2005 Honda Accord low budget high SQ.

[mastershake575]

My brother's civic (2002 I think) does NOT charge higher with AC or lights on so this may not be the silver bullet, yes it does charge low.

Strange. My 2005 civic when I had it was the same generation as your brothers and the headlights on at all times worked (would get high 13.8 to 14.2, without headlights on I would be under 13 at pretty much all times).

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

Strange. My 2005 civic when I had it was the same generation as your brothers and the headlights on at all times worked (would get high 13.8 to 14.2, without headlights on I would be under 13 at pretty much all times).

His seems to hold 13.6-13.8 regardless.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

Strange. My 2005 civic when I had it was the same generation as your brothers and the headlights on at all times worked (would get high 13.8 to 14.2, without headlights on I would be under 13 at pretty much all times).

His seems to hold 13.6-13.8 regardless.

ya'll honda owners complain too much, my damn toyota doesnt charge at all on idle because my idle is stupid low at 600 rpm yes even the stock alt was like that, its something that only an ECU tune can fix on my end, some stupid **** about built in gas savings. Voltage regulators, or whatever mods ya'll can think of, doesn't work. I've tried it all. Been living of years of only full tilting when on the free way or revving during shows. My old 03 corolla was the same thing.

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

honda owners

Both of my 97 Jeeps only charged 13.6 from the factory. I don't think this is unique to Honda.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

Both of my 97 Jeeps only charged 13.6 from the factory. I don't think this is unique to Honda.

mines charge 12.0 from factory at idle. lol 13.8 when rpms are past 900. Absolute pain in the dick.

 

[SkizeR 10+ year member]

Sorry to say this wont be as SQ as you think. Because no matter what gear you have, the stock head unit will be your weak spot dragging everything into the mud. Signal is pretty much the most important part in a sound quality install right next to the install techniques. The stock head unit will always be a garbage cut and built in factory EQ'd signal to hell and an audio control LOC will just amplify that garbage now you get louder garbage. You need a dsp that can flatten the factory EQ and signal sum to get a full flat starting signal to your drivers.

Also when you do components you are at the mercy of the vehicle's acoustics and the built in and unchangeable crossover point of the passive crossover. So your SQ results when going passive is literally playing the lottery which is not a sustainable business model IMO.

Also you wont have much of a soundstage due to the rear speakers or any form of time correction and independent eq and level adjustments so pretty much its gonna be a loud and clean install vs an actual SQ oriented install

Your kinda generalizing. Some OEM signal is fine, and even great. Really depends on the car. This car will have a flat signal out of the gate. Its a 2005 accord for crying out loud. But you are right. No processing, it ain't sounding good

It will be fine. One day later if my bank account feels more love i'll spend $430 on the dash mounting/wiring harness required to use an aftermarket HU and spend another 430$ on a double din. But for now I'm on a budget, and i dont really like the lloks of that kit, my model has wood trim that is nice looking that the kit replaces with plastic and gaps. Also not crazy about the controls on the kits for the HVAC.

I could look into a dsp, sorry i'm not familiar with the term, but a flatter eq sounds beneficial. Any budget suggestions on models?

It depends what you mean by "It will be fine." Will it play? Yeah, absolutely. Loud? Yeah. Cleanly? Probably. But with accurate tonality, imaging, and staging... not without a processor. A processor will allow you to correct the acoustical nightmare that the interior of a car creates. As far as models, i only use Helix at this point. Everything else has been a letdown in some way.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

Your kinda generalizing. Some OEM signal is fine, and even great. Really depends on the car. This car will have a flat signal out of the gate. Its a 2005 accord for crying out loud. But you are right. No processing, it ain't sounding good





It depends what you mean by "It will be fine." Will it play? Yeah, absolutely. Loud? Yeah. Cleanly? Probably. But with accurate tonality, imaging, and staging... not without a processor. A processor will allow you to correct the acoustical nightmare that the interior of a car creates. As far as models, i only use Helix at this point. Everything else has been a letdown in some way.

we get a lot of people complaining about stock head units and lack of bass like hundreds of threads over the years and every time, a head unit swap always fixed the problem with no other factors changed other than dumping the lc2I. The built in high pass filter from the stock head unit that affects both front and rear speakers is the real deal that plagues most installs keeping the stock system so even with a signal sum unit, they still arent getting the full spectrum at proper levels.

 

[i2ain2thunder 10+ year member]

Going hunting this weekend and then it's time to get to work. Have all the supplies. Pic below, agm and sub enclosure in the garage but here's the rest of the mayhem.

 

[i2ain2thunder 10+ year member]

Felt like getting a headstart. Put this beauty in.

 

[Seth F.]

I'm not telling you to swap out the head unit, there's many workarounds nowadays. Some cheap, some expensive.

Cheap way would be to leave the head unit as is as a decoration and HVAC controller, still functioning but will not be used for audio. You would give up bluetooth calling capabilities this route as well. You'll be dayton audio dsp 408 and a bluetooth dongle (will run you about 180 total for those two) and pretty much hook up power, ground remote and the dsp tucked away hidden somewhere will and will act your head unit. APTX HD is lossless bluetooth and trust me, even SQ judges couldnt tell the difference between CD and APTX HD. The signal is not only flat, its amazing off the batt due to the high quality dacs of the dsp meaning you get massive amounts of detail and clarity vs using anything connected to your stock head unit, night and day difference off the batt. The DSP has 8 channels of output, each channel has 10 bands of parametric EQ, so your tweeters get 10 bands, mids get 10 bands, midbass/rears get 10 bands, subs get 10 bands. Each channel has bandpass crossovers that you can choose any frequency and any slope you can even think of. Each channel has time correction as well which is key. This costs not much more than an LC7I but is FAR superior. If you want to keep bluetooth calling and use of the head unit as the audio source, you can just use the speaker level inputs of the dayton as well. Definitely this choice over the shitty audiocontrol dinosaur tech lmao.

the more expensive option would be a 600 dollar DSP with factory de-equalization capabilites like a jl fix and twk or an audison bit one or helix dsp, works the same way as the LOC in terms of getting signal from your speakers, it sums up the signal and then has input EQ software that flattens the incoming signal and recreates a flat signal. These have everything the dayton has audio features wise just no direct bluetooth streaming on some of them. The dayton only signal sums, but does not flatten incoming signal if using the speaker level inputs.

I take it you don't like the Audio Control DM-608 or DM-810? Those DSP's have the same features you're talking about, albeit for A LOT more money, which I'm assuming would be the point for going with the Dayton?

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

I take it you don't like the Audio Control DM-608 or DM-810? Those DSP's have the same features you're talking about, albeit for A LOT more money, which I'm assuming would be the point for going with the Dayton?

yes you get pretty much the same features but the dayton software is more stable. The audio control software is buggy when i was playing with it which is why i dont recommend the unit. However that was awhile ago, not sure if theres any updates to fix it, could be different experience now but for that price i expected better stability.

 

[i2ain2thunder 10+ year member]

Did a small upgrade to the electrical, or should I say the Big 3.

 

[i2ain2thunder 10+ year member]

New serpentine belt 1 inch shorter as needed for tge HO alternator with smaller pulley. 1/0 cable engine to chasis, ho alt to battery + and battery - to chasis. Chassis wire brushed to shiny bare metal grounds.

 

[Seth F.]

View attachment 24005

New serpentine belt 1 inch shorter as needed for tge HO alternator with smaller pulley. 1/0 cable engine to chasis, ho alt to battery + and battery - to chasis. Chassis wire brushed to shiny bare metal grounds.

That’s good stuff man!