It should take less than 5 mins to re-assemble in the reverse order. Mind the hammer.
This by the way, is the proceedure for getting low level outputs from the stock head. Give GaryM credit for showing the way....his thread is very clear. (I can't figure how to bring it up here. Sorry.)
"I don't have parts left over so it must be right."
EDIT....THIS DID NOT WORK....GROUND LOOP HUM AND LOSS OF DYNAMICS.... the high level converters with the Blaupunkt PA 2100s work well with the stock head.
Ess
Last edited by Bad Ess; Jan 8th, 2003 at 03:11 PM.
Stay tuned, this is a slow project. I am mounting amps and running wires now...then the sound down...then the sound.
From the purist view point this will be as good as it gets given the fact that this is a car. The choice of componants might be better but this is a cost v/s benefit program to prove to myself I need to spend more. Speakers and amps are the first step.
The rear speaker enclosures are close to the book, being air tight with the proper volume and dampening. Nothing rattles. Bass should be accurate and deep without the boom of a ported tuned box.
The amps have plenty of power. Remember how small the MINI cabin is. There will be no clipping and harmonic distortion at good listening volumes.
The head unit could be a weak point. GaryM proved that by-passing the power amps is better. (Amplifying then driving a resister block to get back to low level imputs is not clean.) (My home system has a CD direct input that by-passes the preamp. I can hear the difference.) I think the Alpine head has pretty good decoding. Changing the front speakers reveled a big improvement in sound quality that wasn't getting out. I don't need features so I don't mind the generic look and single disc slot. I don't want to loose the speed volume compensation either.
It will look stock! This system will most often have to compete with 60 to 70 db of car noise as well so going over the top may only require being loud and clear. I think it will rock!
It is unfortunate that like a few other things in life, good sound (and great sex) is a judgement call. (I'm just making sure the bod is good, with no surprises.) What I think is good could be crap to the next guy...stand by for my raving review. It might be few weeks.
My speakers should arrive in the post tomorrow! Hopefully...!!!
So in the meantime I've been re-reading all the threads on how to take the doors apart and the rear side panels off...and I found this thread!
Bad Ess - you're mad! I'd have never of thought of sealing up the apertures behind the rear speakers, though I have spent £25 on Dynamat Extreme....So - I'm making up templates to seal off those holes at the moment - though I don't have any 0.05" aluminium sheet. Might use lexan or acrylic sheet instead.
As for the foam... off to google, and I found Minimal Expanding Great Stuff Foam in the UK - read all about it here!
And - even better you can get it at B&Q in the UK!
Good luck MCS1. Be sure whatever material you choose can be flexed between the wheel well and side panel to get it in.
Here are my amp brackets. The amps will be removable and adjustable through the access panels in the boot. The mounting studs are there. I left the ground tap for the harness on the bottom. I put a nut and flat washer on the unused ones first to space out for foam etc.
The "Birth Certificate" with the amps shows 115 watts per channel RMS @less than 1 % THD ! I will never be that loud but that's a lot of power for such a small box. Amp draw at this output is 16. (Bridged in to 4 ohms is 334 W rms drawing 26. This is a bit more power than the original head unit amp! The amp is the exact size as the head unit once you strip it.
Your amp is sitting right on top of the main battery power cable from the alternator.....are you not going to be singing all the way to the Levy... or whatever...the Levy is in New Hampshire isn't it?
Anyways....you might need to shield the cable a bit. Just a thought.
Yea, there could be some noise but most often a ground loop or RF is picked up on the input. I have no choice of location..I will make it work. I am not sure how the inputs will run yet. The speaker wires will be twisted pairs. You will be the first to know if it doesn't work.
There are two heavy battery wires. One is on the exploding connector and dives down under the car. The other is fused and follows the bundle on the left side foward. Anybody know about these? One wire could just be the jumper wire hook up under the bonnet.
Ess
Last edited by Bad Ess; Jan 6th, 2003 at 04:49 PM.
Working with one hand in a 6 x 9 hole is a pain.
Here is the layer of sound deadening self stick PVC. Then the 1/2" PVC foam and finally,hollow fill (To improve the acoustic size of the space.) I stuck an 1/8" layer of foam around the inside of the hole to make a good seal against the speaker.
i picked up a lot interference by mounting my amp in certain locations of the boot so watch out for that. also watch out for your input cables. i think you ran rca preamp cables from the back of the head? watch out for that I picked up a whine when i ran my preamp cables inside either of the rear quarter panels. in the end i just ran them under the rear seat and my problem has since stopped.
why didn't you mount the amp on the passenger side? of course there is an issue with the boosted FM antenna on that side too!
BadEss, can you please give me a few more details on your "foam work"? I understand that you created a "bulkhead" that is more-or-less lined up with the gas filltube, but I'm not quite grasping where the foam is. Isn't the foam trapped between two bulkheads? If not, did you completely fill some area with foam? I don't see foam in the speaker compartment itself, nor in the "amp compartment" just aft of the speaker, so where is it?
From the the back edge of the passenger door opening, how does it go? Is it something like: <speaker enclosure><mystery bulkhead?><foam><fabricated bulkhead><amp and tail light compartment>?
it's hard to imagine w/o being in the car, but the foam is behind the amp. the speaker goes into a hole which is part of a enclose area formed by the inner metal wall and the outer car wall. the metal to the outside of the amp is the interior metal wall there is air space behind that, and then the exteriour sheet metal.
ok that probably doesn't make any sense, sorry. it's very clear once you have the speaker out and the rear panel off the car
Dave, Minhi is correct. The speaker box is defined by the outside skin, the door post and the panel I installed. The spray foam was injected into the holes in the panels I installed. The panel created one bulkhead. The excess foam just swelled back over the wheel wells and into the cavities. The next step was to put the PVC dampening layer on the metal that can vibrate. On the outside skin it creates mass to cut transmission of the road noise. The silver foam is to absorb stray noise. This stuff does what dynamat does not do, dampens and quiets the cavity. The rest of the car and doors will have the heavy material against the tin and a top layer of the silver faced foam over it.
The link to soundown is below. They don't have a retail package yet but this is the stuff to use. At some point I will tell them how much material is needed to do the MINI.
The first smoke test!!!!! I fired up one amp and the rears. with no interior panels and the back open. It is great. The speakers are neutral, natural and clean. With my head in the back door it is louder than I will ever want it while I am in the car and that's not turning on the fronts.
My tools bounce around on the seat well.
The pre amp outs modification does not work well. DON'T BOTHER TO TRY THIS. I got a ground loop hum and it seems the dynamics dropped. For now the Blauplunkt high level converters will be used until I change heads. (If and when, it sounds pretty good.)
Ah. After reading these additional descriptions and going back and staring at the photos some more, I think I have a pretty good idea where the foam is. Do I understand correctly that you got the foam all the way to the top of the open space, even though the foam was able to flow past the wheel wells?
What flavor of Great Stuff did you use? Apparently some types expand more than others. Were you able to buy it locally?
There are plenty of "consumer" grade sound-absorbing foam mats available out there. Dynamat sells a few varieties, usually with "liner" in their name. "TacMat" is also a foam product. Here's their web page. (Note: Dynamat-brand products are IMO horribly overpriced. I'd buy their competitor's products instead. For instance, B-Quiet seems to have some reasonably priced stuff.)
Dave, I used the Great Stuff/Gaps and Cracks (Who runs the marketing at Dow?). It is a 16 oz can from Home Depot. It must be a special size for HD as I don't see it in the Web call out.
When working with this product use a drop cloth, wear gloves, do not play with it until it is hard (cures). As I said somewhere I stuck a 16" piece of clear 3/8 ID hose on the straw tube and taped it. The can has to be in the inverted position to work. I then started at the middle hole with the tube stuck 6" in the panel and let it rip for about half a can. Then I moved up to the top hole and let the rest of the can go. My shop is about 60 degrees F. The can was 70. I am not sure what the best cure temp is. It took about a day to cure but as I cut away chunks that had pushed through the panel holes some uncured stuff started to grow again. The pile grew over the wheel well to the gas cap cable on the left side and about the same on the right. The foam is a good sound deadener as you can get anyway so it is easier to let it go than try to get in with other product there. There was no real pressure. I glued in the panel but it did not flex. I thought this would be the relief valve if the foam went nuts. It didn't. My unlived horror was to go to the shop in the morning and see a new shape to my MINI.
I removed both inside trim pieces along the door frame. One 12 foot phono pair goes from the left rear amp to the HU on that side. I made a 20 and a 15 foot twisted pair of 16 ga. tinned wire to run along the right side with the other 12 foot phono pair for the right amp which is for the front.
The speaker wires go through a rubber grommet that has a big bundel going through it behind the glove box. The wires come through behind a baffel near the DSC piping. From there I went inside the baffel to the left side and through a rubber grommet to follow the factory wires to the side light and down to the rubber bellows (for lack of another description) covering the wires to the door. I made a small slit in the rubber on the door. (Look from the inside to see where to do this.) Before I inserted the wires in the door I slid on a 1 foot piece of black neoprene I skinned off a 3 wire cable to hide and protect the wires between the door and the engine space. The rubber on the door seals this well and it barely shows. I used a black wire tie to hold the new cable behind the rubber bellows.
Here are some pictures of the soundown treatment. By the way, the doors close and feel like a Rolls and the sound is unreal.
The door skin has heavy dampening and foam. Before adding soundown there is about 1" between the bubble and the window when down. It no longer feels cheasy when you tap on the inside.
Yea, As you know (Living in NE.)the snow and salt are not making me hurry to drive so I am working on this on and off. I think the second time would be much faster. I think sound proofing and changing the speakers would be a couple of days. Not counting the foaming of the 6x9 holes. I spent some time figuring how much interior I had to rip out and whether or not to foam. Don't start a project like this if you need the car in the morning. You can buy front speaker adapters I think but make sure they seal at the door skin. You don't need to bracket the amps but I found that really simple. All the tools are available to me. I like this kind of hobby so for me it is (Most of the time.) fun. And I am thrilled with the results and will be enjoing every mile either listening to the supercharger or some great funk while in traffic.
I am now at the head unit. Me thinks I am going to scrap the factory head. Stay tuned.
I think I'll be replacing the fronts pretty soon, but I don't think I'll be going as far as Ess with the custom enclosures in the back - great idea though.
Do you happen to have any idea of what the enclosed volume of those foamed-in rear enclosures are now? I have some 8" subwoofers that might be convinced to fit where the 6x9 openings are now. They're designed to work best in a .5 cu/ft. sealed enclosure. A little smaller is okay too.
Hmmm, I guess if the enclosure is too big, some more foam squirted into the bottom of the area would fix that. I've never heard of that method of tuning, but it seems like it oughta work.
Would you call your (rear) enclosures "fully sealed", or just "mostly sealed"? If the latter, could they be completely sealed with a little more foam?
I know you seem set on getting those woofers in there but maybe you should try regular 6X9s. I've been surprised by how well my 6X9s sound, the bass is actually pretty good. I had to give them enough power though (right now 50RMS, and they could take more). I'm leaning towards not adding a subwoofer right now.
if you're worried about sound stage issues, I would try to find some good, one-way 6X9s you might be suprised and it involves a lot less work. I commend you for trying to squeeze those 8's in there but I have doubts that it will sound very good. I've heard 8's in off the shelf boxes (of correct volume per spec) that didn't sound good. just IMHO
You will be taking out very little. The 4 speaker (tweeters not counted) change will add 15 lbs I think. The foam I used weighs nothing but the PVC weighs about 1 lb. per square foot. I think I am into 16 sq. ft. I will add up the weight later. It's heavier but so is the sound.
Later edit:
>>>
I ended up using 16 sq feet of 1 lb. pvc sheet and close to 23 sq feet of the 1/2" foil foam. In all I added an easy 23 Lbs to the car in dampening and the 15 Lbs. of magnets...total 38 lbs!
<<<
The best thing is to rip out the seats, date small women, drive alone in you skivies, stop drinking beer, eat only vegetables, drive with the reserve light on and, wait and see what can be done under the hood!
Dave, The enclosures are totally sealed. The volume is more than 1/2 cu foot. I have a pant load of bass with the units I installed. My bass reference is Sting's Brand New Day "A thousand Years" Intro it is mostly sub and it is all there. Then there is the 35 HZ and down EQ boost on the amps.
As Minhi says try it.
Ess
Last edited by Bad Ess; Jan 22nd, 2003 at 01:38 PM.
oh yeah, i forgot about the bass boost on the amp, as well as the pass filters, you can make your 6X9s into "subs" by only feeding them a certain frequency range.
honestly a properly done sub most likely would sound better, but those 6x9s are pretty good. oh not to mention my door speakers, which give great response as well. the amp made a huge difference to the aftermarket speakers.
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