Let's talk about my new Jeep WK SRT8

[FAUEE]

Hi friends. After a great many years I've decided to check off a box that I had wanted to do like 20 years ago and bought myself a low mile 2008 Jeep SRT8. This was a hero car for me in college, so it's really cool to actually have one now.

The factory screen is sunburned, and it doesn't have Bluetooth streaming, so that's the first thing to go. I was planning on a Joying android unit, but I bought an "EKAT" one that looks to be basically the same that's car specific, so no need for the extra wiring and accessories to retain steering wheel controls and the like (supposedly). It was super cheap, and if it's crap I can pull it out and send it back.

Speakers sound OK stock, but I'm gonna end up doing something with them, not sure what yet, but with a front 6x9 options are plentiful, and there's a dash speaker as well. I may try a 6x9 midbass and coax speaker on the dash and see how it sounds.

Subwoofer and amps is where things get tricky. Unlike my Trailblazer SS, there are no good options for nicely integrated subwoofer boxes available anymore. JL made a stealth box, but not for a VERY long time. A few people over the years made their own fiberglass corner boxes, but it seems most people with WK1 Jeeps just put a big ass box in the cargo area. I don't really want to do that, I kinda want my cargo space for strollers and kid stuff and all that. There is a very shallow floor compartment that's large in foot print, but very shallow. People appear to mainly use it for amps. I could maybe fit a really shallow sub in there, but it's very much not ideal. There's very limited room under the rear seats as well, so that would be an amp location at best.

Amp wise, I'm gonna be going for small size above all else I think. I'll probably end up going with the NVX mini amps, but might go with similar lower price but tiny amps. I used a bunch of Power Acoustik Razor amps in my TBSS and they've worked out great (I realize now I never did a build thread for it). I'm not very fussed about the amps, that'll fall into place when I get closer.

Anyways, thanks for coming to my rant. Here's a couple shots of it next to my TBSS for good measure.

Edit: apparently not, pics are too large lol.

 

[FAUEE]

I bought a cheapo android unit that's a direct fit for the Jeep.

https://a.co/d/8MEfH9V

Overall for $150 it's not bad. It has.plenty of preamp outputs, sound is decent, wireless smartphone crap, and it runs fairly smooth.

It's a great value for what's basically the price of the canbus interface it comes with. It could be a little faster or have a little nicer screen, but it's definitely good enough.

 

[FAUEE]

So after a few months of use, I thought the EKAT shit the bed. They sent me a new one, no issues. Guess what? Head unit was fine. Got a dead speaker (or possibly factory amp, seems improbable, but definitely possible). So that's up next. Currently obsessing over the perfect speakers to an unhealthy degree. Narrowed down to kicker KS, or Infinity Kappa. Bought both to install and see which I like more. Hopefully will get a little bit of time to work on it in the evenings... Working on finishing the exhaust in my C4 too.

 

[FAUEE]

Update after a few weeks, months, whatever.

I ended up picking the Kickers over the Kappas. The Kappas were beastly 6x9s and given "normal" circumstances I'd have easily chosen them, but there was no matching 3.5" kappa midrange, the 2" midrange required a tweeter to work with it, and I had no good place for a tweeter. So I sent back the Kappas and started on the Kicker KS speakers.

And then those assholes at Crutchfield struck. They decided it'd be a good time to run a sale on JL Audio gear, because they hate me and knew I had been eyeing the CF690W as the most badass 6x9 midbass on the block. After much debating, the Kickers went back to Crutchfield for a $13 return shipping fee (not bad, but when you're spoiled with Amazon free returns it's a little jarring), and a set of JL Audio CF690W, CF350, and C1650-SE were here (picking the silk edition components because, well, I didn't want bright ass yellow cones).

Put the gear all in with NVX silicone baffles and a bit of Second Skin Damplifier Pro on the doors and skins. It was at this point, things took an even more expensive turn. In a previous post I mentioned I had no sound, and figured it was likely due to a blown speaker. As I pulled the factory speakers out I noticed a distinct lack of obvious damage to the factory Boston speakers, the paper cones were fine, the paper surrounds intact, everything looked as it should. This all led to turning the key with all the new JLs installed and getting... Absolutely no sound. No change at all from stock, just with more solid sounding doors. So now, I needed amps.

One of the perks of a youth spent installing car stereos is a lot of stuff left over. I had old Rockford Fosgate 4 AWG power wire sitting around that was plenty long enough for my use. Ordered a fused distro block and started looking at amps. I had my old Rockford Fosgate Punch amps I'd used in 2 previous cars that are still awesome, but are large by modern standards. Test for, and they wouldn't fit under the front seats, my initial home for the amps. Plus, I only had a 400-4 and a 500-2, enough to run my midbasses, dash speakers and rears, but notably unable to support any subwoofers if I added them, and because they're like 20 years old now (how the hell is that possible), they're not exactly easy to buy, and often expensive if you find them. I will likely repurpose these for my C6 Corvette Grand Sport one day... One day.

Perusing the options for amps not made by Communists, the options were either crazy expensive, Korean amps like the Power Acoustik Razor I'm using in my Trailblazer SS and C4 Corvette, or Brazilian amps that had seemingly too much power for a tiny size. But the amp dyno videos I watched told a different story, they made oodles of power at certified THD levels. I obsessed over brands again, and was leaning towards Banda, because they looked the coolest and they performed the best on the amp dynos. But a sale on Amazon changed those plans, and I became the proud owner of 3 new Soundigital Evo6 amps, two 400.4s I paid $60 each for, and a 800.4 I paid like $99 for. I can't say enough about how insanely small these amps are. Truly insane, and I tested one out in my C4 and they make a ton of power and sound pretty dang good. Something they don't do well is crossovers, so I needed a DSP. Banda has their own Bluetooth DSP wouldn't ya know it, so for $130 the 4 channel in 8 channel out DSP was a no brainer.

Initially I planned to run speaker wire into the doors. Turns out, Jeep used molex plugs there, and I wasn't about to start drilling holes. So the 100' of 15 gauge speaker wire I bought for this and had already cut up to the right lengths got repurposed to hook to the factory amp output wiring. Now that I had to access the factory amp, the small size of the amps paid off big time, and I was able to take the space and bracket the factory amp mounted to, and use some ABS to make my own amp bracket for my 3 amps. 2 amps on the front side, and the 3rd on the back side in (I think) a convently empty cavity.

Because I wasn't totally sure where I was going to put everything, I decided to make my own RCAs. I ordered a 250' roll of Tisino shielded 24AWG 2 conductor wire, using the two wires for the center conductor of the RCA, and the copper braided shielding and the thin foil shielding for the outer layer. With tech flex applied, they looked freaking fancy, like I'm some kinda DIYMA guy building to show off or something. It's honestly pretty comparable in price to buying RCAs, not that much work, looks great, and you can get them to be whatever length you need, so frankly I don't see myself every buying premade RCAs again.

So anyways, we're all but ready to fire it up with the new amps. I need another pair of RCA terminals, and I need to figure out a good way to tell what wires are what, because when I made my first set I left them bare on one end, intending to trim them to length. So now I have no idea what wire is what at the back of the car, lol. I think I'm gonna jumper each to a 9v battery and use that to figure out what cable is which to then terminate them. That should be a fairly quick process, and I have a basic set of crossovers set up for the speakers, so once those terminals are on we should be ready to rock.

A few other things of weirdness. My cheap ass android head unit only has a single pair of RCA outputs. Not a huge issue, the DSP only need a pair, but since the DSP only has 4 inputs, of I ever upgrade to a nicer unit (like a Joying) with front, rear, and sub pre-outs, I will have to decide how I want to do that. I don't have a real need for a fader, so I'll probably just do fron and sub to the DSP for easier sub control, but who knows. Also, I don't even have a sub, or know what I'd do for a sub, or anything like that, so it's a rather moot point. I did install an amp to be ready for subs, but that was largely due to not wanting to be able to find a matching amp and the low cost of the amps in general.

I'll try to load some pics up tomorrow, I took a few of my amp rack setup and my custom RCAs.

 

[FAUEE]

Another very delayed update. I got it all installed and playing!

The original Amazon special RCA ends I bought were utter trash. Poor connection and wasted way more time troubleshooting them than money I saved buying them. I replaced them with Sewell RCA ends that were a bit more money but about 1000x better.

Got everything installed and working and it sounds... OK. The CF690s sound good, and donwell as a midbass, but they don't deliver the lunch of a subwoofer (you can't really expect them too). The CF-350MT I haven't fully settled in with. They go between sounding really good to sounding a little bit like cheap headphones. I suspect this is a me issue, and they I have not tuned them properly yet. I think with some more tinkering I'll like them, but initial impressions had me wishing I had just gone for the JL coax speakers.

I want a sub. I need to figure that out, eventually. But it's definitely missing the deep lows and the tactile feedback of a subwoofer. It sounds really good, but going from it to the TBSS with a 10" CompQ is a night and day difference. If I didn't have that as a frame of reference, it'd be a great system. It keeps up with the bass of my wife's Expedition with the B&O system easily.

Key takeaway here is that the JL CF-690W kicks ass, and is an awesome midbass if you're running a wideband or mid-range to go with it.