Mazda 323 GT Build Log
 

I have 2 main projects on my plate right now. This one is my baby and I thought I'd share the worklog here.

Vehicle: 1988 323 GT
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Stats: Very rare care. 700 came to North America, 1400 made. the minimum requirment to enter some race event back in the 80's Like a normal 323 sedan you see around, but everything bulked up and moved by a DOHC Turbo at about 167 HP at just around 1000lbs.

Very fast car!

Anyway the project:
I started out with the planning. (Always plan)
- Alpine DVD Head unit
- Alpine v12 amp Left
- Alpine v12 amp Right
- Boston 4" in the dash (stock location)
- Boston 6x9 in the back shelf.
- 2x 10" Rockford Pro Punch subs in the trunk

I wanted to run the wires clean through power blocks.
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I ran this left and right to allow for bridging of the left sub and the right sub on my amps. I removed the passthrough block at the bottom so that I didn't have to break the wires again from power to device.

Layout of the trunk
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I used a sheet of plywood for the base because my trunk has a big area where a spare tire could be kept.
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All the equip together so I can start (I hate starting things and then having to get more things because I didn't think it through)
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I went fairly cheap on the wiring kit. My first install that isn't a hack job.
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Subs Installed
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There was some major vibration from my tail lights so I slipped in some carpet scraps behind the plywood to stop it until I can get around to fixing it correctly.


Another view
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Not much room in the trunk but, it sounds good.

Awesome car!! :D

Definitely a rare little car. I drove one of the hatchback versions of it and it was a little rocketship back when it was new.

My buddy just bought a 323 GTx version (hatchback) last weekend and we are throwing in all boston pro's this weekend. Gonna be a sick sounding car that goes twice as fast as mine.

like a 250hp jetski :)

I'm revamping the whole install this year on my own car.

Some information on the setup:
Remember when I said I had the left side set up on one amp and the right side on another amp? Well I did this for a couple of different reasons. The first idea was so that I could bridge both subs independently without having to add 2 more amps. The other reason and much more imporant was so I could center the sound on the Driver. My car, my sound right? Who cares about passengers? :)

So at this point I have the subs installed on a plywood board that was painted with textured black paint as sound dampening and to give it a carpet look without buying carpet. I did all that back in 2007. It's now 2009 and I've done a lot more research and honestly the whole thing looks like ass.

So I went and bought 2 10" Boston G2s and a box sized for them. This should pound out the trunk and allow for more flow through into the cab. I can't wait until the G2's show up. Because of this I'm going to start on an amp rack and also get that plywood board out of there and put in something thinner and more form fitting. Lighten up my car a bit in the tail end.

Next Step: The Glove Box

Christmas of 2007 I was at walmart and saw a headrest dvd player that came with a secondary screen and bought it for $160. It came with a game pad, but the games sucked so bad I don't even care where that went. If I buy another one it will not have the game pad and be cheaper.

I had also been watching a CarPC Install on MP3Car.com and thought about adding this screen somewhere other than the ugly grey bulky headrest stand. So I pulled out my screwdrivers and opened it up. Inside the casing I found nothing... Mostly air. A motherboard and a screen.

(I will try to find the pictures of this soon)

I played with hooking it up by RCA to my TV and PS2 and was able to use it... Inspiration hits... Lets put this in my car in the dash... or maybe YES! The glovebox.


So I went downstairs and flipped open the glovebox and found that the screen would sit nicely inside and looked up fiberglassing. For a few months I drove around with the screen in the glovebox in it's little stand piece untill I was ready to start.

Things Needed
- Glovebox
- Fiberglass kit
- Tape
- Garbage bags
- Ventilation
- Time


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Here's the glovebox all shiney and clean. I didn't know the affects fiberglass would have on this so... Lets tape it up.
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Covering all sides top inside I could pour water in there if I wanted. Seems good to me.... Lets break open the
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After doing this, I realized, The fiberglass probably would have simply popped out of the glove box without all the tape... But then why risk it right? Speaking of risking things... Why risk my house with this unknown stuff.. So I laid out some garbage bags over the towels and taped it all up. Made a wonderful work area and I always do this now for any new project because cleanup was really simple.

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Time to break into the fiberglass kit and read the instructions.

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Really easy, Pour resin into mixing container, put 14 drops of activator, stir it all up, then use strips of fiberglass cloth like paper meche (sp?)
i.e., dip stip in and lay it on area you want it.

Simple enough

I heard if you rip this stuff into strips it works best. I found it difficult to rip it and got fibers everywhere. I recommend scissors or a rasor blade but I'm no expert at this stuff.
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Some of the research I was doing recommended laying down some tinfoil to make it easier to pull up once you are done. I agree with this now that I've done it. Just don't expect to get all the tinfoil off your creation. There's silver tin tape that might have worked better but I only recently found that stuff.
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o0o0o shiny


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Strips and strips and strips.
I would HIGHLY recommend making more than enough strips before starting. It's going to be goopy and difficult to make more later.


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This was my first attempt so I went with smaller pieces but not quite thin enough to make it easy to dip them. measure your mixing bucket or get an icecream bucket and use that. This little one that came with the kit was difficult to dip into.

If I do this again, I would go longer strips and about this thin or thinner.

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If you don't own rubber gloves, Get some. These come in so handy for so many projects I work on. and I would say they are required for working with fiberglass. I'll never go without them again. You get 100 in a box and I needed 7 pairs for this job because I went slow over weeks to do it (I'm lazy)

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The first layer
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I tried to be careful and lay the strips evenly and nicely. Eventually I just gave up and dunked and slopped. When there was enough liquid in the bottom of the glovebox, I started adding my strips in on top and pushing out air bubbles. This stuff absorbs easily.

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looks and feels like snot but it doesn't smell too bad. I had the fan on anyway though.

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I tried to get up in back and on the sides as much as I could, But after a while I realized I would have to make a few passes on each side to get a nice thickeness all the way around. Gravity grrr.


Once it's coated all the way around and dried I made a second pass and then let that dry.and on the third pass I just used everything I had left over and poured it into the glove box and let it all dry. Probably way more than needed but it's about 3-5mm thick.

Now the exciting part. I left it dry for a week because I was worried it wouldn't work. When I finally built up enough courage I went and pulled it out.

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It ws in perfect condition. Pulled all the tinfoil out with it but left the green tape almost perfectly dry. I'm really glad I taped and used tinfoil at this point.

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I peeled off most of the tinfoil and tape and it left the thing a little sticky. Some light sanding made it nicer to work with.
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Nice job......:smilie_da

So now you're ready to mount a small sub in there, right?....:laugh:

Looks like a pretty cool way to get the screen in there....more pics as it progresses would be appreciated, tks.....:smokin:

The next step was the build the front. First I drew a line of where the screen would go and trimmed off the excess with my dremel.

Building the actual front part gave me a lot of trouble working out how to do this part. I had the little rectangle piece that holds the screen, but I wasn't sure how to fill in the holes. My first attempt was to use and old T-Shirt and stretch it over and use some brake caliper spray glue to hold it in place and let it harden... This failed horribly and was super messy.

I put the screen holder bracket in place with stuff called Plastic Metal. It goes on like bondo putty and hardens really good. Again I used Rubber gloves and I squished in as much as possible around the back side of the holder and filled in the cracks pretty good.

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I gave up on the shirt idea completely and really wanted this in the car. I just taped it up in a mock-up form and was going to wrap it the way it was.... BUT I thought.. there's that big hole in the front... Couldn't I just lay fiberglass on the tape? Inspiration and I had the whole fiberglassing job the next day.

It took forever for me to think through the problem... but eventaully I found a solution. "Mock stuff up... it's helps you think"

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After it was hard I took the tape off to see what I had done. The whole time wondering if I'd need my dremel again. It actually came out pretty good.
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A test fit.
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The test fit of the screen was a bit troublesome. The screen has 2 little posts that it can be swivled on for angle. I was going to use this feature in the end product but after fiberglassing the front part I had covered the place those go. I could dremel it out and use them... but instead I elected to remove the posts.
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Some more picutres of the unit
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