my 05 civic rebuild

[fbi90909 5,000+ posts]

i have this originally posted on the SSA forums and i just realized today that there was a build log section. everything is copied and pasted.

it's not complete so yeah.

alright so well I've been at this since Saturday morning and well i decided i would start up my build log tonight. i have some progress already going so i feel I'm at a pacing start. i got 2 weeks to accomplish as much as i can as I'm on vacation from work. yeah, it's kind of weird to take a vacation and work on your car. lawl. i have no where to go really and i usually take vacations to get a lot of work done. like when i did my fiberglassing. took 3 weeks and wao did those days go fast! anyways. my new rebuild will consist of,

Components: Phoenix Gold RSD 6.5(new)

Comp Amp: Profile AP1040

Alternator: Iraggi 200amp(Ordering soon)CHANGED TO 180amp by Excessive Amperage

Deadener: 60sqft Elemental Designs Edead v1SE², 1 Gallon eDead v3(new)

Head Unit: Alpine 9887(Ordering Soon)

Subwoofer: Fi Audio BTL 15"(new)

Sub Amp: 2 Sundown Audio SAZ-1500D - strapped at 2Ohm

Battery: 2 Optima Red tops(1 Still needs to be ordered or i may switch to a Kinetik)Bought a kinetick hc2400 to replace the redtop, looking for an hc800

Sub Enclosure: 4cuft @ 33hz Kerfed designed by BrianChia from CA.COM

here's a preview.

on a side note ordered 20ft 8ga power wire to run amps to speaker, 20ft of Knu Fleks 1/0ga wire. some RE/USAmps 1/0ga fuse holders. das about it.

well. Saturday morning i began to disassemble the doors and prep them for deadening. i first began with deadening the inside portion of the door. i then added V3 to the outside skin of the door. there are about 8 layers of V3 on each door. i allowed them to sit over night so they can fully cure.

on day two i started my morning with putting the car out in the sun a bit to heat up the doors. i then removed the back seat, rear panel, rear sail panels, amps, sub, enclosure. i then prepped the rear panel for V3 and taped off the lower section of the rear window just in case of i got some of the V3 on it.

after all that i began adding the V3 on the panels, after i got a few good coats on it i began deadening the doors. all went well and there is a huge difference on mass. initially i could here a hollow/loud thump whenever i knocked on the door. not is a deep bare thunk. i must admit applying deadener is very time consuming.

after i deadened the passenger door i took a speaker to do a test fit. and i noticed the speaker couldn't really sit in properly even if there would of been a 3/4" ring under it. so i busted out the dremel and cut it open some. you can notice the opening being round and larger on the passenger over the drivers. it got dark before i could do the drivers so it will be done tomorrow.

yep. i know i could of bought a better deadener, but for 60sqft and a gallon of liquid for 159.00. i couldn't pass up. lawl. i will eventually later on buy better stuff and add on as i need it, but for now it's better than having no deadener.

Click to read more...

 

[fbi90909 5,000+ posts]

alright so day 3.

todays progress wasn't too much but a little time consuming. i managed to get the components in today. lawl. i cut up some 3/4" MDF from an old speeka box sitting around. used some neon greed clay in between the deadening and the ring. re-run some wires into the door for the speakers and cross over. overall i think it turned out just fine.

now the positioning of the tweet is right above the 6.5. i wanted it in that area cause I'm not a fan of running tweets up high. since i wanted them to get as close to the speaker as possible i figured why not in front of it. lawl. so far it sound good. amp needs tweaking but the position feels comfortable. i have temporally set the up with the cross overs until i get the 9887 so i can switch to active.

i must say though. i feel that the setup sounds a little weird. I'm used to having 4 speakers(2front,2rear) to give me that full/surrounding feeling. right now i can feel the rear being just bare and everything coming up front. so I'm contemplating on weather or not to add rear fill set to a lower volume. i have 2 more sets of 6.5 RSDs in my closet so it's running in my mind.

blah blah here's some pics.

i don't know if you can tell but the tweeter itself is sitting on an angle that the door panel provides. the actual tweeter allows for directional positioning as it sits in it's housing cup which is a plus. i also checked for clearance before i even decided to mount the tweeter above the mid and it sits almost 3/4" above.

tomorrow i will be picking up my wood in the afternoon, just gotta wait till i can borrow a truck to pick up 2 sheets. i will then plan out all my cuts on it

in the morning I'm just going to finish removing all the carpeting out of the trunk and continue adding deadener. so far so good. so here's 2 rainbows for you folks. it appeared this afternoon. lawl.

 

[fbi90909 5,000+ posts]

alright well todays progress isn't too much again. still working on the deadener. initially i started out with stripping the rest of the trunk and vacuuming the dirt that was in there. that 3" crack the FG enclosure made allowed a chit ton of dirt in my trunk. after vacuuming i de-greased and started applying some deadener i had left over from the doors as the final layers of the V3 was drying on the rear dash and sail. i then began on adding deadener to the rear panel and sails. most of the rear panel was double layered, and the majority of the center point of the rear dash has 3 layers of deadener.

most of the visible areas of blue patches are holes where the clips all go. the blue line going all the way across is wires that will be deadened to the panel to not allow them to move freely like before.

pics!

 

[fbi90909 5,000+ posts]

on a side note the UPS man showed up with my BTL

when he took it off the truck he had to dolly it to my front door. he told me that the box was really heavy. i was like yep, it's about 66lbs. he then asked me what is it? i was like it's a speakers. he just shook his head and have a good one. lawl.

thankfully the sub arrived completely unharmed! wooo!

i have to say this thing is big and heavy, but i think my XXX is running up to it in the same weight. when i picked it up it didn't feel toooo heavy but i don't know. when i pushed on the cone i found it was stiff as fudge. i can barely move the cone down. lawl.

gotta give my thanks to Fi for the sub. Thanks!

pics!

 

[fbi90909 5,000+ posts]

a comparison of the BTL to my XXX

that's all for tonight. tomorrow is another battle with the deadening. going to try to complete the trunk. should be quicker since there are no holes for clips for panels and chit. though i think i might only have enough to do the trunk floor with 1 layer and maybe some of the trunk walls. i have to order more but it will be put on wait. i will first take care of the hard to reach areas that won't be accessible when the box is built into the trunk, then save the other areas for later that are easy access. yep.

hopefully by thursday i can start cutting wood. lawl.

 

[fbi90909 5,000+ posts]

WELL!

so yesterday i finished adding all the deadener except for the V3. i left the trunk w/o V3 because i didn't want to make a mess of it in there. so i just passed it down to a friend of what i have left of it. it's not much either only like a quart was left. which really wouldn't be much for the trunk.

the deadener was placed in areas i around the spare tire well, the braces of the trunk and the wheel wells to reduce road noise. much of the area was double layered. the wheel wheels were triple layered. after everything was placed in and the car was driving there was a significance in drop of road noise. i was quite impressed.

here's some pics.

the last of all the deadener. about 15-20sqft.

it is exactly the same on the other side of the trunk. i thought i took pictures of it but it seems that i didn't. today i worked on getting everything put back together. after everything was put back i decided on cleaning the interior some since the carpet and seats needed cleaning. i used a carpet cleaner by turtle wax called Oxy power out. worked like a charm!! i was like holy chit!, after i saw how well it took out the stains and how it left my carpet and seats. lawl. i need to use it on my computer chair.

anyways here's after everything was replaced. finally my trunk looks nice and clean like a normal car. cept for RCA's, speaker wires, the battery.

on side note on of the power converters for my CCFL halos burned out. luckily i was at a drive through and saw it in a reflection off the car in front of me when it all happened. so i turned them off which saved me from driving around with one halo. lawl

the switch took less that 15 minutes to replace luckily i had 2 more sitting around the house.

as for what cause it to burn up like that, i have no clue. i read about this happening to others before. could just be a bad converter. who knows.

i finally was given a saw this afternoon so tomorrow i will start cutting. i won't have the car with me as early in the morning I'm taking the car in to Sears to have the alignment and wheels rebalanced. i found my steering begins to vibrate after 50mph. the rims have proper hub centric rings so i can't say exactly why it's doing what it's doing. also, i checked the tire pressure today and i noticed that the PSI was at 45cold. i was like HOLY chit!. this is how they came to me from wheelsnext. so it has me thinking. the rating on the tires are 50max psi. the rating labeled on the car is 30psi. being that they are after market rims with low pros should the PSI be that high? or should i reduce the air pressure to 30psi for the cars rating? since these are my first set of rims I'm like the noob that doesn't know any better so if someone could be help full and recommend where i should set the PSI int he tires would be great. lawl.

and yes i have searched for information regarding the air pressure for after market rims but i haven't found anything that directly answers my question. anyways I'm going to take a shower.

 

[fbi90909 5,000+ posts]

bah. progress has been slow for the time being but it's because i've been working on the box and setting the kerfs to harden.if you guys didn't know i am currently semi assembling the enclosure outside of the car. that way i can get all my bends settled and locked. my biggest issue is if i were to build the box whole, it would not go through my trunk opening. nor through the back seat. so well for the past few days i spent all day cutting wood. then another day setting the back/side wall kerf. then today iw orked on setting the baffle/port kerf. so far everythings lined up correctly and at the moment looks promising.

pics!

back/side kerf un atached from the bottom board sitting in a corner. it's nice and hardened so it won't bend back out.

well for the kerfing i made a nice thick filler paste of saw dust and lots of wood glue. kind of like a 50/50 mix of each in a container till it got nice and pastey and then i just spread it into the kerf notches. after the wood glue dried i applied fiberglass over the inner kerfed bends to add strenght to the cuts. that way i can reduce the risk of having the kerfs bend back out when they are waiting to be assembled in the trunk.resin was also added to the outside of the kerf bends just because. lol. tomorrow i will sand down some of the kerf bend as it's not as curved as i hoped it would be. i can feel the straight lines going down the board in the port so i'm sure with a little sanding i can have it smooth as a babies bottom.if all goes well tomorrow i could probably begin to assemble it in the trunk. woohoo!

 

[fbi90909 5,000+ posts]

alright. todays progress was a little slow again but everything is prepped and ready to go. i began with sanding down the outside port kerf to remove/reduce it's blockyness(word?). in the pictures it you can still see the lines but that is the pulling of the wood which has caused that. right now if you were to run your hand across it, it's smooth and curved like running your hand around a 4"PVC tube.

i also cut out the speaker mounting hole and got the second baffle placed. the second baffle needs a little more cutting for the speaker to fit in but that will be taken care of easily with a dremel.

other than that everything is sitting apart in the 5 peices it will be to assemble it. right now i'm just pondering on placement of the amps and battery before i start tomorrow. obviously there is no fancy little amp rack to be installed and the amps will most likely end up on top of the box. eh.

well. here's teh pics of the day.

well for tommorrow progress will be slow as fudge. why? well i need all the parts to be glues FIRM before i can slap things around. plan of attack of attack is to lay the bottom board then mount/glue the back/side kerf board and the opposite side. after the glue dries for a few hours(2-3) i will add resin to the area to help seal it up. after the resin dries, i'll add more. maybe a few layers. then sand the resin smooth in the port area. the next following day i'll get the baffle/port in. glue that up well then then resin the entire area a few times. i have a bunch of FG clotch. which i'm not a fan of. maybe 10-12 yards worth. i ran out of mat so i may or may not pick some up locally. chit's expensive as hell to buy down here. w/e i plan i might or might not add fiberglass to the remainder of the enclosure. some food for thought for me. anyways, enjoy and thank you everyone for the comments. if you have any suggestions feel free to add.

on a side note i took my car to sears and got my car alignment done, along with all tires being rebalanced. and i couldn't be any happier. the car is better than before i initially bought it. at fisrst on stocks after 80mph i would have a bare vibration in my steering. it was never a problem as i'm never doing 80mph where i live and we relly don't have highways/turnpikes down here. only time i noticed was when i was up in the mainland which isn't very often. though now it feels much much better.

 

[fbi90909 5,000+ posts]

alright todays progress once again is going a little slow. i started the enclosure assembling and already got 3/5 of the parts glued together.

the process!

first i took a garbage bag, cut it up and taped it into the trunk. that way i would not get excess glue spilled in the trunk. now i left the carpeting and the floor board in the trunk as i want to have a somewhat decent appearance. my initial box in the trunk didn't allow me to put the floor board back into the car which made the carpet sag and looked like crap imo. so well since this enclosure is being built in the trunk I'll leave everything in. i can still gain slight access to w/e is under the floor board. i just have to position the enclosure int he center of the trunk and tilt the front, thus allowing me lift the floor board for w/e reason need be.

ANYWAYS.

i then took the back/side kerf and positioned it in place. i took a bunch of L brackets and mounted them in positions to add pressure of the side board to the bottom board and act as a clap. since there is little space for any clamp of length to fit in a small space i had to go with the L brackets. they worked well though.

after i had the 3 boards int he postings that i wanted i unscrewed all the L brackets from the Bottom board, lifted the sides. and ran a thick bead of glue in each area. then repositioned the side boards and screwed them down in their pre-positioned areas.

 

[fbi90909 5,000+ posts]

about 3 hours later i go back and do a little check up of how the glue is doing.

so far so good. so i added a nother bead of glue.

about 6-7 hours later i then removed all the L brackets. underneath them well the glue was still wet. so i removed all the brackets and ran another nice bead of glue. after all the brackets were removed none of the box walls have shifted which is a good sign.

well.. i just checked it 4hrs after the last bead of glue and it is almost dry enough to add resin to but not quite. i will leave adding resin till after i mount the baffle on. which will be my goal for tomorrow. i need to pic up some body filler and flat black spray paint to paint this thing. lol, it'll be painted in the trunk so a whole lot of garbage bags will be used to protect the trunk and car.

yep!

 

[fbi90909 5,000+ posts]

well today i got the baffle/port kerf glued in. i just removed all the L brackets and added it's last bead of wood glue so it should be good to go for resin in the morning. if you guys can notice i lett the 3rd kerfed portion of the port un curved. since it was such a short peice it is HARD and i mean HARD to bend it into shape. i suppose this won't cause much of a problem to the tuning. as long as it stays in the 33hz range i'm fine with it. the same technique used yesterday was used today to mount the baffle.

after i took off all the L brackets and added the last bead i pulled out some Elmers wood filler and my sanding block with 36 grit paper on it. i then sanded all the cosmetic damage of screw holes i made while bracing the port down. i sanded all the areas up flat, then applied a generous amount with my index finger. i even added some to the end of the side port board to smooth that out for paint.

so tomorrow i have a lot of sanding to do. i test fitted the top board and it teeter todders due to the small side board sitting about 1/8th higher. lol when ever i build boxes i always end up having to sand an edge of a board to get the final peice to fit right. the sanding should take long with 36grit. so i'm not worried about it.after i get the side board leveled right i'll resin it up. sit the car int he sun a bit to speed up the drying process of the resin. then lay on the top board. while the top board is on i could probrably start sanding all the wood filler patches. unless if i get tired and lazy. lol

on a side note i ordered my laternator today. i changed my jmind instead of getting an iragge and went with a 180amp direct bolt on from Excessive Amperage. just too much negative information and reading how a lot of his alts are hits or misses. as long as customer service will treat me good, lets hope EA can provide what i need.

question: does anyone know how long it takes to get an alternator built? lol i'm going to have weverything ready and won't be able to pound at it without my electrical in. :/

 

[fbi90909 5,000+ posts]

woohooo!

shits lookin' HOT right now. lol

well today i got a lot done. i feel as i accomplished a lot. started the morning out with sanding what i needed to sand to get the top board to sit right. didn't take me but 15 minutes. after then i sleaned up all the dust and then resined the inside of the box. sat the car in the sun with the trunk open for a good 20 minutes then added another layer of resin. i let it sit for another 15 minutes as the resin dried up and then i began with locating qwhere i would get my L brackets in place to brace the box down. after that i layed a thick bead of glue and sit the top board on. i must say the top borad was a ***** to screw the L brackets in to. i only had access to the L brackets from the speaker mounting hole. it was quite un comfortable and i managed to get a lot of dripping glue on me. oh well.

either way the board mounted great. i left it in the sun a good few house then begane to sand the outside of the box. as i sanded i layed multiple beads of glue along the inside of the box just like when i mounted all the other peices.

well after a lot of wood filler and a lot of sanding i was at the point where the exterior of the box could be painted. so i busted out the garbage bags and layed them down all around the trunk area and outside of the car to reduce the risk of getting overspray on the cars paint.

for the paint i used 2 cans of Flat Black rustoleum BBQ grill heat resistant paint. i used it cause it's somewhat weather resistant. plus using flat black you don't need a super perfect paint job to get it to look good.

blah blah blah PICs!

 

[fbi90909 5,000+ posts]

i think the turn out is great. the port looks a little nasty bit i'm not too worried about it. i think that area was still wet as it took ALOT of paint unlike the outside of the box. tomorrow i will rub off the spray dust that is left on there from the can. add resin the the inside roof of the box. then overlook how i will be mounting the amps to the box.

on saturday i will be heading up to homestead to pick up a kinetik 2400. i will be selling the red top in the trunk. possible to me neighbor or anyone that wants it. 50 bucks. i can't fit this in my engine bay so i have no use for it. it's only a year old. lol.

 

[fbi90909 5,000+ posts]

lol well, todays progress was just clean up and adding resin to the inside of the box. barely any pics today. lol

i like the look of it. all it needs is for the BTL to sit in it.

initially i wanted to mount both of the amps on top of the bot but i found that the tension bars for the trunk lid don't allow me to. so i have to mount them like so. it ***** when you have a small trunk. lol.

i really played it lazy today and just sat around. i ended up sleeping a large portion of the day. well anyways tomorrow i will attempt to mount the BTL, and run some wires. i have to wait till my hc2400 arrives before i can actually hook it up. instead of going to pick it up it'll be shipped. actually cost me less to ship it rather than driving a total of 7hrs for a battery.

tomorrow i will measure the area in my spare tire well so see how i can hide the battery down there.

on a side note my HU was ordered. might be here on monday or tuesday.

other than that i say things are looking pretty good.

 

[fbi90909 5,000+ posts]

well a lot of wiring was completed today. everything is pretty much ready to be hooked up to their sources. i need to pick up some 8GA ring terminals on monday. today i went by a local audip shop and picked up 8 1/0ga copper terminals. though they didn't have any 8's.

well i got the BTL installed also. wasn't as hard to mount. i had more trouble mounting the XXX than i did with the BTL. eh.

well all the speaker wiring is clean, no strands are sticking out of any of the terminals and everything is on tight. the speaker wire may look a little confusing to you but well it's not. lol. Left amp is the Positive, the Right amp is the Negative. the loops are the grounds to strap them. woooooo!

hopefully my battery arrives on monday. tomorrow i might start taking measurments of the spare tire area and create a small mounting crate that way on monday i can just slide it in, lock it, and get eerything powered up.

PICS!