'98 Civic Starting Out

[IBmikexxx 10+ year member]

I currently have one Kicker L5 12" with a 1000 watt Sony Xplode pushing it, stock mids/highs, and Pioneer DEH-P6000UB head unit. I want to spend some money and begin to work this audio set up. What would you focus on first as far as upgrading and/or replacing.

Any direction/criticism. Much appreciated.

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[johndoe1234 10+ year member]

get rid of the sony amp...

 

[Andrew12 10+ year member]

Is yours a 2 or 4 door? What model? I have a 99' civic ex coupe. Solid cars

 

[vellocet 10+ year member]

How about getting a cadence txa3004 from the authorised ebay seller for 100. Throw some nice components on it.

From there upgrade your sub amp.

It works for now. Spending money on improving your substage while what's playing the majority of the recorded sound is stock is backwards.

 

[IBmikexxx 10+ year member]

Its a 2 Door EX Coupe. Yeah thats what I was thinking was replacing mids and highs while grabbing a capacitor with it so my lights won't blink.

What is everyones take on mids and highs? I think ultimately I want to either end up with two 12's or two 15's in the trunk while sticking with Kickers. Either L5's or L7's depending on what kind of money i'm making when I go to replace those. If that has any influence over what someone would do with mids and highs

 

[vellocet 10+ year member]

The capacitor won't stop your lights from blinking. I hope they only dim at high volume. You need an electrical upgrade or at least do the big 3.

The alternator on your car is probably not putting out enough juice for your very wastefull amp. If you really want a cap, I have one I can sell you.

Have you considered getting one nice sub and running it in a custom ported box?

What are your goals for this system?

 

[IBmikexxx 10+ year member]

Well I'm sure they dim at somewhat lower volumes as well but its real noticeable at higher volumes. What are the "big 3," and where do I look at new alts for my car that are sufficient for the power required in all this?

Do you think I should stray away from like two L7's? Would I find myself able to get a much nicer sub if I went in that direction?

As of right now I really just want my car to bang and be loud. I also want to look at putting in speakers that project outside, usually under the hood from what I've seen. But I want to have those connected to a switch that I won't always run.

 

[gunz4me 10+ year member]

One of my vehicles is a 97 EX coupe and I can tell you some common pitfalls with this vehicle.

1. It has a weak alternator. Depending on your stock alternator it will be between 70 and 85 amps. It is hard to determine because Honda uses either the Mitsubishi or Nippondenso depending on what was available when your car was assembled. Also, changing the alternator is a royal PITA. Not hard, just time consuming because you need to remove a bunch of stuff. This is especially true if your replacement alternator has an overdrive pulley on it!

2. You have an Electrical Load Detector circuit. What this does is ramps your alternator voltage back when there is no load on your electrical system. It is a nice pretty square box inside of your under the hood fuse box. In other words, if you get a HO alternator, it's output will be controlled by the ECU based on your electrical system's load. I went with a reprogrammed ECU to do away with the ELD circuit, but, my vehicle will not pass an emissions test now! Lucky for me they don't do that in my parish (county for the rest of you)!

3. You don't have jack for mounting depth in the front doors. Conversely, if you use MDF spacers, you can't use the factory grills to maintain a stock/stealth look without a lot of customization.

4. Your doors have molex plugs. It is challenging to find room to run two sets of speaker wire through the driver's door if you want to run an active setup for your mid and tweet. Right now I am running passive, but the wheels are turning for when I run active. I may just pull the fenders and drill new holes for the door speakers. I need to fix a dent in my passenger side front fender anyhow...

5. Removing the rear deck speakers is a beyatch. If you run rear speakers, I suggest mounting them from the bottom of the deck so you don't have to disassemble 40% of your interior just to get to them again.

6. You don't have much space under the hood for a decent sized battery. I used a Kinetik HC1400.

I think I covered all the fun and games you will encounter. Good luck!

 

[bigaudiofanati2 10+ year member]

I think all you need to do is upgrade your alt and you should be fine. I rely don't think you need to put an extra battery and all that in the car.

 

[Andrew12 10+ year member]

One of my vehicles is a 97 EX coupe and I can tell you some common pitfalls with this vehicle.
1. It has a weak alternator. Depending on your stock alternator it will be between 70 and 85 amps. It is hard to determine because Honda uses either the Mitsubishi or Nippondenso depending on what was available when your car was assembled. Also, changing the alternator is a royal PITA. Not hard, just time consuming because you need to remove a bunch of stuff. This is especially true if your replacement alternator has an overdrive pulley on it!

2. You have an Electrical Load Detector circuit. What this does is ramps your alternator voltage back when there is no load on your electrical system. It is a nice pretty square box inside of your under the hood fuse box. In other words, if you get a HO alternator, it's output will be controlled by the ECU based on your electrical system's load. I went with a reprogrammed ECU to do away with the ELD circuit, but, my vehicle will not pass an emissions test now! Lucky for me they don't do that in my parish (county for the rest of you)!

3. You don't have jack for mounting depth in the front doors. Conversely, if you use MDF spacers, you can't use the factory grills to maintain a stock/stealth look without a lot of customization.

4. Your doors have molex plugs. It is challenging to find room to run two sets of speaker wire through the driver's door if you want to run an active setup for your mid and tweet. Right now I am running passive, but the wheels are turning for when I run active. I may just pull the fenders and drill new holes for the door speakers. I need to fix a dent in my passenger side front fender anyhow...

5. Removing the rear deck speakers is a beyatch. If you run rear speakers, I suggest mounting them from the bottom of the deck so you don't have to disassemble 40% of your interior just to get to them again.

6. You don't have much space under the hood for a decent sized battery. I used a Kinetik HC1400.

I think I covered all the fun and games you will encounter. Good luck!

Haha, spoken like a pro. I couldn't have said it better ma self

 

[IBmikexxx 10+ year member]

**** me. This sounds like this car is shitty for even investing in much better audio, but forums are so sick and you guys are really helpful, so lets talk cars. Whats a good car to put some work in to. Keeping in mind I would rather stay away from bigger cars, for gas purposes, if I can, however if I can't, flow some ideas and why certain year/make/models are so nice for this kind of stuff.

I really appreciate the help

 

[gunz4me 10+ year member]

What kind of final power are you planning on running? I ran 750 watts RMS off of the stock alternator with a kinetik battery. When I upped it to 1,500 watts RMS, I had to charge my Kinetik every now and again. I am going to stop at 2,000 watts RMS though.

Right now I have one Lunar L60x2 powering each set of door component speakers passive at 280 watts RMS per door. For my sub I have a 25 to Life Punch 150 powering a single digital designs 1508 in a "test" enclosure. My door speakers consist of a CDT TW-25 tweeter and an Alpine Type R 6.5 " woofer:

That Punch 150 birthed at just under 1,000 watts RMS, so let's say 900 for the sake of argument, even though it has 120 amps of fusing.

This is my old dd1010 enclosure that I built another baffle for to house the 1508 on a temporary basis:

Sounds pretty dang nice! //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 

[IBmikexxx 10+ year member]

I think my ultimate goal is to be running either two 12's or 15's, and have some mids and highs that will make my car scream. Also I want to run something under the hood on a switch so I can project some outside of the car as well. I don't think I'll ever get in to competition bass and worrying so much about spl stuff, but I want my stuff to get loud.

 

[thegreatestpenn 5,000+ posts]

you can forget about 15's unless you do a trunk-style wall. I have 2 12's in my civic and they pound, but the rear deck is rattling like balls.

A good comp set will do you wonders for highs, then all u'll need is some rearfill off the deck.

don't worry about "projecting" outside the car. A good comp set will be heard outside just fine.

Def do the big 3. The alt is WEAK.

btw my sig is my civic's trunk.

 

[alvitae 10+ year member]

**** me. This sounds like this car is shitty for even investing in much better audio, but forums are so sick and you guys are really helpful, so lets talk cars. Whats a good car to put some work in to. Keeping in mind I would rather stay away from bigger cars, for gas purposes, if I can, however if I can't, flow some ideas and why certain year/make/models are so nice for this kind of stuff.
I really appreciate the help

Crx maybe? good on gas, Easy to get loud, Hatchbacks are easy to work on your audio with. Short runs for your wiring. Can be picked up cheap. Lots of after market stuff. 3 styles to choose from, High fuel economy (hf), Sport (si) and regular (dx). The dx's can come with automatics.