Volvo S60 build resurrected! Old School!

[americannight 10+ year member]

So I figure out today that Absolute breaker is defective. A couple times the amp just shut down (no protect light, just powered off) and then by tapping the breaker it came back on. The wire is tight on both ends so something internal to the breaker is bad. I replaced it with a stinger AGC inline fuse block. So far haven't blown the fuse. So this will probably work until I get a better breaker.

What are people doing these days to fasten down their sub boxes to the vehicle? My current thought is to bolt it from behind. With the seats down I could use some back-strap or metal plates to screw it on to the vehicle metal. Any other good solutions out there?

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

Started applying the vinyl to the box today. I completely messed up the first piece of vinyl. Cut off a second piece, glad I bought extra. ****, this shape is difficult to work with! It was a tug of war and a battle of man (and woman) versus box. I can't thank my awesome wife enough for stepping in and helping me with this. She brought a sense of composure and patience that were much needed to this job. With her help, we got the front and top done. Once it dries, we'll tackle the sides. But these are the most important, visible surfaces. So at least I have the peace of mind knowing all will look OK. There are a few small creases/bubbles on the top but that was unavoidable with this shape. I think it looks about as nice as possible with one piece of vinyl. I guess another way to go would be to use a separate sheet for the top and stitch it but I'm really not much of a seamstress. Here's how it finished up:

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

sorry, duplicate post

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

All I can add here today is that this kind of vinyl job takes patience. I would really enjoy seeing someone who does this for a living apply the vinyl to a box like this to see what kind of tricks they have up their sleeve. So yesterday me and my wife got the vinyl stretched over the front and top. Tonight, me and my son tackled wrapping the vinyl around the sides, especially paying attention to the areas that will be visible when looking into the trunk. I think we did a good job here but it took a lot of patience and about 2 hours just to do the sides and the top port cut-outs. Important to note are the weights and bowls that we used to press down on the ports to hold the vinyl into place. Without the weights, we were getting some creases around the edge of the port holes. We needed the weights to push it down and hold everything tight. It should be set once the glue dries. I'm hoping tomorrow is the night to get all of this done and in the trunk. We shall see. I need to mount the woofers, cut a rectangle of vinyl and apply it to the back, and also make some minor adjustments in the trunk. Everything needs to get fastened down and I have a couple of levers in the trunk that pop the back seats which need to get mounted somewhere with wire ties at this point so they are accessible (should I need to pop the seats to get behind and unbolt the box at some point, such as to change a tail light bulb). We are close! Can't wait to have everything in finally to enjoy the system. Having the box in last Friday/Saturday really wet my appetite to have a full on system in the car again.

 

[tlaai12]

up cho các b?n nè, bán du?c nhi?u hÃ*ng nhé

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

It always surprises me how long small tasks take with this build. Tonight, got the woofer holes cut, ports mounted, cut away extra vinyl from around the sides and tacked the vinyl down around the back, glued a big square of vinyl onto the back of the box just for the heck of it (the back of the box won't be visible. This took about 3 hours. Here's a picture. If you look closely you can see the woofers aren't actually mounted in all the way. I screwed them down far enough to press the vinyl down. In the morning, I'll take the woofers out and trim the vinyl just below where it will be visible around the woofers. The woofers fit very tight in the holes so there is not any room for excess vinyl around the edges. So I'm going to trim the vinyl around the edge just about 1/8" down.

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

For those following the build log, the stitches came out today and the bass went in! I'm not sure which hurt more! What took me the longest today was actually fastening down the enclosure. This surprised me, thinking it would be easy to find somewhere to use some L brackets or back-strap behind the rear seat. But the Volvo has some really interesting folds in the metal which made it challenging to "do right". I ended up taking a metal plate and shaping it with a hammer with my vice. This took some time to figure out and make two of them. Then I used those pieces to screw the enclosure down from behind the rear seats. Here is a set of glow shots from tonight. Tomorrow I'll spend some time tweaking the gains on the amps and dialing in the sound to my ears. There are a few small things left over to do. The LED lights in the trunk need to be aimed to my liking and glue gunned into place so they spotlight the subwoofers. I still need to get a carpet or rug cut to fit in the trunk. I think this will be a nice touch. I'll also be adding some more sound deadening material to the trunk lid. Actually it's not bad considering the pressure in the trunk. I also need to fix the reading light in the rear of the car. I messed it up putting the LEDs in there and so it does not stay on well. I need to fashion something to hold it on better. I also have a broken sunroof that needs my attention now that the system is done. I'll probably deaden the roof of the car while I do that job. Lots of little things to do now but all the heavy lifting is done! Can't believe I am nearing the end on this build. It has been a long steady march and I've learned a lot in the process. I would definitely do a few things differently, knowing now what I didn't know then about this kind of fabrication. But overall I couldn't be more happy with how this turned out. Time for a beer.

 

[husker77 10+ year member]

Looks really good.

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

Thanks dude! Most importantly, I'm really happy with the way this all sounds. I listen to ALL types of music and I'm enjoying everything from rap to jazz on this system. Can't wait to see how it evolves over the next few days as I tweak the EQ and gains more, etc.

What do you guys think about where to set the subwoofer level on the Kenwood X994 deck? I've always been from the school of thought that you leave all bass level flat and then adjust your sub gain accordingly. HOWEVER, this is a subwoofer level control, not a bass control. So my understanding is that it simply controls the voltage of the subwoofer line out. That being the case, it would seem best to me to max that out (+17 on the Kenwood deck) so the Zed Deuce gets the hottest signal possible. This will result in the cleanest sound from the amp according to the Zed manual (a higher input voltage signal is preferred).

Thoughts?

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

I spent about an hour today, on and off, playing with the gains, cross-over points, etc. Funny that most of my initial settings proved to be the best sounding. Of course it depends on the kind of music. To report back on the subwoofer level setting, I tried the approach mentioned above whereby I maxed out the Kenwood subwoofer level to +15 and you know what? It sounded bad. I'm not sure what all goes on with the Kenwood when you crank that level but there seems to be diminishing returns. I've found that a level of about +7 on the subwoofer is about the most I would ever want to do. This could have to do with match between the input gain on the amp and the voltage level. i.e. the Zed deuce has a max input level of 8v. Perhaps at +15 the deck is exceeding that, resulting in poor sound. I have my gain set to about 1:00 on the Zed and the bass tilt control to about 10:00 (I like the sound of the 44Hz bump that this provides). With the subwoofer level set to 0 on the deck, this is great for pop, jazz, rock. If I want to slam it and throw down the bass, then I kick the subwoofer output to +5 or +7 at the most and that gives a nice bump. I've never used a volt meter to set my gains before but I am curious to see what the voltage actually measures out to so I can validate my theories here. I've emailed Stephen Mantz regarding fuse value. I blew a 60A fuse last night listening to DJ Magic Mike as a bass test. The manual is not clear in regards to the proper fuse value when using the amp bridged mono into a 4Ohm load. It's either 60A or 80A. Will report back on that for any other Zed Deuce users out there.

Tomorrow I'm going to detail the car with my Dad and take some glamour shots. Will post those here. Hope all are having a LOUD weekend! Peace, Nate

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

We detailed the Volvo this weekend and took some daylight shots. Here are some of them. Can't believe all of the fiberglass bits, wire pieces, etc. that we vacuumed out of it.

 

[matt_bennett05 10+ year member]

Love the work man. Way to go!

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

Image Dynamics has this build on the top of their website gallery now. Score one for the little guy and the caraudio.com build log forum!

Photo Gallery

A friend of mine showed me his system today with a single IDQv3 15" woofer. Going to do a weekend build to help him with a new enclosure in his Mercedes sedan. Should be fun. Will post a log here to share what we do.

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

I'll be taking this car up to the IASCA soundoff at Soundwerks in Marysville, WA next Sunday if anyone else is there from the board please stop by. It would be cool to say hello. I have a small list of things to wrap up this week before the soundoff. Here's my list:

* After a couple of warmer weekends (that is a relative term here in the PNW) I developed a couple bubbles in the vinyl on the front of my sub box. I need to fix that. Got some glue here so will tack those down.

* IASCA test CD arrived. I've been listening to it and already it helped me improve the sound quality of the system. Most importantly, it helped me dial in the level of my center channel and the DTA adjustments on the Kenwood deck. I'll continue to work with this during the week. It helped me find a really odd problem. One channel into my center channel amp was disconnected! So I was only getting the right channel into the center. With that amp bridged mono, I didn't notice until I isolated the center and did a panning check. Only the right side worked. Easy fix by plugging in the RCA for the left channel, lol.

* Some very faint noise is noticeable when the volume is down. I am running with the theory it is a ground loop so I am going to experiment with different ground locations for the head unit and see if I can tame the noise.

* Overall tuning of the system for a flat frequency response. There is only so much I can do because I only have a 5 band EQ on the HU. But I'll do my best with an android RTA app or perhaps borrow a real RTA to do the best I can.

* If I get adventurous, I may build some pods for the mids up front to angle them more on-axis behind the factory grills. We'll see what this week has in store. Balancing this stereo stuff with my day-job, etc.

Most importantly, I'm looking forward to seeing all of the other builds that people have done and getting ideas, meeting other car stereo hobbiests etc. Should be fun. Hopefully the weather gets nice.

Will post pics here of my improvements to the system throughout the week.

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

Well shoot, I didn't make it up to Marysville today as I planned. Just too much going on this weekend and the weather ***** for a car audio show. Hopefully will be able to hit the next one in the area. I think it would be fun. Did anyone else head up there today?