Reson8's Tbird Build Log

[SocMunky]

As stated in the title this is the build log for my 97 TBird. For those who have not seen it yet, here it is:





The equipment going in it is as follows:
PG Ti800.1
PG Ti600.2
PG Tantrum Eq15 (Titanium finish as well)
PG AX-406a Crossover
PG Ti Elite mids
and just because, pg interconnects.

The 600.2 I am still waiting on delivery of, but the other gear is here in house. I am going to try and take some pics of it all this weekend. I also have some sound deadening coming in, so I will include its install in the buildup.So far, I have ran the the power wire, but still need to do some minor work under the hood. I will post up pics of what I do have in the next post.

[SocMunky]

Well, seeing as this car already has a somewhat decent alarm installed, I am moving on to running the power wire. I am not completely done with it, but I do have a fair bit of pics, and info. So, onto the "fun"!

In having done this twice now, I'd like to point out two things:
1) There really is not a very good place on the firewall itself to run wire this big. No empty grommets, and not a lot of free space unless you have a really long drill bit, and don't mind the wire coming in at a strange spot.
2) You *HAVE* to at least take off the top part of the outer drivers side fender to do this. Taking off the whole thing would make it a ton easier, but just the top was sufficient.

For starters, here is the channel that your wire is going to run down. I am using 1/0 this time around, but I know for a fact that 0/1 will also fit.



And here is the grommet that we are going to use to go inside the car. This is located inside the drivers-side doorjam. You can see it roughly in the middle of the picture.



Here is the wire I used. Knukonceptz Fleks Kable 1/0 guage:







So, I proceeded to undo the top bolts on the fender, and the one located inside the doorjam, at the top. (I do not have a pic of that one, sorry) The bolts are 8mm, not sure if a non-metric would have worked better, but 8mm did fine.



Didn't forget these ones back here this time!



Once I gently pulled back the top of the fender, I was able to see the back end of the channel for the wire.



I gently fed it through from this end, nearest the door, instead of from the end by the battery. It made more sense to try and feet 4 or 5 feet to the front, then 10-15 through toward the back. With a bit of minor wiggling of the wire I got it through to the front.




Part 2 below.

[SocMunky]

I then ran the wire inside through the grommet, and put flex tubing on the part from the door to where it entered the fender channel at.



This is the area of the car where the wire is coming in at. Just behind the e-brake and the hood release. There is a trim panel that has one pop out holder that keeps it in place. I took this off, and pulled back the foam to get into the side of the car to pull my wire through.



I then ran the wire down the factory wiring trays, which were plenty big enough to accommodate it.



The only hitch I ran into was that I had to take off the lower seatbelt mount for the driver off. It uses a tork head, I believe a t-47. I can always look if someone should need that info.

At this point pictures are non-existent since I had all of maybe 15 minutes to finish up. I ran the wire back along the remianing factory channels, and took out the back seat bottom. This was very easy, just pushed in and pulled up. Then I ran the wire along the curve of the molding, and up underneath the seatback and into the trunk. I then put some flex tubing around it, and put everything back together the way it was before I took it out. I still have to mount the fuse behind the drivers side light, and mount the fise block in the trunk. Perhaps next weekend!

[SocMunky]

Here are some pics of some of the gear.

The 800.1:


The EQ:


The crossover:


The mids:


They are a shallow mount, which should help immensely.


And the RCA's:



I'll get up more pics as stuffs comes in. Still waiting on the mids amp, and the headunit (clarion).

[SocMunky]

Moar!

[SocMunky]

Saving a couple more for future work.

[SocMunky]

I hate heartburn, but it gives me a chance to reserve another one!

[SocMunky]

one more for good measure!

[SocMunky]

Brett Favre to Tampa Bay?

[Fusion_FREAK]

Cool, I always liked that style of T birds. That must have been a bish to run the wire. Try to run speaker wire in a civic thru the door boot. It's not just a boot with wires, it's a boot covering a plug. I had to take the door off and drill a hole, I used the stock wire for the other side.

[SocMunky]

Cool, I always liked that style of T birds. That must have been a bish to run the wire. Try to run speaker wire in a civic thru the door boot. It's not just a boot with wires, it's a boot covering a plug. I had to take the door off and drill a hole, I used the stock wire for the other side.

Yeah, it was a pain in the arse for sure. Second time around, still, only took about two hours. I think I could easily have shaved of 30-45 minutes of that by having the correct sized tools around, and didn't spend time trying to figure out how to get the inside wheelwell off instead....

[95BlackGA]

Nice car, but the rear tires need to be bigger. Looks like a retarded hotwheels car like that. Needs to be filled out more. Was there any certain reasoning for running mainly PG? Can you get better detailed pictures of the wiring being ran though the fender area? You could have saved A LOT of time and work running it underneath the car.

[bball09124]

Cool, I always liked that style of T birds. That must have been a bish to run the wire. Try to run speaker wire in a civic thru the door boot. It's not just a boot with wires, it's a boot covering a plug. I had to take the door off and drill a hole, I used the stock wire for the other side.

Try running power nearly the exact same way as the OP did as well as running speaker wire through solid plastic plugs. After running speaker wire for the second time through doors I swear I'm never doing it again.

And to the OP, looks like everything is coming along nicely.

[SocMunky]

Nice car, but the rear tires need to be bigger. Looks like a retarded hotwheels car like that. Needs to be filled out more. Was there any certain reasoning for running mainly PG? Can you get better detailed pictures of the wiring being ran though the fender area? You could have saved A LOT of time and work running it underneath the car.

Yeah, that they do. I think I could easily fit 20's all around and it still look good. One day!

I always liked pg's stuff. Pretty well built, and at a decent price nowadays. Figured if I was gonna run pg amps, why not just go all the way? I mean, I certainly did not have to use pg rca's, or the eq really, but as it's all the same finish, I though it'd be a nice visual setup.

[SocMunky]

Try running power nearly the exact same way as the OP did as well as running speaker wire through solid plastic plugs. After running speaker wire for the second time through doors I swear I'm never doing it again.

And to the OP, looks like everything is coming along nicely.

Thanks!

I swear I don't want to ever have to run more power cable in another car for at least 6 months minimum!