Congrats on the new ride.
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Congrats on the new ride.
Making progress slowly but surely. Trying not to rush things because that never works out well. So, the gs690's just had WAY too much junk in the trunk and no way they were going to fit. Since I've had great luck with them in the past I'm going to be buying another pair of 8 ohm Scanspeak Discovery 7's and bridge the JL RD900/5 to them. Reason for the 8 ohm version is it has a lower fs and higher qts. Also models better in the lower midbass IB. I'm still going to give the Dayton nd16's a try that Ian was nice enough to send me for free but am also going to order a pair of the Scanspeak xt19 car tweeters with the mounting cups just because I need mounting cups to go in dash corners and have been wanting to try those tweeters for a while. The tweeters I like best will be what gets used. Here's what caused the gs690's not to fit. They're just shy of 3" deep with a WIDE magnet. And there's no cutting this piece because the window track appears to bolt to it. I don't remember the x9 holes being like this in my 09 or 11 quadcab.
https://i.imgur.com/bBU0MvG.jpg
I had to do some measuring to see if the Discovery woofers would fit. I measured up to the highest I could get in the oval opening and still be able to fit the Discovery. Then put a piece of tape across and measured down to that party pooper in the lower part of the opening. They'll fit with a little room to spare.https://i.imgur.com/P7NL7Bl.jpg
Also did some deadening on the panel and carrier plate. Due to the nature of the carrier plate I'm going to put my mlv on the panel itself and hope I benefit from it. If anything it will make the panel heavy as all hell and make sure it doesn't buzz. The carrier plate also has issues with buzzing but in my last Ram I glued indoor/outdoor carpet (because I had it laying around) to the panel and it was a good enough blocker to hide any buzzing deadening didn't fix on the carrier plate.https://i.imgur.com/4DIoG4P.jpg
Looking at where I want to run the usb cable to the headunit I found the usb port in the console. This just looks like an accident waiting to happen for me. That's why I'm going to mount it along with the bluetooth mic in a handy cubby hole that I normally wouldn't use for anything else. And less chance of having usb connection issues in the future.
https://i.imgur.com/8hIM6FB.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/GbsqU8Y.jpg
And just for grins I took measurements of the factory system with eq on flat. Black-ish is both fronts together. Red is right front only. Blue is left front only, and green is both rears together. To be honest, I'm impressed with the factory response and with reference material it sounds pretty good tonally with a high stage. Imaging sucks but that's to be expected. If this truck was just a tow rig and not my daily driver I'd leave the factory system alone:o
https://i.imgur.com/L8KF7fd.png
Yesterday I made the midrange enclosures. I traced the factory dash speakers and made the adapter rings out of 1/8" cutting board. It's pretty stiff so will also use it for the adapter rings for the Discovery 7's. I used 2" pvc endcaps for the midrange enclosures and used Gorilla glue to join the ring and endcap together. The ears on the gb25's hang over enough where I can mount them without having to drill into the endcap. I'll put a dollop of open cell foam in the cup to help keep the back wave in check and the 18g speaker wire will come out of the smallest hole possible in the back. I'll basically have an IB enclosure with enough attenuation to keep the back wave from interfering.
https://i.imgur.com/zOETnY0.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/KwajPWU.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/6D0T2ns.jpg
This morning I ran the wires for the most part. Used 4-way flat trailer wire to go to the midrange and tweeter in dash. I spliced 18g in to run up to each mid and tweeter. Tapped in behind the headunit for midbass in doors. Yes I know I should have run wires through the door boots but my research says the factory 18g will be just fine with the power the midbass with be seeing real world. The power wire was run just inside the cab as far to the drivers side as possible. The rest was run as close to the transmission hump as possible. Front seat bolts came out just fine. The ones in back had Loctite on them and I couldn't find my cheater bar...the LONG piece of pipe that doesn't give most bolts a choice. Instead I used just the 1/2" ratchet and grunted them out of there little by little. After doing this the passenger seat WILL NOT come out unless it absolutely has to! Also installed the headunit. Had to cut a support arm out from behind the dash that isn't structural but supports the factory headunits that have a cd player in them. Mine doesn't so it was useless in my truck, lol. What did I learn while doing this? DO NOT TRY TO USE A SAWZALL! It ALMOST ended bad for the bundle of wires going to the big plug back there. Hacksaw blade was roached so ended up using the tin snips. Got it cut out of there eventually. Drew blood and did a hillbilly bandaid while never missing a lick. Humidity was terrible and bet I lost half a gallon of sweat. https://i.imgur.com/IprVGXf.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/QnYdzrQ.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/sOqEPcT.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/0twsRAQ.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/LujDrTJ.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/PnGgqX8.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/BS1V74C.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/5vEORgI.jpg
Next phase will be MLV in the doors and speakers installed. Then the box/amp rack build will start. Still not 100% decided on how I want to do the box and rack. Sub will be downfired and everything else will be protected where I can pile stuff on top and not worry about it. In the morning a buddy of mine is going to help me secure the ground wire. I'll have to lay under the truck with a wrench while he tightens the bolt from up top. Will also run the cable for the reverse can to the back while it's up on ramps. I'm not installed the full frame plate cam until my new plate gets here because I remember it being somewhat of a pain putting the camera on the back bumper of my previous Ram. It's a little tight under there from what I remember and I'm built like an English Bulldog.
You’re flyin’ bro! Keep on rockin and rollin, it looks great!
I hope the quality of the sound is better than the quality of your pictures! lol Just messing with you bud. Great progress! keep the (terrible) pictures coming!
My phone is a ZTE Compel. What do you expect out of a $50 non-so-smart phone? lol.
Well I got some stuff done after several days of what seemed like constant rain. Changing of the seasons here in Arkansas I guess. I rerouted the wires going to the back through the factory slits under the drivers seat where existing bundles were coming through. I'll wrap split loom around my bundles of wire once I figure out exactly where everything is going. To give me a good surface to work with I cut a piece of mdf to go in place of the package tray and used a couple self-tapping screws to secure it. This way I'll have something I can run screws into and not worry about exactly what I'm running them into. I know the spots where I had to cut around for the screws go into without snagging the carpet causing a bigger mess looks bad but that will all be covered up. In other words, I might know it's there but as long as I can't see it once the job is finished who gives a damn?
https://i.imgur.com/AqC9W3L.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/TjLtDUk.jpg
I really wanted to use the Audiofrog g12 in this install but the box was just going to take up too much room back there. Just because I have the room at my disposal doesn't mean I want to use it all for car audio. The g12 is somewhat of an air pig by todays standards with winisd saying it needs 1.8 for a .7 qtc. It worked great in the Jeep in 1.4 stuffed with 20oz of fill so that's what I had mostly built for this truck but hadn't quite finished yet. I kept arranging amps, blocks, and processor around differently and decided to pull out "old faithful". The ID8v3 always gets me out of a jam when space is a concern and it gets the job done with 15mm xmax. Box is a hair over .4 (before displacements) and should do just fine for the time being. I'll run a 12" in there eventually but it won't be the Frog. It will either be a SI BMv or an IDQ12v3 (might have a trade deal with the IDQ). Both work good in a cube or less from what I can tell.
https://i.imgur.com/oMzxhIs.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/AuOZoKM.jpg
I'm also trying to get carid.com to exchange a dash mat that Dash Topper kinda dropped the ball on. I don't like this material at all anyway. I liked the velour one the Jeep had MUCH better. If they deny my exchange request I'll just cut the damn thing to expose the dash speakers for the time being.
https://i.imgur.com/6ntNZZ1.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/DermxLn.jpg
With most of my install plans getting changed during the build here's what this mutt of a system has turned out to be. Also wired up a factory door speaker and powered up the processor and JL amp. No whine, pops, or anything else you don't want to hear in a system. Hopefully that's the case once everything is hooked up and buttoned up for the long haul. Also broke my video cable going to the reverse cam (not installed yet) while rerouting wires. Considering how easy it snapped I don't think I want it under the truck anyway so have something that seems to be heavier duty on the way.
Pioneer avh-501x
Minidsp 8x12
JL RD900/5
Zapco ST-4X SQ
Scanspeak Discovery 3/4" (xt19) car tweeters
Audiofrog gb25
Scanspeak Discover 7" woofers
Image Dynamics ID8v3
IDQ12... :)
Great work my friend! Great idea replacing the tray with that board too. Will definitely make mounting options a lot easier. And can always add some sort of tray later if you really need one.