# A departure from our norm: 2016 Wrangler Install - AF, Arc, Mosconi, Illusion



## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

hey yall, first of all, sorry for the lack of activity on the forum lately. After my inlaws, i all of a sudden found myself with a whole lot less time with a 15 month old at home.  add to that we have been extremely busy and i am moving myself into a new house, it all just adds together to a lot of scrambling and not a whole lot of writing 

anyway, found a few free hours this morning and decided to get this build log up. as you know, we tend to do a lot of late models cars, with a few SUVs and trucks tucked in for good measure. The jeep wrangler, is a pretty unique animal when it comes to car audio installation, due mainly to its unique interior and space (or a lack there of). However, it is nice to get to switch our brains to something totally different once in a while.

This almost brand new unlimited model was done almost exclusively by Jesse, and lets get to the goals:

1. make a big improvement on the sound quality and output of the stock system

2. maintain a very low key, and very durable system install

3. keep the cargo area of the car completely oem looking

first, lets take a look a the jeep:




























first up is the underhood. jesse fabricated a simple metal bracket aht bolts to the car, which locates a stinger fuse holder, and wired it all up:





































moving onto the interior. the signal source is a pioneer 8100NEX double din headunit, which jesse installed and wired up:



















one of the first challenges faced by Jesse was the integration of a rear view camera. with the stock spare on a swing out mount behind the tailgate, this meant it is no where near as simple as mounting it on the bumper or tail gate. instead, if you loose at the spare, you will see a pioneer camera peaking out through one of the spokes:



















looking at the spare from the front of hte car reveals an angled metal bracket bolted to the swing out tire out, that properly locates the camera, and gives it a good image of the rear of hte car:



















here are some fabrication pics of the mount. jesse welded together to form the mounting, smoothed it out with filler and painted it with black truck bedliner, and then it was bolted onto the factory mount and wired up...quite a time consuming endeavour 























































the front stage is all Audio Frog, first, the GB10 tweeters were molded into the A pillars, firing semi off axis, and the pillars were recovered with factory matching vinyl:























































here are some build pics of the pillars.

first jesse fabricated the mounting rings for the tweeters, and then cut a hole in the stock pillar, and aimed and secured them:



















then mold cloth was pulled, resin/filler applied to the inside after an initial coating of resin, and then filler was applied and the entire shape sanded smooth:



















then they were wrapped in vinyl, the GB10 tweeters installed and wired up, and they are now ready to go back into the car:




























one of the changes to the new wrangler is the dash speaker location, gone are the two protruding tweeters pods and instead, a 3" midrange location is provided at the corners firing up. so we took advantage of this and mountd two audiofrog GB25 midranges. Jesse fabricated a pair of mounting baffles out of black acrylic, as they needed to be both thin and durable to clear the grille, tapped threads into them and bolted the GB25s to them:





































and then these were wired up and installed in the factory locations:


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

lastly, it was the midbasses' turn. and here again, the wrangler is very different in that the factory midbasses are mounted in little pod enclosures at the two sides of the dash. Jesse removed these enclosures, and fully sound proofed them and also loaded them up with a bit of blackhole stuff, and then installed the Audiofrog GB60 midbasses:









































































these pods were then bolted back into the car, behind the factory dash panel:



















we also removed the oem rear sound bar speakers and replaced them with a set of audiofrog GS62 coaxials. Here jesse utilized the mounting bracket that came with the AF speakers and first bolted them to the oem location, then the GS62s were wired up and intalled. with how dark this interior is, its very hard to take clear pictures with our crappy camera, so I apologize for the blurry pics (and you will see that issue again with our wiring pics later )


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

onto the subwoofers. here again, the wrangler required some different approaches. there are two basic ways to do subs in this car. one option was to mount them in the cargo area around the rear most roll bar tube. this solution is more simple but also a lot more obvious...add to that the customer has a dog that frequently rides in the car, we decided against this route. not to mention with the soft top, the sub will be pretty hard pressed to provide any kind of real bass in that location.

so instead, we explored the underseat mounting location. this is usually done with 8" shallow subs, but we felt that we can get a pair of illusion audio 10s into the location due to their unique design. but still, this was a LOT of work on jesses part.

first, lets take a quick look at the finished product...pretty hard to see as they are obscured by the seats. but you can see an enclosure, coated again with truck bedliner for durability, under easch seat. if you slide the seats all the way forward, you can see a top pressed grille housing an illusion audio luccent L10 sub:





































onto the build pics. first, the seats were removed and jesse built the side walls of the enclosure by stacking and routering piecs of 3/4" mdf. then the floor area under the seats were tapped off, the side walls located, and several layers of fiberglass mat applied to form the bottom of the enclosure:





































when that cured, it was pulled out, and jesse built a two part top baffle to form the full enclosure. the sides were fillered and sanded smooth for truck bedliner:














































then jesse fabricated the top grille, and embedded neodymium magnets in them to allow them to attach to the subbox, and also fabricated the rings for the top mount grille:




























the top portion of the grille baffle got a raised wall so the grille ring can be press fit and form a flush mount:










then jesse built the presses and made the two pressed grilles to clear the subwoofer magnet. the top baffles were then vinyled, the pressed grille attached to the ring, and the rings themselves fitted to the baffle:









































































then the luccent subs were mounted and wired up, and the top grille panel test fitted, forming the finished product almost ready to go back into the car:
































































the final step of the enclosure was attaching these fabricated mounting brackets to them, so they can be bolted to the oem seat mounting brackets, which themselves bolt to the floor and presses the subboxes into the floor:




























so thats it for the front speakers, now comes some blurry wiring pics, again sorry about that


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

so moving onto the final piece of the puzzle. where to mount the amps and dsp. after looking at the available space, we decided to shoehorn all of those things into the small storage well at the back of the vehicle. this again proved to be quite challenging since fitment was extremely tight and also, there are no easy entry points for wiring into the well as the panels surrounding it sits flat against the ground. but jesse rose to the challenge quite well. 

so here is the normal view with the stock carpet and also with the carpet pulled back. as you can see, 100 percent stock looking:



















open the factory door and you see a simple press fit panel and a pressed grille showing what looks like a single arc audio xdiv2 amplifier. the panel again, is coated with truck bedliner to protect them:





































this is truly a case of things are more than meets the eye, as you pop off hte top panel, here is what you see. mounting on a two tiered metal frame are actually two arc audio div2 amps, and a mosconi 6to8 dsp. its hard to see the bottom amp in these pics but you will see them later in the build pics.

they are both 1200.6, powering all the interior speakers with 150 watts a piece (8x150rms) and 2x600 watts on the two illusion l10subs. all the spekaers except the rears are processed. again, super tight fit and hence why the pressed grille, as even that 1/4" raise was needed to properly clear everyhting below the stock door:




























so onto some build pics. first, as you can see, the wiring comes into the well from the outside of the car. this was the only choice as again, there are no space around the well for wiring. to properly insulate the wires, jesse used a ton of TESA exterior/underhood tape, first he taped all the wires up, and then loomed them, and then taped over the loom again. the wires come from the rear corner of the car, to the underside of the vehicle, ziptied and secured, and then gains entry into the well via two holes that are grommeted and fully sealed up with silicone. hard top take pics so here are some jesse did manage to get:
































































so onto the mounting bracket itself. it consists of several piece of metal welded together and smoothed over, with mounting holes tapped for all the products, once that was done, it was coated with truck bedliner:














































two additional plates were fabricated that houses the DSP and the distribution blocks, where were also coated with truck bedliner, these bolt individually to the main frame:










then the two xdiv2 amps were mounted and wired up:





































and the dsp and distribution blocks mounted and wired up, at htis point it is now ready to go back into the vheicle. the top amp and the dsp had to be first removed to gain access to the mounting spots on the vehicle:














































the entire structure bolts to the well with rivet nuts:



















and then the top cover was fabricated, the grille pressed, and thats it, it was coated with truck bedliner and installed:





























so thats it...prolly one of the most time consuming builds we have done given the equipment involved, but jesse really stepped up and did a great job...i think his growth has been truly remarkable and i hope you guys all remember that when it comes to Installer Of the Year Awards later this year. 

how does it sound?

well, as expected, the AF three way is very natural and smooth. the oem dash location for midbass actually does a pretty decent job, and provides a good amount of midbass impact. the mids and highs took a little time to integrate while tuning, but once done, they did an admirable job of giving us good imaging and staging and very smooth tonality throughout.

the underseat subs did a good job at reinfocing the bottom end, but with zero solid panels on the interior, sub 30hz performance for sure suffered, but it also helped a bit with the tactile response as they are located directly undert he seat, so you can really feel them working. overall, the car sounded quite good, though definitely different than a normal enclosed vehicle. 

so thats it for now, back home to more packing, i will try to get some more build logs up after the move!

Cheers,

Bing


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## claydo (Oct 1, 2012)

Hell yeah, very creative ideas in a non conventional vehicle, nice job as usual guys! Love it......


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## DavidRam (Nov 2, 2014)

Very nice job! I know how challenging a Wrangler can be...


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## Victor_inox (Apr 27, 2012)

More I look at your installs more I want to drive to Cali, drop my vehicle in your shop for a week and take a vacation.


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## rockinridgeline (Feb 2, 2009)

Love the way you guys creatively solve problems. Another great build!

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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

Victor_inox said:


> More I look at your installs more I want to drive to Cali, drop my vehicle in your shop for a week and take a vacation.


its not THAT far


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## Victor_inox (Apr 27, 2012)

simplicityinsound said:


> its not THAT far


 About 20 hours drive. I drove it once. duable.


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## Viggen (May 2, 2011)

Great work.... Always impressed with what you do and since I own a similar vehicle (wrangler unlimited rubicon hard rock) I have been attempting to figure out what to do with the oem stereo.

I have seen other people do subs under those seats, a pair of 10's just like what you did. I think it's the best way to go. Are those enclosures something you are willing to reproduce/sell?

Same with those A pillar tweeter mounts, never been a fan of big bulky pods and what you did looks great, any interest in selling those?


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## DLO13 (Oct 24, 2010)

Bing - Great build as usual.




> then jesse fabricated the top grille, and embedded neodymium magnets in them to allow them to attach to the subbox, and also fabricated the rings for the top mount grille:


I just have one question: Why the hell would you use neodymium magnets instead of ceramic or ferrite? Does it enhance the sound quality of the sub?


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## miztahsparklez (Jan 11, 2006)

Because they are small and strong, holding the grille in


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

yeah, they are the ones strong enough to hold a big grille in. for something like a ferrite magnet it would be HUGE


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## DLO13 (Oct 24, 2010)

simplicityinsound said:


> yeah, they are the ones strong enough to hold a big grille in. for something like a ferrite magnet it would be HUGE



But do you find that they are strong enough to cause mechanical issues for the subwoofer?


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## miztahsparklez (Jan 11, 2006)

DLO13 said:


> But do you find that they are strong enough to cause mechanical issues for the subwoofer?



They serve no purpose but to hold the grille in...... 


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## theksmith (Dec 2, 2014)

impressive attention to detail, nicely done!


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## bigharv (Mar 26, 2014)

Another great install from SIS. Your build logs have inspired me to plan my own upcoming install WAY beyond my initial intentions. Keep 'em coming!


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