2014 Camry build (my new daily commuter car)

[Caraudiopro1984]

Sorry it's been awhile. Got my sub rings cut out with the flush rings, first time I used my jasper jig, worked awesome. I got the trunk floor and sides sound deadened. Started some wiring, mostly mocking things up. Built a tray to hold the crossover and a relay for the remote turn on. Also soldered some leads on my fans. Tried to get as many pics as I could. And here we go.

 

[Caraudiopro1984]

 

[Caraudiopro1984]

Also picked up a bolt/lock washer/flat washer for a factory hole in the frame for the rear battery ground. Wire brushed off some paint and got it all secured. I did spray some paint over it when I was done to protect it, forgot to grab the pic of that.

 

[Caraudiopro1984]

So I finished wiring up the amps, got my relay and fused distribution all installed. Got some nice 8ga going up to a distro, then off the distro to the fused distro. To run the 8ga a little more seamless I had to move my 4ga amp wiring over one, you’ll see in the pictures. The 8ga is fused with a 50a Maxi for catastrophes. Fuses are running 20a to the relay for all the remote turn on and the fans. A 5a to the crossover, which has a 3a in it. And then a 5a that is hooked up to the power reference wire coming from the head unit, fused to protect the wire in case of catastrophe. Cleaned up all the wiring on the bottom amp rack. Soldered all the fork terminals on. Threw in some zip ties with eyelets on them to hold everything in place. And here are the pictures.

Mocking everything up, looks pretty bad, its gets better.

See, much better.

From the other side.

8ga coming down, and the other side all cleaned up

The whole thing all finished up.

 

[Caraudiopro1984]

Got the speakers in, tackled the 3/tweet in the dash first.

used some cardboard to mock up a template

Then cut it out of some ABS, and molded it to fit with a torch and some panel tools

Covered it in foam, so no rattles

Then cut all the excess off.

I did solder in a 22uf 100v cap to protect the tweeter form any unwanted lows should be around 1800hz on a 4ohm tweeter, crossover point is 3.5k

I was really hoping to just drill out the perforations that were already there but it went horribly bad, so i cut it out and wrapped the whole thing in grill cloth. looks nice still.

 

[Caraudiopro1984]

Now onto the doors, both doors got a nice dynamat treatment, inner and outer skin. the panels got a dynamat and foam treatment. I cut a few different rings to see what thickness I needed to keep the speakers off the window. I ended up only needing the 1/4" plate and another 1/4" spacer. I cut them to fit close together then glued and screwed the spacer to the plate. Three coats of bed liner later they were ready. I foamed the mounting hole on the door. then foamed the back of each speaker.

Inner skin

Little ABS with some foam to cover the big holes

Outer skin

Cut the stock speaker plates, then needed them a little bigger so had to cut new ones

Spacer rings

Cut to fit the speaker

5.25

6.5

 

[Caraudiopro1984]

Glued and screwed together

3 coats of bedliner

Foamed the mounting holes

Plate and speakers mounted

Got a foam gasket made up so no sound gets out

Door panel with the dynamat treatment

And the foam

I pulled all the clips off the door panel while test fitting for the speakers and foam gasket, these little clips have a usage life from what I've seen

 

[Caraudiopro1984]

So onto tuning. I used an O-scope along with the JL Audio Clean sweep setup disc to set all my inputs/outputs and gains, making sure nothing was clipping. unfortunately the JBL crossover doesn't like the full 5v input from my Excelon deck. It clips at about 4.6v which is 36ish volume on the Kenwood. and I checked the output of the JBL with the "front gain" up and down, the out put always clips over 4.6v input. So I'm going to tune the system at 30 on the Kenwood volume, to give myself some head room. Even though the Alpine manual says they will only take 4v in, doesn't seem to be clipping at all with almost 6v in, so that's nice. So all my gains are set. The JL test disc has 50/200/1k/8k sign waves all at 0db. I set the High pass filter on the fronts to 60hz @ 24bd on the radio, that should cut all the real lows form the 6' midbass. On the JBL all the crossovers are 12db, the tweeter is set @ 3.5k, the 3" mid is 1khz to 3.5khz, the 5" is 200hz to 1khz and the 6 is set at 300 and down. (my amps only do 200 and down on the 5th channels.) Over all I had to turn down the gain on the 3" and Tweeter, they were just a little to bright compared to the 5/6.

now onto the RTA, I am using Audiocontrols Mobile Tools app on my Iphone, and I picked up a Dayton Audio IMM-6 calibrated mic. Cheap little way to RTA but my line on using a Audiocontrol RTA was severed when my buddy changed careers. So I took screen shots of the RTA, started with the EQ completely flat, Using the JL test disc "1/3 Octave Uncorrelated Stereo Pink Noise". Started with full test, then when to each speaker individually making sure the crossover was doing its job correctly. then messed with the EQ on the deck a bit to try and flatten it out. Just wanted to start flat for a good base to start ear tuning to my liking. All RTA’ing was done with the fade to the front only, no rears.

First full RTA

Tweet only

3" only

5" only

6" only

Full RTA after EQ'ing a bit

Here's the EQ settings from the above full RTA

From there I sat in it for a little but and played some tracks I Like, I ended up with the EQ pretty much back at flat, with the 16k down 3notches and the 10k down 2notches. I'll keep playing with it as I drive and listen to it, but i'm really liking it so far.

 

[Caraudiopro1984]

So I was playing with the JL test disc and I popped my pass side tweeter. :-( I guess that's what you get for messing with the setup while running active. Only the right one blew so I'm wondering if there was possibly an issue with the tweeter anyway, all this gear is used. So I know I have a set of older Infinity Kappa Perfect tweeters. I'm digging through all my stuff trying to find them. finally found them and I was testing to make sure they work real quick before I put em in. Nope, one of these is frozen up too. so I went on a search through all my local car audio buddies, stopped at a few local shops that I know people at seeing whats out there for a deal. I like metal domes. So I was looking for a set of Focal's preferably. One shop had a set of JL ZR series aluminum domes, but they wouldn't sell the tweets alone. On the way to work I stopped at an old shop I used to work at, they don't even carry Focal but why not see what they got. One of the installers in the back had a set of newer Phoenix Gold Elite.CS1T's, they're a soft dome, but I traded an amp I had for them and I was into the amp next to nothing. At least there a matching set and now I don't have to pay a ton for a set of Focal's, I can wait for a deal on a nice set. So these PG's will be going in first thing in the morning.

 

[Caraudiopro1984]

So I got the tweeters all installed. I had to put them on a little ABS spacer to keep them off of the 3". The alpines were a little smaller and fit without hitting the 3". First impressions, they sound pretty good, a bit louder than the alpines but not quite as crisp. I'm going to keep my eyes out for focal or metal domes.

All installed, wrapped some foam around them and the spacer under them keeping distance from the 3".

Grills back on

 

[Caraudiopro1984]

So I started my side panels for the subs, taped everything off, threw down some plastic over the amps. 2/3 layers later I've got some nice molds. I pulled them out and I'm going to go over them and make sure all is close to equal, would like at least 4 layers. Then I'll mock up the rings and get some fleece stretched over it all. Here's the start.

Some supplies

Sides taped

Plastic down

Glassing

Molds pulled

After pulling tape off for an hour, can't even tell, lol

 

[Caraudiopro1984]

So laid some more layers on the molds, once they were out it was easier to see where the thin spots were.

Let them cure overnight and cut the excess off the edges, put them back in for fitment, and now just need a little bit of edging with some sand paper and we'll be ready to stretch some fleece

 

[Caraudiopro1984]

So I upgraded my crossover, form the JBL GTX47 to the JL Audio TWK88. I watched a million videos on them and after getting a great price form a friend where I used to work. it was a no brainer. I got it all installed and set up. I did go back in and tweek the crossover points and EQ a little more, and probably will again just getting it all tuned in. Here are some pics

 

[Caraudiopro1984]

Here are my RTA pictures from before and after tuning. I must say the JL Tun software was extremely easy to use.

Before

After

Car running, and the fans on the amp rack running, they have a nice hum.

Tweets

3"

5"

6"

 

[Caraudiopro1984]

So I mounted my rings, stapled fleece to them and then stretched it over. Resin’d it then did some mat over it to get it nice a strong. Went and used a buddy’s shop and a few sanding discs on my die grinder, get them all smoothed out. Now I’m just waiting on weather to cooperate so I can Bondo the edges in the car and smooth the front panels out a bit. Here are the progress pics so far.