2002 Toyota Camry - KHA's wife gets a system

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

The original thread was closed. The car still lives.

My wife has driven Camrys most of her adult life. 1994, 1998, and currently a 2002. Her dad bought one every 4 years and it was handed down to her each time. The 1998 got a system that consisted of an Alpine HU (deadhead), xtant 403a, Massive Audio CK6 (1999 version), and a Vega124 sub.

the 2002 has had an Alpine HU of some sort, it changes a lot because i use her car as a home for temporary head units that i'm not running.

Stock 6x9's were replaced with Eclipse point source 5x7's that used a hacked-up factory mount (you'll see below). stock 2" stayed in the dash. amps were added but it never lived up to my standards. time to change that.

i delayed a more involved system because of the head bolt problem i knew would surface. i've recently fixed that:

Now it has an Alpine CDE-HD149BT at the front that will stay.

Amp is a Polk PA660 (and will add to that soon). Amp is ok for SQ, i have better ones sitting on shelves.

Speakers are MB Quart, older German-made components up front and coax rear.

Sub undecided but will be IB 12", low power.

Last night i took to the front doors. we'll start there.

stock with the Eclipse

factory mount mates perfectly with the door and is odd enough i reused it. cut 3/4" MDF (quickly with a jig saw because it was just filler)

BXT II

Click to read more...

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

foam for seals

time to treat the door - KHA style

fiberglass ceiling tile and some ultratouch bags down low.

CCF for decoupling of the MLV

Passenger Side

this is how the Eclipse were mounted

and now the MB Quart

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

again with the door

dash mids were removed, tweeters added behind stock grills. no pics, no big deal here

HU

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

for a year or so the system was ran off a single Polk PA660 under the passenger seat. there was no sub.

She was complaining of some distortion in a few songs (she's trained well) and wanted some low end so I figured it was time for an upgrade.

First, cleaning the car:

Amps to be used are two i was saving; Alpine MRV-F405 and Alpine MRV-F300. The F405 will run the front comps active (active capable) while the F300 runs the rears (kids) and a sub.

a board was cut to fill the rear seat opening

vinyl was used to cover both sides

prepping the amp layout

done

temporary sub (Ultra Subs LV10)

final sub will likely be an Ultra Subs A12 in a larger enclosure that maintains most of the trunk space (maybe a fiberglass rear corner enclosure). She doesn't need to shake other cars but does want an SQ amount of low end.

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

Also, previously the front comps were ran passive with the crossovers under the driver's seat

You can see the amps are daisy-chained for power and ground. This simplified wiring and was fine for the current expected. The F405 is fused internally at 40A. The F300 is fused internally at 30A. I ran 4 awg from front to back then 8 awg to each amp. The system is fused at 40A (based on actual power usage) at the battery and at the amp rack.

For the connections, i used my new hydraulic crimper to secure two 8 awg wires in one 4 awg ring terminal.

Previously, the carpet had been stained from 10 years with kids in the back seat. I removed the carpet and scrubbed like crazy.

Before

After

Reassembly after cleaning

The car has 180k miles on it. It is very peppy after the engine rebuild. Suspension got new coil overs at all corners. Brakes and tires are kept up. Car rides well. Plenty of life left.

 

[macsdad 10+ year member]

You do good work dude, looks pretty good.

 

[dttimma]

Your work is better than any "pro" shop out there. Genuinely impressed with your attention to detail, makes me want to redo everything in my car ?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

Your work is better than any "pro" shop out there. Genuinely impressed with your attention to detail, makes me want to redo everything in my car ?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

thanks for the compliment. there are many pro installers that are incredible fabricators that put anything i do in the amateur category. that said, many shops are working on a timeline and profit margin that prevents attention to detail. if an owner wants to pay an hourly rate, the installer can take as much time as the owner wants. i probably have 20 hours in this system install and time isn't a factor that concerns me. that said, no one would pay for that much time with this as a result. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

I didn't discuss listening impressions much.

The MB Quart sound great and have usable output down to 50Hz. The door speaker install and door treatments are my trick to awesome front midbass.

The Alpine head unit does a good job and gives me enough tuning to be useful. I had a CDA-9887 in there before.

The Ultra sub is a monster but greatly underpowered given the amp and tiny enclosure. It just isn't an efficient sub stage. The Ultra A12 will do much better once a replacement enclosure is built (this winter).

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

The soundstage in the cart is pretty decent given the adjustments available. the CDE-HD149BT offers enough flexibility to get a focused center image with expected width.

 

[audioman14]

i have the same car .how do you get the bass to follow in to the cab. i cant figure out how to get it loud