I was hoping to go to a local show and surprise the guys with a new car and install, but with shelter in place, that's not happening any time this year. So I may as well post up my car. It's incredibly plain, but maybe one or two of the small tricks can help to inspire others for some aspect of their car.
Anyway, on with the car! It's the first performance car I've owned, and it's pretty doggone fast!
Just a rinky-dink 4 cylinder engine, but it makes some good power. The real eye opener was that it comes with a bunch of Benz tech that I had no idea I needed. It sticks to the road like glue, and even more now that I have Potenza RE-71R's on it. differential AWD with torque steer, a Dual-Clutch transmission that shifts ridiculously fast. The turbo lag is extreme, but still theoretically gets me from 0-60 in near 4 seconds. Which means though the 0-30 time is awful, the acceleration from 30-110 is warp-ridiculous to compensate. It's a hoot to drive! And the hatch means I can still move some small cargo, fit my kids in the back comfortably, etc.
After I put a piggyback computer on it, I was able to find a local tuner shop with a 4-wheel dyno willing to help me out
The internet consensus is that the AWD/rear differential sap 18% of the crank HP. Assuming that is true, I'm putting about 420 HP down at the crank. I like the thought of being in the 400 club...
Regardless of the power level, it's fun to drive! I drove from San Jose to San Diego two years ago and took 14 hours to do it, by taking only super-windy backroads until I hit PCH above Malibu. I was totally tense and tired when I arrived at my destination, but it was an absolute joy.
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Anyways, on to audio, the interesting part!
The install is uber-simple, and no-fluff, so you guys might find it a bit boring in design. Hopefully there's something of interest in the execution to make it neat and fun:
Source:
OEM. Besides being easy, and good enough, it also has a USB input, an ipod input, and an SD card input. So, I put all my WAV on a giant ipod, all my MP3 on an SD, and my wife's entire music collection on a USB stick. Now I have ALL my music in my car at the push of a button, and all my wife's music too! And bluetooth is still there for Pandora. So my bases are covered!
Signal processing:
Factory - I use it as a MOST adapter. That's cheaper than buying one
JBL MS8 - deconstructs the 8 outputs of the factory amp, cleans me up, gives me 7.1 upsampling (I'm using 5.1), and gives me a basic tune.
miniDSP HD - I am using two of these. 4 inputs, and 8 outputs. They post-process my mains, center, and sub. HD because apparently these two letters make it better, and they are cheap enough. This gives me all the processing power I could want. The rears stay processed only by MS8. It's enough.
Amps:
JL HD 600.4 and 900.5. 9 channels total cover the entire car. I have come to really like the JL technology in the HD amps, and the form factor is hard to beat. Also, I like the input terminals and locations on the amp. All in all, it's a great sounding amp with good packaging.
Speakers:
Center: Scanspeak Illuminator tweeter, Focal Be3 midrange, and tangband midbass of some flavor.
Mains: Morel Elate Ti 6.2 component set
Rear Midbass: Rainbow Reference (patched in as Mains via separate channels of the miniDSP to experiment with midbass support. Fun reading: https://www.diymobileaudio.com/threa...visited.74088/)
Surrounds in C-pillars: Fountek FR88EX 3's
Subwoofer: Phase Linear Aliante 15SI 15" flat subwoofer. I'm going to be buried with this darn subwoofer.
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Some notes of undocumented stuff:
Standard power wiring. There's an access panel in the trunk that I mounted the D-block in, no fluff.
The OEM wiring was large gauge, so I used it. I cut the factory speaker output wires behind the trunk carpet. 8 speakers, 16 wires. I then crimped on molex pins and 2 pole/4 pole headers so I can reconnect them. That maintains the factory stereo 100%. But now, I unplug them and plug in my own molex pigtails. the amp outputs go to the MS8 inputs, and the JL HD amp outputs are routed to the molex tied to the car wiring. 100% clean and the stereo takes 15 minutes to electrical de-integrate it, and restore the factory condition.
SUPER simple.
On with the build!