martian's 2001 buick build log

[martiandancer31 10+ year member]

Didn't realize you had this going, John. Very ambitous, I'm well impressed!
Don't take this the wrong way but I chuckled when I saw the port setup.

Wish I could hear this. Still have the Pioneer I see.

Thanks man, means a lot coming from you. You can see I finally took your advice and tried something besides a sealed enclosure. And with decent results, at least to my ears. When everything's time aligned and equalized well the bass sounds fantastic.

The port setup is definitely goofy, I wish i had figured out a way to make it less so but..... //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif And i definitely still have those pioneer amps, they both sound great. I even bought an old school sony amp with sanken transistors (model number is xm-250I) to power the tweeters in my front stage.....i love that amp, I cant describe it but for only being 25 watts per channel it sounds incredible.

Looking forward to seeing it. I might be attempting the led thing, not for a while though because I'm heading back to school soon.

bleh. One semester left and I finally graduate. Lulz.

 

[martiandancer31 10+ year member]

and....instead of working on my stuff, i'm gonna post an update here //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif It's like 20 degrees out and i don't feel like fiberglassing right now, so....

setting up the tweeter pods prior to the removal of the door panels.

just a lousy "before" pic so you can see the difference the new LED lightning makes.

man, i can't believe the crap they pass off as "speakers" at GM. The cones on these things were really flimsy, its no wonder they sounded like crap.

running 12 gauge speaker wires through the wet boot.

working on one of the door locks

 

[Falcons 5,000+ posts]

and to think all this great work is going on just 40 minutes away from my house...

 

[martiandancer31 10+ year member]

interior panels and such, i've had these in the house for awhile so I cleaned and conditioned them before I put them back in the car. Makes a huge difference in how they look.

working on the lighting for the window controls.

i had to take the top of the dash off to get the gauge cluster out, what a job that was!!

airbag, lulz

 

[martiandancer31 10+ year member]

modifying door panel to make the new speakers fit.

bam, new speakers in.

button cluster getting new lighting

 

[martiandancer31 10+ year member]

time to fix up this guy:

for what it's worth, I changed/added/fixed/whatever a total of 46 LEDs on this thing. I left two completely alone.

since LED's are not as diffused as incandescent bulbs (well, unless you specifically buy them like that, which i didn't), i needed to put more LED's on than there were bulbs, and in different places evenly spaced around the cluster. Basically, this simply involved measuring where the bulbs should be, supergluing them in place, and then soldering up power and ground connections to everything from the old bulb locations. Also, I had to go through and find +/- connections on the bulbs since incandescent bulbs have no polarity and LED's do.

this is the turn signal, high beams indicator, and ABS warning light.

tachometer.

ALSO, note the small LED glued in place on the while dial. This is a white LED that allows the needles on the gauge to be white even tho the rest of the gauge is blue. It looks extremely **** when it's powered up //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

temperature indicator and fuel gauge

 

[martiandancer31 10+ year member]

glory shot of whole thing, going in. I did have to mess around with resistor values some to acheive what I felt to be the correct brightness - for example, the first resistor I had on the high beam indicator allowed the LED to be so bright that when you had the high beams on you could see LESS on the road. Not good. All of this got fixed and....

believe me, it looks 1000x sexier in person. Try to imagine the numbers a deep blue and the needles white, because that's what it looks like IRL.

ran an ipod connector into the glove box. My friend's honda had an ipod connector in the glove box and I thought it was a neat idea so I copied it //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

Stay tuned, more good working coming up, hopefully!!!

 

[martiandancer31 10+ year member]

and to think all this great work is going on just 40 minutes away from my house...

and to think that it goes on in my basement!! Still boggles my mind, never thought i'd get this far....

 

[Falcons 5,000+ posts]

and to think that it goes on in my basement!! Still boggles my mind, never thought i'd get this far....

well you do great work man. the led lights are so much easier on the eyes than stock

 

[martiandancer31 10+ year member]

well you do great work man. the led lights are so much easier on the eyes than stock

thanks //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 

[rodburner 10+ year member]

That is just incredible detail work. I woulda just bought blue tinted shooting glasses for night driving..

 

[Falcons 5,000+ posts]

That is just incredible detail work. I woulda just bought blue tinted shooting glasses for night driving..

that not the look he was going for though. he has the needle bright white. makes the colors offset and look nice. good combo

 

[martiandancer31 10+ year member]

the glasses might've made things easier tho.....

this color scheme also matches my HU, which is blue and white. The total package is nice since basically all the interior lightning now matches including the radio.

 

[Falcons 5,000+ posts]

the glasses might've made things easier tho.....
this color scheme also matches my HU, which is blue and white. The total package is nice since basically all the interior lightning now matches including the radio.

since when have you taken the easy route? lol

 

[martiandancer31 10+ year member]

since when have you taken the easy route? lol

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/sneaky.gif.7189749b3a3f769e8815b47e8ae87f88.gif

lol