# 2010 Accord Coupe - A Julia / Bing Collaboration :) Zapco, HAT, Mosconi, JL, Alpine



## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

After a bunch of more basic installs, we got to work on a slightly more involved project with a 3 way active front stage, 3 amps, and two subs. The car is a 2010 Honda Accord Coupe.

the goals:

1. achieve a nice level of sound quality using all customer supplied products (the DSP was the only piece we provided)

2. maintain a relatively low key and usable trunk

3. build a stealth amp rack with a little bit of show factor with the cover removed.

Julia did the majority of the work while i fabricated the A pillar pods and the amp rack.

lets get started.

as mentioned in my previous civic build thread, i had started to do some welding of my own, and for this car, i fabricated a fuse holder bracket that is welded to the bottom of the stock battery hold down, as having it above like we normally do would make it too tall to clear the hood.

a stinger four fuse dual output fuse holder sits on top of the bracket, and a zero and a four gauge cable is run back to feed the power hungry amplifiers 




























the signal starts with a customer supplied alpine 920 double din headunit, installed via bets kits dash kit:










we also installed an alpine back up camera:



















for the front stage, the customer gave us a set of Hybrid Audio L6se, L3se and L1pro RR tweeters. the midbass was installed in the lower door stock location.

first, new speaker wires were run into the doors:










then the outter skin of the door is sound proofed with blackhole tile:










while the inner door received STP cld damper and stinger foam barrier. Julia then fabricated some spacers, coated them with truck bedliner, wired up and bolted in the speakers:



















the door skin also got some CLD treatment to help with resonance:










the same procedure was then repeated on the other side:




























The HAT l1pro ring radiator tweeters are mounted into modified stock sail panels, aiming them a bit further on axis, while the L3SEs were built into A pillar pods with a similar aiming angle. the pillasr are finished with black vinyl while the sail panels were painted to match the oem finish. there is also a pair of grilles that hides the L3ses:






















































































































here are some quick build pics of the sail panel and a pillars.

first, the stock tweeter and grille was removed from the sail panel house, the whole thing trimmed to fit the new ring adapter, then the rings aimed and secured:



















then filler was used to build up the shape, and through several coats of filler and sanding, along with high build primer, they got to be smooth and blended:



















then a final coat of primer and SEM black went on to match the oem finish. the tweeters were then press fit and wired up:










for the A pillars, first a pair of ring baffles with flush mounting side walls were aimed and secured to a pre-trimmed a pillar cover:











then mold cloth was pulled , resin applied, allowed to cure and then the whole shape was reinforced from the inside with a duraglass/resin mixture:










then the two pods received filler, sanded down, process repeapted a few times until the whole thing became a smooth blended shape:



















then they were wrapped with stretchy black vinyl, which required a lot of pulling 



















then the two press fit grilles were made:



















next, some pics showing the wiring bundles as it travels from the front to the rear of the car, ziptied and secured every few inches or less:























































the rear deck speakers and subwoofer were also removed to gain better bass response into the cabin, both sides of the rear deck was also sound proofed with CLD and foam:


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

moving on to the trunk. the main challenge is finding space for everything that the customer provided us. he gave us three big zapco amps, and two jl 12w6v3s with the idea that the amps would be hidden in the floor with a little show factor, and the subs mounted to the sides.

took a while to figure out the sub mounting as the trunk arm assembly takes a pretty big swing downwards, this coupled with the impressive depths of the 12w6, made it a little trick. but after sometime, we got it all figured and here is the final result.

open the trunk and here is what you see. two side enclosures of about 1 cubic foot each houses the two 12w6s, they are flush mounted and features the JL grilles for protection. they stop just short to clear the full motion of the trunk lid arm. a new center fake floor section replaced the stock floor board, with a single cutout towards the back of the car.










pop off the center girlle and you are greeted by the amp rack. the three zapco amps power the entire with quite a lot of power. one does 4x150 on the front mids and tweets, the other four channel is bridged powering the door midbasses with over 500 watts each, while a 2 kilowatt amp runs the subs. i decided to try a slightly different lighting technique by doing a very shallow chamfered MDF trim panel around the amps wrapped in reflective white vinyl, with a layer of edge lit plexi above it lined up with the edge of the chamfer, and then another rounded over mdf wrapped in black vinyl above the plexi layer...and then finally the top fake floor. the idea is to get it some extra depth and when the plexi lights up, it will shine and reflect off the white vinyl and give the impression at night of a wider band of lightng.

anyway, enough talk here are the pictures of everything:































































































































flip a switch and the middle plexi layer lights up a bright white:










but of course the effect is better enjoyed in the dark:


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

okay, onto some build pics. first up is Julia's two side boxes. first, the trunk was fully taped off and wrapped in plastic, dexter style:










next, 6 layers of heavy mat went onto each side to form the back side of the enclosures:










then the pieces were trimmed to the desired shape and the two ring baffles were aimed and secured:










mold cloth was pulled, resin applied, followed by 6 more layers of glass on top to reinforce it, once that cured...many coats of filler and much sanding occured, and the two finished boxes are test fitted, any gaps backfilled, and resanded. final result looks like this:



















and then, threaded inserts for the sub mounting is installed into the mounting baffle:



















moving onto my portion of the build: the amp rack. first, four hole were drilled in the floor of the trunk floor, and a foundational support piece was bolted in place with nuts on the bottom of the car holding it in place:



















then i fabricated this one piece amp rack with spacer supports that houses the amps and the dsp and wired as much as i can outside the vehicle:





































these are the three pieces that make up the amp rack trim/lighting, before and after upholstery:



















here is the top piece (black vinyl) with the plexi layer secured to it, after application of double sided clear tape (the yellow is the backing)










then 12 ft of bright white led strips secured to it, an then black ducttape over it to prevent light lighting out the backside:



















here is the top floor piece and the breathable grill before and after carpet"




























and here is all the carpeted piece being dyed to a slightly lighter shade to better match with the stock carpet:










and finally, three pics of the full wiring organization under the floor with the amp rack secured in place:




























so thats it...

having a high quality 3 way set in this config means its quite nice. imaging is very solidly anchored in the middle with VERY good depth an great width. height is about halfway up the windshield, i think a dash mat could make imaging even better. 

tonality wise, the midbass is very strong with a LOT of extension, but i had to do the gains very carefully as 500 plus watts can easily overpower a 6.5  the mid and tweeter is quite natural right off the bad and honestly did not require a ton of tweaking. Scott provided me with xover points that i used nad it all sounds quite good and balanced. i would say with more expert tuning in the future, it can get even better.

the dual 12w6s can really hammer and move a lot of air in the cabin, but can still blend well with the music with it set to a more subtle volume. 

overall, its quite a good "SQL" build in my book 

until next time, cheers!

Bing


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## 60ndown (Feb 8, 2007)

nice, sql, 

i was daydreaming the other day about having you do a build for me, id ask for a strong non fatiguing but modestly priced front end, and spend the bulk of the cost on a sub that could do 135 db (or move over mr mead *sql pwns spl* ) transmission line or horn massive box i dunno ? no fancy glass work just let simplicity build a bare mdf sql bass race monster with sq  then i woke up and realized i only make $15 an hour and have lots of bills = /


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## Bluenote (Aug 29, 2008)

Nice job B&J! How close is the W6v3 to the CXL in terms of output and low freq?


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## chasintrane (Jul 29, 2012)

This is pretty much the system I want in my car. Very nice works guys and gal!! I probably would have gone with the black trim on the tweeters!


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## MiloX (May 22, 2005)

Bing- as usual your work is gorgeous and your signature style comes through in spades in this build. I am curious, however, why you decided to run the additional 4GA and why is it fused at 200 amps. 

Not trying to be critical, just curious as to your thought process. 

Thanks!

B


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## momax_powers (Oct 26, 2013)

I wish you would do the build pics first before the final product...ruins the surprise lol

Always amazing work!!


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## mires (Mar 5, 2011)

Julia is damn good at those side boxes. The carpet color is spot on too!


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## shutmdown (Aug 24, 2008)

beautiful build


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

MiloX said:


> Bing- as usual your work is gorgeous and your signature style comes through in spades in this build. I am curious, however, why you decided to run the additional 4GA and why is it fused at 200 amps.
> 
> Not trying to be critical, just curious as to your thought process.
> 
> ...


thats a good question...my understanding is that i am basically running the 4 and 0 ga together, and fused together. becuase the fused d blocks at the back end of the line next to the amps, is a common input to 4 output block. so my thinking is that i am basically running the 0 and 4 to form one heavier gauge cable and the fusing i have on there is 400 amps across the entire two cables, and how i came up with 400 is basically what matches the zapco's fuse ratings iirc. 

does that make sense? thats how i understood it and it may or may not be technically 100 percent correct...but it made sense in my mind lol
if i had the two lines going to a separated two in 4 our blocks then i would see that 4 ga line as its own standlone cable and would likely fuse it less as the 0 ga would take more current.


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## MiloX (May 22, 2005)

Maybe that's the confusion, I thought those blocks were completely bussed across the inputs, but were separated (fused separately) for the two outputs. That way you could have only one input wire but still be able to have two outputs, each with their own fuse rating, (I am using the same block in my latest build, btw). I guess what I was expecting to see was 300A protecting the 0GA and 100-125A protecting the 4GA. Either way you still get to 400A, but you have the "correct" values protecting each wire. 

Make sense? Or am I over thinking it as usual?


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

MiloX said:


> Maybe that's the confusion, I thought those blocks were completely bussed across the inputs, but were separated (fused separately) for the two outputs. That way you could have only one input wire but still be able to have two outputs, each with their own fuse rating, (I am using the same block in my latest build, btw). I guess what I was expecting to see was 300A protecting the 0GA and 100-125A protecting the 4GA. Either way you still get to 400A, but you have the "correct" values protecting each wire.
> 
> Make sense? Or am I over thinking it as usual?


this may require some more digging...they are bussed on the input and fused separately at the output (at the battery) but then the two wires goes into a common bussed input again at the other end... 

the other confusion i had and gotten quite different answers from is, in a dual fuse block like this, if you have two 100 amp fuses in the slots, does this give you 100 amps or 200 amps of protection. i have had it explained to me both ways


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## moparman79 (Jan 31, 2008)

Nice build guys, good work.


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## optimaprime (Aug 16, 2007)

Bing what do think of the new zapco amps? I know you know the older ones inside and out.


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

optimaprime said:


> Bing what do think of the new zapco amps? I know you know the older ones inside and out.


i dont like to pass any judgement until i have at least done two or three systems with any gear...

all i can tell you now is that they are powerful, heavy and i love the oversized terminals on them.


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## edouble101 (Dec 9, 2010)

Very cool. Thanks for showing your builds and how they come togetger. A lot is learned from these posts!


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## chasintrane (Jul 29, 2012)

Bing, in your opinion, would there have been a significant SQ lowering if you would have run the tweet and mid passively off one channel per side with the Hybrid Legatia cross-overs?

The cross-over point between the 2 drivers would be in the 5,000Hz range w/ the passive cross-over unit from Hybrid. What are your thoughts? If this person wanted rear fill, is there a better way to free up some channels that could be time aligned?


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## chasintrane (Jul 29, 2012)

** double post


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## coogle (Feb 10, 2008)

As always very nice work very detailed ! Thx for shareing .


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## crea_78 (Jan 6, 2014)

Very nice install!! I am looking to do my front stage sails/a pillars just like this with L3SE and L1 Pro R2.


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## Notloudenuf (Sep 14, 2008)

I just have this feeling that this car sounds really good.


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## colled96 (Feb 2, 2010)

Nice Build. I like the low key approach.


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## quietfly (Mar 23, 2011)

awesome as usual..... Damn... I'd love to hear it...


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## crea_78 (Jan 6, 2014)

Bing, was there alot of modification to fit the L6 SEs into the doors? I have a 2014 Accord sedan and was wondering if I should get these.


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## Gurpreet (Sep 6, 2011)

Bing you guys did an amazing job. I'm thoroughly impressed with the stealth look with the amazing sound. I can sit in the car for hours and listen to music.


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## [email protected] (Nov 7, 2010)

Gurpreet said:


> Bing you guys did an amazing job. I'm thoroughly impressed with the stealth look with the amazing sound. *I can sit in the car for hours and listen to music.*


Glad you like it! I didn't work on it, but I think ultimately, /\ that is always our goal!


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## rmchevelle (Jul 22, 2008)

crea_78 said:


> Bing, was there alot of modification to fit the L6 SEs into the doors? I have a 2014 Accord sedan and was wondering if I should get these.


I was going to ask about any mods on the doors to fit, also. I know it has been mentioned multiple times that Hondas tend to need some sheetmetal removed to get 6.5's in. Have an older Accord myself. Every other car the 6.5's seem to just drop right in without a problem. :bigcry:

Love the neatness of the amp rack, as usual. The sub houses and pillars turned out great.


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## captainobvious (Mar 11, 2006)

simplicityinsound said:


>






Bing-

Nice build as usual. Out of curiosity, when you get to this point(above) where you've got the amps, dsp, etc all mounted and wired up to their backboard, do you run your oscope/gain structure settings up with the equipment *out of the car* since you can easier reach and adjust everything? I always find it an incredible pain in the ass to do it once you get everything packed tightly in the car.


-Steve


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## [email protected] (Nov 7, 2010)

Steve,

We build everything with a lean to the practical. So we make sure all the controls on amps/processors are accessible for tuning..


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## Babs (Jul 6, 2007)

Bing looks like this is the logical amp mount for me in the 08 Si Sedan. 

So if I understand correctly, there's a bottom plate riveted to floor I assume 3/4", and top amp plate of another 3/4", then two layers of covering. Correct?

I imagine then the fun is getting that bottom and amp base level to the trunk floor at the right height. Naturally the bottom of mine has zero flat surface and the bump for the spare tire bolt. Makes it fun to commit. Maybe spacers to the rivnuts to float? Not sure how to approach it. I guess cut pieces and see.


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