Electrodyn

And now onto the door pods. The door pods from the factory are ported. We went sealed. The factory door pods are made out of stiff HEAVY plastic, so there was no need to strengthen the back of the door pods. The front of the door pods needed to have 7" adapters made and fiberglassed onto them in order to mate the Scan Speak Revelators into position. Brandon headed up this section of the install and he did a fantastic job. Here are some pics of the progress:

Electrodyn

And here are the sex pictures of the SS being mated to the pod:

Electrodyn

And here is the SS being installed onto the door:

Electrodyn

And here are the gold tipped, insulated, and color-coded female fittings used for the speaker wire to go onto the SS's terminals:

Electrodyn

Here are the RCA's I used for the install. The main run is a stereo pair of Tara Labs Prism 3A's to the RF 3Sixty.2. After the 3Sixty.2 it goes to AudioMagic solid silver RCA's and Y-splitters.

Electrodyn

And here are the SS's installed and the door panels put back on after being modified by Brandon:




And before anyone says anything negative: YES there will be custom grilles made to cover up the mids at a later date.

Electrodyn

Test fitting the sub enclosure, sanding, and the amp rack (notice the use of beer ):

Electrodyn

Last but not least, how it looks right now. Fully functional but without the trim panels.

Electrodyn

At the point where I couldn't use the 3Sixty.2 with the factory wiring I decided to go all-out. Not having factory front grilles isn't a problem. I'll fabricate new grilles up front in a weekend. Going from factory 4.5's to 5.25's was a big improvement, but now that I have Revelator 7's in the doors it is a HUGE improvement to say the least. This 7" is equivalent to three 5.25's. And moving the factory speaker location upward will severely limit the response available to you (the listener) due to the midrange being covered by the door panel. My mids were placed to achieve the most from the drivers without any major modifications (yes, I know that what I've done might seem major, but it could have required a lot more work if done differently).

I might take out the piece that is behind the rear seat but I'm also going to cut out the rear deck some more as well. This car has ventured far past the "keeping it stock" thing.

Electrodyn

Here's how the HU install went. For those of you who don't know, Metra recently came out with a kit for the SC300/400's. It's a pretty big deal because there was NO kit before they came out with this. You always had to make your own cover panels and such. Anyway, here is the process:

Here is how it looked prior to the install (the hole under the HU is what I was talking about - I was going to build a plate but decided on a single din swap and decided to live with the hole until the new HU became a reality):


After taking the top part of the center console off you are left with this:


You then take the 4 screws on each side of the double din out and remove the head unit:


What's left is the climate control unit attached to the metal brackets. You remove the four screws (two on each side) that hold the climate control unit in place:


This kit comes with the brackets to mount it all back in place. You actually remove the metal factory bracket and install this plastic bracket.


Here's a pic of the Eclipse 7200 mkII before install. Notice the copper goodness.

Electrodyn

You have to test fit your HU to the bracket and the face plate. The face plate is odd because it is just held in place by friction - no screws. So with everything hanging free it's a little difficult to keep it together. The only bad thing about my HU is that the face plate is thick on it and it sticks out from the face. I could have inset the HU but there would be a hole all the way around it when the face wasn't on. And now that I think about it I'm not sure if there is enough depth to inset it without clearance issues from the back of the deck to the back of the center console.



Next step is to secure the HU and climate control to the plastic bracket:


Then you put the face plate of the kit on and attach the whole thing like you normally would. What you end up with is this:


PS: I'm going to see if I can shove the HU back a little farther into the cubby this weekend.

ICONYQ

iTrader: (3)

that looks real nice. My only other thought is....is that a remote gain or sub controller. If you wanted to keep the stock look I would put that on the vol and power button. That way it is all hidden and looks nice. Plus you do not have a meaningless ****. Just a thought.

arpham

iTrader: (2)

woah. you are nutz lol. Props on all the sweat and blood that went into this.

Electrodyn

It's a dual-purpose **** for the 3sixty.2: it controls the subwoofer output signal (level of the subwoofer) or if you press it in it controls the inputs of the 3sixty.2.

I thought about making an ABS plate that goes over the little bin and mounting the **** there, but that's a really good idea to mount it where the factory **** went. Haha, giving me ideas is always a dangerous thing.

Electrodyn

PS: I cut the rear deck lid out a little bit to free up more air into the cab and to also stop some of the resonances. The areas between the 4.5's and the hole next to it (where the amp for the sub hung) are now one big open area on both sides. I also took out the panel that covers the gas tank, but as I anticipated it didn't make any difference at all. In my particular install the rear deck is now almost completely open, so sound is going to come up through that opening easier than it will going past a 1" area around the tank and through the seat.