styloren

Hello LS Crew! Figured it was time for a build thread for my 2004 LS430 ML. I joined the forums at the start of the year as I was getting really intent on buying an LS for my next car. After about an eight month search I finally found one that sang to me and here we are: the start of something beautiful! After worrying about buying a 16 year old car, I got some amazing advice from members here and was able to really narrow down on the important things to focus on and found this beauty. A 2004 Modern Luxury trim with 145k on the odometer, a single owner, and service history that showed yearly visits to the dealership at minimum. After going out to see the car and test drive it, I could tell that this was someone's baby and couldn't walk away. Wrote a check and made it mine. I had a two hour drive home and enjoyed every minute of it.



The day I brought it home

styloren

I've always been a huge car audio head so this car isn't going to be any different. While the Mark Levinson system is good, I know I can make something better, so that's where we start. I'm doing a stealth-install of an aftermarket single DIN radio, Infinity Kappa 6.5" components around all four corners, and a Rockford Fosgate Punch P3SD4-10 subwoofer mounted under the rear deck. This will all be powered by an Alpine S-A55V 5 channel amp delivering 45 watts to the four door speakers and 300 watts to the subwoofer. I'll be custom designing a vented enclosure that mounts underneath the rear deck of the car to keep it looking as factory as possible.



As I'm getting the stereo sorted, I'll also handle the Stage Zero maintenance of the car to get everything as fresh as I can.

styloren

Entirely too much wiring work and entirely too much custom fabrication to get everything to fit how I want it. However, Infinty Kappas are in the OEM speaker rings on all four corners. I can get the new tweeters into the factory mounting location in the back seats, but I'm not chasing after it for the front. I don't wanna take apart the entire dash and run the wire through the doors to get there. We'll just have to settle for mounting the tweeters on the sail panels, but I'm working with someone to 3D print some tweeter pods so I can stage them better.



Out with the old, in with the new.


Had to get the Dremel involved


Here's the money-maker


Once again, size matters.


Original Plan for the Crossover; didn't work out, too tight


Making use of what we've got


Rinse and Repeat

styloren

So now that all of the door speakers are done and I've wired up the stereo, it's time to turn my attention to the subwoofer. I was hoping I'd be able to cut through the rear deck and drop it in, but I'm not happy with the clearances that would leave me. So instead, I'm going to build an enclosure like I would for any other car but I'll add some posts to be able to mount the enclosure through a few of the pre-existing holes in the rear deck. I'll also make a spacer out of MDF to ensure there aren't any close encounters of the cone kind.


Say No To Paper


*Laughs in Voicecoil*

mavisky

Love the attention to detail. I'd seen somewhere recently that someone was able to fish out the front tweeters without having to remove the entire dash. Not sure if there is room for the larger tweeters or not though and wiring them would still be potentially difficult.

styloren

Thanks man! I've spent several nights so far just making custom cables and getting them connected. Last night was the leads between my T-taps at the Mark Levinson amp harness and the 4 channels for the door speaker in the Alpine amp. Came up with this idea since I'll be routing the wires down through the floor cover of the trunk for now.



I had heard that as well, and even consulted TIS to confirm that you should be able to lift the grills out of the top of the dash, but I have been unsuccessful at engaging the clips and getting them out. In addition, I've heard that you can't access the wiring or anything from the top-side. All-in-all it seems like a little more effort than I can give it right now and I don't want it to be a hack job, which is why I'm ultimately opting for the 3D printed tweeter pods in the sail panels. That way I'll be able get the staging right without all of the added effort.

mavisky

I found where I saw it. Literally a day ago a guy posted on Facebook in thr LS430 DIY How-To group with a 10nminute video on how to get it out and these pics.

Ellesse

Man.. for years these car forums have been a huge repository for info that is searchable years after the fact.. Now with these facebook groups the knowledge is moving away. One other old car forum im on has all but died because apparently everyone moved to a Facebook owners group.
For those of us without Facebook especially its a sad day!

mavisky

Youre not lying. I can't tell you how many times I see the same questions posted multiple times a day on some of these Facebook groups and when I go to search I can't find what I'm looking for.

styloren

These kids and their music!!! [ANGRY FIST SHAKING INTENSIFIES]

But yeah, it is unfortunate b/c the information isn't sorted in a searchable manner like the forums are. It's also times like this where I just slightly begin to regret deleting Facebook. Well, regardless, I think it makes the most sense for me to just stick to 3D printing these tweeter pods or something. For now it's just a matter of making sure all of the audio works and sounds good - fine tuning can come later.

styloren

Stereo is finally done...for now. I stopped before I jumped too far in with the box for the subwoofer. I had starting making cuts and dry fitting the top panel, but for the life of me couldn't figure out how I was going to ultimately get it to hang from the rear deck and get it sealed against the opening. I'm not a fan of implementing redneck engineering as a final product, so I'm going to have to come at it again - ideally with a way that will work with an air suspension kit since that's on the to-do list. Anyway, here's some pictures as I was getting everything wrapped up.


Alpine S-A55V 5 channel amp



Built these speaker cables to drop straight down into the floor panel.



RCAs tucked



Stealth-DIN activate! Still need to grind down the backside of the door to make clearance for the volume ****



Tweeters and crossovers installed on the front door panel.

Ellesse

Very clean install!

I had a sub suspended from the rear deck in my old Mercedes. I had a shallow mount sub in a pioneer box, that I bolted to the underside of the deck so the sub faced up and fired into the cabin.
if you look up pioneer shallow mount enclosures on Google you'll see some where the sub is slightly recessed. That would allow you to line it up with the existing hole and bolt the box to the deck from the edges of the enclosure

styloren

Yeah, my problem is that there's a brace right next to the subwoofer cutout that drops the level mounting position about 2". So I was thinking about just making an oversized trim ring, but then the 4 bolt holes for the sub are in a trapezoid shape and not circular. I'm probably over-analyzing it but I was getting real tired and my wife was getting pissed at how much time I was spending out in the garage, lol.

I'm currently thinking I'll just do a slim-profile vertical enclosure with a vanity board to fill in the back area of the trunk right up to the seat back. I'm pretty sure I can make it real slim and I'll think about ways to get the future air-ride components mounted up there as well.

mavisky

I'll be following this closely to see how that comes out.

YannG

You already know what I think about this - Amazingly clean build & attention to detail !

Keep up the great work

(cough cough :: bags next...:: cough...)