2010 MX-5 / Miata Build

[LumbermanSVO]

Today I picked up my new car. It looks great and I wouldn't be surprised to learn had it been garaged it's whole life. Everything at the dealer went super smooth, I was in and out in about 90 minutes, including the test drive. As soon as I let the clutch out I knew I was right in wanting one of these cars. What a wonderful piece of machinery to drive!


On the way home I plugged in my phone and turned on the stereo. At first I was like, "Ok, I can deal with this." It wasn't fantastic sounding, but wasn't absolute shit. Then a song with a little bit of bass came on, and at even a moderate volume, it didn't take much for everything to fall apart. The bass pulled enough power to destroy everything else.


I was going to leave it alone for awhile, but it's too terrible to do that. I don't want to get all crazy with it, mostly just drop in stuff. Lucky for me, it's not a Bose system, so it should be fairly easy to work on.


I have a bunch of gear laying around. Throwing my 800PRS in is a no-brainer. Perhaps running it in network mode off the internal amp is all I'll need to hold me over for awhile. If I need more power, I can easily add an amp.


There is pretty much no room for subs. Some people have put a single 8 in the passenger foots well, but I'm not looking to lose any passenger space. Like the rest of the car, the trunk is tiny. Even worse, it's pretty much sealed off from the rest of the car, so good luck getting any bass into the passenger area. That pretty much leaves sacrificing the storage bins behind the seats. There is a shop in Florida that made a box for 2 8's that went in the soft top storage area, and the top was still able to fully fold up, so that's an idea.


For the rest of the speakers, I have to mock it up, but it looks like horns will fit. The doors should fit 8's pretty easily. Perhaps something like the Silver Flutes could play from 50-ish all the way up to the horns and I could go without subs. I'm not looking for crazy loud, so that could work and it would be awfully nice to only have one amp to hide.


Any thoughts or suggestions?

[slade1274]

Behind the passenger seat?

[tnaudio]

You can do very deep beefy door speakers in those. The bose option put 8's in the doors. You might be able to get enough bass to be happy from there

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[LumbermanSVO]

You can do very deep beefy door speakers in those. The bose option put 8's in the doors. You might be able to get enough bass to be happy from there

I was happy to see that in my research. The key is to find an 8 that can play well from at least 1200Hz and down, and do it fairly well. The other option would be to use a small speaker in the factory tweeter location and make it a 3-way setup. With the crossover limitations in the 800PRS, I'd need something that could easily reach 250Hz. That doesn't leave too many options, and the GB25 is at the top of that list, with maybe the Illusion 3 at the top of that list too. With the 3-way setup, I could run the horns off the deck and still keep it to a single 4-channel amp for simplicity.

Behind the passenger seat?

There isn't much room behind the seats. A few people have cut up the panel behind the seats and fit 8's in there with some fiberglass work.

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It didn't take long to start ordering parts:


Metra Dash Kit
Metra Harness
Metra ASWC-1 Steering Wheel control adaptor
Pro-Clip Phone Mount
1 Foot long HDMI Cable
Used Steering Wheel
New Brake Switch


So, a few items need to be explained. I purposely got a no-option car because I'm just not a fan how hard it can be to replace failing electronic bits when a car gets old. The other problem is with they way the factory bundles options. Check one box to get a feature you want, and suddenly you wind up with a feature you don't want, and I don't want nanny features, like traction/stability control. So in my case, I looked for a car with as few options as I could find.


One feature I did want is cruise control. I did the research, and cruise control was a $500 option when the car was new. A 2009-1025 MX-5 has a Dive By Wire throttle body, all the wiring for cruise control, and every ECU is already programmed for Cruise Control. So to add Cruise Control, all you have to do is remove the blank trim pieces from the steering wheel and replace them with the trim pieces with switches, getting a used steering wheel is the easiest way to get the switches. I found one on Ebay for $50. The only other difference is the brake switch. The car with factory Cruise have a 4-pin switch, two high current for the brake lights, and two low current for the Cruise. The non-Cruise cars have a 2-pin switch. A new 4-pin switch is less than $20 and drops right in.


The Cruise switches also come with radio controls, so I got the adaptor to make them control the 800PRS. The only catch is, the Metra wiring harness doesn't come with a pin to connect the steering wheel controls, so I had to order a second harness so I have the extra pin I need.


I ordered the iPhone mount, but do really was to plug in two cables every time I get in the car, so I figured I could just use a Lightning to HDMI adaptor and Audio de-embedder that I have on the shelf. Then I can plug into the AUX in on the 800PRS. Of course, I then started wondering about the quality of the DAC in the $15 de-embedder when I realized I have a REALLY good DAC in the APL1 I'm currently not using.


So the plan is to go from the iPhone, to HIDMI, to digital coax into the APL1 and analog out into the 800PRS. It should be fun to see how it all works out.

[LumbermanSVO]

I mocked up my current CD2 Comps on the big bodies today. The driver side almost fits and wouldn't need much work. The passenger side isn't even close. It's funny how big they look compared to the car.






I've contacted Eric to see if he can make a straight entry body that might work. Even if he can, the driver needs to be less than 2.75 inches deep to fit between the blower motor and sheet metal.


On the plus side, all my wiring showed up and I can get to sorting that out. Also, my phone mount showed up:

[ca90ss]

Do they fit if you flip them so the driver is facing down?

[MoparMike]

Wouldn't that flip the dispersion angle of the horns?

[ca90ss]

You'd also have to switch sides. So the horn that goes on the left with the driver facing up would now go on the right with the driver facing down and same for the other side.

[LumbermanSVO]

Flipping the horns over, and swapping side doesn't effect the dispersion, I ran them motors down in Ol Smokey for quite some time. The problem with that is a few things, on the driver side, the dead pedal will be in the way, and it doesn't leave much room to operate the clutch. This car is comically small. The problem is worse on the passenger side. because of the blower motor the horn will have to be about an inch lower than the lip of the dash. With the motor compression driver hanging down it will take up a serious amount of foot room.

I did ask Eric about the straight entry full-size horns, and he can still make them. If they will work will just depend on how deep his current drivers are, and the mounting surface angle relative to the face of the horn.

I ddi just stumble upon this picture:



Notice the two different angles on the mini horn bodies? If Eric still make the one with the mounting surface 90º to the face of the horn, then that might be the solution to my problems. I guess I need to ask about that. Then the only real problem might be the vertical mounting tabs, but again, that depends on the depth of the driver.

[chithead]

I have some Eton Symphony 8-472 that play 1200Hz and down with no problems