Phoenix Gold Phorum

It's probably about time I posted up some pics from my system build up, with some information about what I did and why.

This is by no means as exhaustive as my thread on www.mobileelectronicsaustralia.com , but it will give you the general idea.
Also, my camera is a mobile phone so please don't mind the pic quality. I will however, get a much better camera for shots when the system is finally complete.

So, the car is a 1999 Peugeot 306GTi. Engine is n/a, 2 litres, 6 speed and 165bhp from the factory.
The colour is Astor which is a dark grey metalic. Some minor cosmetic mods have been done and these will be detailed later on.

The dream car was actually a 911 type Porsche but lack of money sadly, meant that another mid engine car was to be chosen. I settled on a late model SW20 MR2.

In the end, through the car becoming my only car because of a marriage split, I needed something much more practical for stuff, kids, etc.

That's why I got the 6.

Anyway, here's a few car shots...

Here's how it came inside when I got it.
The boot was empty, the front speakers didn't work, the Kenwood changer rattled and I only had FM to listen to.

I got fed up with this after a few months though and the time came for me to install all the stuff I bought with me from New Zealand on my move back home to Australia.

Next up, the fabrication begins...

itty bitty car.... What is the hp rating on those? Just curious since us yanks don't have them. The closest I get to them is on forza..

It's a pretty standard size Euro hot hatch - similar to the VW GTI, Audi A3 or Ford Focus. Seats up to five adults. They're a pretty quick car for what they are. They're known as a car that loves curves instead of long straights, although they'll do 130+mph easily enough. Made their name in this form on the rally circuit.
Only a few hundred were imported into Oz but they have a small and loyal following here. They also made it to the US but again, in probably smaller numbers than here.
Of the 306's, the GTi was the one to get.

As per the norm, the back end of the car was started first.

First pic is all the mdf cut and ready for assembly.

Second pic is the boot coming together.

Third pic is the fabricaton almost complete now that the carpeting has been done.

Now comes the first appearance of some of the gear I have to go in - the Titanium amps.

The power feed from the Optima battery in the engine bay is 1/0ga Stinger. I had to hole saw in two holes through he firewall for this and the head unit wiring. Grommets are screw in plastic ones from the local hardware chain store. These are siliconed in and screwed up tight to keep the water out and the cables secure.

The system is a 4 way, fully active set up.

The 600.2 is bridged and wired in parallel to a 2 Ohm subwoofer load.
The 500.4 runs 4 separate channels and powers my mids and tweeters.
The ZX475Ti is bridged and powers my midbasses.

Here you can also see the amps screwed to the false floor and all wired up.

Distro blocks are Audiopipe because they were about a 5th the price of the prettier Stinger ones I wanted. They're not going to be visible so these were fine. Amp to distro wiring was short runs of 4ga.

You should list all your install goodies It's looking good man! Nice fab skills.

You got fuses in there? I don't see them, but that doesn't mean they aren't there. The ti's need separate fuses for them...

Keep the pics comin'!

Many people will say a cable is a cable and they're all the same.

My personal opinion is that if the rest of the system is right, they can and do in fact make an audible difference.

My last car had a Monster M1000 coaxial digital from Dac to head unit (a Nakamichi set up), M950i interconnects running from head unit to Alpine processor and on to the PG ZX450 and then Nordost Flatline to front stage, and Livelines to the Infinity Beta subs.

I wanted good stuff for this system as well. Because I had an affiliation with our Monster distributor (my back ground for 20years is actually in the specialist audo industry with a couple of years also in car audio), I asked them to source me the best that Monster had, that was designed for car audio.

I ended up with 3 x 3m XLN Pro interconnects and 20m of XLN 4 core speaker cable. I changed my mind from a two way front stage to a thee way and so picked up an additional 5m XLN interconnect also.

Gratuitous pic follows...

Eulogios, I have a single 300A fuse right next to the battery with a spare 150A in my box of goodies. This was deemed appropriate and meets MEASQ and IASCA requirements.

The list of gear is in my sig.

Only one fuse?!?!?! I don't know how that meets any requirements! Any time you step down wire size you NEED TO FUSE!! Not trying to be mean or rude, but you need fuses, and to fuse your amps! ANY short could fry your amps. The ti have NO fuses in them and need a fuse in the power wire within 18" of the amp.

You should read this:

http://www.bcae1.com/fuses.htm

Very helpful! I would fuse your amps immediately if you want them to survive a short!

Not to mention the EXTREME fire hazard!!

More pics of the gear at the back end of the car...

I need some grills for the amps (but this didn't happen until my latest work on the boot over the last few days - pics for this work are coming). Although I lost some depth with this installation, I needed to retain at least some practicality. Grills over the holes would mean that I could chuck stuff on top without damage to the amps. Obviously this wouldn't help with cooling too well but the floor has what I thought at the time, adequate volume and spare cool air to make up and allow for this.

Subs are Infinity Perfect 10VQ's with the mid inserts. Boxes are 0.7cu ft sealed.

The door pods are next.
Watch this space...

Sweet install man! Totally jealous you guys get the Pug GTi's, and we don't!

as mentioned above you should consider adding a fuse clower to the amps.

Point taken guys about fusing each amp. It certainly makes sense if I think about it.

I'll pick some up shortly. I'm adding a couple of caps to the system as well so might just do it all at once. Fuses will be the first priority though and I'll probably go a fused distro actually.

Cheers.

Hey Winno hows it going. Its been years since I last spoke to you. Are you still in Brisbane? I've moved back to the Gold Coast... Nice build by the way. Will be good to see it all finished up !!!!

Very nice. Great layout!

Strong-go on the fused distro I'm doing the same for my car, now that I got all my amps.

Which reminds me....

winno wrote:Point taken guys about fusing each amp. It certainly makes sense if I think about it.

I'll pick some up shortly. I'm adding a couple of caps to the system as well so might just do it all at once. Fuses will be the first priority though and I'll probably go a fused distro actually.

Cheers.

A fused distro is the easy and most effective way to accomplish fusing. I got one in my install as well. I would just hate to see something bad happen to all those beautiful ti's!

Your install looks great! Keep the pics comin'!

Cheer's fella's.
And good to hear from you RFL. Been a while. You should come up to Brisbane for some of the MEA events we have up here.

Anyway, here's how I made up my door pods.

I clipped off the factory speaker cover and cut away all the plastic trim for the factory speakers.
Next up, I wanted a very solid medium for the midbasses to be mounted to. I have never worked with fibreglass so I stuck with MDF and I believe it to be far better acoustically. I laminated 4 layers of MDF rings wih liquid nails and screws.
Once dry, I held them into place and marked out the sections that would be carved and dremelled off to give the final shape.

As you can imagine, this took some time to do but the results were pleasing.

They were then covered in silicon and then carpeted. Once ready, they were then screwed to the door and the Elate 6 Morel drivers wired up.

And yes, sound deadening and treatments are yet to come. I need to source some Dynamat or similar product first. I have all the Deflex panels I need, and more, to apply once the panel deadening is done.

One thing I also had to do was get cabling into the door. In line with my belief that cables DO make a differnce, I refused to use any of the car's wiring for signal carrying.

The doors came off and the hole saw came out. The holes were grometted and Monster XLN speaker cable run from inside the cabin, through three lots of A pillar walling and then into the doos through the new gommets. The threading was one hell of a mission but the scratches and cuts healed well.

Here's the pics...

good job

it almost looks like you could make an enclosure out of it which may help a bit.

nteresting go-around for glass but it works pretty well it looks like.

The back of the pod is open into the door cavity though, which is what these drivers will benefit from.

They're low passed from about 800Hz all the way down to where they roll off naturally. No high/band passing is done in the interests of a good, solid midbass from right up in front of me. The drivers can handle this easily, and at some stage I'll add a second set of Elate 6's to the doors in the interests of efficiency and dynamic impact.

Next up is how I made up my first set of front dash pods for my MT23 and CDM88 Morels.

Thats an interesting concept there winno, in regards to the elate 6's..

you're running a similar front stage to me...

Damo95 wrote:Thats an interesting concept there winno, in regards to the elate 6's..

you're running a similar front stage to me...

Well, it works and works very well. So far, everyone who gets into the car has remarked that the bass is in front with everything else.

Yes, similar front stage gear - for now...hehe.
My new tweeter pods are being made to accomodate my MT23's for now and some Piccolo's later.