# 2003 Honda Insight - Alpine, AudioControl, Focal, Arc Audio



## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

This car achieves fuel economy numbers that embarrass most all hybrids on the market- 50mpg city / 70mpg highway, with the air conditioning running. The only one that does any better is the Chevy Volt, but that's $45k. I picked this up back in April for under $6k.

Part of the fuel economy formula is its low weight, at just under 1,900 lbs. Adding a bunch of audio components and sound deadening materials is a bit inconsistent with keeping it light, but it's a compromise I'm willing to accept.

On day 1 of ownership in April '12, I swapped out the the head unit with an Alpine iDA-X305SBT.










The rest of the hardware in the plan:

AlphaDamp sound deadening
Focal 165KRX2 6.5" components
AudioControl 6XS active crossover
ArcAudio 900.6 amplifier
ArcAudio 10" sub


Last night, I started applying the AlphaDamp in the driver's door:









Taking a cue from this thread, I made some temporary tweeter pods to experiment with placement on the A-pillars before they get glassed in:









The sub, amp, and crossover will get glassed in the rear spare-tire compartment:









I ordered some US Composites 435 poly resin and Knytex biaxial fabric to build the sub enclosure, which I have not yet come up with a solid design for. I would greatly appreciate some suggestions. I gave some thought to building a false floor, but there is ample room with the spare removed for completely stealth and stock appearance. There is already active cooling for the car's battery pack and electronics.

Thanks!


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## Thrill_House (Nov 20, 2008)

Awesome, cant wait to see the progress of this install!


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

Made some progress on the driver's door today. 

Finished laying down AlphaDamp deadener, ran speaker wire through the door jam, got the standoff measurement and bolt-hole pattern sorted for speaker mounting, and made connections to the speaker. Only took 7 hours...


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

Making progress... slowly but surely.

MDF rings cut and shaped to fit the door frame and keep the speaker centered in the opening. Quite a bit of plastic cut from the door panel for clearance, but the OEM grill is retained and will still appear unmodified. The rings are cut from a 3/4" sheet. I cut them down about 1/4" each with a rabbeting bit, but on opposite sides (inside of one, outside of the other) so they interlock.

Tweeters are mounted to the A-pillars with velcro to make it easy for positioning experimentation.

Next up: install dampening material to passenger side door and woofer.


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## Paul1217 (Aug 12, 2007)

You had me freakin out. I thought you were mounting that Focal to the door just using those metal spacers at first.


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

Paul1217 said:


> You had me freakin out. I thought you were mounting that Focal to the door just using those metal spacers at first.


That's just my technique to take the guesswork out of how thick to make the MDF rings. Using the hardware by itself allowed me to easily add thickness in small increments until I had just enough gap to let the window roll down past the speaker magnet while also retaining clearance on the front side for the oem door panel grill. These Focals are probably 3x the depth of the oem whizzer-cone specials.

Passenger side rings:


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

I found a local supplier in OKC (Royal Plastics) for HDPE, aka cutting board in the exact thickness I need for these rings. I'll be cutting new ones this weekend.


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## jpeezy (Feb 5, 2012)

I see a hinged (to the right)sub box/amp rack in there over the spare,so as to still have access to the spare,and give you a flat floor in hatch area,good luck!


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

jpeezy said:


> I see a hinged (to the right)sub box/amp rack in there over the spare,so as to still have access to the spare,and give you a flat floor in hatch area,good luck!


My current design plan omits the spare. Not that I plan on competing, but does that lose scoring points?


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## Lorin (May 5, 2011)

Nice to see another "stereo" guy in OKC. Im in the same area, and am familiar with Regal plastics as well. subbed to see the rest of this one. I like the idea of retaining the spare and building a box above it, room permitting.


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

Picked up the HDPE from Royal Plastics today. SUPER nice! I'll be doing business with them again soon.

Started cutting one of the new rings:


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

just make sure you drill those holes slow. that stuff is awesome and mega durable, but it does crack. just take your time!

cool build so far!


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

For sure! I use the peck drilling method to get the center hole for the circle guide pin. My router is fixed-base and I'm cutting with straight bits because- you know, I like the challenge. 

The Makita plunge router I want is $300, so that's gonna wait a little. 

I got both new circles cut last night. Tomorrow, I make more plastic swarf and convert them to rings.


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

I got the new HDPE rings finished and replaced on both doors. While I was at it, I soldered 3.5mm bullet connectors.


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## clix`g35 (Aug 23, 2009)

I wonder this car being a Hybrid, will the added stress on the electrical system of the Audio + the electric motor when pulling 10kw to assist will be too much? Will this adversly affect MPG? 

I joke around all the time that adding a sound system to a hybrid cost you MPG but now I wonder, can you confirm after your done that the audio wont affect the car?

I imagine on a car with a different system like the volt which is primarily electric the effects would be much greater.


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

clix`g35 said:


> I wonder this car being a Hybrid, will the added stress on the electrical system of the Audio + the electric motor when pulling 10kw to assist will be too much? Will this adversly affect MPG?
> 
> I joke around all the time that adding a sound system to a hybrid cost you MPG but now I wonder, can you confirm after your done that the audio wont affect the car?
> 
> I imagine on a car with a different system like the volt which is primarily electric the effects would be much greater.


It's a valid concern. Unlike the Chevy Volt, this car's primary locomotion power is from the 3-cyl 1.0 liter gas engine. The electric motor/generator (installed directly on the crankshaft) provides acceleration power via the 144v battery pack, which is recharged by regenerative braking or trickle charged as needed while cruising. The primary 12v power source in this car is a DC-DC converter that steps down the 144v battery pack with an auxiliary 12v lead-acid under the hood to back things up and probably steady the voltage. I plan on adding an additional 12v battery located near the amplifier to reduce transient load stress on the converter at peak volume levels.

At max throttle with full assist, the electric motor can pull up to 10,000 watts. I rarely floor it and I only occasionally listen to the audio system at loud volume levels. I figure if I can avoid doing both of those at the same time I should be good to go, assuming I even need to be concerned about it.

I'm currently running an Arc KS900.6 (class A/B). I originally purchased this amp for my Corvette but had to sell the car for my overseas move from Okinawa and kept the amp for the next install. This 900.6 is not my 1st choice for this Honda with regard to amp-draw/efficiency and the large footprint. I still have not yet measured real-time amp draw so it's still theoretical at this point but I've not noticed any detriment to fuel economy since I've had it hooked up. My usual in-town average of 50mpg is up to 58mpg lately- probably because I'm not running the A/C with the cooler outside temps.

To better accommodate the space I want to use for installation and amp-draw efficiency, I plan on switching to a pair of Arc minis (class H)- a 125.4 to actively run the Focal 2-ways and a 500.1 to run the Arc 10" sub. I considered a JL HD900/5 (class D), but I already have the 500.1 and I've read the efficiency difference between class H and class D is not enough to be of concern.

Budget is a bit tight lately so I'm holding out to find a 125.4 in the classifieds. If any of you know of a good deal I would great appreciate the tip. Later on when funds allow, I'd like to upgrade my head unit and eliminate the external active crossover. I'm thinking the DEX P99rs would do nicely and take the SQ up a few notches.


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

I think I found the fattest speaker that will fit this door and still look oem:


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## supercoupe08 (Oct 31, 2012)

Where did you stash the crossovers?


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

The passive xovers are in my parts bin. The Audio Control 6XS is dialed in with the Sub at 20-90Hz, mid-bass at 90-3200Hz, and tweets 3200Hz to the top for active goodness.

ISTundra made me a nice deal on an Arc KS125.4 mini and another forum member hooked me up with a 500.1 mini, so the 900.6 is coming out. I like it a lot, but it's a LOT to like. It would have been perfect in my Vette, but not so much in this car. These two hobbit-sized amps will give me much better placement options for a more practical and stealthy install and let me retain the spare tire.

I'm almost done deadening the doors. I took leave all this week so I could make faster progress on what seems like a never ending project. Next-make cardboard mockups of the minis and design an amp rack and sub enclosure.


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

Meet the twins:


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## ISTundra (Jan 3, 2009)

I never realized the 500.1 and the 125.4 were the same size.


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

ISTundra said:


> I never realized the 500.1 and the 125.4 were the same size.


They make a rather nice pair. The nano-cooling fans make a bit of high-pitch whine as expected, but are completely inaudible once tunes start playing, even at modest volume levels. I plan to enclose the amp rack so I doubt I'll ever hear them after that. I'm really impressed with the sound quality of these amps, especially as small as they are.


On Sunday night, I roughed the amp rack. They are stacked at about a 45° with about a 1/2" gap in between them- enough for the cooling fan to breath easily and will fit the space with the stock paneling in place above.










Passenger door is just about finished. Today, I sealed up the large rear opening with deadened/stiffened aluminum sheet fastened with 3/8" rivets (mostly).


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## Lorin (May 5, 2011)

I too, am impressed with the arc mini's. I replaced a smaller ads amp with the 125.4 and was impressed. Looks good


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## rcurley55 (Jul 6, 2005)

The Arc Minis are really sweet amps. I have a 125.4 temporarily running my 4" components and 8" midbasses and it sounds great doing it.

Nice install!


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## mumbles (Jul 26, 2010)

You did an awesome job on those speaker rings!


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

Thanks man- I got lots of practice. Crazy time got spent on the lathe making small ring adapters from ABS. These were for my rabbetting bit's guide bearing to alter the depth of cut to get the two MDF ring halves to interlock perfectly. Once I found I could get HDPE in the exact thickness I needed, I had ring making down to a science.


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

The amp rack structure is shaping up, albeit rather slowly. I decided against a fused distro block at the amps and just a simple distro for both hot and ground. The Arc minis have their own fuses. I did quite a bit of searching on this and the only good reason I found for having a fused distro is for lack of on-board amp fuses. You never see a fused distro when it's a single-amp installation, so why the redundant fusing for multiple amps? I don't see the need. Yes... extra safety, but it's redundantly redundant. If any part of the power wiring shorts to ground, the main fuse will blow to prevent shenanigans. The other (small) factor is aesthetics. I ended up using Kicker distro blocks and they no longer carry a fused model.

I got a tip from JOwens to use Apple lossless format vs mp3. I've been ripping with dBPowerAmp/320 bitrate with very good sounding results, but curiosity led me to re-ripping my CDs and in a SQ setup, I prefer to eliminate as many weak links as practically possible. The drawback is a 10x-ish greater file size per track so the 32GB ipod touch is getting full really fast and I'm not even halfway through the tedious process of re-ripping my library. A 160GB ipod classic is on order and should offer up about the same variety that I'm used to having on tap. Hopefully the startup/access time doesn't suck too badly going from solid-state to a hard drive.


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

Progress has been fairly steady, but painfully slow over the last few months.

Both door panels are done:









AlphaDamp deadening









SecondSkin Luxury Liner Pro 









Opened up the oem grill holes...


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

Upgraded battery


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

My first ever sub enclosure. I used the Subwoofer Design Toolbox app to assist with getting the dimensions for 3/4 cu ft.










This sits directly over the spare tire. For now, it's just wedged in using foam blocks while I figure out mounting hardware. I would like to suspend it using exhaust hangars to decouple it.


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

I ditched the PVC endcaps for the mounting pods that were included with the KRX2's. They work well and sound great with them mostly on-axis.










I want to preserve these in case I want to sell this set later on, so new mounting cups are in the works:


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## sinister-kustoms (Jul 22, 2009)

Nice work! What sort of lathe is that? Looks really handy for a small home shop setup!


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## chithead (Mar 19, 2008)

Very nice attention to detail. I like your fab skills too. Nice to see something other than MDF and PVC caps being used.


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

sinister-kustoms said:


> Nice work! What sort of lathe is that? Looks really handy for a small home shop setup!


This is a Sherline 4400. I like making custom hardware and modifications for my other hobby... R/C model helicopters, which I haven't touched in over a year since this project consumes most of my free time. This size lathe is perfect for that kind of work. The other lathe I was considering was the Taig. In my research, there seemed to be more accessories available for the Sherline and I ended up coming across one on Craigslist about a year ago that I couldn't pass up. It's very handy indeed.



chithead said:


> Very nice attention to detail. I like your fab skills too. Nice to see something other than MDF and PVC caps being used.


Thanks man. The PVC caps worked ok, but I don't anticipate changing out tweeters very often and that's what PVC caps are good for.











Since this was my first sub enclosure, I knew I would make a few mistakes so I figured I would use MDF since I had it on hand from an earlier project. I plan to make another one from baltic birch later on after the purchase of a table saw and router table. For this one, I used a circular saw and a router against a straight edge to square everything up. Very time consuming and impossible to control the spray of sawdust.


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## Reyne (May 18, 2010)

Hi. Awesome build and very nice equipment. Im going to be cutting HDPE baffles soon. I was looking at the nice job you did on yours and was wondering, how cean the cuts were straight from the router bit. I have a router table and was going to make MDF templates and flush trim the HDPE. Thanks for any advice.


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

wow dude, why am i instructing you on how to drill holes 

awesome work!!


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

Reyne said:


> Hi. Awesome build and very nice equipment. Im going to be cutting HDPE baffles soon. I was looking at the nice job you did on yours and was wondering, how cean the cuts were straight from the router bit. I have a router table and was going to make MDF templates and flush trim the HDPE. Thanks for any advice.


For clean cuts, use a sharp bit (preferably one that you will only use for cutting HDPE) and take smooth, shallow cuts until you can make a finish cut in a slow, continuous pass. A larger 1/2" bit will take a smoother cut vs a 1/4" bit. When making a plunge cut, cut only as deep as you need for the flush-trim bit's bearing to ride on. Then you can raise the cutting bit and flush-trim the rest.

If I were going to make some to use as templates, I would drill 4 of the speaker screw holes and flush in some M4 blind nuts to fasten the template to the HDPE with machine screws.


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

*Re: 2003 Honda Insight - Alpine, Bit One, Focal, Arc Audio*

I cut a new pair of tweeter pods on Saturday which turned out even better and are installed. The only odd thing was the right channel tweet needed more delay vs the left, but it elevated and widened the stage nicely.


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

have you tried rotating those things and aiming them at all? are you worried about reflections causing mischief? try pulling them away from the glass maybe...

looks wicked though. i wish i still had access to my colleges machine shop. are you going to glass them into a final position?


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

req said:


> have you tried rotating those things and aiming them at all? are you worried about reflections causing mischief? try pulling them away from the glass maybe...
> 
> looks wicked though. i wish i still had access to my colleges machine shop. are you going to glass them into a final position?


I'm using those reflections to my advantage and it works rather well. I would prefer if I could flush them into the dash, but I'm not quite ready to take a sawzall to it. I am rotating them to find a sweet-ish spot and once I'm happy with it I will glass them in for a blended appearance. The weirdness is the passenger side needed more delay vs the driver side to get it centered, but the Bit One makes fixing that easy.


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## Mless5 (Aug 21, 2006)

Looks study .
What did you use for mounting hardware on the back of those spacers? Hurricane nuts epoxied in place?

Thanks.


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

Mless5 said:


> Looks study .
> What did you use for mounting hardware on the back of those spacers? Hurricane nuts epoxied in place?
> 
> Thanks.


At the moment, a locknut. I wanted to make sure the height on the pillar was correct before making it more permanent. I've not done pillar work like this before. I'm just taking one educated guess after another. After listening to them the last couple of days this way- I'm pretty happy with it. I like your suggestion. That, or maybe a riv-nut through a washer.


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

Here's most of the tweeter pod build process:

machining HDPE tweeter pods - YouTube


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## Gadget01 (Oct 20, 2008)

This weekend's progress... Aux battery mount fab'd and installed:

machining the standoffs for the top rail:









hardware all cut, M5 threads tapped into both ends of the standoffs:









driver's side corner of the rear hatch:









ready for cables:


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