1998 Honda Accord 2dr Install - Daily Driver

[niebur3 10+ year member]

I thought it was about time I posted a build log. This car is my daily driver, a 1998 Honda Accord 2dr. I have a 1998 White Pontiac Firebird that a few on here have seen from USACi sq competitions. I have gone to finals with the firebird a couple of time and this year went home with a trophy in Consumer Q. Anyway, I decided to put a system in my daily driver aimed very budget minded and toward my kids. Everything you see in the car cost me roughly $1000 and I did 100% of the install.

Equipment:

Head Unit - Clarion MAX385VD

Monitors - Clarion VMA570

Speakers - Alpine SPX-F17T

Subwoofer - Image Dynamics IDQV3D2

Amp1 - Alpine MRV-F353

Amp2 - Jl Audio 500/1

Most of these products were bought used at very low prices.

The idea of the install was to provide decent sound quality utilizing stock locations and creating a stealth install and having a system my kids would also be happy with.

First thing installed was the head unit:

It was pretty easy and straight forward. The previous owner of the car had installed a second cruise control switch for after market fog lamps, but they couldn't figure out how it worked because they had a little toggle switch wired in the little pull out drawer underneath it. So, I switched thing up a little. I wired the Parking Brake wire from the Head Unit to the other Cruise Control switch and now I can watch movies with the car moving - anyone on here police.

This car gets an iPod cable, because I need all the original CD for my other car. For the sq people, I downloaded all CD's using Apple Lossless...it at least helps! I installed the iPod cable in the top compartment of my center console to easy access and I can control everything from my Head Unit.

I then installed the monitors in the head rests (again, no pics). Very easy, just cut the area out according to the template and secured it in using a 1/4" piece of MDF, screws and velcro.

In the console, I installed 2 switches. 1 is used to turn on/off the fog lamps and the other is to turn on/off the headrest monitors for when the kids are not in the car.

The SPX-F17T speakers consist of a 6.5 midrange/mid-bass, 5.25 midrange, and 1" tweeter. This set has passive crossovers with many different options using jumper bars depending on what you want to do with each speaker. I wanted a stealth/factory looking install, so I ruled out kick panels and decided the factory locations were sufficient. I also needed speakers in the back for the kids to hear the movie - the main goal here was to allow me to use the fader in the Head Unit so they could listen to the movie so me and the wife could talk about which ****** position to try that night!

I installed the 6.5 in the factory locations on the door. Very simple (wooden spacer made from MDF) and sorry no pics. I used the setting on the crossover that allowed me to have the 6.5 play the midrange and mid-bass as a 2 way setup.

The 5.25 from this set were mounted in the rear deck 6X9 locations using a simple wooden spacer from MDF (sorry no pics again). These are playing full range off the amp for the kids.

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[niebur3 10+ year member]

The tweeters would not fit in the factory locations in the dash due to the depth. These are the scan speak made for alpine and are around 2" deep. I decided to mount these in the a-pillar firing across at each other. I took the factory mounting angle cups and curved them to fit the pillar better using a dremel. Then, I glued them to the pillar and stretched grill cloth over the cups. I used fiberglass resin to create the final shape and finished with a little body filler. I covered the whole pillar in black grill cloth because I thought it looked nice with all the black in the dash already and stretched very well.

 

[niebur3 10+ year member]

I have 2 amps, but the JL is in very poor physical condition due to the previous owner (hence why it was so cheap). So I only wanted the Alpine (which was in almost mint condition) to show. I built a box for the Alpine to mount in and cut out sections of the sides for cooling. I am only using 4 of the 5 channels just for the Alpine speakers, so it won't need much cooling. I made a panel covered in matching vinyl with the plexi so you can see the amp when the seats are folded down. The crossovers are mounted outside of the amp box out of view. The amp box, crossovers and power distribution block are all mounted to a 1/2 piece of MDF. The sub box is then mounted to the other side of this piece with the JL 500/1 mounted next to the sub box.

The final panel in the trunk was made out of 1/4" MDF to cover everything and pressure fits around the sub. Sections of the MDF over the sub opening were cut to allow the bass to flow though. The cover is covered in felt I found at the fabric store for 2.49/yd that matches almost perfectly.

Well, that is it. A simple install that meets all my needs I set out for.

 

[niebur3 10+ year member]

Oh yeah...pics of the car...a little dirty, but here they are:

And this is a pic of the car some of you have seen at finals....the garage kept complete sq car //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif If you look close you can see the ghost bird on the hood!

 

[DB-Audio 10+ year member]

looks nice man good job

 

[manny1337 10+ year member]

wow what a nice install man =P. wish i had those skills lol. what you runnin in the bird?

 

[michaellane 5,000+ posts]

so how does it look in person having those 2 pillars a different color??? i was gonna wrap mine in some suede.....?

 

[WrenchGuy 10+ year member]

Cool.

Friend has the same car gonna link him to this build.

Good work man.

 

[-Leister- 10+ year member]

You made the pillars look soo easy.

 

[niebur3 10+ year member]

wow what a nice install man =P. wish i had those skills lol. what you runnin in the bird?

Thanks. Here is the equipment in the bird:

Amps:

Mcintosh MC420

McIntosh MC440

Speakers:

Tweeters - Dynaudio Esotec MD130

Midrange - Dynaudio Esotar2 430

Midbass - Dynaudio Esotec MW182

Sub - Image Dynamics IDQ10

Head Unit/Processor:

Pioneer P9 Combo (Dex-p9 / Deq-p9)

Speaker Cable and RCA's:

Ixos Gamma Geometry - Wire

Ixos Ixotica custom - RCA's

so how does it look in person having those 2 pillars a different color??? i was gonna wrap mine in some suede.....?

Looks good, you can see from the pic showing the whole dash that many items are outlined in black from the factory....so looks like it fits in, but I kinda wondered that myself when I first had the idea....I figured black looked better than mismatching tan //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 

[6spdcoupe 5,000+ posts]

Looks good Jerry, now about that M50 ... //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

Also, gimme a call about an Esotar 1200. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

 

[hatedonmostly 5,000+ posts]

Clean the bugs off the front of the Bird or ban

 

[Synyster97XLT 10+ year member]

Pillars look good, I'll admit, but they're not my style.