OBXT full system install pics (updated as I go)

So when I started looking around to find ideas for the new system in an '05 Outback wagon I was disappointed that there just ain't much out there, apart from a few on here.

 

I've just started the install & expect it to take roughly a month of spare time to complete. I'll post pics & anything helpful as I go. Hopefully this will give others some ideas for their own systems.

 

The layout -

Stock headunit (of course)

Audiocontrol Three.1 with volume control & aux-input, EQ & X-over

Ipod (the primary music source)

2-Soundstream 5.0 class A amps (about 100wx2 each) driving:

Focal K2P 6.5's

MB Quart Ref 6.5's (rear)

Soundstream Rubi 502 (about 500w x 1 @ 4ohm) driving:

JL Audio 10W3v2 10" sub

 

The objectives in order of importance are -

1. Sound Quality

2. Stealth install

3. Ease of use

4. Ability to operate for long road trips w/o overheating

 

Most of the stuff going in:

(bear in mind that this has all migrated from my previous vehicle - it's all used)

This is the Audiocontrol HPX, basically a 1/2 din in-dash expansion circuit that's amazing for MP3 which is the bulk of my music collection now. It has an Aux-in on the fron that's been re-wired (a la Tim Allen) to a second rear input. Basically two rear inputs now with a switch on the front. this lets me switch from the Ipod back to the stock HU for CD's & radio, not that I'll do it much. It also has a separate volume knob which lets me use the dock connector on the Ipod rather than the headphone jack.

 

I chose to modify the stock cubby so I could keep the door intact for stealth. This took roughly 3-4 hours total (from idea to finished).

 

7-26 Just finished wiring up the cubby preamp, turns out I'm going to need right angle RCA adapters, the back of the processor is about a centimeter off that big metal bar in the dash. Cubby won't fit back in without adapters.

 

If you decide to take on something like this, be sure to get all the levels/gains & other settings dialed in before you mount it, getting in there after it's all rigged up will be a serious PITA.

 

EDIT - changed to a Audiocontrol Three.1 for just a hair of EQ-ability. I like this much better.

When planning the cubby mod, the biggest challenge was figuring how to keep the door open or closed without flapping around while driving. The spring arms had to be cut out to fit the processor in. I settled on 4 neodynum 1/8" cube magnets, 2 moounted to the top of the door in rear, 2 more in a matching spot on top of the cubby. Hot glue in square holes cut with a metal file hold these in place.

 

As it turned out the processor now puts a good bit of friction on the door hinges, so I could almost get away without the magnets.

Next up is the amp tray. This is my first attempt at fiberglass, pretty sorry I think. But it'll work with a lot of sanding, bondo & paint. This fits directly in the spare tire well about an inch above the spare, still functional. It's only 2 layers of FG and a 1/8" piece of MDF glued in for support, total weight about 7#. I'll bondo the bejeezus out of it, hopefully giving it some nice organic curves & shape. More pics as it comes along.

 

All three amps, 2 sm distro blocks & a 1f cap will fit on this. I hope. I'll end up doing a fiberglass stealthbox sub enclosure for the rear corner, let's hope my work quality improves by then.

So I played with the amp tray more this weekend (between Tour de France episodes) and realized after adding about 5# of Bondo that I should have done a few things differently. If anyone's interested, let me know, I'll give you the rundown on exactly how I would do it again.

 

Regardless, looking at the mess I had made of it, opted to just cover it all with fabric that roughly matches car interior. It's not ideal, but good enough that I don't want to do it over immediately. Fits into place well, perfectly functional. Oh well, good enough.

Next will be the sub box, maybe later this week. Once all the "pieces" like this are done I'll take a weekend to pull the entire interior apart & wire everything in one push.

 

7/28 Finished this thing today. Amp rack worked out pretty well, tho if I did it again I'd probably nix the fiberglass & just mount a board in there. So much easier. To cool these amps there are 2 "squirrel cage" fans, one in each channel to the left & right at the very rear of the trunk, under the top panels. I cut a 1-1/2" circle in each & glued wire mesh under the carpet to keep stuff falling in. The fans blow rt to lt, pulling air in that 1-1/2 tube that runs along the side of the sub box. I didn't think it would move a lot of air, but it's pretty serious! Fans are powered by a relay in the spare well.

 

Head's up - if you're using the oem headunit into amps, be aware that the remote (power antenna) output only works when using the radio, not the CD player. I connected straight to the ignition (last-minute fix).

Started in on the sub box, this will house a single 10" JL driver. Shooting for .7 - .9 cu ft, I think it may be over that, but can't tell yet. Removing the quarter panel pocket yields a good bit of space, reducing the size of the box's intrusion into the cargo area. FG'ing around those corners is tricky, tho. I can tell my FG skills are much improved over the last project, this should turn out much better.

 

Have built the frame & FG'ed over, added Bondo, wire terminal plate & a T-nut that will secure the box to the wheel well. Finally mounted driver & carpeted, turned out pretty good. Hope it still fits...

 

The hose in the lower rt corner is to create a 1" gap where the amp's will vent out. More on that later.

Got started on the door speakers today, took off the rear door panels & assessed how to fit in a pair of Quart 6.5" components. A few realizations -

 

Removing the door panel is easy once you figure it out. This thread helped - http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3329 be sure to read the entire thing!

 

No need for spacers to mount a standard 6.5" driver. That's right - no spacers. The trick requires some non-permanant sheet metal modifications that take about 10 minutes per door. (I had originally planned to use spacers but they didn't sit flat & would have required hammering the door surface flat. This is easier & makes more sense IMO.)

 

You'll need:

Good pair of straight tin snips (get the good ones, it's worth it)

hammer

drill bits (I used 1/8")

hole punch to start drill

 

First remove the stock speaker & plastic screw grommets in door. Snip about 3/8" slits in the metal perpendicular to the stock speaker opening, space them about an inch apart & work your way around the entire circle. Lightly hammer those cutouts inward approx 30 degrees past flat, maybe 45 degrees if the new speaker has a big basket. Your new 6.5" should fit flush now, there's a good 4+ inches of depth available. If it doesn't sit flush, enlarge the whole in small increments until it does. This process is reversable, just bend the metal back out with channel locks.

 

I should also add that a 5.25" driver fits just fine w/o the mod.

 

Now put your new driver in place & mark out with a sharpie pen the mount holes. Punch & drill. Wire it up & screw it in.

 

I went ahead & did the mod on both rear doors, then reinstalled the stock speakers. Not ready to wire up the whole system yet, maybe next weekend. The crossover will live in the door panel, the tweeter will live on a metal strap stretched across the driver (basically a coax setup - will make more sense with pictures). The strap stands off of the speaker by about an inch so they won't touch.

 

Coax's would have been easier, but this is what I had & didn't want to drill out the door panel for seperate tweeters. X-over is secured to door interior.

 

7/30 Not using speaker rings only works on the rear, not the front - bigger window in the door. Dynamatting the front doors really helped with mid-bass performance.

 

Used 1/2" spacers up front, mounted the tweeter in the stock location near the pillar. For now I've angled the tweeters forward about 35 degrees past parallel with the stock doors perfs - the image was pretty in-your-face in the stock door locations pointed towards me. I played with a lot of different locations & angles, this produced the best soundstage oddly enough. X-overs set at -3db.

 

Edit - the front stock tweeter locations became unbearable after a few weeks, ended up mounting them down by the mids, far far better SQ.

Added a ton of dampening to front doors & some in the rear doors, and sealed all the holes. This took care of a midbass hole I had. Midbass is very punchy now.

Last, the Ipod. This is a mini Ipod, I have a larger one that lives here & holds the entire music collection. When I leave the car, it drops between the seats, otherwise I just throw it in the cupholder while I'm driving. Used a Belkin car adapter, broke the plug open & attached seperate wires for +/- power, then used a 1/8" to RCA's plug to run sound to the preamp in the dash. Taped the volume control on it so it wouldn't move. This all lives under the cupholders tucked into the carpet. The wire shoots out the side between the seats.

 

Edit - finally got around to building a mount for the ipod in the cupholder. It now fits under the sliding cover so I feel better about its stealth. Best of all I was able to salvage a cupholder spot! I can pull it the ipod out about about 20" while still connected & look for tunes w/o looking away from the road, or just hand it to the passenger to have a field day on road trips.

 

Not real jazzed about the SQ from the Belkin car adapter. On one hand it's built-in amp provides some flexibility, one the other it rolls off enough bass a bit. Its best feature is auto-shutoff - when I turn the car off it automatically pauses the ipod. Now if I could get it to auto start...

 

ANOTHER EDIT - turns out the problem with bass roll-off was improperly sealed doors. The Belkin Ipod adapter seems to be the best thing going for it's purpose.

 

I can still use the CD player in the dash with the input switch on the preamp, but I doubt that will happen often.

So far everything looks good! I really like the cubby install of the processor. Very stealth indeed!

You're going along the same lines I was thinking for an amp rack. I'm curious - how would you have done it differently? There was another post a while back showing a simple MDF panel that was hinged towards the front of the vehicle to allow access to the spare - I thought it was clean and simple.

 

I'm thinking of doing the same w/ my sub - my old Ford Exploder had a very clean stealth box in the passenger rear quarterpanel that I was thinking about emulating.

 

I just have to figure if my old amps will fit in there... I guess I have to do a dry fit.

 

My setup (all from my Explorer):

McIntosh MC440M 2x100watt

McIntosh MC443 1x300watt (yes - it's overkill but I got a good deal on it)

Velodyne SC10 DF 10" sub (may change this because of the sub amp)

Dynaudio System 340 (if I can figure some way of doing a 3way setup up front - kick panels?)

JL Cleansweep

 

I'm going to have to wait until it's cooler and I have some time to get all this put in...

I understand about waiting for cooler weather - it was one hundred freakin' two degrees here today.

 

I'd still do the fiberglass amp rack, tho I think a simple MDF setup would be fine & would save about 6 hours of work. Both still give access to the spare, but I had hoped to make the FG rack somewhat artistic. If I did it again, I'd do the same original mold, then glue in a piece of 1/8 MDF on top of a piece of fabric & bond it to the floor of the mold, then stretch the fabric over the outer mold edges & glass that too. A little Bondo & paint, it'd be a beautiful site.

 

Nice equipment list you've got there. If I traded in my SS amps, it'd be for the Mac stuff. And when did Velodyne start making car subs? Where are you putting the CS controls?

Thanks - I'm in my car A LOT (so far 14k miles in 6 months) - my Exploder sounded great. The sound system definitely made the time go by faster.

 

I'm not sure when Velodyne made car subs - it's pretty old - at least 4 years. It's very clean, but it's got a HUGE basket (deep and wide - it's practically a cylinder that's about 10" deep.) This would make the sub box a PITA to build - which is yet another reason to find a different sub.

 

As for the CS control - I'm looking... I haven't gotten a cleansweep yet and I'm not sure how big the control is. Right now, I'm thinking of converting the ash tray to an iPod holder and figuring some way of putting the control somewhere in that location. I haven't done any test fits w/ the iPod - and I'm not 100% sure if the ipod alone will fit in that location let alone the CS control.

 

Nice equipment list you've got there. If I traded in my SS amps, it'd be for the Mac stuff. And when did Velodyne start making car subs? Where are you putting the CS controls?

The CS control is about 1/2 inch diameter but you'll need space beneath it for the electronics. Lower right of the shift knob on an AT looks good to me.

 

I've been very happy with a JL Audio 10 W3 sub in a sealed box with a little less than 400w. I keep it turned down about halfway most the time, SQ is excellent. This was in a Gr Cherokee, the Subaru is a bit smaller.

 

I toyed with the idea of building a sub enclusure & amp rack entirely in the spare well, but that means no spare. Ultimately nixed the idea because it'd be covered when I load up the back.

 

There's a forum thread somewhere about a guy who built his Ipod into the ashtray, put a lot of work into it & it looked fine, but it positions the Ipod over the heat/AC controls and looks like it'd be difficult to control there. Mine will probably live between my seat & the center console, I'll just pull it out & drop it in the cupholder when I drive. That way it's easy to hide, which I'll want to do everytime I stop - I hate locking my car up 20x/day. I've played with mounting it in the cupholder, but there's no good way without losing both cupholders - no way.

 

anyhow, good luck, let us know how it comes out.

So I played with the amp tray more this weekend (between Tour de France episodes) and realized after adding about 5# of Bondo that I should have done a few things differently. If anyone's interested, let me know, I'll give you the rundown on exactly how I would do it again.

 

Regardless, looking at the mess I had made of it, opted to just cover it all with fabric that roughly matches car interior. It's not ideal, but good enough that I don't want to do it over immediately. Fits into place well, perfectly functional. Oh well, good enough.

Next will be the sub box, maybe later this week. Once all the "pieces" like this are done I'll take a weekend to pull the entire interior apart & wire everything in one push.

 

Definately a good idea as I just went through this. A tip for getting the wires from the amp rack to over the rear wheels is a putty knife and a blowtorch. You're going to have to trim some of the foam in order to get the wires to sit underneath the trim panels. Just sharing my experiences. Looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Rick

Thanks for the tip, I'll most likely take them straight towards the front & split off between the rear seats & the floor. I've found just a utility knife does well with the foam, the blowtorch is an interesting idea. I can see myself getting distracted & cooking the car, tho. Had some time this afternoon, started working on the sub box, still recovering from the fumes. Will stick some pics up.

Thanks for the tip, I'll most likely take them straight towards the front & split off between the rear seats & the floor. I've found just a utility knife does well with the foam, the blowtorch is an interesting idea. I can see myself getting distracted & cooking the car, tho. Had some time this afternoon, started working on the sub box, still recovering from the fumes. Will stick some pics up.

 

I took the foam panels out of the car to cut them with the hot putty knife. Fumes=

Rick

Think I'll stick with the razor - I can't deal with those fumes.

Sub box has turned out pretty good. There's probably enough space to fit a 12", but the 10" is perfect for me.

 

Looks like I'm running out of excuses not to pull out the interior & wire it all up. Probably this weekend. I may get excited & take a day or two off work this week...

Looks great! When are you starting to sell sub boxes?

Very nice sub box - all fiberglass? Any building pictures? What's the interior space of that box? Did the basket of your sub end up fitting into the pocket back there? I was planning on tucking mine into that area so that I could use the least amount of storage space.

 

You've got me all excited - I've got to get my a$$ into gear and start working on it.

 

Sub box has turned out pretty good. There's probably enough space to fit a 12", but the 10" is perfect for me.

 

Looks like I'm running out of excuses not to pull out the interior & wire it all up. Probably this weekend. I may get excited & take a day or two off work this week...

Any depth issues with the JL 10inch? I have a pair of W3's and a PPI PRO-10. The PPI is only 4.25 inches deep, so I can cheat a little on the depth of the enclosure.

Looks great! When are you starting to sell sub boxes?

 

I bet someone could sell a couple of these per week if they were motivated to make them. And I bet people would pay $3-400 for a quality finished box, maybe $600 with the the sub included, which is exactly what JL charges for similiar designs on other cars. I don't personally want to deal with the fiberglass fumes, but just curious, is there any interest from others to buy these? I do know someone who would do it, probably, but it would have to be multiple boxes, not just one.

Very nice sub box - all fiberglass? Any building pictures? What's the interior space of that box? Did the basket of your sub end up fitting into the pocket back there? I was planning on tucking mine into that area so that I could use the least amount of storage space.

 

You've got me all excited - I've got to get my a$$ into gear and start working on it.

 

All FG, build pics are at the top under "sub box," interior space I'm guessing is a bit over 1 cu ft (I'll probably add filler & take it down to .8). With that pocket space used I could probably scale it back 2-3 inches inwards & get just the right volume, basically keeping the front flush with the wheel well. If you really wanted to save space you could cut out the plastic rear of the storage pocket & probably mount the whole thing in that space - there's lots of room in there - but would be a very tricky build.

I'd be interested in one so I don't have to deal with it myself. There was a guy on this board in VaBeach who was willing to do batch jobs awhile back.