​​​​​​I originally wanted to cover them in the same suede material I used for the A-pillars. However, the shape of the pod caused the material to bunch in some areas while stretching in others. I think I could do it if I had a seam, but my sewing skills are worse than my Bondo skills. My mom has a sewing machine, so I may attempt it in the future.

In the meantime, I painted them a color very close to the Nebula Gray exterior. Its Rust-oleum metalic flat soft iron. I think they turned out well.

I live in Jefferson county.

 

The tweeter pods were given 4 light coats of Rust-oleum metallic paint. The color, "Flat Soft Iron", was chosen because it is a very close match to the vehicle's Nebula Gray exterior color.

 

That was a really good job to completely build from scratch. I like the color choice and texture. That looks nice and very Lexus like. Nothing like doing your Own custom install to your own car.

So with the sound deadening in the doors, and trunk, does the interior sound any quieter?

 

Thanks for the compliment, I was pleased how they turned out, especially for a first attempt at something like this.

The trunk is exceptionally quiet and free of annoying buzzes and rattles. I tested with a home theater subwoofer which orientation (forward, rear, upward, downfiring) gave the best performance. Without any sound treatment there was significant vibration around 55 Hz that was absolutely unbearable. Its possible that because the HT sub wasn't secured to the vehicle itself it was susceptible to excess vibration, who knows. By the way, I achieved the flattest response and lowest extension with the woofer rear facing; downfiring was a close second.

There was a considerable reduction in road noise, particularly with the addition of sound deadening in the doors. The F-Sport tire options heavily lean more towards performance and grip, not so much towards comfort and quiet. I do recommend treating the doors fairly heavily and using, not only the butyl and aluminum materials, but also the closed cell foam mat lining as well.

I have only done the front doors to date. I am planning to treat the rear doors when my door locks inevitably fail - ironically the driver side rear started acting up this past week. I have a great repair for that too that costs less than $10. I expect further decrease in road noise when the rear doors are treated.

 

The A-pillars are wrapped in a stretchable black microsuede. This material has about 10% spandex and is very easy to work with for larger parts like A-pillars. The A-pillars were stripped of their original upholstery and sanded down with 100 grit sandpaper and cleaned with isopropyl alcohol so the adhesive and suede would have something to stick to. I predrilled the mounting holes and the hole for the speaker wire in the A-pillars prior to upholstering so that I wouldn't damage the microsuede drilling through it.
The new microsuede was cut to a similar, but slightly larger, size and shape as the original upholstery previously removed.

I used 3M 90 spray adhesive and applied it to both the A-pillar and back side of the microsuede. Cover about 1" from the edge on the rear of the A-pillar so that the microsuede will stick when you fold it over. I think 3M Super 77 would also work, but the 3M 90 seems to give you some placement forgiveness by not sticking until you apply pressure. Just allow the 3M 90 about 2 minutes to dry so that it is tacky and not wet to the touch before applying the microsuede.

Place the microsuede lightly onto the A-pillar and position as to ensure you cover all places requiring it. Then, working from the middle and moving towards the edges, apply ever-increasing pressure to get the microsuede to stick. Fold it over the edges and apply pressure to the rear near the edges also.




Finally, with a sharp razor blade, trim the back to remove excess material

 

I used a section of metal universal back strap and covered it in interior fleece Tessa tape to act as a load distributor behind the A-pillar to disperse the load a bit.

 

Though the tweeter is a bit more obtrusive than I originally wanted, it's out of the way, does not impeed vision, is not anywhere you would normally need to place your hands, such as to get in and out of the vehicle, adjust the air vent or any other controls.

I will say, removing and installing the A-pillar is not for an impatient person. There is a retaining clip that hooks onto a section of plastic moulded to the A-pillar that is designed to allow the A-pillar to move out and create about a 1/2" gap to allow the side curtain air bag to deploy but holding the A-pillar enough to keep it from popping yo face.

You only have a, well, 1/2" gap to manipulate this retaining clip - which rotates enough to remove the A-pillar fully. Here is a photo showing this hot mess. The clip that you must rotate is circled. Prepare to throw your tools across the driveway. Limited space, tight clip, poor lighting... Yeah not fun.

Single handedly, this was the most difficult single task of the whole install. When I grow old, I will tell my grandchildren the horrors of removing the GS350 A-pillars. Fortunately, once you understand how the clip rotates the next one is easier. The first one took me an hour to remove, the other one took 15 minutes.

 

Is your system up and running yet? I somewhat finished mine, I only need to wrap my a-pillars. I tested the audio yesterday and I'm getting hissing from the tweeters and I can't figure a solution. There is some hissing when there isn't rca plugged in so I'm assuming that it may be the amp. I had another RF 4 channel amp I tested with and i'm still getting the hiss.

 

Yes, my system is up and running. I'm currently dialing in the minidsp and still have the amp rack & sub beauty panel to make.

Infinity is known to make very efficient tweeters. Is the hiss aubidle from, say, 3 feet away with RCAs unplugged?

I'm assuming it's both tweeters, so unlikely to be a bad passive crossover.

First thing to check is the ground, make sure there is good metal-to-metal contact with your amp's ground wire and the grounding point. I'd change grounding points even if it looked good if it's easily accessible. Modern vehicles use a ton of epoxys to bind metal parts together. These epoxys are great in that that are very strong and less expensive than welded joints, but they are not as electrically conductive as a welded joint. Based on my measurements, two good options for a ground point are behind the panel in the trunk on the passenger side where I photographed and underneath the cargo mounting hooks in the trunk next to each wheel well. Just make sure, no matter which ground point you use, that the paint is removed for good metal-to-metal contact. Most noise issues in car audio, in one way or another, can partially or fully be related to poor grounding. Use a multimeter, you absolutely can get by with the $10 versions available at places like Harbor Freight and Amazon.

​​​​​​My very first fully active system I worked on was in a Pontiac Grand Prix in 1995. It had a massive amp grounding problem, engine whine, noises when the brake was pressed, you name it. The main ground point chosen in the trunk was aluminium, fully painted and looked to be epoxied to the adjacent panels. Once I measured resistance between that point and the battery's ground the problem became obvious. There was more resistance between that point and the battery negative terminal than there was between the amp's RCA shield and the battery negative terminal - yikes. I changed the grounding spot to a more substantial piece of metal without paint and all those problems went away instantly. The owner almost cried tears of joy.

After that, check your amps' input gain. Set it to the minimum, check for noise. If the noise goes away, the issue is likely the amp or amp connectivity. Ultimately, it's important to set your gain to the proper input voltage. Many mistakenly use the amp gain as a volume control. Instead, it's there to allow the proper level of voltage to be fed, distortion free, into the amplifier so the appropriate amount of power is created free of distortion (or very minimal distortion). In my experience, most people have their amp gains set too high.

Next, check your passive crossovers. First, check wiring on the input, tweeter output, and woofer output. Make sure you didn't accidentally mix the woofer and tweeter ground. Next, change the +3db button setting on the middle of the passive crossover and see if the hiss volume changes accordingly or has no change at all. Also, verify that the crossovers are not near any sort of high current wiring or very strong magnetic fields - both can have odd effects on crossovers. Are the crossovers mounted close to one another? It shouldn't be an issue, but given both tweeters are experiencing hiss, perhaps they are both picking up the noise from the same source.

If noise levels change according to your +3db tweeter setting on the crossover, it at least indictates that the crossovers are being fed the noise and that the noise is not being picked up after the signal leaves the crossover. At least this can help you narrow down your search.

But, again, start with the grounds first and second, then the gains third before moving on to the crossovers. Let me know what you find.

 

Also checking the LLC and Gain there too? No? I've even had problems with that before on Audio Controls units.

 

Thank for the reply you guys. I won't be touching my car until the rain blows over in a few days here in Cali.

The grounding point I used was one right underneath the spare. It was 1/0 cable grounded and routed into a distribution block. Would you guys suggest I remove the distribution block and ground all my amps separately to the chassis. This is my first time using a distribution block for ground.

The rack my dad and made is somewhat a pain to remove and put back.(Ill add pictures in the future) I was thinking of running a negative cable directly from the battery to the amp in the rear to see if its truly a bad ground before pulling apart all my equipment in the rear.

Also my power cables are right next to my DSP and LC8i. Could I be picking up the hissing from electromagnetic interference? I have never had this issue with my other builds.

So the equipment I have to power are:
-2 Viair compressors (Air suspension)
-4 channel amp
- monoblock amp
- audio control LC8i
-Dayton Dsp

Ill add pictures soon...

Thanks for the advice!!

 

Grounding block should not be an issue. If it's accessible, temporarily remove everything from the grounding block except the amp connected to the hissing tweeters and the cable connected to the ground point underneath the spare tire. See if the hiss is still present.

If you have the ability to power off everything individually, wether that's by pulling a fuse from a fuse block, removing that equipment ground wire or disconnecting the remote switch wire, power stuff off one at a time and listen for when the noise goes away or if it does at all.

I doubt the dsp or LC8i is injecting noise to the power cable feeding the amp. However, you can eliminate this as a possibility by powering off the LC8i and dsp while still having power to your amp.

Since the hiss is present even when the RCAs are unplugged, I think the issue will be either:
1. Noise generated by the amp (bad ground or improper gain setting), or 2. Noise injected into the amp or between amp and tweeters

You can grealty narrow it down between either 1 or 2 simply by powering off other equipment, including the controls for the air suspension.

Run a temp cable of sufficient gauge back the battery negative terminal, as you suggest, to eliminate that spare tire well grounding point as the problem. You don't have to install it in the vehicle, just run it on the outside of the car.

Finding and eliminating noise can be tricky, but there are only a few things to check. Just methodically make your way through the grounds, gain settings and other devices possibly causing interference. Good luck.

 

Just FYI, I have mentioned this earlier in the Thread. I remember seeing a few ppl saying this same problem a few time before with that DSP. Then others had no problem at all.

https://www.diymobileaudio.com/threa...-issue.418793/

https://www.google.com/search?q=Dayt...hrome&ie=UTF-8

Long time ago I had this problem with a Older Audio Controls cross over. It was a LC6 or something like that. I had it running separates for my front tweeters and door woofers to run sperate with 2 different Rodek amps. I don't remember exactly how I resolved it because I am No experienced installer just a novice. I think I had to adjust the Gain around on the AC LC6 or LLC and/or amps, or all till I got it straight.

 

No doubt. Gain settings can absolutely have a negative effect with unwanted noise. Even more difficult to get right with multiple pieces of equipment in the signal stream (line converter, dsp, etc).

I doubt the LC8i or dsp is causing the hiss, as the tweeter hiss is present when the amp's RCAs are disconnected.

That being said, setting the output levels on the AudioControl is crucial. The output levels on my LC6i are lower than I thought they'd be. I did hear odd noises with the ML radio turned up high when the output levels were set higher. See photo for my current output level settings that are now noise free at all volume levels.


For reference, the output level on the left (Main) is from the door 6x9 inputs, the middle (Channel 2) is the dash left/right speaker pair, the right (Channel 3) is from the center channel & mono sub input.

The best way I found to set them is as follows:

1. With the vehicle off, disconnect the RCA outputs of the AudioControl LCxi and set the output levels all the way down - full counter clockwise.

2. Turn on vehicle and audio and set the head unit volume as loud as it historically goes without sounding distorted (RCAs still disconnected, so there will be no sound). On the GS350 Mark Levinson head unit, set it to "MAX" - at least mine was.

3. Play the loudest, most intense music you have - again, no sound will heard since your RCAs are disconnected. Heavy bass, full instruments... think LOUD!

4. Go back to the AudioControl LCxi and adjust the output levels up (clockwise) individually until the "Maximized" light flickers, then back off just a bit until the "Maximized" light no longer flickers.
Do this for all outputs.

5. Turn off system, reconnect RCAs, enjoy.

Doing this may require you to adjust levels and gains on your other equipment. The LC6i and LC8i function identically, though the LC8i has an extra input/output pair and a couple of other added features. The process of output setting will be identical.

 

Want to ask you about the Front door speakers?

So when the average person (like me) changes out door speakers? What often happens, they sound worst, and/or they lose all the Bass. I know that the value of mating, sealing, and using speaker rings, mounts and other. I know 6x9's can put out some real Bass. And that its more speaker surface are and other advantages. What I have noticed about the ML is those front doors speakers play alot of Bass. Much more that most.

So how are your replacement front door speaker 6x9's sounding compared to Stock?