Sub in boot tray?

[Turbo_Steve]

Start sealed (well, as sealed as you can in this configuration) - it's the simplest box design, and will work without ripping the subwoofer apart.

Once you've got it working, and sounding roughly how you like it, you can start using tuned ports to control the frequency response lower down.

Bear in mind that a port/vent really needs to be calculated based on the size of the enclosure and the Theile-Small parameters of the Speaker. As I don't know either, I'd be tempted to leave it sealed permanently.

[andydckent]

Next question...

How to I get the plastic tray out of the back? It seems to be hinged, is there some where I can unscrew it or does it click out?

[Turbo_Steve]

You need to remove the carpeted panel on top of the tray "hinge".

There are two plasic recesses for the shiny metal hooks on top of it.
The plastic trims actually unclip and hinge up in the middle to reveal bolts holding the tray down. This is a good place to hide your inline connectors if you're leaving the tray relatively detatchable.

[Wodjno]

I don't wanna start a New thread just to find out a bit of INFO on Sub's

So if theres no objection can i ask my question here ? To keep it all together in the Sub-Section

Cheers

Wodj

[andydckent]

Right, construction has begun. Ran into my first problems today, first of all the amp is too high to fit into the boot tray. Secondly my speaker hole did not provide enough depth as it fouled the metal wheel well.

So the amp is now going where I have just removed the old sat nav unit thing. Unfortunately this means I will have to cut the boot tray at the front. Not quite sure how to attach it, I guess drilling holes is on the side where the sat nav unit came out is OK.

The sub is now positioned right in the centre of the rear tray which has been reinforced and raised with 3 cm of MDF. This leaves just enough space for speaker, but I think it may be very close to being in contact with the boot floor. I hope this doesn't spoil the sound, but there is a big rubber ring/lip round the cone so i hope that OK if it touches.

A question on speaker wiring now. Should I wire the left and right door speakers in parallel to create 2 ohms and then run the channels bridged? Or just use a channel for each speaker at 4 ohms. The reason I ask is that the speakers suggest 60-110W but at 4 ohms the amp only delivers 55W.

All advice appreciated!

Andy

[CANDEE]

A question on speaker wiring now. Should I wire the left and right door speakers in parallel to create 2 ohms and then run the channels bridged? Or just use a channel for each speaker at 4 ohms. The reason I ask is that the speakers suggest 60-110W but at 4 ohms the amp only delivers 55W.

All advice appreciated!

Andy

Now if you are running the amp for both the fronts and the sub you only be able to run the fronts off one channel each and bridge the other two channels for the amp(assuming its a single 4 ohm sub).

Paralleling the fronts will take away your panning left and right ability, also your amp wont be 2 ohm bridged stable, so will most likely shut down....

Your fronts will be fine off 55wrms, it is way better than the 16-20wrms they would be getting off a the headunit....

J

[Turbo_Steve]

Er.....then it wouldn't be stereo any more - it'd be mono. Which would suck?

but there is a big rubber ring/lip round the cone so i hope that OK if it touches.

if you're talking about the squashy rubber/foam surround on the edge of the actual piston (speaker cone) then: No. This is not allowed to touch anything. If it is, your speaker is likely to sound rubbish, or simply burn out. If you've mounted the speaker in the middle, you have the entire depth of the spare wheel - even with 15mm MDF (which should be adequate to reinforce the bottom of the tray) you should have absoloutely masses of clearance? To give you an idea, I considered using this location (instead of the back corner) to drop in a 15" cone: it's huge. (hint: standard wheels are 16", so should be able to accomodate a 15" speaker?)


Amp - yes - this can be a bit tricky I ended up removing all the badging from mine to make it fit properly (forgot to measure the badges).


The amp should operate happily inside one of the rear wings, however: If you do it right you can present all the controls on the amp into the cubby at the back of the car.

[andydckent]

Hmm I think I may have to sand down the MDF to give slightly more depth for the sub then, even about 5mm should be enough. I guess this could be tricky, I'll have to think it through.

I'll have to find some very thin board to mount the amp on as there is not much spare depth even under the cubby hole. I think I will bolt this to the wholes the sat nave unit came out of, and then bolt the amp to the board, which will need some wood under the side that goes toward the wheel well for support.

As for the wiring I had meant for example:

Channel 1&2 Bridged - Left Front and Left Rear doors = 2 ohms
Channel 3&4 Bridged - Right Front and Right Rear doors = 2 ohms
Channel 5 - Sub = 4 ohms

So still stereo.

I am not sure if this is unnacceptable or pointless but I am sure you can advise!

Cheers!

Andy

[Turbo_Steve]

Ahhh! Right, that makes a lot more sense.

And no, it's fairly pointless - you're better off running your front speakers full whack - if you present a 2ohm load to a bridged pair, it's effectively seeing 1ohm......that's a tricky load for an amplifier.

You could wire them in series to present an 8Ohm load, but there isn't any performance benefit.

You're best off wiring it all up in the normal fashion, dude.

Did you buy that HiFonics in the end? If you did, then I wouldn't be worrying about power output: Unless the speakers are absolute rubbish with a really low sensitivity, 55watts should be enough to cause mild physical pain in the mid and high frequency ranges.

And HiFonics generally UNDER rate their kit.

Look at it this way: that amp is set up to give a very balanced output. It's not going to be epic, wake the neighbours, blow out your windows loud. It will, however sound really really good, and be loud enough that you need to shout loud to make yourself heard in the car.


The Cubby at the back (the one inside the rear wing) on a legnum is absotively HUGE....it goes right down to the bottom of the car!

It's a bind as you need to take off all the boot trim, but it's got a supply of fresh air and room for a LOT of kit in there, dude: Mitsubishi actually mounted a sub in there on the Right Hand side, and that's got the AYC bottle AND the fuel filler neck in there!

If you're paranoid, mount a fan at one end of the space, sucking in air from the boot and blowing it through, but I really don't think it needs it.

[andydckent]

So the big hole I can see here, that exists on the other side?

http://www.clubvr4.com/forum/uploade...1272287743.jpg

[Turbo_Steve]

I believe so. You mount the amp into the hole with it's controls poking into that little cubby (cut the side out of the cubby).

[andydckent]

This is a great idea! I've had a look in there and there is already a hole cut at the back of the cubby for access to some black plastic case which you can slide open and is metal inside. I currently have no clue what this piece of kit is.

[Turbo_Steve]

It's the factory fit CD multichanger. If you're a bit cunning, you can probably use the brackets for it to mount the amplifier


So tempting to tell you that it's the factory-fit smoothy maker

[andydckent]

I am liking the sound of your 'cunning' plan baldrick! The CD changer is currently about as useful to me as a factory fit smoothy maker might have been. I suppose I should try to strip out all of the extra wiring while I am at it.

[Confused]

We've got a complete PC mounted in the cubby hole on the passenger side, and a 4 channel amp mounted on the other (in the V6, so no AYC gubbins) - still with plenty of space!

It's amazing how much space there is in those sections, completely unused as standard!

[Turbo_Steve]

Well, as you'll be having the carpet up to run the power and RCA feeds to your amp.....yeup, I'd suggest you remove what you can.

Garry - InCar PC....Yes, yes. It would fit beautifully. I'm not jealous of that little feature at all. Oh no.

Now...if it could just have a second, 4" widescreen in the clock aperture..........

Ohhhh - like this: http://www.lcdshow.com/3.5_6.4-10.4_..._5_vga_lcd.htm

Maybe Two of them?

[wintertidenz]

Or a 128x64 full colour LCD screen?

[andydckent]

Update:

Well installation is now sitting at about 95%.

I am however now in considerable pain and don't recommend that anyone takes on this task lightly.

First job was the boot tray.

I used some paper to trace out the bottom of the rear part of the boot tray. There was not going to be enough depth for the sub so I constructed an MDF floor 3cm thick with the aid of the tracing and made it fit. Unfortunately the tray is shallower at the back than the front so I had to cut out most of the floor, leaving edges at the front and for part of the side. I painted the MDF floor black and secured in place in place. With the sub there is about 1cm clearance above the tyre and 1cm about the sub to the boot lid.

Then fixing the amp.

The amp is rather large and has been mounted on thin plywood connected to a modified part of the fixing that used to hold the CD changer. It will be dropped into the large space behind the left boot wall facing into the hole. The controls will be visable from the cubby hole on this side with a bit of cutting.

Power cable.

The most difficult and frustrating parts of the installation where running the cables. The very thick power cable is run from next to the battery through into the wheel arch and then through the rubber grommit at the back of the wheel arch into the cabin. Its worth noting that the rubber blacking grommit lower down in the wheel arch doesn't seem to be a route that you can use.

Speaker cable.

Each of the door speakers is run off its own channel on the amp. It was a hell of a pain getting the cable through the rubber boots into the door. The fronts were easier than the rears. I resorted to using some quite hard flexible plastic tubing that was wide enough for the speaker cable to go through. I pushed this through the boots and then ran the cable through. I recommend using something to lubricate the wires and the tubing to get it through as this makes the task a lot easier!!!

I am in pain.

The task has taken around three days of work in all. My legs are sore from all the bending down and my fingers are aching cut and bruised from running the wires. Yesterday there was at least one finger bleeding and any one time...

So to recap what you will need.

Focal 25A1 Sub
Set Focal 165CA1 Coaxial speakers
Set Focal 165A1 Component speakers
Hifonics Zeus 5 Channel Amp
4awg amp wiring kit
12m extra speaker cable
Lots of MDF
Screwdrivers, knives, socket set, Crimping kit, jigsaw, etc.
About 3 days
A pint of blood.

Will upload some pictures later.

Andy

[Turbo_Steve]

I am in pain.

Wuss

You're just not doing it often enough: Next time you'll find that you're stronger in all the right ways and it's much easier.

Well done on the install, though! Can't believe you struggled so much with the sub, especially as you were butchering the tray: I'd have just let the magnet sit in the centre of the spare wheel - lot's of room there!

Good result, though, dude! Well done! Can't wait to see some pics.

[andydckent]

Thanks for all the good advice Steve!

If I had realised that my calculations were a failure the first time I tried to mount the sub I would have probably just done it in the middle of the spare wheel. As it is though in the rear try, though more hassel was probably worth it to maintain the stealth factor.

Enjoying listening to some System of a Down at full pelt on the way to work this morning! The extra thud from the sub and juice frome the amp has made a huge difference!

Will try and get pics on later!

Andy