I feel like such a noob

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

So I spent the last 3 days finally getting around to installing my system. The sub enclosure looks great. The precessor rack looks great. The amp rack looks great. The door panels have the potential to look great. I haven't gotten to the tweeter pods yet, but hot glue is great for temp installs. Been working into the wee hours of the night for the last 3 days to get it ready (for what I don't know, but ready nonetheless). All the panels have routered edges. All exposed pieces are painted satin black. The trunk is now officially useless but I knew it would be going into the project.

First major snag. I didn't have enough 4 ga wire to install all the amps. I need another 5 feet of power and ground. No problem. I'll just run the front stage off one amp in stereo rather than bridging one to each side, and I'll get more wire in the morning.

So I get everything in. I have the portable work lights out to hook up the tweets and wire up the crossovers and reinstall the back seat (that is the biggest pain in the ASS to get the back of the seat back in place). I get under the hood and install the fuse. As I reconnect the battery I hear a soft thump. I know immediately what it was and start kicking myself. I wired the **** relay to turn on the amps and EQs backwards. **** double throw switch. I turn on the stereo and the amps turn off. It wouldn't be that big a deal except I'm going to have to pull the back seat again and unhook most of the wiring (which I was going to have to do anyway to install the 3rd amp) to get to the relay. Maybe it was fate. I'm not supposed to hear it until I can get it in all its glory. Had to unhook the battery to keep the amps from draining the battery overnight. Start again in th morning. Hopefully the weather will be good enough that I can ride my bike to get the wire I need so I only have to tear into everything once.

I'll have pics up tomorrow.

Click to read more...

 

[DBfan187 5,000+ posts]

nobody's perfect!

 

[kappa546 10+ year member]

tell us more about what you're running (or will be)

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Don't worry pics will be up soon //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif. I got the relay rewired this morning and had the system running for a few minutes. Turned the car off and the stupid realy blew. Luckily I had another and got it rewired.

The system:

Alpine 9813

Audiocontrol EQT x 2

Orion 225HCCA x2 ( one is in need of wiring)

Orion 2100HCCA (bridged to 4 ohms)

CDT Eurosport ES-620

RE XXx 12 in a 2 cubic foot box tuned to 28 Hz.

All power distribution and fusing is Stinger Expert.

All power wiring is Audiopipe (until I replace all the 4 ga with Stinger HPM)

All interconnects are stinger Bullet series.

All the blood and sweat are mine, and there are good amounts of both involved.

I have not upgraded the alt, nor will I need to; the stock unit is 160A. I have not upgraded the battery, but I will if I decide to compete. Probably a Stinger SPL1000.

 

[nweibley 10+ year member]

Did you just hook up the 30amp power to the wrong 87 pin? All you should really have to do is switch it to the open 87 pin and it with fix the problem. Or, did I misunderstand the problem?

Also, I remember a few months ago you were debating how to make your kicks match your doors, then I saw this rattle can paint that shrivels up and looks like textured plastic. Are you already done with them? If not, I would give it a try.

-----Nate

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Yeah, I knew immediately what the porblem was with the relay and fixed it. Felt like a dumbass though. Just glad no one was around to see it.

The door panels are in the matching stage right now. I'm using SEM textured paint on them and have a can of PPG paint colormatched to the interior of the car. I just have some final filling and sanding to do to blend the seam.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

There is going to be another 225HCCA opposite the one in the trunk picture once I get the wiring I need today.

 

[btnhfan 5,000+ posts]

i like that speaker install.

 

[Mark_ab 5,000+ posts]

Lookin' sharp.

 

[jbl_marshall21 10+ year member]

the door is really nice. looks factory. where did u get that texture stuff?

 

[Bavarian3 10+ year member]

very nice, where are the tweets getting mounted? ur so lucky u get CDT eurosports, let us know how they sound...

 

[sumone 10+ year member]

wow, looks nice (and clean)!

only thing I don't get is why people mount amps on top of one-another? Wouldn't that limit ventilation? But you're the expert...so you know what you're doing.

what kinda car is that? 160amp stock alt grabs my attention!

got any damping/sound deadener or does the car already have good damping?

 

[ss3079 5,000+ posts]

It's ... beautiful. I like the way everything has turned out so far. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

- Steve

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

There's more info and pics on my sounddomain page.

sumone- I'm not too worried about the amps going thermal There is a lot of space between them and the lower one is running in 4 ohm stereo and is deisgned to be thermally stable at 0.5 ohm stereo. It's way overbuilt. The big one is running 4 ohm bridged and could probably handle 1 ohm bridged. It is also way overbuilt and has a cooling fan to boot. All my HCCA's have been through a lot with me, including a cross country road trip from CO to FL 24 hrs non-stop each way in a truck with no A/C in June. The 2100 was bridged to 2 ohms at the time and never even got WARM, not hot, WARM. It wasn't like we were babying the system. We had it cranked. Even still I would have preferred to mount them some other way but there just wasn't any room.

 

[DBfan187 5,000+ posts]

B-E-A yootiful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!