[ka24altima]

The car: 2001 Chevy Malibu

The Equipment:

Pioneer DEH-5900IB Already installed
Pioneer iPod adapter Already Installed
Pioneer XM adapter Already Installed

Elemental Designs e3.12.22
Elemental Designs e9.65

Orion HCCA 225
Kenwood KAC-6402

The Challenge - fitting a round object in a smaller oval hole




Once I get that solved, it should be smooth sailing. It's hard to see in the pictures, but there's a plastic baffle behind the weather barrier. I'm going to use that as a pattern to make some MDF baffles for the midrange.

Kicks are out of the question, since the parking brake leaves no room for a kick on the driver's side. Tweeters will be mounted in the a-pillars. Sub will be in a 1 cu ft sealed enclosure to start. When the weather gets nice, I'll FG a box for in the corner of the trunk.

That's all for now. Amps and wires are at my Mom's house, I'm going back there on Monday.

[ka24altima]

Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Penn State
Name: Scott
Posts: 552
ka24altima is Online:


IT'S EFFIN' COLD OUTSIDE!

Anyway, lunch break and update time. Got both mids mounted. No pics, sorry. I left my camera at my Dad's, and using my iPhone would require the removal of my gloves, yeah, not happening. But what I found was that the baffle the speaker mounts to is part of an entire one-piece plastic assembly that the window motor and linkage mount to. So I couldn't just remove that one part and use it as a pattern. Luckily I didn't have to. The opening is almost large enough as is, but some removal of certain parts of the baffle opened the hole up enough that I could just mount the mid right to the plastic. Which is good because it's some beefy plastic! Those SOB's ain't going anywhere. I'm not worried about a perfect seal all the way around the mid since the whole door is open anyway. It would take more than just a little sound deadener to plug the holes in the door, it would take some serious fabricating.

Some of you may remember an install I did for a friend two summers ago. I had caught some flack for not running the speaker wires through the factory grommets. Although non of the cars I've done have had a problem (just stating the fact, not justifying it), I decided to take the advice to heart and did it the right way with this car. It was a real pain in the *** though.

So after my Mac and Cheese, I'll mount both amps and crossovers, and run power and signal wires.

[alexlindeman]

I dont know how I missed this on the forum.

Pictures of wires running through stock wire grommet?

It can really be a PITA to get wire in and then back out of the stock door boots. On my last install and had to door jam the wire, and I'm disappointed in the ghetto look.

Throw up some pictures when it warms up.

I hope the mac and cheese was good.

[ka24altima]

Got a lot done today. Amps and xovers are mounted on the back seat. Speaker wires run for tweeters and mids. Amps hooked up. I don't have the tweeters mounted, but I hooked them up real quick and put them down by the kick panels, and that's where I think they're gonna stay. Initial impressions: holy midrange. The 6000sv.2 had great mid bass, and I was always complimented on that at my SQ shows, but they were thin in the midrange. All I had in the car was some Alterbridge, and the guitars really came out. Upper end extension and detail were great too. I heard some high hat rhythms the other speakers couldn't reach. Here's a pic: Don't freak, I'm not gonna leave the wires like that. I like to make sure everything works before I go hiding wires. That way if it stops working, I know it worked before I started farting around.



Tomorrow I want to finish hiding wires in the back. Then I have to run to Lowes and get a hole saw to make a hole for the tweeters, which will be flush mounted in the kicks. After that if I'm feeling ambitious, I'll start making the sub box.

[ka24altima]

Alright, front speakers are done. My old man had a hole saw that was PERFECT for the cups for the tweeters.





Wires were cleaned up on both sides.





Wires cleaned up in the trunk. Nothing I can do about the power wires on the Orion. They're soldered right to the board, and I don't have an iron capable of unsoldering 8 gauge. I might have something I can get at school though.



Head unit:



Pioneer iPod and XM adapters

[alexlindeman]

I like the old school HCCA btw. .5 ohm stereo stable....That always made me laugh.

Have you tried pivoting the tweeter in the mount any? See what that does for the sound?

I always liked the 5900ib headunit as well. I think we did 4-5 of them for local installs back in the days. Nice and easy to navigate, plus has almost any feature you would need.

[Wolvatron]

I'm super curious to hear how it sounds with the tweeters so low.

Good work!

[ka24altima]

Originally Posted by joeybutts

Sweet! How are the e9's with the tweet in the kicks?

I wired the tweeters out of phase, and that brought the stage up to dash level.

Finished the sub box, carpeted it, mounted the sub blah blah blah. Basically it's in the trunk and thumping away. Compared to my dual EHQS12 setup, this hits lower, but it doesn't seem to hit the higher bass frequencies as well. I have it high passed at 63 hz. the EHQS were HPassed at 50. I might try that and let the 9.65 take care of those frequencies.



Staging - great
Sub bass - low frequencies are fantastic, some more EQ and xover settings may be needed to round things out
Mid bass - good, but the drivers need to break in. My 6000sv.2 were the same way. Once again, a little more EQ and xover settings will take care of that
Mid range - fantastic, guitars and vocals are butter
Treble - very detailed without being harsh.

Tomorrow I want to mount the box to the trunk. I'm gonna take the woofer out and put bolts through the box into the trunk floor. Just for some extra security. Then all that's left is to clean up a few wires from the sub amp!

[ka24altima]

Spent some time with it today, and made some key adjustments. Now I'm smiling ear to ear.

Those 9.65's are POWER HUNGRY. I'm thinking maybe 100W per side isn't enough. That Kenwood isn't the best, and who knows if that's actually what I'm getting out of it. But I gave it some gain (I'm only halfway on the knob) and that really brought the midbass out. I changed the xover to 50hz, and that also made a big improvement.

Now, that sub is moving some serious air. I know this because my rear deck was flexing like crazy. This was causing a rattle. Which was caused by my XM antenna which is mounted to the third brake light hitting the windshield. That's how much the deck is flexing.



I have some eDead on the way, it's on backorder. It was going to be for the doors, but it might be better suited the rear deck. I took the back speakers out, and venting the pressure to the cabin has almost eliminated the flex. The eDead will do the rest.

And here's a better pic of the sub/box in the trunk than what I had last night.