# My 2002 Silverado Regular Cab Build



## zblee (May 18, 2010)

Well I have finally finished! I have successfully "re-done" my stereo in my 2002 Silverado.

I actually started way back on 7/3/2010 and I finally finished up some small items this past weekend 11/26/2010 , almost 5 months haha.

So here is what I have done and pictures will follow as I am able to post them up:

First thing I did was completely sound deaden the truck. After that was done I ran my new wires and built some sub boxes. After installing all the items I did the "Big 3". At first I had simply stuck my tweeters in the A-pillars by simply cutting out a circle and flush mounting them there. This did not quite work too well as they pointed towards the windshield and actually did not even fit. They were hitting the a-pillar frame and pushing the plastic panel out, exposing the rear of the speaker from the outside view of the truck ( looking in from the windsheild ). This was not very "finished" looking so I decided to build my own a-pillar pods for my tweets. After those finally got finished, I am able to post up my full install!

So here it is, 

First off; my parts ( most of them ) that I used and corresponding pics of them. I would like to thank multiple DIYMA.com members for helping me out in purchasing a few of these ( most ) products and help me save a whole ton of money.

Part List: 
--Raindow Profi Kick Bass 6.5" Components
Passively Crossed paired with pair of new CAL26 Silk VOF tweets, blew one of my cal25's  
--rainbows ran by JL Audio 300/4v2
--Pair of Old School 10w6's in about .7 ft cu Box each ( limited space in truck )
--subs ran off JL Audio 500/1v2
--0 ga wire ran from battery through firewall to fused distro block where it is split to 4ga going to amps
--Dynamat Extreme
--Luxury Liner Pro
--Overkill CCF
--14ga going to components
--10ga going to subs
--some nice RCA's that i got off a member here

Parts Pics: 

all my wires










up close of 0 ga -- man this stuff is very flexible for how thick it is










up close of 4ga










up close of 14ga










distro block & fuse holder










rainbows with the cal 25's ( no longer in use )










my new rainbow cal 26's -- woohoo!










my 300/4v2 -- no pics of 500/1v2 , it look same just says 500/1 instead


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## zblee (May 18, 2010)

pair of old school 10w6










here is comparison of a 10w0 vs 10w6 ( w6 obviously on the right ) -- you can also notice that some how the w6 is shallower (nice)










and dynamat Xtreme -- no picks of second skin products ( llp, and overkill )
wow this pic looks kind of messed up...but you get the picture









those are all the pics that I have of my "uninstalled" parts

Next up Sound Deadening the beast...


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## zblee (May 18, 2010)

Ok, I apologize ahead of time for the crappy quality pics, it was taken with my camera phone as I did not have my regular digital camera with me...so here goes


Tear the interior out, carpet and all, only thing left was the dash--this was much easier than i expected--seats themselves can be taken out in about 10 mins ( first time i have cleared interior )










and now my truck is bare










Here I added some mounting brackets to the back wall. I should have cut them to rest on the floor so that they were exactly even, but i did not think of that... my fault , but they still turned out decent.

It is 3/4" MDF screwed down with liquid nail sandwiched between the metal and wood. There is one screw in the center of each and the other holes are bolt inserts ( not sure if that is correct name ) , but they are threads for bolts ( to bolt the boxes down )..










Then i sealed up vents in the back of the cab ( to reduce external noise , this is a huge noise leak ). I tossed the plastic vents and was left with a huge hole in the back of the cab. So i took some sheet metal, cut to size, added some foam around the edge to make a nice tight seal ( not sure if you can see this from the pic ) and then pop-riveted it into place..she not going anywhere










Then dynamat! I cut out sheets and used some cheap wood roller my parents had lying around to roll it real good to the metal. I know the rule is 25% so i know that i did not need to cover 100% but i probably did about 50% or so. It was probably 100+ outside so there was no problem with it sticking...actually it was too sticky.. i dropped some pieces on the driveway ( and it sat there for about 10-15 mins ) and the tar stuff stuck to the driveway and it does NOT come off... so warning, do not leave these on surfaces that you care about. But other than that , it was real easy to install just time consuming.










the woof










Deadening of doors. I first put a few pieces on the inside of the door ( the inside of the metal that is on the exterior of the door itself. 
I also sealed up the doors as best as i could, there was a lot of moving parts so i was somewhat limited.. as you can see from previous picture, the doors were very "holy" , so i cut out some sheet metal and pop-riveted it over the holes , also adding some foam to the edges to create a nice seal. after holes were covered, i then sealed it all up with the dynamat.










i had a pair of speaker tweaker pads so i installed those behind the speaker hole. unfortunately the metal behind the speaker was not flat and there was a brace going across the back, making an uneven surface to apply the pad to. So i cut the pads into 3 pieces. one below the brace, one on the brace, and one above the brace.. pads pieces held on via spray adhesive


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## zblee (May 18, 2010)

Now for Luxury Liner Pro ( mass loaded vinyl , creates a noise barrier and blocks a lot of incoming sounds )
the goal was to keep the pieces as big and in their entirety (if that makes sense) to ensure the least amount of "cracks" between pieces where sound could leak through. So i was able to fit 1 full piece under each of the seats. in this pic you can see both pieces laid out ( before gluing ) and I am cutting holes for the bolts to pop thru , the center piece where there is dynamat is the "hump" going down the center of my cab.










after cutting all the holes and preparing the LLP for installation, I sprayed them with the adhesive and glued them down, what i did was lay the piece where it was going, and then fold the front half over, sprayed it and then layed it down pushing it down to make sure it is nice and stuck.. then folded the other half over and did it again, making sure everything lined up ( wholes that were cut )

in this pic it shows the floor LLP installed i sealed up the edges of LLP with some foil tape ( i read online this is what you should use  ) I used about 3 sheets on the floor. 

in the pic you can see that i have ran most of my wire, 0ga coming through firewall, distro block splitting to 2x4ga power and 2x4ga ground wires for amps. then i also have my RCA wires coming around the other side and speaker wires going on both sides.












next was applying the LLP to the backwall. I thought this was going to be the hardest , but it turned out to be very easy. I cut out all the holes and then sprayed the top half of the LLP sheet, i pressed that down real good and held it there for a couple mins and it stayed after that.. then glued the rest of it. the LLP was easy to work with it bend around the edges very easily and the spray adhesive held it up very well.










and then the woof again, i used one sheet and i just cut it in half, because i thought it would be easier to install it with only half at a time ( half the weight hanging down ) and it went up with ease ( no problem sticking )










That was all of the LLP installs, i wanted to put it on the doors too but I thought that it might be too thick, I may try it later on, but for now I am happy. So I used almost exactly 5 sheets ( was left with some useless scraps ) . I picked up the LLP locally from ANT @ secondskinaudio and he suggested getting 5 sheets and he was right on the money!

Next is finishing up the doors.. I actually did this a couple months AFTER installing everything.. I had been driving around and was getting some rattles in the door panels still, So i ended up taking the door panels off again and finishing them up.

Here I added a couple pieces of dynamat to the panel itself to stiffen it up a bit.










Then I added a layer of Overkill , just the regular one , Pro is waaay too thick for this application, i think its about 1/2" thick for pro 










so that concludes the sound deadening part of my project.. while i was doing my door panels, i decided to see if it was the actual door rattleing and not just the panel. Unfortunately the door was creating about 60-70% of the rattles.. and i could only "fix" half of those rattles as the other half was INSIDE my sealed door .. so i was able to cover up about half or so of the rattles .. so im happy ( they only rattle on some rare frequencies, so no biggy )

Up next is installing my equipment!


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## zblee (May 18, 2010)

after deadening i was ready to install all my goodies.

So in went all the carpet and plastic stuff.

Then went in my rainbows!, i put them in the stock locations, it was already made for 6.5" so no mods needed.. I cut out a HPF/starboard ring to mount to ( i think its HPF, that stuff that cutting boards is made out of, and recommended by many to use instead of MDF ) . after cutting out out, i applied some foam to the back and screwed it to my door.. then mounted the speaker/hooked it up.










close up, purrdy










Then I hid the xovers in here, so they were invisible yet pretty accessible when needed

here








and here









and now you see
( they held there with some adhesive backed strong velcro strips, no drilling needed )








and see here 









Then was the fun part, i built 2 ( pretty close to identical  ) sub boxes, out of 3/4" MDF, screwed/liquid nailed and sealant around inside to make sure it is sealed.. they are angled in a way to allow the seats to fold back still.. then i thru some cheap carpet around them to give them more finished look ( turned out OK, you cant see them normally anyways so no biggie )...i held them up to the mounting blocks on the back wall and drill holes thru the back of boxes to allow for a bolt to bolt them up to the wall and secure them.. same with the amp rack ( square piece of MDF )

unfortunately i did not take pics of the building of boxes as i did that a couple weeks before I did this install session..

here is pics of sub boxes and amps installed and bolted to the back wall


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## zblee (May 18, 2010)

amps are "stacked" using a stack kit that i picked up off of someone on DIYMA



















Here is upclose of the sub -- i picked up some JL grills from a local dealer , that way the seat can be pushed back to the max and no worry about damaging the subs










Then i added about a 1/2 lb of polyfill in each box to give allusion of being in a bigger box, since they are kind of small










All equipment installed and carpet vacuumed looking real nice










and everything back in, and ready to ROCK!-- from here looks stock!










Up Next is my A-Pillar build!...


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## zblee (May 18, 2010)

Ok so since my tweets didnt fit in my a-pillars how I wanted them, i decided to just build my own.. which i have never done before.

So i picked up all the supplies that i would need..

fiberglass resin + catalyst
fiberglass supplies -- buckets, mixing stuff, gloves, mask.. etc
fiberglass mat
evercoat rage filler
glazing putty
SAND PAPER -- alot 80, 100, 120, 220, and 320
primer
guide paint
texture paint
and color paint

oh and cant forget the actual a-pillar panels!
found some on craigslist so that i was destroying my only pair if i messed them up, and i was able to keep mine installed ( with my tweeters ) allowing my to still listen to tunes...

So first step was to get a mdf ring made and attach it to my new pillar 
so some chopsticks and hot glue did the trick...










then drilled holes and scratched it up with dremel sand paper attachment
the holes and sanding are to allow the resin to seep through and create a bond between both sides of plastic, because resin does not "stick" to the plastic very well



















then time to prep for resin, so i found an old tshirt and wrapped it, held it on using clamp and wires..










and add resin, wow this **** stinks










after drying over night and using my dremel to cut out the speaker hole



















and test fitting...










test other side










and test fit from outside view


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## zblee (May 18, 2010)

and I guess I forgot to take pics of them fiberglass.. but basically look the same but with fiberglass on them ... then i did a LOT , a lOT of sanding to get them relatively smooth, kinda...then it is off to the filler to shape it a little better and get it a lil smoother...first time using any filler, this stuff is pretty cool...

filler added and sanded down.. first sanded with 80 then 100, then 220, to get it nice and smooth










Then i used some Guide coat paint.. painted it, let it dry and then sanded it down to reveal any low spots ( black paint shows )










lots of deep scratches show up










more pin holes and scratches










so then I primered it, which REALLY shows all the imperfections...
you cant see them in pic but there are a few pin holes ...










So after primer, i sanded it down with 220 and then 320 to get it real smooth and applied some glazing putty to fill in the holes...if i do it again , i would have used glazzin putty BEFORE the primer to eliminate multiple primering, the way i did i had to primer it, glaze it, then primer again...but it still worked out

this pic shows me using the glazing putty ( on left with red stuff ) and the other is on the filler step ( on right waiting for filler to dry -- kinda put on thick so i had a lot of sanding too do, but was not too bad because it sands easily )










So after using glazzing putty i primered them once again and then sanded them down to a smooth 320... and now its time for a texture paint..i added texture , maybe 4 or 5 coats then about 4-5 coats of color paint to match my interior...

here is close up of texture.. it does not match 100% to stock texture but it still looks like a factory made piece ( which was my goal )..


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## zblee (May 18, 2010)

and here is pic of finished piece (left ) next to OEM piece, to show how close the color match is..at this point i am SUPER happy with results... this is 10000x better than i thought i could do, especially first try..










and now to finish it off with some sound deadening 

I added a few strips of dyanmat to stiffen it up, and then filled entire back with a solid piece of overkill closed cell foam.. now this sucker should not rattle one bit...












AND INSTALLED!!



















dont mind my dirty window










and Now next is the BIG 3 Install...


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## zblee (May 18, 2010)

So here is BIG 3 upgrade using some 0ga wires i picked up...


here is wire i used.. blue goes to alt, blacks are grounds, one is engine block ground and other is battery ground..










close up of wire used.. got smokin deal from local install shop for like a buck a foot!!










here is the power wire going into the firewall using a firewall grommet.. man this was a pain drilling this hole in this spot.. very tight to fit a huge drill in there with huge drill bit... bah










Here you can see wire coming out of wall, into fuse holder, and to battery.. then battery goign to breaker between alt and battery..










another shot of battery , you can see fuse holder and breaker ( black thing with red breaker switch )


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## zblee (May 18, 2010)

following battery to alternator -- you can see it connected to alt where the wire has red shrink wrap..










another angle of battery to alternator 










full engine wide shot -- wish that was a 5.3L and not little 4.3L v6










here is shot of the engine block ground, its on the front passenger side of block.. camera shot is from passenger side , you can see the passenger headers right there..










this is the shot of where the grounds are grounded ( engine and battery )
it is on the front crossmember ( i think that is what its called ) , in front of the engine, this shot was taken from right under the front bumper kind of looking up...










and here is close up shot of the grounds











so i did some battery benchmarking before and after the big 3..unfortunately i threw away the paper !!.. but i remember that it DID improve the electrical system.. at idle, the battery held a more constant charge.. i think it was hovering from like 13.6 - 14.0 before and stayed like 14.0 - 14.1 after... during loud bass playing at idle it would drop down to 13.4 or so and after it did not go below 13.8~13.9... oh that is volts by the way..at idle the lights will still dim ( not as bad as they were though ) but when cruising the lights will barely dim.. that is when a heavy bass hitting song is playing..

the sound deadening is amazing also...huuuuge improvement.. but it seems to bring out the engine noise coming from engine bay because i did no deadening on the firewall, so everythign else is quiet so it just "sounds" like the engine is louder, there is just more emphasis on the engine now..but outside noises are much much quieter, no road noise (minimal) and if my windows are up, the stereo is held in the cab much better.. no "loud" external noise from my stereo and especially no rattles 


and that concludes my stereo!!!


thanks for looking and everyone who helped me with anything !
enjoy


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## Bugs78 (May 14, 2010)

very nice. I love the tweet install.. 


When I had mine, my tweets werent as nice. 

However, i installed my amps under each seat. Plenty of room down there. Allowed for a much larger box. Basically wedge box which filled the entire width, and then extended the 'face' down so it covered the hump in the floor making it look even talller and more integrated.


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## zblee (May 18, 2010)

Bugs78 said:


> very nice. I love the tweet install..
> 
> 
> When I had mine, my tweets werent as nice.
> ...


thanks man,

very nice, ya i did not want to put the amps under my seats because i have other things that i have down there.. like tool bag, air compressor, the jack kit and crowbar thing, jumper cables, etc... 

and my center console seat does not fold down... so it limits the size of the box for the center... so i found it much easier to just build to smaller boxes..

but i would like to have a huge box like urs tho = more power! haha


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## Accordman (Jan 15, 2008)

I was able to shoehorn in 2 SI BM 12's with a zappy dc1000.4(runs highs) 2 zap dc 5hundo's under the front seats

Console still flips too!! :woot:

Here's a pic


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## MTopper (Nov 4, 2009)

my main question is why did you put the 500/1 on top of the 300/4. why not switch it to allow for easier adjustments to the seakers. great little build though


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## zblee (May 18, 2010)

MTopper said:


> my main question is why did you put the 500/1 on top of the 300/4. why not switch it to allow for easier adjustments to the seakers. great little build though



thanks
and im not sure haha, but i think it was for a reason...right now i cant think of it.. it might have been because it was 1am and i had been up since 6am the day before..  but even to get to those settings id have to take all the seats out anyways, so either way it would not be " quick and easy" .. i did adjust them to what i thought was good before actually mounting them in...


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## Sunny1 (Nov 22, 2010)

thats a nice clean set up


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## chithead (Mar 19, 2008)

Very nice build!


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## FreddieG (Apr 30, 2011)

Nice build...how did you get those black plastic vents out? Do you have to cut them out?


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## zblee (May 18, 2010)

FreddieG said:


> Nice build...how did you get those black plastic vents out? Do you have to cut them out?


thanks..actually i think they were just held in with clips, they just popped right out-- if my memory serves me right... but i definitely did not have to cut them out


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## FreddieG (Apr 30, 2011)

I have had some people tell me not to cover them up since they are there for cab air pressure?????...but I don't know why? Have you notice weird since you covered them up?


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## zblee (May 18, 2010)

FreddieG said:


> I have had some people tell me not to cover them up since they are there for cab air pressure?????...but I don't know why? Have you notice weird since you covered them up?


I have heard the same thing myself but i covered them up anyways -- i figured i could always leave the windows cracked a little or something if i needed to. But since i have sealed up the cab, i have not noticed anything "weird" or "abnormal" by having them covered.. and its been about a year so far. 

I will say that since they were basically huge holes in the cab to start with.. it is a huge spot for road noise to leak into the cab-- so by sealing these up I think that by doing this, it made a huge difference in quieting the cab.


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## tnbubba (Mar 1, 2008)

ac con"t work worth a **** if you cover up air vent's

it's to vent cabin pressure when you close doors.. I bet if you crank up the fan it stalls at about 3 on the setting.. my 2004 goes form 1-5 have to crack a window or sumin to get full airflow. working on pics for mine now.


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## FreddieG (Apr 30, 2011)

I ended covering my up and when I have it on recirculate it everything is ok but when I draw air from the outside like to defrost it makes a little whistling sound and then I have to crack the window a little for it to go away. Wondering if I should open one of them back up a little.


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## tnbubba (Mar 1, 2008)

yep u got it.. problem is unless they are about 50% uncovered it doesn't seem to help

I measure my fan air velocity at full boogie and until I got to almost fully uncovered the air vent discharge velocity dropped! plus my doors don't shut in the summer unless the windows are cracked! small cab trucks and they are sealed pretty good..! I was not able to measure any bass loss but rta is not a good measure..I;m still working on an impulse measure system for my new laptop


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## FreddieG (Apr 30, 2011)

I should have probably left one open...my fan hasn't experienced any lost so far however its a crew cab and that may be the difference versus the small cab.


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## tnbubba (Mar 1, 2008)

yea the extra leakage in the crew cabs you can kinda get by.. just check by running fan full blast - pulling outside air in(not-recirculate) and then crack a window and see if you hear or feel a difference in the output.. i cheated i measured mine with a vane anemometer


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## Cali_Screw (Aug 26, 2008)

Nice build!


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## zblee (May 18, 2010)

Cali_Screw said:


> Nice build!


Thanks

As for fan output with the vents covered. I had the fans on full blast with the cab all sealed up, I opened the windows/doors and did not notice any increase in airflow ( with both circulate and in/out )

But I have another update -- This is my first summer that I have had my tweeter pods finished. I normally park underground in my parking structure at home. I got lazy one day and parked out on the street and left my car there for a couple of days. Those days it got up and over 100 degrees F, and probably a little hotter inside my truck. Well I go outside to get my truck and park it in the garage and I noticed that one of my tweeters started to crack.. It started to crack around the area where the fiberglass met the plastic panels ( i dont have pictures right now, but i will try and post some up soon. ) 

Has anyone ever had this happen before? I am not sure what part of it is actually causing the issue.. fiberglass? plastic bending? or the bondo? I dont know...

Kinda sucks because if i want to "repair" it i will probably have to sand it all down and possibly re-bondo.. baaah


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## Goindef154 (Apr 26, 2008)

Pods look great man, good looking install overall.


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## low2001gmc (Aug 27, 2008)

nice builds....cant wait to my rebuild  underway


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