1990 Subaru Loyale Wagon Install!

Post by **stipud** » Fri Jun 04, 2010 7:31 am

I have stripped out threaded inserts before. My trick with t-nuts is to glue them in place. Use CA glue or something and they should stick in there much better.

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Fri Jun 04, 2010 7:34 am

stipud wrote:I have stripped out threaded inserts before. My trick with t-nuts is to glue them in place. Use CA glue or something and they should stick in there much better.

God damnit! Why do you have to make me feel stupid, stipud

Thanks for that idea

Next time I won't have to spend 45min f'in around with the t-nuts. I even have some CA right here in front of me

Thanks for the tip, and I will make sure I use it when I build my next box

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Tue Jun 15, 2010 3:47 am

Ok, so it's been a while, but I have been doing stuff. Work has been busy lately.

I ran two new sets of RCA's for my setup. Since I did that I was able to install my amps the way I wanted to for a while but have been unable to do to the RCA's being too short. So that made me happy. I need to pick up some blue 4awg wire, I am running silver ground wire, because that's all I have for now that will reach, so once I get paid I will pick some of that up. That's all for now!

str3atwarrior · Post by **str3atwarrior** » Wed Jun 16, 2010 4:36 am

Just a quick tip, if you have enough silver cable, you could use blue tape on it, it looks good and will clearly identify your 12v line! We do that in industrial when we have to identify the phases in a 600v panel

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Wed Jun 16, 2010 11:06 pm

The silver wire is just temporary until I get more money. It carries current and that's all I was concerned with. I will probably be ordering 20' of 4awg here sometime soon, just so I have it on hand for my wife's car, and my MR2. I hate having to find wire when you need it! Thanks for the tip though!

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Thu Jul 01, 2010 12:10 am

So after doing some trading and finding some good deals on craigslist, I was able to score a very nice zeropoint fused distro, and by trading off my wii, I got an awesome zx450 to replace my tantrum 600.4 (thanks db!)!

Here's some pics of it all installed:

I really like the look of the zx and the ti's, so now it just looks awesome

And I really like the zeropoint distro, it's sweet! I had to wire in another relay to switch the ground off and on so that the LED's turn off when I turn the car off, or else they stay on and could drain my battery

Thanks to Joerg for making my 0awg to 0awg distro turn into a 0awg to 2 4awg distro! Thanks dude! Now all I need is an RMD to run up front...

The only thing that bothers me a little is that I now have blue and green LED's

So I need to change all the green ones (3 on my distro, and the power one on the 450) out for blue ones. So after looking back at some threads I found these to replace them:

http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSea ... &x=25&y=24

I am thinking about replacing both fans as well, but I am unsure if I am going to do that right now. Having two blue LED fan's would look sweet, so I probably will do that at some point down the road. When I do, here's the fans I am going to use (thanks db!):

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/ ... a4031d4d3a

On a side note, did you know that the main LED on the zeropoint distro "pulses" with the music? Whenever the bass notes hit, the LED "pulses", it's really cool actually, and will look sweet with a blue LED in it

They just don't make this stuff like they used too

I am still waiting to pickup some 4awg. I think I might also pickup some more 0awg and move my distro to the middle, inbetween my two amps. But that's not until at least next payday.

I will say that this zx is LOUD and sounds fantastic! I thought the tantrum sounded good, the zx sounds even better! It has also made my 400.2 sound better as well. Maybe because I am using 4th order crossovers on my whole system, rather than mixing 3rd and 4th order crossovers like I was with the tantrum and ti combo? Something with the phasing because of this? IDK... I am also using the zx's crossovers for the whole system including the lowpass, so maybe the 400.2 is getting louder since I am not using it's built-in crossover anymore? IDK, but it sounds louder and more awesome than it did before!

I got some more goodies that should be coming to me here in the next couple of weeks, I can't wait to get them and install them!

Post by **joerg** » Thu Jul 01, 2010 12:20 am

On a side note, did you know that the main LED on the zeropoint distro "pulses" with the music? Whenever the bass notes hit, the LED "pulses", it's really cool actually, and will look sweet with a blue LED in it They just don't make this stuff like they used too

Pulsing indicates a Voltage drop. It´s time to get yourself a second batterie!

It´s not hard to change the leds in the distro but the one sticking out of it is a color changing led! If u got enough juice it is green when the voltage drops it turns yellow and when your voltage drops under 10.5 Volts it will turn red!

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Thu Jul 01, 2010 12:48 am

joerg wrote:
On a side note, did you know that the main LED on the zeropoint distro "pulses" with the music? Whenever the bass notes hit, the LED "pulses", it's really cool actually, and will look sweet with a blue LED in it They just don't make this stuff like they used too
Pulsing indicates a Voltage drop. It´s time to get yourself a second batterie!

It does this when the music is very low with no voltage drop

That's what I thought at first, but it's not the case. My cap with a voltmeter reads about a .2 volt drop (if that), and the light "pulses". None of the other LEDs do this (the ones under the fuses, and the ones on the amps themselves), JUST that one. And it's a "pulse", like something sent from a circuit telling it to blink. It's very exact in the brightness it does and it only last a milli second. I know what voltage sagged LED look like, and this doesn't look like it at all. So if it does indicate a voltage dropped, it's not a very big one at all. Still very cool if you ask me

It´s not hard to change the leds in the distro but the one sticking out of it is a color changing led! If u got enough juice it is green when the voltage drops it turns yellow and when your voltage drops under 10.5 Volts it will turn red!

Thanks for the info, I didn't know that! So if I get a tri color LED, then it should work correct? Like a blue/green/red one, it should do the same thing... I will have to look into this, thanks for the heads up!

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Thu Jul 01, 2010 2:06 am

Ok so after some research, I found some really CHEAP blue 3mm LED's that should work, instead of the $2.30 LED's from digikey. These guys are also in the states:

http://www.unique-leds.com/index.php?ta ... ct_id=1934

Anybody dealt with them before? For $6 shipped for 15 LED's, that's a good deal, and I think gonna go for it...

After researching for a while looking for tri color 3mm led's that are blue/red/green, I gave up, I don't think they exist. I also went out and measured the LED just to make sure it's 3mm, and it is. So I decided to go with a bi color LED instead, blue/red. I will just wire it up so that it normally is blue, when it senses a voltage drop it will light up red, and when it's under 10.5v, it will light up red as well. I don't really need three colors to tell me what's going on. I want to get a RMD and wire it off the distro anyways, so I don't need 3 leds to tell me what's going on

This way all my LED's will be blue or red. Works for me!

Here's the blue/red led:

http://www.unique-leds.com/index.php?ta ... ct_id=1842

So after thinking about this and reading Joerg's post, I think I see what he was saying about the voltage drop. When it senses a voltage drop it lights up the yellow AND the green at the same time, make it seem "brighter" when it's really a different color, its just hard to see. Then if it gets below 10.5v it turns red.

So if what I said above is correct, with the bi color LED, it will be blue normally, purpleish (red/blue combined) on a voltage drop, and red on lower than 10.5v. Am I correct on this? If this is the case, this is WAY better than "stock" and I am doing this for sure...

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 5:31 am

Well, I got some updates!

My white basscube arrived yesterday (thanks Thunderdome!)

So I will be installing that here real soon.

I also have on the way a Rsdc124

I didn't think I would be able to get one of these, but they popped up on ebay, and a buddy of mine was looking as well, so we just bought a pair to split between us

So that worked out great! For $100, you can't beat those subs.

I was also able to secure a white zx500 to replace my ti400.2

So now I will have matching amps

So with the RSdc and the zx500 teamed up with the basscube, I think I will have a good combo

Right now the zx500 is damaged and is in the process of getting fixed, and it is not the prettiest thing is the world, but that will all be getting fixed here real soon

I will post some pics when I get stuff installed and stuff shows up...

dBincognito · Post by **dBincognito** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 12:00 pm

Damn that ZX450 looks nice and minty

Post by **ttocs** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 12:12 pm

not sure about our red/blue led idea.

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 12:39 pm

dBincognito wrote:Damn that ZX450 looks nice and minty

Hehe, ya, I got it from this really nice dude

ttocs wrote:not sure about our red/blue led idea.

You talking about the "dancing" led, or just changing them all?

I might not change it now, since I got a zx450 and a zx500 going into it, both with green led's, as well as my distro, so I just might keep them green. At the time, I didn't have the zx500 lined up, so I was going to change out the zx450 as well. Probably won't happen now with the green LED's and all...

I really like the basscube! I got it "installed" and it's great! Now I can't wait to hear my RSdc paired up with my ti400.2. It should be a good upgrade from my fosgate I got in there now. I just need to actually install the thing. Once I get paid on friday... I will get picks once it's installed, and not "hacked" in

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Thu Jul 22, 2010 1:45 am

Aight! So I got my basscube hacked in... I mean "installed" in my car. One thing I didn't know is that the phone cord that comes with the basscube is not a straight through cable, it's a crossover cable. So when I made my own cable, I didn't have the original one to use as a reference, I just made it a straight through cable, and it really didn't work at all. The LED wouldn't come on, and you really couldn't here that much of a difference when it was "on".

So I fixed that up real quick, and it's much better now

I can tell the difference when it's on now

Another thing I just found out is that my driver side door speaker is blown, again

This is the second speaker that I have put in the door that has blown. This makes me sad. It's not my car. The first speaker is about 6 years old and was used and abused before I put it in my car, and the next speaker I put into it was out of a junk yard car door that was exposed to some elements for who knows how long, so ya, it's not my cars fault. At least not yet. The tweeter works, so I know that the connection is good to the amp, I just have 0 midbass, and the speaker doesn't actually move anymore

*sign* I guess I will have to come up with something here soon to fix that... I really just need to buy a pair of RSdc 6.5cs and be done with it. But I just spent all my money on the cube and my new sub. Looks like some afro engineering is going to have to take place in the mean time...

Post by **ttocs** » Thu Jul 22, 2010 8:50 am

I made a monitoring panel for my amps in my stang. IT shows the voltage, real-time power usage and also has 2 red/blue leds that are connected to the remote turn on wire of each amp, at the amp. Then the amps are on I use a relay to light up the blue, and if the remote turn on dies it goes to red. If you want something like that let me know and I can help you.

I am not sure how you will use a rec/blue led to tell you that you have low voltage.

dBincognito · Post by **dBincognito** » Thu Jul 22, 2010 11:53 am

driver side door speaker is blown

I just have 0 midbass, and the speaker doesn't actually move anymore *sign* I guess I will have to come up with something here soon to fix that

Sounds like a good excuse to buy a pair of these if you ask me.

http://cgi.ebay.com/2-Phoenix-Gold-ti5- ... 19bdef8c28

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 1:15 am

ttocs wrote:I made a monitoring panel for my amps in my stang. IT shows the voltage, real-time power usage and also has 2 red/blue leds that are connected to the remote turn on wire of each amp, at the amp. Then the amps are on I use a relay to light up the blue, and if the remote turn on dies it goes to red. If you want something like that let me know and I can help you.

I am not sure how you will use a rec/blue led to tell you that you have low voltage.

That would be sweet actually. You got any pics of it? I think something like this would be cool to have. I was kinda thinking about trying to find a RMD, so this is right up that alley.

dBincognito wrote:
driver side door speaker is blown

I just have 0 midbass, and the speaker doesn't actually move anymore *sign* I guess I will have to come up with something here soon to fix that

Sounds like a good excuse to buy a pair of these if you ask me.

http://cgi.ebay.com/2-Phoenix-Gold-ti5- ... 19bdef8c28

Ya, I have been thinking about them actually. I have some PG tweeters just sitting around doing nothing just wanting to be used... I just need to find a good crossover, a ti one would be sweet

I have also found them online

Too bad I don't have 3 hundo, or I would probably be all over that.

But all new speaker purchases will have to be on hold for a little while here. I just got my new RSdc124 that I still have to pay for, and a new amp that I still have to pay for, so I's gots to keep my ducks in a row

At least for a little bit...

On a better note than blown speakers, my basscube is f'ing fantastic!

I have had some time to play around with it and play different types of music as well, and now that its "tuned", wow. I think the thing I like most about it is that it boost the volume at lower levels. So you can have the volume turned down, but still be able to get some bass out of it. I like that alot. And the bass is sooo much "fuller"! The cube is a very good investment in my opinion. But my goodness is this thing going to POUND with the cube, a zx500, and a RSdc124! Add another 100+ watts to what I have now AND a much better sub, this thing is going to sound great!

Hopefully this weekend I will be able to actually install the cube, but we shall see what happens. Its supposed to be super nice this weekend, so I might be out enjoying the weather, but who knows!

Post by **ttocs** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 1:25 am

near the top. I smoked a piece of plexi and wrapped it with some thin aluminum strips to highlight it a bit. The watt-meter is on the left and is the dancing bar style that dakota digital makes. The blue leds in the middle tell me that I have power on teh remote turn on to both amps and ther is also the security led above it to shine through the fuck of sticker Iadded to ther factory cassette face. If I loose a remote turn on to one or the other the blue goes to red. The volt meter on the left will eventually be replaced by the pg SDT from an RDDP that I will hook up to the roadster I got last week.

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2395420/6

If you do not want to buy another mid or cross over, I will buy your tweeters from you. I need another mounting cup as the set I bought had been trimmed a bit and I would like to have an extra in case of.........

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 1:48 am

ttocs wrote:near the top. I smoked a piece of plexi and wrapped it with some thin aluminum strips to highlight it a bit. The watt-meter is on the left and is the dancing bar style that dakota digital makes. The blue leds in the middle tell me that I have power on teh remote turn on to both amps and ther is also the security led above it to shine through the fuck of sticker Iadded to ther factory cassette face. If I loose a remote turn on to one or the other the blue goes to red. The volt meter on the left will eventually be replaced by the pg SDT from an RDDP that I will hook up to the roadster I got last week.

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2395420/6

Nice man! I like that alot. Very usefull. For the LED's, did you tap the relay into the ti distro you got? Is that how you got it to turn colors? I take it you used a 2 color LED as well, that would only make sense...

What is the watt meter connected to to get a reading? I have never really seen one of those before. That would be some cool eye candy to add for sure!

What volt meter did you use? Are you just replacing it because it's not PG, or do you not like it?

Thanks for the idea man, I will have to incorporate this into my install for sure somehow...

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 1:54 am

ttocs wrote:If you do not want to buy another mid or cross over, I will buy your tweeters from you. I need another mounting cup as the set I bought had been trimmed a bit and I would like to have an extra in case of.........

They are not ti tweeters, I wish! I think they are octane ZR tweeters, but I am not sure. The octanes were the closest ones that I could find. But I don't know what I am going to do with them. Like I said, I might just get a set of the RSdc6.5cs' and call it good. But money is the biggest factor with that, and the RSdc's are cheaper by a lot...

Post by **ttocs** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 2:25 am

eulogious wrote:
ttocs wrote:near the top. I smoked a piece of plexi and wrapped it with some thin aluminum strips to highlight it a bit. The watt-meter is on the left and is the dancing bar style that dakota digital makes. The blue leds in the middle tell me that I have power on teh remote turn on to both amps and ther is also the security led above it to shine through the fuck of sticker Iadded to ther factory cassette face. If I loose a remote turn on to one or the other the blue goes to red. The volt meter on the left will eventually be replaced by the pg SDT from an RDDP that I will hook up to the roadster I got last week.

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2395420/6
Nice man! I like that alot. Very usefull. For the LED's, did you tap the relay into the ti distro you got? Is that how you got it to turn colors? I take it you used a 2 color LED as well, that would only make sense...

What is the watt meter connected to to get a reading? I have never really seen one of those before. That would be some cool eye candy to add for sure!

What volt meter did you use? Are you just replacing it because it's not PG, or do you not like it?

Thanks for the idea man, I will have to incorporate this into my install for sure somehow...

for the leds I just ran two wires back from the DD5 fused at 1 amp each. They go back into the dash and are connected to the coil side of the relay as well as to pin 30 on the relay. pin 87 and 87a go to the led then so that when the remote is on, the relay is actually off and just throws 12v though the normally closed portion of the relay which is hooked up to the blue portion of the led. When the remote dies, it will turn off the relay and then activate the red led to show that it turned off. Basically I wired a relay backwards from normal, depending on what normal is to you.

The voltemeter is just a panel mount led volt meter I got from ebay. The sdt also has the thermal condition of the amp with a seperate led. This is not compatable with the roadster at the moment but I am going to try and make it work. If not I will just leave it with out the led as the diplay on the sdt is made by dakota digital just like the wattmeter so the displays are an exact match.

The watt meter not that I think about it is actually a current meterm sorry for the confusion. There is a large ring inductor that goes around your power wire to sense the current draw through the unductive magnetic field it creates. I can get a pic when I get out of the hospital if you want.

the mt22 or 23 tweeter from moral is supposed to be very similat to the TI elites if you are wanting to put one together.

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 4:03 am

ttocs wrote:for the leds I just ran two wires back from the DD5 fused at 1 amp each. They go back into the dash and are connected to the coil side of the relay as well as to pin 30 on the relay. pin 87 and 87a go to the led then so that when the remote is on, the relay is actually off and just throws 12v though the normally closed portion of the relay which is hooked up to the blue portion of the led. When the remote dies, it will turn off the relay and then activate the red led to show that it turned off. Basically I wired a relay backwards from normal, depending on what normal is to you.

The voltemeter is just a panel mount led volt meter I got from ebay. The sdt also has the thermal condition of the amp with a seperate led. This is not compatable with the roadster at the moment but I am going to try and make it work. If not I will just leave it with out the led as the diplay on the sdt is made by dakota digital just like the wattmeter so the displays are an exact match.

The watt meter not that I think about it is actually a current meterm sorry for the confusion. There is a large ring inductor that goes around your power wire to sense the current draw through the unductive magnetic field it creates. I can get a pic when I get out of the hospital if you want.

the mt22 or 23 tweeter from moral is supposed to be very similat to the TI elites if you are wanting to put one together.

I gotcha on how you made the LED's work, that was what I thought you did. I am really familiar with relays now, I had to give myself a crash course when trying to install some off road lights my car, and then even more when I installed my remote start, and I had to completely rewire my power door locks because the stock subaru system was stupid. So needless to say I have about 13 additional relays stuffed up into my car

Are these the display and sender you have?

Display:
http://www.dakotadigital.com/index.cfm/ ... prd544.htm

Sending Unit:
http://www.dakotadigital.com/index.cfm/ ... prd123.htm

In doing some research I found a cheaper gauge and a cheaper Hall Effect Current Sensor, which is the sensor you are talking about I believe.

Here's the sensor, at least what I think is the correct sensor...

http://cgi.ebay.com/200-5-Current-Trans ... 3a5d11adf0

I am going to ask the seller if this is a hall effect sensor or not, and if the opening for the wire is big enough for 0awg wire. If this is a hall effect sensor, and it's big enough for 0awg, I might just have to pick it up...

Here's the gauge I found as well. I choose a small gauge just because of where I am thinking about mounting it...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Mini-DC-200A-Red-LE ... 2a088e531b

I am going to ask that seller if he will sell it without the shunt. I don't want no stinkin' shunt!

Also it says that it needs a independent power supply, is that true? I have read that it might, but I have only found info on EV's (electric Vehicles) and their whole system is different than my typical 12v car. So is a seperate power supply needed? The specs say the gauge can handle 6-15v, so that should be good enough...

Post by **ttocs** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 4:16 am

yes and no above.

That is the sensor but the display is just the old style with verticle lines that go up as the current goes up.

That amp meter you show at the end is different and will not work. It uses the shunt to measure the voltage drop across it to figure out the amperage. To do this you will need to pass all of your power through the shunt and loose voltage on it.

Also not sure about the other sensor you found. Don't know what it is suposed to hook up to but it is not going to go into the meter you linked to. That is a completely different type of system with the shunt.

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 4:58 am

ttocs wrote:yes and no above.

That is the sensor but the display is just the old style with verticle lines that go up as the current goes up.

That amp meter you show at the end is different and will not work. It uses the shunt to measure the voltage drop across it to figure out the amperage. To do this you will need to pass all of your power through the shunt and loose voltage on it.

Also not sure about the other sensor you found. Don't know what it is suposed to hook up to but it is not going to go into the meter you linked to. That is a completely different type of system with the shunt.

After doing some more research on both ways of signal sensing, I came to the conclusion that yes, you can use a "shunt meter" with a hall effect device. The hall effect device has a IC on it that converts the magnitic field into voltage which is then read by the meter. Good article on it:

http://www.nktechnologies.com/current-sensing.html

To quote the article:

The resistive shunt is a calibrated resistor placed in a current path that produces a voltage drop proportional to the current flow according to:

V = IR

where:

V = voltage drop

I = current flow

R = shunt resistance

The voltage drop measurement is typically in the millivolt AC range. This output must be conditioned by a separate transducer into a process signal such as 4–20 mA or a contact closure.

The Hall effect device is carefully mounted in a small slit in the core, at a right angle to the concentrated magnetic field. A constant current in one plane excites it. When the energized Hall device is exposed to a magnetic field from the core, it produces a potential difference (voltage) that can be measured and amplified into process level signals such as 4–20 mA or a contact closure.

So both the shunt and the hall effect sensor give an output voltage that can be read by a meter, either a shunt meter, or a hall effect meter, at least in theory. I will need to know more specifics on both the meter, like the input voltage requirements, and also more on the sensor, like output voltage. But I would hope that there is some sort of standard for these things...

At least I know where I can get one that works either way. I am just trying to save a little bit of money

Post by **ttocs** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 5:30 am

right but you understand that a shunt resistor needs to go in series to the circuit to make the calclulatoin right? It means you have to cut the wire, then insert the shunt and then it will work but you wil loose volts at the shunt.