Topless Stang 10+ year member
Member
I didn't know where else to put this so I figured I'd put it here. About 2 weeks ago I began installing my equipment. I measured out my cable runs for the Big 3 upgrade and my amp. I cut those and soldered on the ring terminals. I connected one cable end to a spare bolt on my Alt casing and the other end to the batt terminal. i connected one cable end to the positive feed from my alt and the other end to the pos batt terminal. I connected one cable end to my strut tower and the other end to my batt terminal. I stripped my interior bare and rolled down 80 sq ft of Damplifier by Second Skin Audio. After that I sprayed in 2 gallons of Spectrum. I let that dry for two days since it was soooo cold. While I waited for it to dry I sanded my speaker mounting brackets and the inside of my 8" door mounted sub enclosure. I sprayed Spectrum inside of the door enclosure, the 5x7 to 6.5" MDF adapter plates & on my 8" MDF speaker rings. I used a 1-5/8" hole saw to drill holes into my A-Pillars and mounted my tweets. After the Spectrum dried on the MDF I applied a small bead of silicone around the edge of the speaker brackets, screwed the MDF adapter plates to the speaker brackets, applied weather stripping to the rear of the 6.5" speakers and screwed them into the MDF adapter plates. Once that was done I did the same thing to the 8" opening in my door panel & 8" MDF ring. I attached my 8" subs(being used for midbass) to the MDF rings using the same process I used for the 6.5" speakers.
On the second day after applying the Spectrum Spray I ran all of my wiring to the spare tire well and connected it to my Batcap400. From the batcap 400 I ran a short power wire to a ANL fuse holder and ran power and ground through my spare tire cover/trunk floor up to where my amp would sit. I attached the fully assembled speaker brackets to the car and ran the wiring for them & the 8" door subs through my doors and into the car. I routed the RCA signal cables and all speaker wires on the driver side since the power and ground ran from my battery to the trunk on the passenger side. I placed the crossovers near the top of the footwells on the driver & passenger sides and connected the mids & tweeters to it. I connected my amp in the trunk and tested out the rear fill, door mids & tweets and was very happy. Then I started to install my interior. I put the rear seats back in, followed by the carpet and rear sail panels. I then connected my in door 8" subs and installed my door panels. those were a ***** to get back on....after all of that was done I connected everything up to the amp in the trunk that was missing for a final test. I was blown away...I didn't think a drop top could have decent bass...but I feel like I accomplished my goal...somewhat. I was unhappy with the crappy MTX sub that came with my stealth box, but that was OK because I was sending my blown old school 18" XXX sub for a recone/rebasket into a 12" to replace the MTX. I cleaned up the mess I made in the garage and prepared for my first day back to work in almost 3 weeks.
The next morning arrives and I'm fairly happy that I get to take it out and really turn everything up and tweak the sound/EQ a bit. When I go into the office it's a 140mile round trip commute, so I would get a fair amount of listening in....OR SO I THOUGHT!!! I was driving for about 40 miles/minutes when everything cut out and I smelled the dreaded scent of burning electronics. I couldn't check it out until I got into work...and when I opened my trunk a faintly lit 'Protection' light on my amp greeted me. I borrowed a MM from a co-worker and everything checked out ok. So I contacted Rockford and to my surprise since I didn't buy from a Authorized Dealer my amp that saw a total usage time of 50 minutes required a total out of pocket repair expense of approx. $280. I'm happy it's fixed and should be back in my hands next week....but I'm not happy my $520 amp turned out to cost $800. At least I now have a 90day warranty which is better than nothing. I know now I will never buy a Rockford Amp from anyone except an Authorized Dealer if at all. Since I had to pay for this I wasn't able to send my sub off to get fixed either...and now I probably won't be able to for at least another month.
My equipment used was:
80 Sq Ft of Damplifer
2 Gallons Spectrum Spray
50' KnuKoncepts KLMX 1/0 Gauge Power Wire
50' KnuKoncepts KLMX 1/0 Gauge Ground Wire
100' Twisted Pair 16 Gauge KnuKonceptz Speaker Wire
Moster 360 5channel Signal Wire
Rockford Fosgate '25 To Life' Power1000 5ch Amp
Hertz HCX165 6.5 Coaxial Speakers (rear)
Hertz HSK165 6.5 Component Set
Pair of Kicker CVT 8" Subs (Front Door Subs)
Bassformer Custom Stealth 12" Box w/MTX Thunder Sub(soon to be replaced w/fresh PSI reconed/rebasketed 12)
100Hz Hi Pass FMod Xover
I had the amp set up this way:
Front & Rear Right - Front Right Channel on Amp
Front & Rear Left - Front Left Channel on Amp
Kicker 8" door subs - Bridged to 2Ohms Mono using Rear channel on Amp
12" Sub Connected to Sub Channel(currently 4ohms, once replaced it will be 1Ohm)
I found a good way to hook up the door subs for good midbass. I connected the rear channel RCA feed to the 100Hz Hi-Pass Fmod passive xover and on the amp I set the rear channel to Low Pass with a cutoff of 330hz. The front channel that has my mids, tweets & coaxials is set to High pass with a cutoff of 330Hz.
Rockford updated their site with the following info about what repairs were done to my amp:
Repair Comments:
* REPAIRED LEFT SUBWOOFER CHANNEL
* REPAIRED POWER SUPPLY
* REPAIRED TURN ON CIRCUIT
* REPLACED INSULATOR
I replaced my RF amp with an old Visonik v500HC 4ch amp I had in my garage so i could have something to listen to and that didn't show any signs of having any problems. Hopefully once I get my RF amp back I'll be happy. I really don't see what I could have done to cause the type of issues that required repairing, especially since my old amp is working without any problems and doesn't have all of the bells & whistles(protections) that the RF amp has. To add insult to injury my iPhone was stolen out of my car when I was out of town....so I lost all of my build out pics...not to mention a device that still goes for just over $300 used(I have the 16GB 3g).
On the second day after applying the Spectrum Spray I ran all of my wiring to the spare tire well and connected it to my Batcap400. From the batcap 400 I ran a short power wire to a ANL fuse holder and ran power and ground through my spare tire cover/trunk floor up to where my amp would sit. I attached the fully assembled speaker brackets to the car and ran the wiring for them & the 8" door subs through my doors and into the car. I routed the RCA signal cables and all speaker wires on the driver side since the power and ground ran from my battery to the trunk on the passenger side. I placed the crossovers near the top of the footwells on the driver & passenger sides and connected the mids & tweeters to it. I connected my amp in the trunk and tested out the rear fill, door mids & tweets and was very happy. Then I started to install my interior. I put the rear seats back in, followed by the carpet and rear sail panels. I then connected my in door 8" subs and installed my door panels. those were a ***** to get back on....after all of that was done I connected everything up to the amp in the trunk that was missing for a final test. I was blown away...I didn't think a drop top could have decent bass...but I feel like I accomplished my goal...somewhat. I was unhappy with the crappy MTX sub that came with my stealth box, but that was OK because I was sending my blown old school 18" XXX sub for a recone/rebasket into a 12" to replace the MTX. I cleaned up the mess I made in the garage and prepared for my first day back to work in almost 3 weeks.
The next morning arrives and I'm fairly happy that I get to take it out and really turn everything up and tweak the sound/EQ a bit. When I go into the office it's a 140mile round trip commute, so I would get a fair amount of listening in....OR SO I THOUGHT!!! I was driving for about 40 miles/minutes when everything cut out and I smelled the dreaded scent of burning electronics. I couldn't check it out until I got into work...and when I opened my trunk a faintly lit 'Protection' light on my amp greeted me. I borrowed a MM from a co-worker and everything checked out ok. So I contacted Rockford and to my surprise since I didn't buy from a Authorized Dealer my amp that saw a total usage time of 50 minutes required a total out of pocket repair expense of approx. $280. I'm happy it's fixed and should be back in my hands next week....but I'm not happy my $520 amp turned out to cost $800. At least I now have a 90day warranty which is better than nothing. I know now I will never buy a Rockford Amp from anyone except an Authorized Dealer if at all. Since I had to pay for this I wasn't able to send my sub off to get fixed either...and now I probably won't be able to for at least another month.
My equipment used was:
80 Sq Ft of Damplifer
2 Gallons Spectrum Spray
50' KnuKoncepts KLMX 1/0 Gauge Power Wire
50' KnuKoncepts KLMX 1/0 Gauge Ground Wire
100' Twisted Pair 16 Gauge KnuKonceptz Speaker Wire
Moster 360 5channel Signal Wire
Rockford Fosgate '25 To Life' Power1000 5ch Amp
Hertz HCX165 6.5 Coaxial Speakers (rear)
Hertz HSK165 6.5 Component Set
Pair of Kicker CVT 8" Subs (Front Door Subs)
Bassformer Custom Stealth 12" Box w/MTX Thunder Sub(soon to be replaced w/fresh PSI reconed/rebasketed 12)
100Hz Hi Pass FMod Xover
I had the amp set up this way:
Front & Rear Right - Front Right Channel on Amp
Front & Rear Left - Front Left Channel on Amp
Kicker 8" door subs - Bridged to 2Ohms Mono using Rear channel on Amp
12" Sub Connected to Sub Channel(currently 4ohms, once replaced it will be 1Ohm)
I found a good way to hook up the door subs for good midbass. I connected the rear channel RCA feed to the 100Hz Hi-Pass Fmod passive xover and on the amp I set the rear channel to Low Pass with a cutoff of 330hz. The front channel that has my mids, tweets & coaxials is set to High pass with a cutoff of 330Hz.
Rockford updated their site with the following info about what repairs were done to my amp:
Repair Comments:
* REPAIRED LEFT SUBWOOFER CHANNEL
* REPAIRED POWER SUPPLY
* REPAIRED TURN ON CIRCUIT
* REPLACED INSULATOR
I replaced my RF amp with an old Visonik v500HC 4ch amp I had in my garage so i could have something to listen to and that didn't show any signs of having any problems. Hopefully once I get my RF amp back I'll be happy. I really don't see what I could have done to cause the type of issues that required repairing, especially since my old amp is working without any problems and doesn't have all of the bells & whistles(protections) that the RF amp has. To add insult to injury my iPhone was stolen out of my car when I was out of town....so I lost all of my build out pics...not to mention a device that still goes for just over $300 used(I have the 16GB 3g).
