idea to begin with?!


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## JoshHefnerX (Jun 13, 2008)

Nice build, want to see how this android works out.

Josh


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Finally, something goes right!

Haven't been happy with the volume from the N7, so I did a comparison of the stock CD player, iPod over aux in, the Muse DAC I was using and a Behringer UCA202 I have laying around. Looks like the Behringer is going in:










(Side note: surprised to see that the missing grill over my right midrange is good for about +4dB!)


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Small update: finally something goes _in_!

I hate the idea of losing functionality, so even though I don't expect to use the stock aux-in jacks after the Nexus is hooked up, I'd like to keep them. So I picked up this little switch:










Found the aux wiring in the harness to tap in to, said a quiet prayer and cut. Left, right and a shared ground:










Made two sets of interconnects, then soldered and heatshrunk everything nicely:










And zip-tied to the rest of the harness:










I decided to mount the switch on the top of the glove box, ran all the cables, and everything seemed great...









Then when I took the glove box out, I couldn't get the switch back in. Oops. Okay, I'll put it down on the side of the console instead.

Dug around in my garage to get something to mount with and found an old sheet of acrylic. The first attempt didn't go so well:










Round 2 came out better:










Took the back of the switch cover off and used the original holes and made my mount the new back, which might be the cleverest thing I've done all week:










Fits perfect, pretty much invisible when all the trim pieces go back in and works great! Stock aux jacks are on A, the Nexus 7 will go on B.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

After months of seeming to go in circles, I'm making some actual progress.

I think I finally got the power issues resolved. I tried this $10 eBay converter, but it was barely better than the $3 one.










I finally gave in and picked up a DCDC-USB. It was kinda tough to swallow spending $60 on it, but it's MUCH improved over the other parts. There's still a bit of noise w/ the HU cranked up, but at normal volumes, it's mostly inaudible. I think I can live with that.










Tapped the cigarette lighter to wire the Input side:










Next up, working on some ways to mitigate overheating. Marked off some parts of the passenger-side vent that could be cut out to shunt some of the AC flow to the back of the tablet.










Crummy phone shot inside the dash:










Then cut out w/ a Dremel:










Here's what it looks like w/ the vent louver closed:










And not sure if it'll help or not, but I drilled 84 holes in the back of the tablet case, and idea that seemed good idea until I got started.










Moving on to the USB connection....here's how much the cable sticks out into the vent.










Started by removing all the excess material on the connector, which helped a lot:










Still had to cut into the vent, though. More masking tape:










And a lot of careful Dremeling:










Relief cut for the end of the cable










And it fits!!









The back side of the cable only sticks in ~1/8" and is set back, so unless you look for it, you can't see it. That's a relief. That's the DCDC-USB down at the bottom. An enclosure is on the way. There is light at the end of the tunnel!!

I also made some brioche hamburger buns, which was the highlight of my weekend.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Lots of movement in the last week! Camera ate a bunch of photos, but they probably weren't too interesting anyway.

De-pinned one side the molex connector for the DCDC (harder and more painful than expected) and added a second ground wire that's connected to the head unit. That went a long way towards eliminating the ground loop. There's still some noise with the HU maxed out, but at normal-to-loud listening volumes, it's acceptable.









Finding a spot for the USB DAC was a little difficult, but finally settled on stuffing it in the dash next to the glove box. Cut some styrofoam to fit in one of the dash supports, then hotglued it in and hotglued the DAC to the foam. Seemed a little dodgy, but so far is working well. Put together _another_ set of interconnects and ran those down to the input switch.









Did a lot of heatshrinking and zip-tying USB cables along the existing wiring...









Had a little helper, too









Last part: mounting the USB hub and accessories. Original idea was the glove box, but I didn't like the idea of cutting into it and looked for alternatives. The lower steering column trim has lots of room, is an easy wiring run and can be accessed without too much contorting. Another, uh, creative mounting choice. Upholstery foam cut to shape and glued in place, then the hub glued to that. Again, so far so good!









And then, everything when back in. I installed a tablet, and it only took 6 months!



















Next post: software problems...


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## sierrarider (Jul 28, 2010)

Wow! A lot of work went into your installation. Congratulations on getting it all put together and looking good!


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Thanks man, appreciate the comments. It's certainly been a longer, more expensive project than I had counted on. I'm sure no one here can relate!


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

I've been living with it for a week now, which has given me some time to chip away at some known problems as well as find some other ones. Here's what the main items look like:


Bluetooth tethering to my phone works great, but has to be initiated manually. Auto tethering with Tasker has worked all of _twice_ so far.


Steering wheel controls look like they're gonna be a must have. Thought I might not miss it, but just losing track control is harder than I thought. Looks like a Joycon is in my future.


Media library is a big question mark. I've been testing w/ an 8gb USB drive. I can mount and play from it and with Stickmount Pro, it populates the media library. The problem is that the library is cleared and refreshed every time the tablet loses power, which means I lose my last track, and it takes ~50 seconds with just 7gb of music. My whole collection is currently about 60gb, so this isn't really a scalable approach. If there were a way to keep the library without doing a full refresh, it would work. I put it in as a feature request with the the kernel developer, but as of now, I'll probably need to pare things down to the 25gb I have free on the device.


Auto brightness doesn't work since the light sensor is covered up, so I need to configure Tasker to set brightness based on sunrise and sunset times.


Voice control would be awesome, but the built-in mic is covered up. I don't know if there are any 3rd party mics that'll work.


Need to track down some wakelocks that are keeping the tablet out of deep sleep and causing battery drain problems.


Need to get ADB over wireless working reliably or find a way to do it when the device is in host mode. To flash anything right now means taking the console apart, which I'd like to avoid.


Tried a few launchers but nothing I'm totally happy with right now, so I'll probably do some custom thing with Desktop Virtualizer.


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

first id like to say that all the work you put into this is very impressive, and i love the way the tablet looks behind the OEM bezel.

it seems like you tackled the problems one at a time and came out with a solution.

but i want to let you know, that if you went with a carPC instead of android, you would have a lot less problems :'(

i thought long and hard before i decided on going with a PC over an android... the benefits of the PC\windows outweighs anything android can provide.

but very good work sir. *applaud*


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Thanks for the comments. I’ve followed your logs for a while 

Anyway, I gave it some thought as well, but obviously ended up on the other side. For me, the big deciding factors were input and price. You know probably better than anyone how hard it is to find a capacitive multi-touch screen/overlay, and I didn’t see anything I liked at the time that would fit in my stock location. There’s also a lot to like about the integration of the tablet hardware that doesn’t need to be purchased and configured with a PC and can tie in nicely with the rest of my mobile stuff.

Certainly, price played a part in the decision, but after the missteps and changed plans, the difference is probably minimal in the grand scheme of things.

I think there’s some 7” Windows 8 tablets from the lower-end manufacturers that are supposed to be hitting the market soon. If I had to do it all over again, I’d probably look hard at that.

I have two big takeaways on this part of the project:

1. Regardless of platform, if you want to put some kind of computer in your car, it’s gonna cost you time and money if you wanna do it right.

2. Pay attention to the problems other people had. I ran into a lot of known issues that I figured were due to user error and I would be smart enough to avoid. Sometimes you gotta make your own mistakes and chalk it up to experience.


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

i completly understand 

i looked hard at it all and if i were to do it again id just plop the $1000 down for a pre-built windows 8 e3io PC and be done with it. i skipped LOTS of the headaches by using a dedicated DSP rather than going with all the sound card and VST plugin nonsense. sure the filters are better, more robust, and highly configurable, but dealing with the hardware is a pain in the ass. there is no out of the box solution to windows based audio processing for 8+ channels at all. it is just such a niche market no company is going to bother to make it.

sure, price is the one thing that fluctuates. i would personally rather pay more money and have less work to do than to pay less money and hope that it works. i hate finding out that the part that i bought wont work in the configuration i need - or that it has some unwanted byproduct (noise is a big one here).

the big thing that sucks the worst? in 5+ years time, all new cars will have windows\linux\android\chrome\ios\insert new OS here\ and they will all run carPC's is that regard... but with zero expansion to lock people like us out even though it would take zero effort on their part to allow a digital+analog input\output as well as video input\output.

sorry for the rant


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Interesting (though expected) announcement from Google today during their I/O keynote about their in-car initiative. Like Apple's Carplay, they're dependent on a smartphone to work vs being a standalone platform. That's probably the best way to get traction in a market segment that tends not to move especially quickly, but probably won't offer much for the enthusiast groups like ourselves.

Regardless, I'd still be a little surprised if either one ends up being considerably popular in the OEM world. Google has a number of automakers who've partnered, but its seems like natural aftermarket territory to me. We'll see.


Oh well, small hodgepodge of updates:

- Brightness via Tasker works, but dumbly via static times, since setting up the sunrise/sunset times seemed like a pain. At least something works :laugh:

- _Possible_ progress on my library problems. Doubletwist seems to maintain it's own library separate from Android's, and it doesn't get cleared out when the flash drive is removed...it just freaks out and shows a storage error screen when power is cut and will refresh and come back after a few seconds when power is restored. It's not great, but an improvement nonetheless. I'm gonna try playing with some Tasker profiles to see if I can kludge my way into an acceptable experience here. If I could keep power going to the flash drive for a few seconds after shutdown, that'd be ideal, but unfortunately that doesn't seem very feasible.

- Directing some attention back to my bezel piece. Did some touchup sanding and shaping and have a can of primer on the way since I'm getting into finer details that are tough to pick out in 15 different shades of green body filler.










From a distance, it's looking _decent_, but up close there are some problem areas that need more attention; the bottom left edge in particular:










I'll paint it tonight or tomorrow and see how it looks.


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## edouble101 (Dec 9, 2010)

All of your fabrication looks great.

I completely understand the list of daily tasks leaving little time for car audio. I once had a great SQ system until I decided to sell the equipment and redo the install. Almost a year now of driving around with no tunes


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## REGULARCAB (Sep 26, 2013)

Nice work all around. Its hard having that kind of attention to detail with a little one around, I need to take a que from you.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

edouble101 said:


> All of your fabrication looks great.
> 
> I completely understand the list of daily tasks leaving little time for car audio. I once had a great SQ system until I decided to sell the equipment and redo the install. Almost a year now of driving around with no tunes


Thanks. There's a ton of amazing work that gets posted here that serves as excellent inspiration/motivation. I just do the best I can with what I've got.

No kidding about time, though! My car's now been in some state of disassembly for 2 years straight, which I guess I prefer not to think about!




REGULARCAB said:


> Nice work all around. Its hard having that kind of attention to detail with a little one around, I need to take a que from you.


I just give mine tools to play with and try to keep him away from anything expensive that he could damage


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Spent a whole lot of time working on the bezel piece, which ended up with a lot more sanding-priming-sanding than I was expecting. From a distance, it looked decent after the first coat:











Up close...the paint doesn't lie:











I lost count, but went through this at least 5 times, mostly to fill in pinholes w/ some thinned out body filler.











But it did end up looking good at the end:




















Then I called an audible over the weekend. The plan all along has been hold the bezel and shift boot in place w/ an MDF piece to replace this stock part:










The problem that I've been consciously avoiding for months is how to hold it in place since I'm not sure I can replicate the angle and depth of the clips. I spent Saturday night and Sunday morning convincing myself that I really wanted to do this:











Of course, the piece is contoured, so I had to go back and do some shaping on the bezel:











Now I'm a little stuck. Hard to tell from the overhead shot, but it doesn't quite fit yet. The whole assembly is about 1/8" too long to snap in place and I'm not sure where I'm going to take that length from yet. So I'm sleeping on it for now. One step forward, two steps back!











Meanwhile, some good news: the tablet has been holding up well in the heat so far. No shutdowns yet if I leave it parked with windows cracked open, though I think it gets close. And I got the battery drain problems fixed, too. The battery monitor app kept waking it up. Oy!


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## REGULARCAB (Sep 26, 2013)

I love what you have going on here. The finish work is what has scared me away from ever modifying a bezel. I have NEVER been able to get a painted finish on something I was perfectly happy with. Keep moving, it'll get done.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

REGULARCAB said:


> I love what you have going on here. The finish work is what has scared me away from ever modifying a bezel. I have NEVER been able to get a painted finish on something I was perfectly happy with. Keep moving, it'll get done.


Know how you feel...I've got a can of SEM texture spray and I'm really hoping I can get a good color and texture match with it.

Appreciate the vote of confidence!


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Forgot to include this with the last update, but does anyone have midrange suggestions they'd like to throw out there? Requirements:

- something that'll play down to at least 300-400 w/ 24dB slopes;
- no enclosures, I'm mounting to the door card
- would like to stay under $250 for the pair.

I have the following 4 on my list, in roughly the following order: Scanspeak 10F, Fountek FR88EX, Dayton RS75, Eton Symphony 3

I did a little arts and craft time and made mockups of the top 3 to see how they would fit










The Daytons would go in easy. The Founteks would need a little bit of effort. The Scans would be hard, but after reading so many good things, I feel like I can't give up on them yet. Here's some quick and dirty Photoshopping of how much of the 10F would be obscured by the openings in the door card and the escutcheon.










Worth pursuing, or am I picking a fight that I can't win here?


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Wellll....not a great day yesterday. Went back to tackle that bezel and shift boot after letting it sit for a few days, only to realize I was headed up towards a dead end.

The reason I couldn't shove it in place is because it sits about 1/4" higher with the stock piece. Shift boot trim in stock position










compared to my own piece:









So, crap. 

Setting the trim on top of the bezel is pretty close to stock and looks pretty nice, so that got me all excited for about 5 seconds:










Until I noticed this gap. My bezel pushes out the vinyl/foam trim on the console about 1/8" so the screen can fit.










So unless I want to make a whole new shift trim piece (and I do not!), that idea's out too. Looks like I'm gonna have to go back to Plan A and all I have is a pointlessly hacked up piece of stock trim to show for it. :embarassed:


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Special delivery from the UPS Fairy!










Will try these out over the next week or so to see if either of them (Fountek FR-88ex or Dayton RS75) are better than the existing midranges. One day I hope to start finishing projects instead of just starting them.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Got to work this past weekend on replacing the midranges. I did a test fit with the Founteks, and they'll require some fairly clever mounting in order to make them fit. That's a road I'm not ready to go down yet if I don't have to, so the Daytons went in instead. I have an idea for the Founteks anyway. I guess I didn't take many pics, but they fit pretty easily. Just had to do a little extra work gluing some mounting tabs on the rings:










With the driver in there:



















Did a really quick tune on them and so far pretty good. They're about 6dB less sensitive than the Morels, so I had to boost the amp gain quite a bit. With no enclosure, response drops off a cliff at around 350-400, which I can live with. The stage sits a little lower than I'd like at the moment, but it sounds more even than it was before, I filled in a couple dips I had in overall system response and best of all: I'm finally distortion free! Just need to get some more time to tune everything.

Meanwhile in tablet land: I got a few things on their way that should (god I hope!) put an end to buying stuff for a while










And I started playing around with some ideas for a front end whenever I can steal a few free minutes, but there's still a long way to go on that.


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## naiku (May 28, 2008)

Great looking tablet install, I am jealous that you are able to mount your tablet behind the dash. I have to use an aftermarket trim piece to get mine to fit, and it's causing me headaches with mounting.

Steering wheel controls look like they're gonna be a must have. - Absolutely get a Joycon, I suffered without one for a few weeks, just changing volume is a headache when driving. 

Media library - You should not need StickMount if you are using Timur's ROM, it's all handled by the ROM itself. I use Apollo and 9 times out of 10 it starts back up right where I left off playing (media library is about 60GB or so).

Voice control - I use a Jabra Journey BT headset, which works pretty well. I am trying to integrate it with my steering wheel controls though, so I can push the voice button on the steering wheel and not the Nexus itself. If you also use Tablet Talk, it comes with a phone piece that lets you route phone calls through the Nexus. 

Launchers - Custom is the way to go, I tried a couple and hated them. In the end I took an image of an RNS-E from Google, cleared out all the original icons using Photoshop and then created my own for the apps I use the most. I then used UCCW to create hotspot widgets that open the apps. Here is how my launcher currently looks:










And here is how the tablet sits in the dash (needs work though, as I am not all that happy with it):


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

naiku said:


> Great looking tablet install, I am jealous that you are able to mount your tablet behind the dash. I have to use an aftermarket trim piece to get mine to fit, and it's causing me headaches with mounting.


Looks pretty good from your photo, but of course that's low-res, and I don't know how it looked stock. Might be an opportunity for 3D printing or just working up your own custom piece (not that that's especially easy )




naiku said:


> Absolutely get a Joycon, I suffered without one for a few weeks, just changing volume is a headache when driving.


Ordered one a couple days ago. I have audio running through the aux input specifically so I could use the stock HU for volume control. Decided to pick up a toslink cable to see if there was any appreciable difference in quality with optical, and if there is, I'll give up that bit of simplicity. Track control via the steering wheel will be really nice.




naiku said:


> Media library - You should not need StickMount if you are using Timur's ROM, it's all handled by the ROM itself. I use Apollo and 9 times out of 10 it starts back up right where I left off playing (media library is about 60GB or so).


The 2012 version had some code that made it work, the 2013 doesn't (I put in a request -- apparently the only one so far) but I've made some progress on it w/ Poweramp.




naiku said:


> Voice control - I use a Jabra Journey BT headset, which works pretty well.


I'm still on the fence with it and low priority for now. Voice control to me is something that's always been cooler and more useful in theory than in practice. Last month I used a total of 13 minutes of talk time on my phone, so there isn't even the secondary utility of using it for phone calls.




naiku said:


> Launchers - Custom is the way to go, I tried a couple and hated them.


Totally agree. I've been using a combo of UCCW and Desktop Visualizer. Mirroring the look of Audi's interface is a nice touch. Well done.


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## naiku (May 28, 2008)

charliekwin said:


> Looks pretty good from your photo, but of course that's low-res, and I don't know how it looked stock. Might be an opportunity for 3D printing or just working up your own custom piece (not that that's especially easy )


Stock looked better, but only because the stock radio takes up the whole area that you see around the Nexus as well. I bought a plastic shell that someone had made that holds the Nexus, but it still does not fit as well as I would like. I have supplies on the way to make a fiberglass subwoofer enclosure, if that goes well I may try fabricating something to hold the Nexus more securely. 

I had no idea that the 2013 version of Timur's ROM did not include the same functionality as the 2012. I agree with you on the voice control piece though, which could be why in the last year I have never really spent much time trying to get it working fully.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

charliekwin said:


> So unless I want to make a whole new shift trim piece (and I do not!), that idea's out too.


Yeah, so about that... I'd been driving around with the shift trim just sitting on top of the screen bezel and decided that I really liked the way it looked. So, new project.

Turns out hacking up the stock piece wasn't a total waste. I got it trimmed down to fit in place and will attach my new shift trim to it.



















Popped out the shift boot and traced onto MDF for the new ring, then sanded to rough shape and used some body filler to clean up the edges.



















Marked the top curve and sanded to shape.










Hot weekend. Hydrate!










Started to round the edges. All by hand, since the bottom side is beveled and doesn't provide an even surface for the router bit bearing to follow. Another round of body filler here.










I couldn't find a compass anywhere, so here's my makeshift scribing tool. Worked well enough! Will sand it to shape this week.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Finally got the Joycon installed a couple weeks ago, so I have steering wheel controls again. Just used some quick-splices to tap into the wires and ran them back to the USB hub I stuck under the steering column trim.




















The bonus of getting the Joycon working was easy volume control on the tablet, so I decided to try optical out to see if system noise and sound quality would improve. It did. So everything came back out so I could run a toslink cable back to the trunk. It was a PITA, but worth it.











Back to the shifter trim. I don't have a router table and the work piece is too small and thin for me to expect good results using the router by hand, so shop teachers, avert your eyes! Satisfactory results, at least.




















Drilled out holes to match the base plate, then dropped a bolt into each. Used a Dremel to grind down each bolt head, then superglued them in place and covered with some body filler and sanded flush.






































As for finishing options. I jumped the gun and ordered some Scotchprint vinyl with the brushed aluminum finish, which I realized was a mistake as soon as I opened it. It looks more like silver painted wood grain than metal, so I ordered some samples and decided that the brushed titanium is better looking. New order should be here by Friday and I can finish this whole thing up.

No point in wasting the other stuff, so I did some practice wrapping...there is a bit of a learning curve. I'm also not 100% happy with the curves and edges on the screen bezel, so I'll do some touchup on those, but the end is finally in sight!


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Mostly cosmetic sorta stuff to update here. One last round sanding/shaping and test fitting just to make sure I was happy with how everything fit together before covering it all up w/ Scotchprint. 






































I decided to go with the brushed titanium Scotchprint, which is darker and has a some more depth to it than the brushed aluminum stuff. It took more hours that expected, but the control and screen trim pieces both came out looking pretty nice.







































The shifter trim gave me some problems. Two of the bolt heads that were glued into place popped out. I thought maybe it wouldn't be that noticeable, but after spending so much time getting everything else right, I'm gonna have to pull it back out and re-do that part.

Ugh!










I'm also just not sure about color. The Scotchprint on the radio and HVAC piece looks great and an the screen bezel, I think it looks pretty good. The shifter trim just isn't quite working for me, though. I'm thinking about trying a different finish like maybe a gloss black or something just to give it some variety. Haven't decided what to do yet.






































Aside from fixing and rewrapping that shift trim, I still need to work up a better way of holding the stock screen to the bezel and and I still want to wrap the rest of the stock metallic pieces with Scotchprint.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Oops.










When the voice in your head tells you to slow down and do it right instead of rushing it, that voice should be listened to. That's what a heat gun does to the Fountek surround. Then I left it sitting around at toddler level and the kidlet finished the job. At least they're only 40 bucks. :/


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## blazeplacid (May 19, 2008)

I've been there before. Lots of tears have been shed


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Still playing around with midranges, this time the Fountek FR88EX. Had to get a little more creative with the mounting, so I got a sheet of 1/8" ABS and hit it with my heat gun. Other than the mistake above, it worked pretty well. Was happy to get these drivers to fit, but it was a pretty tight fit. 

So far with just a simple, quick tune, I think they're an improvement over the Daytons, so I'll keep them in there for at least a little while.
























































Other stuff: still wrapping the trim pieces with Scotchprint to match the console; that's no fun:










And used some of the leftover ABS to make a bracket to hold the screen in place.


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## ZombieHunter85 (Oct 30, 2012)

Love reading this install, your progress is amazing! I seem to run into similar problems when installing lol its good to know everybody has them not just me!


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Thanks for the comments! Hopefully I'll actually finish the whole thing while I still have the car


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## JayinMI (Oct 18, 2008)

I've been reading a lot about tablet installs since I'm getting ready to put my GalaxyTab Pro 8.4 in my car. This is still one of my favorites. What did you use to get the optical signal out of your Nexus 7? I'm looking at the Behringer UCA222.

Jay


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Appreciate the compliment! I'm using the Berhinger UCA202, which AFAIK, is exactly the same as the 222 other than the color. Seems to be pretty popular w/ the car installation crowd. No complaints here.


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## JayinMI (Oct 18, 2008)

Now I just wish Timur's kernel was compatible with my tablet. I didn't go with the Nexus 7 because I wanted a bigger screen, a 7" screen can be had in a double din without having to bend over backwards to make it work, so I went with the GTP 8.4 (it was [email protected] Buy, has a more car-friendly x:y dimension than the iPad Mini as well as higher pixel density than the Mini).
Now I just need to figure out how to make it power up/shut down with ignition. I also want to integrate my rear view camera. Looks like a JoyCon will also be in my future.

Jay


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## JayinMI (Oct 18, 2008)

charliekwin said:


> Appreciate the compliment! I'm using the Berhinger UCA202, which AFAIK, is exactly the same as the 222 other than the color. Seems to be pretty popular w/ the car installation crowd. No complaints here.


I was looking at the Turtle Beach Micro II, but I saw some reviews where people said they had problems getting the drivers to work on a PC, and then I read a bunch of favorable reviews stating that the sound quality on the 202/222 was indistinguishable from other, much more expensive units.
The price difference is only like $15.

Jay


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## jtaudioacc (Apr 6, 2010)

charliekwin said:


> Oops.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


if you leave anything near the cone that the magnet can attract you're in for some of that. magnet is strong and pulls anything though the dust cap on those.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

JayinMI said:


> Now I just wish Timur's kernel was compatible with my tablet. I didn't go with the Nexus 7 because I wanted a bigger screen, a 7" screen can be had in a double din without having to bend over backwards to make it work, so I went with the GTP 8.4 (it was [email protected] Buy, has a more car-friendly x:y dimension than the iPad Mini as well as higher pixel density than the Mini).
> Now I just need to figure out how to make it power up/shut down with ignition. I also want to integrate my rear view camera. Looks like a JoyCon will also be in my future.
> 
> Jay


You should be able to handle the ignition sleep/wake up pretty easily with Tasker. The main reason I went w/ Timur's kernel is that there was no way to get USB-OTG and a USB DAC all working together nicely with the other kernels and ROMs that were out there.

The new USB audio support in Lollipop will probably go a long way towards solving that problem.

The extra size on the GTP will be nice to have. I put the 7 in because it's all that could fit, and while I'm really happy overall, it is just small enough that blindly poking at the screen doesn't work very well.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Some tweaks made over the holiday break to keep my idle hands busy.

The rear doors still had trim that hadn't been covered with ScotchPrint, so I pulled them off and did that. Before (left) and after...not a huge difference, but now everything in the car matches.











While the door cards were off, I also decided it would be a good time to put some MLV, foam and CLD tiles on the rear doors. I don't run rear fill, so closing off the rear doors wasn't worth the trouble.




























I had the foresight to test before and after with a Ratshack meter to see if it really made any difference in reducing road noise.

*Before:* ~82-85dB @40mph in 4th & ~80-83dB @30mph in 3rd.
*After:* basically identical. _Maybe_ down 1dB if I want to make myself feel better about the effort, but nothing noticeable.

It wasn't a total waste, though: resonance/vibration on the rear doors was definitely reduced, and I'm pretty sure less sound is getting _out_ of the car (though I didn't think to measure that at the time).

Also have some tweaks planned for the front doors.


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## astrochex (Aug 7, 2009)

Nice Charlie. From where did you source your MLV and foam?


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

I got both from Super Soundproofing (Best Soundproofing Materials, Noise Control Materials and Solutions by soundproofing.org). They're down in San Marcos, so shipping was pretty reasonable.

Started your build yet?!


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Another quick update, wrapping up What I Did on my Winter Vacation.

I've had some vibration problems with the door card and switch panels that I wanted to try to clean up, so I added a little more Raammat in a couple trouble spots. Also made up some foam rings around the woofers with some closed-cell foam I had laying around. It's intended use is for camper shells on trucks.



















I stuck some Raammat and CCF on the switch bezels as well.



















Did a couple of quick sweeps with REW to see if the rings, in particular, made any real difference. These were done with the EQ disabled, but there wasn't a big difference between the before and after, and what was there is likely attributable as much to measurement variation than anything else. The waterfall plots were pretty similar as well. Not sure it was worth the effort :-/



















Door card vibration, at least, seems to be reduced (wish I had equipment to measure that!) and the bezels don't buzz anymore. I think the doors now are about as good as I'm willing to get them.


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## mikechec9 (Dec 1, 2006)

This is really helpful. I used some white Frost King closed cell foam as rings around my midbass, but I couldn't manage to fit the door card back on (the foam doesn't have much give). Because the opening is so low and small (I run 8's) it seems like a portion of the bass is muffling just a bit inside the panel. Guess it doesn't make any real difference, but I would probably like to try again using this camper shell truck foam. I don't get out much, so I'm not familiar with camping shells, but where would you suggest grabbing some of the foam?

*Edit* I re-read that you received _both_ from the provided link. I will try there. Again, thanks for the log. Very helpful.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

mikechec9 said:


> I don't get out much, so I'm not familiar with camping shells, but where would you suggest grabbing some of the foam?
> 
> *Edit* I re-read that you received _both_ from the provided link. I will try there. Again, thanks for the log. Very helpful.


Actually, the camper shell foam I just picked up at OSH a few years ago, but should be available at just about any decent hardware store. Amazon carries it as well: M-D Building Products 2352 Camper Seal Tape, 3/16-by-1-1/4-Inch by 30 feet, Gray - Masking Tape - Amazon.com


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## mikechec9 (Dec 1, 2006)

charliekwin said:


> Actually, the camper shell foam I just picked up at OSH a few years ago, but should be available at just about any decent hardware store.[/url]


Excellent. Found it at the depot. I'll see if that helps. Many thanks


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## mikechec9 (Dec 1, 2006)

Thanks a grip. Rings made a significant difference in clarity for me. Sitting parked in the garage for the past hour.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

So I realized that I actually buttoned the whole install up a little while back without putting up the last update. My last project was finishing up the shift bezel. I made a new one and wrapped it in Scotchprint, but never really liked the looks of it:










So I set about making something a little nicer. I have some sheets of 3003 aluminum laying around in the garage that I thought I could do something with. So made a quick template, and got to work cutting, filing, and sanding.





































Like...a lot of filing and sanding. A LOT. For a piece done entirely by hand, it shaped up nicely.










Then built up the edges on the bezel piece with body filler. It fit in nice and tight, but I called an audible: sanded it back down and used some mounting tape so I'd have a gap and put on more filler.





































Then covered the bezel with some vinyl and did a test fit, which was looking good.










Used some leftover ABS to make some bits that hold the shift boot in place, beveled the aluminum a bit and hit it with the Dremel to give it a brushed look, then glued it in place.



















Moment of truth!










A little adhesive that needed to be cleaned off, but the end result was pretty much what I hoped for:





























So other than some tuning now and again, that should wrap it up for the G.

Good thing, too, because I just got myself into this mess of a project!


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## bigbubba (Mar 23, 2011)

Shifter trim peice came out real nice. Love the detail it adds. 

What are your plans for the 280?


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Thanks!  It was definitely the finishing touch that I felt it was missing.

As for the Z, there's a ton of stuff on the list. First and foremost, it failed smog miserably, so I need to get that worked out. It has an illegal cat and an EVAP leak, which I think I've traced to a missing O-ring on the fuel tank (that's currently sitting on the ground as I work to de-rustify it). The previous owner(s) did a lot of bodgy work on it, new examples of which I find almost every time I pull off a bolt.

Other than that, some of the short term stuff: clean everything, remove the bumpers, new wheels and tires, reupholster the seats, redo the carpet and the rear deck/hatch, replace bushings, shocks and springs. Longer term plans are to restore the dash, do some proper body work and paint, and maybe put in an L28ET from a 280zx.


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## Jflores929 (May 25, 2015)

I have a 07 g35 and I'm having trouble installing an aftermarket amplifier with the stock head unit


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Jflores929 said:


> I have a 07 g35 and I'm having trouble installing an aftermarket amplifier with the stock head unit


What's your question?

You should be able to tap the outputs from the head unit before the Bose amp and run those to your DSP or amp (possibly, I'm not sure about the voltage). Check the FSM to find the right wires to use, I might also have it in my build log, probably around page 2.


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## Jflores929 (May 25, 2015)

Do you know what colors are for what speakers. Front and rear? Left and right?


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## mrnix (Mar 2, 2009)

I know this is an "old" thread, but I wanted to jump in an offer my congrats on a job well done. I recently retired my G35 in favor of an M37X. Everything is integrated in the new one, so I'm not sure I have it in me to do a ton of tinkering, at least not right now.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Hey, thanks for the comment! Even looking back on this thread, I'm not sure I would have it in me to re-do it either


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## bigaudiofanatic (Mar 1, 2009)

charliekwin said:


> Pretty busy week, but got a bunch of stuff finished up.
> 
> The rear deck and rear seat were put back in. Pretty impressed at how much quieter the car is now with the MLV+CCF on the bottom of the rear seat.
> 
> ...



Alright that looks awesome do you have a link to the fabric? I have the same speakers and same car as you. This looks perfect.


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Wow, been a long time since I've been around here!

I re-used the stock fabric on the A pillars. Just peeled back carefully from the top down, molded in the speaker rings, then put it back. You can see it here:


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## Guunk (Sep 20, 2019)

Nice write up.

Have you had any issues with butyl from the Raammat melting? I read somewhere where a guy says that happened to him.

I'm looking for good deadener for my doors and I was considering Raamat or Soundskins Pro. The Soundskins has a CCF attached to the foil butyl. I'm wondering if that would be sufficient to make my doors more into an enclosure for the 6.75" drivers OR if I need MLV. 

Also, where did you get your MLV? Raammat doesn't sell that.

Again, nice work! 

Sent from my LG-LS993 using Tapatalk


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## bigaudiofanatic (Mar 1, 2009)

I'd love to see what you could do to a Tesla style android screen replacement! I returned mine because of the horrendous internal DAC.

Amazing work, have you updated to a newer tablet?


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Hey, looks like this thread still gets a poke every now and then. Neat!



Guunk said:


> Have you had any issues with butyl from the Raammat melting?
> ...
> Also, where did you get your MLV? Raammat doesn't sell that.


No issues with the Raammat. Still have some in the garage that I've used on other projects. Super Soundproofing (Best Soundproofing & Noise Control Materials - Super Soundproofing) is where I bought the MLV.



bigaudiofanatic said:


> I'd love to see what you could do to a Tesla style android screen replacement! I returned mine because of the horrendous internal DAC.
> 
> Amazing work, have you updated to a newer tablet?


I'm still chugging along with the old N7 on Android 4.x. The hardware is still fine, but it's showing its age on the software side. Every week or two it needs to be rebooted when the OS goes nuts and all apps crash. It's annoying, but I can't get myself motivated enough to go through the trouble of trying to upgrade.

I've also been busy on my other project:










That one's gonna get an audio install eventually...


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## JayinMI (Oct 18, 2008)

charliekwin said:


> I'm still chugging along with the old N7 on Android 4.x. The hardware is still fine, but it's showing its age on the software side. Every week or two it needs to be rebooted when the OS goes nuts and all apps crash. It's annoying, but I can't get myself motivated enough to go through the trouble of trying to upgrade.
> 
> I've also been busy on my other project:
> 
> ...


I had a Galaxytab 8.4 Pro on Android 4.4.2 (IIRC) and they stopped updating the OS then. I rooted it to use Tasker, and *could* hack a newer version of Android on it, but the stability of that worries me. What has me interested in updating the tablet is that Android 5.0+ can run Android Auto in stand alone mode.

But, I finally switched to an iPhone, and found that it links to my Macbook Pro (and would link to an iPad if I had one) to show/answer incoming calls on any device I'm using. This is a huge plus for me, but now an iPad "mini" is 10.1"! lol

Going to look at a winter beater 1st gen Neon this weekend, and I found I still have my old double din converted dash bezel and custom sub box, as well as a bunch of car audio gear I'm not using, so, I'm entertaining another tablet install...but I'll probably just do a cheap Carplay radio instead.

Also, my S-10 project I have started with me looking for a 240 or 260. Do you have a build thread for it somewhere?

Jay


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## charliekwin (Apr 22, 2012)

Yup, I'm a member at Classic Z Cars and have a build thread there: https://www.classiczcars.com/forums/topic/51367-project-boondoggle-or-so-i-went-and-bought-a-z/

Aside from the drivetrain, it's getting close to "done." The last big project was the body and paint work, which I start about two years ago and took a little more than a year to finish.

It's a bunch of fun. Easy recommendation if you're looking for a project.


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