Topic: Carbon's Epic Stereo Transformation

[Carbon Sky]

Might as well start organizing this thread to make it easier to use as a DIY:

I started off with working on a pod to go onto the center stack above the center air vents as I could remove this and work on it, while the car was still quite driveable as I waited for some parts for the stereo upgrade.  My Escort Redline died recently and I believe it was heat related.  So this time around, I'm putting it in a pod so that it's hidden, shielded from sun, and has a cooling fan that runs on very little power (0.1A) so it can even run for 12 hours easily without draining the battery.

I taped off the top of the center stack, and cut a hole in the top of it approximately 90mm x 90mm to accept a cooling fan:




I also mounted it to a stand to hold it in place, relatively in the same position as the dash would, and to make sanding and fiberglassing easier later.




I used floral foam to create a mold for the fiberglass.  I hot glued it to the top of the stack, then shaped it with a sanding block and rasp.  Obviously make sure it's level:




I then put aluminum foil over the floral foam to make it easy to remove, and then started laying fiberglass.  I used 3 layers total.




Here's the top of the pod slightly sanded down to make it smoother. I eventually put body filler over it all, and sanded it smooth.  While I was fiberglassing, I patched in the plastic piece at the bottom of the center of the dash.  I had already drilled 2 round holes in it for seat heaters, but now I need 5 switches.




Here's the pod with the 2 round holes drilled out for the gauges, and the center opening for the radar detector.  It's just black paint.




Here's the top of the pod now covered in vinyl pleather, and the center piece filled, and now drilled for 5 switches.  You'll notice I tried to keep the same contour in the pod as the top of the center stack.




I have now installed the cooling fan, and the gauges into the pod, and covered the front face part in 3M carbon fiber vinyl, but I have not installed it back into the dash yet.  Will update later.

[Carbon Sky]

Once I got most of the pod done, and picked up the rest of the stuff needed for the install, I started removing the interior.  Lots of other threads already on this like the sound deadening one, and the monsoon replacement thread.

- seats (4 x 15mm nuts), be careful to disconnect the electrical connection at the bottom for both seats
- remove seat belt (99% sure T30 bolt, torx drive)

- center armrest, pull up at the back till it comes loose, and slide the front part backwards

- remove door sills, use a plastic pry tool to prevent damaging the plastic sill or the metal underneath

- remove rear speaker panels, again, use a plastic pry tool

- remove the rear water fall panel, some have mentioned a nut in the center storage compartment, but mine did not have a single nut/bolt holding it in place, only plastic clips

- remove door skin, one screw at the top back corner
- pry out the panel behind the inside door handle
- remove 7mm screws behind door pull
- pry plastic cover out from behind door latch pull
- remove 7mm screw behind panel
- pry loose starting from the bottom using a plastic pry tool to not damage the door panel
- then lift upwards a little as the top edge hooks onto a lip at the top of the door

Here's most of the dash removed:






The rear waterfall removed:




A trunk full of the interior as I was removing it:




I started with upgrading the grounds.  In my opinion, the ground from the battery to the engine block, and from the battery to the starter are very stout and don't need upgrading.  I did however, add a ground from the engine block ground at the front of the engine, to this point on the chassis.  I've circled the ground point in red.  Since it was an existing ground point, it had a non painted connection, but do remember to use dielectric grease.  I also add some to all the other major ground points, and the main +'ve cable to the battery (this one tends to corrode due to location.




The monsoon box is bolted to the back firewall (my guess is to prevent vibration noises up against the sheet metal).  Since I will be damping the panel, I'm not worried about that, and want to make sure it's air tight and solid.  So I patched it with 1/2" MDF front and back, and epoxied it in.




I took 2 3/4" MDF rings, and bonded them together.  This lifted the sub out of the box a little so I wouldn't have to trim the back of it, and to give a very solid mount for the sub itself.  I used polyurethane wood glue, it expands to fill cracks, absorbs into the wood, and is strong as hell, so it's great for use with MDF.




I then epoxied to the ring to the box for strength, and then silicone sealant sealed it to insure it was air tight.  I stuffed some poly fill in to make it behave like a larger enclosure.  I ran 12 AWG speaker cable into the box, and silicone sealed it from the bottom.

[ihawk95]

Tried out some speaker placements today.  I was looking for a solution that would make it so that the passengers' legs wouldn't block the woofers as much.  I thought perhaps angling the woofers would help.  I temporarily mounted the Alpine SPR-60C, and angling does absolutely nothing in their stock location.  There was no discernible difference by angling the mids.  I angled them about 20-25* to the point where each woofer was aimed at the opposite side passenger's head, and because I was only angling, and not moving the location of the speaker, it made no difference.  I'm disappointed.  I can't really think of anywhere else to mount them, and I don't want any intrusion into the footwells.  Guess I'll just have to go with the stock location.

I also mounted the SPR-60Cs into my 6.5" mid test chamber I made up a few years back.  I basically built a tube that has an MDF ring for a woofer to mount to, and is fiberglassed so its waterproof, and has graduated markings.  I fill it up pretty high so that I will be under the peak volume for sure.  I run test waves through the speaker with a tiny valve on the bottom to release water.  Looks like the SPR-60Cs don't need that much volume at all.  To my ears, they sounded best around 2-2.2L.  Towards the top of the setup, I have a cross hair of some glued in fishing line.  I use it to hold up poly fill.  With a 1/4 pound of poly fill in the chamber, they sounded great at about 1.25-1.5L.  Which is what I'm going to be shooting for, and should be able to get if I trim the metal inner door skin a little.

After I sound dampen the inside of the outer door skin through the various holes on the inside of the inner door skin, I will make an MDF speaker mount with a foam baffle on the back side.  The foam baffle will go into the widened opening on the inner metal door skin, and I will screw the woofers to the stacked MDF rings.

Haven't decided if I will keep the stock grill, or mount the Alpine grills.  Any opinions?  Personally, I've always been of the thought, if you can make it look stock, then do.  Only make it not stock if it serves some kind of performance improvement.  So in this case, I would leave it stock.  But stock or not is not much a difference in work, and the Alpine grills do look nice and seem of high quality (can handle being kicked repeatedly).  Wouldn't mind some opinions on this one.  More bling, and possibly better sound, or stock durability, and stealth?

I also organized, and taped up the GMOS-100 and PAC TR7 bypass module harnesses.  Anyone ever work with the GMOS-100 before?  It's on the pricey side, and it's because they send you 3 different versions of the same harness depending on which model car you have.  So first of all, that's a huge waste.

And maybe I'm just being paranoid, but SO many of the wires aren't used, because they have the harness we need setup for all possible scenarios, stock stereo no monsoon, stock monsoon, aftermarket.  So from what I can gather, much of the wiring won't be used.  After I confirm proper functioning, I will trim back those wires.

If you've ever wired a GMOS-100 before, I definitely want to harass you with a few questions.

I was also going to upgrade the "big 3" grounds as I have done in other cars with crappy ground cables.  But in my opinion, the only addition I think I need is one from that main ground point on the front of the block, to a chassis point again.  All of the cables seem to be at least 4 AWG, and high temp cable, and without much corrosion (I did coat every one of them with grease in the past).  Has anyone upgraded their grounds?  If you follow the ground cable on the battery, it goes up to the front of the engine block where it shares a ground with a few other wires.  I will remove that, clean it up, cover in dielectric grease, and run one more 4 AWG ground cable from there to the frame rail.  I think that should do it.

Also, in the trunk, I was thinking of grounding into the under side of the center portion of the trunk.  Since so much of the trunk is plastic, I'm only 95% sure that portion of the trunk is a solid ground.  What have others used as a ground in the trunk?

Thanks for any help.

I know you don't want any intrusion in the footwells, but I know a guy that played with this and it was really hard to tell.  He put his woofer in the passenger footwell.  Then he redid the carpeting over it so it looked stock.  Yeah, it took a few inches away from the passenger side, but unless you have a tall passenger, it wasn't much.  I sat in his car and I was completely impressed!  He's not on the forums anymore, but I can get in touch with him if you want to know what all he did and where he put everything.  He had a pretty tricked out sound system!

Unfortunately, some idiot pulled a hit and run on him last summer and totaled his Solstice.

[Carbon Sky]

I trimmed out the back of the stock tweeter mount, and mounted the Alpine SPR-60C tweeters in the stock location.  I basically trimmed out the back, and the part that funnels behind into the panel:




Here it is from the front:

[Carbon Sky]

I started snooping around until I found the real oil pressure sender just above the starter.  What a 8itch to get to.  I started trying to remove it with the starter in place.  And by the way, the power connection to the starter is not 100% insulated.  A stubby wrench made contact with said exposed terminal, which led to the battery disconnect.  Managed to get the stock sender out.  There was no way I could install the aftermarket sender with the required adapter for our block if the starter was in place.  Had to remove the starter.  With that out of the way, I got the adapter in nice and easy.  But then when I tried to get the starter bolt back in, it was so awkward to get to, in such a tight place, I found it much easier to remove the rubber elbow under the throttle body and the intercooler pipe, to access the bolt with some extensions and a universal joint, then it was the get the bolt in from under the car.

Started up the car to check for oil leaks, seems to be fine.  Between the adapter and the block was a hollow copper with an internal rubber, crush washer, and between the sender and the adapter, I used some high temp teflon tape.  If anyone is ever interested in putting in an oil pressure sender, let me know, and I'll do what I can to help.

The boost sensor sender install was much happily much less exciting.  Basically put a 'T' into the line coming off the intercooler pipe near the MAF.

Interestingly, drove the car around after, and even with no oil pressure sender plugged into its harness, no warning of low oil pressure.  WTF?!  Anyone got any input on this one?

[Carbon Sky]

Here's the back firewall dampened.  For areas that are not flat, I prefer to use a sound damping product that goes on like a goo as opposed to those sticky pads.




Here's the passenger footwell.  I taped off threaded bolts and what not that I did not want to clean off later.




The driver side floor:




The driver foot well:




The inside edge of the driver door sill:




The passenger door.  You'll notice I also applied it to the inside of the outer door edge through the existing openings:

[Carbon Sky]

This shows where I put mine.  I have the outer 'zone' triggering a squarker (audible alarm buzzer thingy), and the inner zone triggering the car's alarm.  Haven't had to adjust it since I put it in.  http://www.kappaperformance.com/forum/index.php/topic,5620

I'm aware of your project of wiring in a dual zone proximity detector into your car without running an aftermarket alarm.  Great job again!  I would be very tempted to do the same with your pioneering example if I weren't so set of having a 2-way alarm with at least 1 mile range in the open.

I'm surprised you haven't had to adjust the sensitivity with yours.  From previous experience, I tended to have to reset it from time to time, otherwise, it would be too or not sensitive enough.  I've had 2 different systems for over 10 years, and both were the same.  I hear the same things from car alarm installers.  The shop I deal with will recalibrate it for you for life if you buy the unit from them, and have them install it.

[Carbon Sky]

Ran the power cable through an existing opening near the steering shaft pass through and pedals.  The large black disc is part of the steering system, and the pass through is circled in red:




Here it is from the inside of the car:




Measured to make sure I could fit the Rockford Fosgate 800a2 slanted between the floor and the rear firewall, and the Clark Synthesis tactile transducer in the driver's seat.  To my surprise, it all fits.  I was originally going to mount 2 Aura Bass Shakers instead of the 1 Clark.  Then I found out the 1 Clark is over 6 times more powerful than 1 Aura.  So I went with that instead, but it's obviously bigger, so I was worried it wouldn't fit, but it does.  The way I mounted the Clark, it barely pushes out against the seat fabric on the back of the seat.  It literally "sticks out" like 2-3mm.  And, because the plastic behind the seat slants outwards too, if I cut that away, which I will, I can fit the RF amp.  It has to be slanted because of that hump that sticks out behind the seat up against the rear firewall.

I ended up using epoxying 2 sheets of 3 layer each real CF that a friend in the aeronautics industry gave me.  It's crazy stiff and light.  So it should transfer the force better.




Here's a shot that shows how the Clark is actually mounted.  Had to use a few extra washers as was instructed.  This is with the driver's seat in the car, with the seat tilted forward.  And in the background, it shows the RF amp where it will eventually be mounted.  I won't be able to use both end caps on the amp . . . just too wide if I do.  But will hide the wires behind the stock plastic panel.  The zipties were only to hold everything in place until the epoxy set.  They held up the Clark much better than I thought even during fitting, so I decided I should probably leave them in even with the epoxy.

[Carbon Sky]

Oh I can assure you there's interest. I'd love to see more so yeah please start a new thread 'cause as Joe said, great info gets lost in this thread. Happens too often.   

In that case, sure.  I'll finish the entire project first taking lots of pictures along the way, and put something together when I'm done.

Just taking a break because a thunder storm rolled in.  Finished most of the sound damping in the interior over the last 4 hours or so.  Rear firewall, floor, doors (inner and outer panels), and as far up the front firewall as I could go are all done now.  Took over 3 hours of applying just to do the floors and doors even with the panels already stripped out.  I stopped keeping track after about 10 applications.  I went as thick as about 5mm in some highly resonant areas like the inside of the outer door skins, and about 2-3mm where it was far less resonant.  I'd test by tapping the handle of a screwdriver onto the panel.  The more it rang like a bell with a sustained tone, the more damping I put on.  The more of a thud it produced, the less I put on.

I still have a little Second Skin Spectrum, and a 2' x 4' sheet of dynamat left.  I still have not done the a-pillar, and any other resonant areas like the tulip flap area yet.  But the bulk of the damping is done.

I bonded the speaker baffles to the rings I already made up.  And bonded and sealed the ring to the monsoon box.  I want to let the epoxy and silicone sealant set up for 24 hours before I drill.

I just started tidying up some of the wiring that's in some of the pictures I've already posted when the storm rolled in.  I'll post a few pics of the more of today's work later tonight.


Here's the Rockford Fosgate 800a2 900W x 1 for the 10" Alpine SWR-T10 shallow mount sub, and the Soundstream Reference 500SX 250W x 2 for the front channels.  I screwed the Soundstream to the back firewall with short sheet metal screws.  You'll notice the strips of MDF I bonded to the floor to mount the Rockford.  It's




Here's a 5 1/4" Alpine DDDrive speaker grill to vent the trunk pressure relief valve that's hidden behind the carpet, and that some of the 2009's, and Solstice coupes have.  It makes closing the grill significantly easier.  I don't have to slam it, and hold the tulip flap open anymore.

[Carbon Sky]

I am plasti dipping a few things on my car, including my door handles.  I filled the gaps in them with epoxy resin to prevent cracking in the future.  It apparently can withstand over 3000psi of force, so it should do the trick:




Here's the front grill filled in with body filler, and plasti dipped.  You can also see one of the handles still drying as well:




Here are the stock wheels plasti dipped and still drying:




The windshield surround covered in 3M carbon fiber:

[Sly Bob]

I figure the bonding of the rings isn't much to look at, but some may be interested in the sound damping.

This is the passenger side completed:




Here's another showing more of the footwell:




The completed passenger door:




Basically any exposed metal that wasn't covered with something got at least 2-3mm:




The driver's footwell:

Takin' notes... Looks like the product is brushed on?

[TomatoSoup]

Takin' notes... Looks like the product is brushed on?

yeah, but doesn't this go counter to everything Sensei Rudy has taught us, grasshopper?

[Carbon Sky]

Takin' notes... Looks like the product is brushed on?

The stuff I used is made by a company called Second Skin, and the product is called Spectrum.  It can be painted on like I did, rolled on, or even sprayed on.  You can add an activator to thicken the Spectrum, at which point they call it Spectrum Sludge.  It basically makes the stuff thicker, so you can apply it thicker, so you don't need as many coats.  But you have less working time, and it applies differently.

Spectrum does the same type of sound damping as dynamat.  It takes resonance out of panels.  It is only one of multiple kinds of sound damping I'm using.

So TS, yah, if it's the only sound damping you do, it's not ideal.  But it's not the only sound damping I'm putting in.  I'm putting closed cell foam, and non-woven sound absorbing material like this that's about 1" thick.  You already have some of this in the car.  Looks like this:

[Carbon Sky]

Here's a good shot of the Alpine SWR-T10 thin 10" subwoofer.  Mounted, wired, ready to go.  I used epoxy to bond the rings to the box, and silicone to seal it just in case it wasn't air tight.  Sealed the bottom with silicone where the wire passes into the box.




Here's the woofer mounts epoxied for strength, and siliconed for sealing.  I mounted the foam baffles as deep as I could, which isn't much.  You can only go a little more than 1" into the door before you run into the window mechanism.  It takes up even more space when it comes down.  So you can really only go about 1 1/8" inwards at most.  Oh, and I sprayed the backs of the baffles with some rubberized undercoating.  Forgot to take a pic of that before I mounted them.

[Carbon Sky]

Ha ha, thanks.  I wish.  My hands have been taking a beating lately.  I barely ever work without those purple puncture resistant nitrile gloves.  But I go through them practically by the hour.  They just get shredded.  Caught on sharp edges and ripping mostly.  They've helped reduce the severity of burns, etc, but my hands are still really beat up.  I'm really looking forward to this all being done soon.  It's supposed to rain on Thursday, and I have a wedding to go to on Saturday, so I'm gonna try to pull like a 10+ hour day on the car tomorrow.  I should get sound out of it by tomorrow, but I'd be surprised if I finished.

[Carbon Sky]

Wheel Class? Great place and has lots of stuff for the serious hot rod builder, nice guy too. You come down this way often? You live up Toronto way don't ya?

Sly Bob, exactly.  Heard about them from a buddy that had bought the same Second Skin Spectrum from them.  And they are the only licensed distributor for Second Skin anywhere remotely near me in Toronto.  Made a trip out of it with the fiance.  Sent a bunch of stuff to a shipping place just across the border for this install like the plasti dip, the new radar detector, bought my fiance a kindle, the 4 farad capacitor, and lots of little things from a Walmart, and turned it into a shopping trip.

The owner wasn't there at the time, apparently a death in the family.  But the "friend" covering at the shop was very friendly.  Basically asked me a million questions about the install I was doing as he was trying to get their computer to issue me a receipt.

[Carbon Sky]

@ CS i really love the work you did with your front grill. looking forward to see it installed.

on Sunday, it was a pleasure to watch a poor Z4 trying to get away from me on a very twisty country road...
the GT was calm. i tapped the wheel and i told my GT "go get him boy". from there it was just a matter of seconds before the Z4 was admiring my  rear wing.
same story with an SLK and an Audi 1.8T. poor cars..they had no idea..

Thanks!  My grill has basically looked like that, but with chips for about a year now.  I even repainted it once in that time, but both paints I tried did not last very long.  Within a few weeks, chips started showing, and after a few months, it was an eyesore.  Let's see how well this plasti dip holds up.

Gonna put some food in me, and get working.  Excited to see how far I can get today.

[Carbon Sky]

CS, for the carbon fiber on the windshield surround, did you get a good line up on the two spots from the top to the sides? I thought about doing this instead of painting. The plasti dip did not survive.

You can see the "imperfection" of using multiple pieces in the top left corner.  There's one just like it on the other side.

[Carbon Sky]

Weather/rain was an issue all day.   Weather forecast was saying, cloudy, but no rain until after 10pm.  As a result, it was the coolest, and most pleasant day working on the car weather wise.  I wasn't getting seared by the sun, dripping sweat, dehydrating, and being worn out by the heat.  However, it rained on and off throughout the day, and basically cut my work day in half almost.

Here's the stock door with the plastic "egg carton" like plastic removed.  You can see the sound absorbing material they put on it from factory.  And you can see the same type of material, just thicker, under the door panel that I'm about to install.




Here's the after with basically everything except the black foam block covered (I believe it may be impact/safety related, so I left it in).  After final fitting, looks like I won't need to cut out the speaker grill for the 6.5" woofers.  Which I'm happy about.  I think the stock panel will likely wear better over time than the flashy Alpine grills would.  And you can see some white goo on the sound absorbing material . . . it's silicone that I used to stick it to the existing sound absorbing material.




This is the woofer about to be mounted.




This is an upclose shot of some scrap closed cell sound absorbing foam, lined with sound absorbing felt (I had the felt facing inwards to be more water resistant, and to prevent squeaks for the foam rubbing on the interior panel.  This is an up close of a scrap piece.  It's about 1/2" thick foam.




I basically traced out the stock opening with newspaper, transferred to the foam, then cut it so that it would stay in place all on its own.  Then used silicone to seal it up.  You can also see part of the cross over 3M exterior tape (very strong double sided tape) holding the cross over to the door right beside the woofer.  There's more of the cross over behind the woofer (looks like some copper winding to knock out the lows).




I also put patches of dynamat on the a-pillar and windshield header, then put all the panels back on, with the tweeters already mounted.  I was about to wire up the tweeters when the rain hit again and closed up shop for the night.


Here's the 4" coaxial Aura Stage 2 speakers mounted in the rear corner panels.  I basically cut off most of what's behind there, including the grill because the center mount tweeter, and the depth of the speaker made it too deep, and would hit the metal panel behind it.  So I had to cut out the stock grill to fit these.




One more full day of work, and everything should be wrapped up.

[Carbon Sky]

Barely got to work on it today because of the weather (rain), but as it stands, the doors are on and finished, as is the windshield header/a-pillars.  I have a bunch of wiring to do in the dash, but the amps are all hooked up now, power, ground, remote, RCAs, speaker wire, etc.  All speakers but the 4" rears are in and wired up.  After all the wiring, I need to put the floor, back panel, upper dash, lower dash, and seats back in.  The harness is soldered, but I'm not putting the dash in till all the wiring for the swithces and the pod are finished.

In honor of finishing the doors, I put on some new billet aluminum door lock knobs:




I'm not sure where people are grounding too in the trunk, but I didn't feel comfortable grounding to anything in the very back of the trunk.  Just way too much plastic back there.  Ended up putting a short screw into the panel just under the funnel for the convertible top drain.  You can see the hold the drain connects to in the picture:

[Carbon Sky]

Stereo is done!!!!!!!!!!  Not the other things (hard wired radar detector, cooling fan, auto-headlight override), but all stereo is in, and working as it should.  Obviously louder, and bassier, but most importantly, way more accurate.  I'm hearing parts of the music I only ever hear on good headphones (i.e. AKG/Bose QC15/higher end Sennheiser). 

Pod still isn't done, lower dash still isn't done, but I have to go to a good friend's wedding tomorrow, and I'm moving end of month, and still have tonnes of packing in the next few days.  So probably gonna take a week off or so to focus on moving, then finish off the project.  My fiance's been AMAZING with not freaking out over how much time I'm putting into the car lately with us moving in a few days.  Now that it's done, gotta get some packing done.

The SNE-920HD is absolutely breathtaking.  Slicker/faster/more instantaneous to button/touchscreen input than anything I've ever used, including top of the line Kenwood and Pioneer.  The nav is very slick, and a huge improvement over the old Alpine nav.  Bluetooth is seemless, and there were no problems being heard top down at about 80km/h with the mic mounted right below the receiver for the pin from the convertible top.

Still have not played with any timing correction or cross overs.  It's all done mostly through the amps right now, and sounds pretty damn good.  The tweets are a little bright, but I'm not crossing them over at the top end yet, and I have 3 levels of reduction in the cross overs I can try out.

Gonna break everything in a little before I pound on it.  It's stupid loud already, and uber noticeable with the extra sound dampening.  When I cracked the window because it was getting hot, and the outside noise came in, it was like "damn!"  The sub is super accurate, and more than enough boom from me, and I'm coming from a previous 15" setup.  I think it's because of the Clark tactile transducer.  I noticed it when it was jigglin' my tender viddles.  It definitely is "tactile".  Turning it up and down, along with the sub can really change the way you experience the bass.

Anyways, hands are going to look forward to the break.  No joke, my blister's blister, has a blister.  My right thumb is blistered to hell and is probably going to heal up with a bit of a callous like when a newbie takes up guitar.

[Carbon Sky]

Glad I took pics after!  Noticed this last night . . . the ground was coming loose.  I was a little wary of the open ended terminals provided in the wiring kit, and I was right to do so.  Started off today, replacing them with closed loop terminals.  Then mounted the boost sender, and ran the wiring into the cabin, as well as the oil pressure sender, cut up the back panel to fit around the sub, and the amps.  I exposed both the Soundstream and the Rockford.  Have not installed the door edge vinyl trim on the cut edge to dress it up a little yet.  But carpet and panels are in.  Left the bottom dash, and center stack exposed until I finish the pod.

And loving the blacked out grill and wheels and kinda windshield header (did it in 3M carbon fiber).  Noticed one of my 55W 4300K HIDs is starting to go a little pink on start up.  Good thing I have a back up set of 5000K I might throw in soon.

[SKY888]

damn, that's serious work!

big props!!!

[Sly Bob]

I gotta hear it sometime. Must be awesome!

[Carbon Sky]

damn, that's serious work!

big props!!!

Thanks man, especially coming from someone that's modified their kappa as much as you have.