wvince

Well, I've been back into car audio since March this year after a 15 year break, a wife and 3 kids later. When I left the car audio scene I had a '87 jetta with 3 1/2" RF Power twins up front, 4" power RF with Sony tweeters in the rear, 2 Power 12" RF subs in a 5th order bandpass, 2 punch 150's running everything, and an Alpine HU (which I still have. I got out of the car audio because I bought a brand new Civic in '96 and didn't want to alter the car in any way. Well, the car has lasted a long time. I still have it. In fact I have a nice SQ system in it right now, and still working on it. There is much more I want to do with the current components in this system but for now it is setup as follows:

HU - Pioneer Premier 410UB
amps - For mids and highs a JL HD600/4. For sub JL HD750/1
Speakers - Front JL C5 6.5" components in custom kicks. Rear JL C5 5.25" components in the rear deck. A pair of tweeters in the front door sail panel (oposite the exterior mirror). 1 JL12W3V3 sub in sealed box

Back in March when I started into this project I had the brand new 410UB HU and the old Rockford Fosgate speakers I dug out of the closet from 15 years ago. Purchased a 4ch alpine V12 amp to power everything at first. Purchased a JL12w3V3 sub in a sealed box and installed it rear firing in the trunk. System sounded ok. Was somewhat loud comparing to what I had back in the day. Got playing around with speakers and tried a couple things. Ended up frying the V12 with too low impedence. Ah well. Guess I'll need a new amp. Bought a JL (see the trend here) 300/4 Slash 4ch amp. Nice amp. Powered everything nicely. Wasn't happy with the sub bass though. The sub didn't reach its full potential. Had to curve spending for a little while since the wife was getting suspicious. So I invested in a set of components for the front doors. Sounded ok but I knew it could be better. Installed a set of kicks and moved the components down low. Sounded better. A better image and sound stage surprisingly was higher. Never had kicks with mids and highs before. After a couple months went by I fell into a good deal on a JL 500/1 Slash mono block. A nice sounding improvement over the rear channels of the Slash 300/4. Plus I noticed how much cooler the class D ran vs the AB. Since the rear channels had been freed up on the 300/4, I purchased a pair of 5 1/4" components and installed them in the front doors. Now I had components in the kicks and front doors. It was louder but the sound quality was disapointing. At this point I added the Fosgate 4" in the rear deck to find out what the sound difference would be compared to the front doors. It sounded better but the old RF speakers had a colourful sound compared to the new JL C5's. So I moved the door components to the rear deck and the sound quality got much better. I'm still looking for a front only component setup eventually but this will have to do for now. So now I had 6 1/2" components in the front kicks and 5 1/4" components in the rear deck. Sounded pretty good. Thought I'd try the JL HD series amp at this point and purchased the HD600/4 for the mids and highs. Wow! It sounded better. I couldn't believe the sound difference by just changing the amp. Now having increased the power to the mids and highs, the sub didn't seem to keep up as much as I would like. So I got rid of the Slash 500 and installed the HD750. The sub now is reaching is potential.

With both amps now being class D that meant a cooler running system. All this was mounted in the trunk on the sub box. I must admit it looked like crap with the wires hanging off and running down the sides of the box to the floor. I wasn't proud of how it looked and wouldn't show people my install at this point. With the cooler running amps, I decided to install them under the front seats. I'm a tall guy so the seats are in the rear position most of the time and protect the amps from feet in the back. With the amps under the seats it makes for a neat looking install with wires running under the carpet to and from their various components. With the amps under the front seats the RCA's, power and speaker wire are all shorter. I don't know if this makes sense but it actually has a better sound image now. It's the exact same speakers, amps and HU. The only major difference is the short now shielded RCA's and shorter power cable. The trunk is looking much cleaner and the rest of the install looks good. Not much custom work but I'm happy with the way things look.

I will do more sound deadening when it gets warmer or when I get board of the current setup. The spare tire well is not deadened yet but much of the rest of the trunk and rear quarters are done. Even under the rear seat and some of the floor has been deadened. This civic is the EX model and has deadening in it already in various places along the floor. The doors are completely done and have made the biggest improvement in noise reduction. The trunk lid is still my challenge. It will buzz on certain notes. It is already deadened and then some but will need a little more weight on it. Even the rubbers have been refreshed to make a tight seal but have not eliminated the odd small buzz. The biggest noise maker is the rear deck. It has been deadened on the tin work but the plastic is making the noise. It is on the list to fix.

Wish I had pics to upload from the journey but our camera has been fried. Wifey plugged in the laptop adaptor instead of the camera charger to it. Should have pics in about a week. New camera is on its way.

Not only has the audio system been intensely upgraded in my civic, a revival of exterior has been done. Some body work to get rid of rust, new projector head lights and new window tint to give the car a new look again. A new grill is on its way with plans of LED tail lights or HID for the projectors. Haven't decided. Well I've spilled alot here and missed some but it sure is fun!

wvince

Here's the first pics with the new camera. These are the new projector headlights with 6000k halogens installed. First pic is with just the halo's. The 2nd with projectors on and the 3rd is a front view with just halo's on.

Lay

Any updates with this build and pics of said equipment? And nice headlights, they look badass.

wvince

Working on pics. It's snowing right now and I'm slowly getting things cleaned up inside the car. So many ideas and so cold out right now. Gotten the street performance bug as well. Just installed tripple A pillar gauges and working on a chipped ECU setup. New engine goes in spring time, when it's warmer.

Been playing with sub placement in the trunk. So far I like the rear firing sub back sound. There are trade offs but overall the sound is nice to listen to. Need to have the speakers time aligned though. With the sub back I can notice a delay in some of the bass notes on certain songs. It sounds out of time with the beat. It's a compound of things. Longer speaker wire, longer RCA's, speaker further from your ears etc. Not sure if the amp has anything to do with it either. I would think that no 2 amps are alike in processing speed. I mean that a sub amp may process quicker or slower than a mid/high frequency amp. I could be wrong but there must be a difference since different components are used to process the sound. Electricity only flows so fast. The more components inside the amp it has to go through the longer it would take to get out the other side. Of course it's probably nano seconds. lol!

Lay

There you are. Well, keep us posted of the build in general, including the swap and performance parts.

wvince

Ok. It's still snowing so no pics today. But I will list the tuner side of my ride now. 96 civic (canadian) ex. I picked up a D16 engine from the junk yard that had about 112,000km on it. Tore it down and mic'd the crank, cam and cylinders for wear. Everything is still within Honda's spec! This engine was gently used by what I can tell. What's going in it:

- Wiseco +.5mm pistions. Block bored to match.
- Eagle H beam rods
- APC performance mains and rod bearings
- APC head studs
- Cometic head gasket
- Adjustable cam gear
- high output oil pump (aprox 15psi more over stock)
- Y8 intake manifold and throttle body with 2 wire IACV
- P28, P30, P72 chipped ECU with data logging header + spare chips
- Turbonetics turbo and Treadstone manifold, intercooler and piping kit
- Stage 4 clutch
- Si tranny to handle the extra power.
- oil filter sandwich with oil pressure sensor and turbo feeds
- Catback exhaust system with high flow catalytic converter
- AEM wideband O2 sensor feeding the A/F ration gauge on the A pillar

I'm starting with 12psi boost on the new engine but I feel it will be able to handle 18-22pis daily. Mind you I'm a gentle driver and only push it if required. My initial target hp is 200. But after breakin and some tuning with Crome it will be upwards of 300hp at over 200ft/lbs of torque with a minime head conversion slated for late summer or fall. Haven't decided on which injectors to go with yet, 550, 725 or 1000cc high impedence. I hear the 1000ID's are decent to tune but may be a little more than what I need.

Some exterior items are the projector headlights, black open style grill and newly tinted withdows. It has a new hood and some rear fender body work with fresh paint to get a new looking car again. A good couple go overs with Mothers car care system and this thing looks amazing. It really does look good for being 14 years old. It looks good if it were only 4 years old.

Lay

Wow, seems like a nice build. To deal with your bass delay issue, it's odd that you're hearing the delay with a sealed box, it may be a phase issue.

loudgrand

go with the bigger injectors..alot better then to small and not being able to get enough fuel threw them.. i know a guy who built a 500WHP 2.2 ecotec cavalier, it was retarded spun all the way threw third and doing highway pulls launching at 80 he would still smoke the tires once he got into boost

wvince

Purchased some B-Quiet sound deadener and double layered around and behind the kick panels that house the 6.5's. It helped a little but what it really needs is a decent mdf enclosure/mount. I can still feel the floor panel vibration from the midrange down there when driving with volume of 65% or higher.

Honestly I haven't played much with phase on the sub or any other channel. Been focusing on the engine and keeping warm.

wvince

Here's a couple pics of my car and the work in progress.
First pic is of the A pillar gauge cluster added. That is not the CEL but the seat belt light on.
2nd pic is the speaker cloth covering the junk in the trunk but still letting the sound travel through easily.
3rd pic is showing the tweeter mount on the sail panel. It's ok but I'm learning to do some fibre glass work and will end with a nicely pointed up and back tweeter.
4th pic is of the JL12W3V3 in a sealed box. It's a generic box that's been reworked. Again, a temporary box until I find the sound I like.
5th pic is of the inside of the trunk lid. Not really proud of this feat. Was more of a test before I decided to install something nice. It works but looks like poo.
6th pic is of the inside of the passanger side kick with double layer of B-quiet. Still vibrates. Will need a custom enclosure make of either an MDF or fibre glass reinforced. (next year) Apparently there needs to be some carpet cleaning done on that side of the car.
Last pic is showing the gauges and some of the work being done on the passanger side floor. The ECU is on the floor for now until I get the new one up and running with the new power plant.