2016 Challenger R/T Plus

[chithead]

Tried some adhesive today on those connectors. Seems to be holding well, definitely offered peace of mind that the wires might stay put now:



Tried this Loctite stuff because it specifically stated being useful for vinyl and plastic both.

[chithead]

Not much progress on the Challenger this weekend. Spent most of it preparing for a new position at work starting Monday, and putting together things for Mom's Forester build.

Did have an hour though to mess around with communication cables for the Zapcos. Found some ethernet cable on sale at Lowe's, black connectors on eBay for pretty cheap, and used up some leftover heatshrink and techflex:

[tRidiot]

Those look nicer than my Zapco black flat 80s phone cables, for sure! lol How much per foot?

Good job.

[chithead]

Thank you I'll send you a PM, can definitely hook you up if desired.

[Glenn]

Glad to see you have motivation for a car you obviously love!

[chithead]

That, is probably the truest statement ever.

[chithead]

Had some time this weekend to work some more. Finally fixed the harness. That adhesive is working very well. Too well actually, stuck two of the plugs together. Had a heck of a time getting them separated again. Needed to though, as I kinda had to repair the main output harness because of sorta wiring it wrong. Lesson learned, and note to others trying to save time. Do not attempt to assemble half a harness, while sitting on the toilet. There is too many other things to focus on, than trying to line up wires, twist, make sure the heatshrink is on first, etc. So yeah, it's fixed. Had everything swapped far as sides, and phase. So left was right, right was left, and all positives were negatives, negatives were positives. But it's fixed! Back the way it should be.

Cut some speaker wire to length, just trying to get a head start on things:



Got the dash apart to try out some speaker placement:





Rode around for a day with the domes swapped in, and ohhhh boy. That placement is about perfect. Couldn't ask for a better stage far as height. Was wide as heck though, thinking it is going to take a few tricks to narrow that up a bit. Which is why when it came to tweeter time, I found moving them inward of the midrange, it was better. I know this goes against logic and proper teachings and thinking and such. But it really did help. I guess the windshield reflections of this car are causing a massive dispersion pattern, and having the tweeters more towards the middle helped keep all the cymbals and such from being way outside the mirrors, especially when the snares were more towards the middle.

But... a new problem arrived. While listening to some Oscar Peterson Trio, I could hear a distortion in one of the domes. It was just on certain tones, and especially when there was a lot of musical activity going on, but it was there. Thought I would skip to some other tracks from the Focal discs, as maybe this was just a bad MP3 file that I had from years back. Rarely heard it again, but could barely tell it was still there. Tried Dire Straits, ohhh yeah. Still there. At this point I'm wondering if the midrange has gone bad, or if it's too low a crossover point? So the idea occurs, Metallica. And Justice For All. If you're gonna have distortion, that disc will expose it in a hurry. And ohhh lawdy. It was bad. But it sounds more like a resonant distortion, versus a bad speaker? I don't know if that makes sense. Swapped out the dome and tried the factory speaker, and a few other small drivers, even the Morel tweeter, and didn't hear that again. Which tells me it's definitely the speaker. Could it really be a bad speaker? Perhaps was overdriven in the past and has some coil rub? I dunno. Scratching my head on this one.

[pocket5s]

why would you not want width?

and once you put the pillars back on, that width with shrink up.

[chithead]

It was just weird. Didn't seem natural to have the drum kit so far apart like that, especially when 90% of one is within a six foot circle.

But you're right, I didn't try with the pillars back on. Did try the tweeters up near the pillars, which is where I would normally put them, and couldn't tell any difference between there, and in the dash, inward of the midrange, but closer to the edge and further from the windshield. When pushed closer to the glass, the sound was way too, "bright."

I'm kind of a noob though when it comes to tuning. Always happy for help in understanding how it is supposed to sound

[chithead]

This is the locations I am talking about, red circle with thumbups sounded gooooood for the tweeter. Thumbsdown was baaaaaad.