Phoenix Gold Phorum

This pic you can see how I had to trim the new piece to get it to fit nice and tight aginst the stock intererior trim. Will proably need too trim a little more to allow for the material to wrap it but as of now its good. If you look on the back right you might see another new addition.



From this angle on the left you can see the curve I added to the back corner that I spoke of before, as well as the new latch on the lower right. It locks the lid down when it looks like this until you push the botton in the middle.



When you push the center section it releases the lock/latch and the knob in the middle pops up to allow you to pull the lid up with it. Gives the top a nice solid "click" when its pushed down. I will trim it out so its a little more flush mounted but I think you get the idea.

didn't want the latch sticking out of the top so I took out some of the lid material so that it should be almost flush with the covering material.



And then made the guides so that the lid will not be pushed over while the latch is in contact with the locking plate as well as added the wire to keep the lid from falling back. Can't tell you how many times I considered diving over it to catch the lid as it was falling back....

For the guides I made, I took some pins off of a heavy gauge rivit and used epoxy to secure it to an aluminum plate, with another aluminum plate behind them both. The black material is the left over luxery liner I had left over from sound damping the car.



The slide into a metal plate that is below another piece of luxury liner. The luxury liner softens the last 1/2" of closing. I am going too add another piece of luxery liner to the other corner and then I will need to take a video with how nicely it closes as it really feels nice and solid now. The liner stops it just before the latch makes contact and the pins do a nice job of keeping the lid from flexing.

had to get the 2 - 4 awg power wires into the pod to connect to the cap, and then to the DD10. I thought about just drilling some holes and poking them through, just seemed too easy. Though about throwing some grommets into the holes, still seemed boring and didn't have any style. sooooooooo.....

Decided to 86 the passive x-overs and go active when this came available....

Also been wondering what to do with the 9's grills, he sent these with the cross over. That cross-over is a bad mofo although it used the PA-style connectors on the back so I will need to find a good source for some nice ends for it if anyone knows what they are called, looks like a big headphone plug?

work has been put on hold as I am waiting on some parts to help me arrange/mount some wiring before I can do a final dry-fit and call it done. Today I made a floater display that I polished up and got ready by shaping/polishing some plexi to go under it. I will be mounting some led-strobes inside that will flash in an a-b sequence, one will be hidden above the display the other below it. The one on the bottom will light up the back of the plexi's textured look so that it should give the PG logo a shadow/sillohette look. The other hidden above it will reflect off of the polished logo like the flash does so when the two flash a-b it should give a neat effect.

It's called a phono jack.
And I want that pg grill, lol. Seriously.

phono jack, can't tell I have not ventured into pa systems before huh? Thanks.

Decided to try something different and make a video showing what I do, and then add the subtitles explaining what I am doing. It can be hard to try and explain what is going on so hopefully this will make things easier to see what is going on. I have some basic fiberglass tips in there that I have learned along the way. Forgive the music, was on the radio and just decided to keep it.





Are the videos better then the pics? Any questions or requests?

Requests! yeah how about Gangnam style next time

you want me do dance or just the song Does that mean you don't like my air-drum solo? Thought I nailed that one.....


To do the dance I would need to watch the video, right now I think I am the last known person that has not watched it and hoping guiness will call any day now..... Was just listening to the radio and didn't feel like getting into all the copyright stuff that is needed when you just dub a song over your vid.

in this video I sand down the cardboard top, fill the low spots/sand and then put it in primer. Total time sanding was only 30 mins and with not much more time it would be ready for paint. I will be carpeting this piece so I really didn't need the filler but did it just to show how much it would take to get it to primer to help show the curve.

The videos are great and i finally can put a face on one of the phorums most helpful members! And do us all a fovour and don´t start dancin! But keep the videos coming!

Glad to know you like it. So a request for no dancing and no comments on my air-drum solo so I guess I am good for an air guitar?

A little trimming to fit around the seat brackets and you can get the idea of how it cleans it all up. This is the last pic I had of it in the car. The area infront was originally going to be open(3 sided with the lid open) but I thought it would be better to finish the last side so that it would be stronger.


Cleans it up alot and smooths it out into the seat nicely



Now I will need to move the air ride ecu back so that it doesn't look strange but here is space and could not be happier how it covers up all the wiring and makes a nice smooth transition into the seat. I just need to finish the last corner now between the seat and the side which will be more curves to go down into the floor.

Waiting on some cable clips that are supposed to arrive today to finish mounting my wiring, so I can finish mounting the rear seat delete, so I can finish mounting this pod, so I can finish mounting the air ride ecu..... Why doesn't the list seem to get smaller no matter how far I go?

got the corner into primer today.



I left a larger then normal gap between the peices on this as the carpet is thicker. I am aiming in the end to have the leather the same height as the carpet for smooth transitions between the two pieces.

as soon as i heard the song in the first vid, i instantly wondered if drum solo was going to happen. was NOT disappointed!

almost threw that last piece of mat down to get it in.

felt sick for a few days, cold the other so work was delayed. Spent alot of time arranging the wiring that will go around the pod and got it all nailed down. Excuse the wire next in the back seat area as that wire is either staying there or going into the trunk. I used a bunch of the cable clips to hold it all in place as well as to ensure that it doesn't get crushed under the delete if put some weight on it.

And after that I finally got to fit the delete and the pod together for the first time. The gaps between the panels are to allow for the leather to be wrapped around it.


I was also able to put the bottom cover in place for the first time to see how it fits. does a great job covering the wiring and I think after its carpeted like the floor it will make for a nice flow from the pod to the seat.

Looks freaking sweet! So much effort for a relatively "small" component, but it is definitely worth it. Are you going to build another to cover the air tank?

yes after getting these two finally mounted and wired the next step will be to repeat the cover over the tank, then finally to bridge the two and go around the consol in the middle. This all started because I wanted to put my dash back together funny enough. But for that I needed to wire up the additional fusebox I was adding, that was powered by the DD10, and I could not find space for the sirius module in the dash.... I thought it would be an easy 2-3 day thing to wire up the dash and get it all back together man was I wrong.... The cover on the other side should not take nearly as long since I will just be repeating the same process/techniques that I was not even sure would work. Now that I know they work and how too do it hopefully it will cut down on the time. After all 3 are done then I can wrap teh pods/covers and the delete and start working on the amp behind the delete. been toying with the idea of getting a welder and learning to use it to make a metal frame for the amp.

Got it into paint finally. There will only be a couple of places that this will show but I painted the entire piece just to be sure that any small corner areas that do not get covered will not show the raw material. I was going for a rough texture so after paint I did 2 coats of cear before the 3rd coat was used to build a texture that will help the glue grab better.


I will be flocking the inside(let me know if that confuses you and I can explain) and the bottom will be carpeted to match the floor.

Now I got to wire up the leds that went into lighting up the plexi under the insert. With the lights off, it will look like above.

With the lights on now. The light escaping between the aluminum and the cover will be covered with leather so the only light getting out will be the plexi ring.

I could use some opinions in trying to decide the grill material if I use any at all. My first idea was this painted to match the ext color. It has a slight bend to it and is not yet glued in place.

with the lights on it has a neat effect.


I also considered getting some polshed 1/16" round bar that I would put 3-4 of them parallel to each other acrossed it. That would require some trimming to get them in to see how they look though so I can't really mach them up like the grid above. I have also considered leaving it open, or just putting some black grill cloth across it. Directly below it will be the DD10's top edge.

This is what it will have below it and why I kinda want to cover it somehow or draw attention away from it.

I flocked the inside of the pod an bottom of the lid, painted/etched some of the edges on the plexi depending on if I wanted to see under it or wanted it to catch light. At this time all the gear is just set in place and not mounted and there is still one side of the protective film on the plexi but I am happy to say that I achieved the look I wanted with all the layers, and there is still the ridetech ecu that will peak out between the rmds. With a mix of lighting now(neon/led/stobes) on each of the levels it should make for a cool look to help seperate them a little more. Also happy that the majority of the wiring will not be seen either with the exception of the 4 awg power wires which I want for effect anyway.



Now just a small list of things to do before I mount the top again and then put it in place and do the final wiring/mounting.

well crap I went and got sick again damnit I really wanted to try get it installed and the wiring complete for no other reason then to enjoy the car for a change. I did get the blue neon tubes from eric(one crazy civic) and today I ordered the underbody million color led underbody kit and some extra led strips and a couple of strobes to use on the inside of the car to highlight the stereo. The led kit looks like a cool system as its operated by bluetooth on an android or ipod. The only problem there is that I don't have a smart phone but I have been planning on adding an mp3 player and wanted to gave a GPS system from time to time so I am now looking at the samsung galaxy 3 media player to take car of all those duties.

Sucks being sick, no cute nurses this time....

got the led kit in and also finally decided on a samsung galaxy 4.2 media player as its size is perfect to mold into the pull-out cup holder. Wasn't sure if I left enough space for the led strips in the pod but after cutting the tube out of one last night and testing it looks like I am good to go. Inside that little pod will be 2 different million-color led kits(working independently) as well as the neon, and a strobe light. They will be lighting up different areas of the pod at different times to help show all the layers and make it interesting to look at. I think I am back on my feet enough to do some work on it or at least I hope too today, need to go to the hardware store first.

the cup holder was only big enough to fit a can and it ended up dripping condensation onto the fog-light switch and what ever was below it so I molded the media player into it.

I was suprised to find out the stock cup holder was made from aluminum and not plastic as I thought it was.


So then I cut the center portion of the aluminum and epoxied everything together as well as with a few screws to hold it all together. I used rivit pins to connect the stock aluminum pieces to the wood portion I made. Along with some epoxy and then there is a metal backing as well(not shown here) that spans all the pieces to help the epoxy hold everything together.


Now with some filler, primer, alot of sanding and then paint it looks like this.


Waiting for the paint to cure completely before I paint the green striped down the middle and then flock the inside of the cradle for a nice look and a soft touch. I have not tried it all out but in the end it should still be able to be hidden away either with or with out the media player in the cradle. It also will charge the player, work the gopro wifi app for my cameras(just got the notification that the hero3 package I won will be here tuesday).

Weather has finally warmed up hopefully I have the energy to get back inside the car now.

painted(black and green), cleared, wetsanded/polished and flocked and it will be ready to mount tomorrow.


And if anyone is asking why the stripe is off centered its because the cup holder where it is mounting is slightly off center in the consol. I had to modify the consol opening a little to get it too fit as well as reflocked the interior of the consol after doing the stripe but I think it will make for a cool detail. The bottom if it will house the lpl settings for the amp and bass cube on a piece of plexi so I will continue the stripe through it.

had to do some minor trimming for the final fitting but its in.

Only complaint is that when its shut the stripes are mis aligned. But when I am it in it, it will be open(in use) and if I am not in it there better not be anyone lookin under there. It use to say "Cup Holder" on the front so you could see it when you first opened the consol I would like to figure out how to write "Media Center" or something like that on it now.


Only other complaint is a minor one that can be fixed is that I need a new parking brake boot and arm rest cover made. The old design had two stripes that went down through the brake boot where now I need just a single stripe down the middle. It on order already.

Clean and smooth looking solution.