Slammer's Lexus IS350 Going Active!

[Slammer]

Progress! All speaker runs to the trunk, along with the Stinger interconnects.



Ummmm, now to figure out how I'm about to mount this monster and make it look at least respectable........



Set the Channel A Hi Pass level to x10 before the install and checked it constantly to be sure no one had screwed with it before the final install. This switch being on x1 when I powered up would mean that my Mille tweets would cooked in a matter of seconds.......



Now for a quick side story... Drove the Accord to my son's football game because the IS was torn apart. Good damn thing because I smacked an 18 wheeler tire in the road on I-95 on the way back. Damage to the Honda was bad but would have been completely tragic if I had been driving the IS.....



Even ripped the rear bumper cover off and broke it. Took me over two hours to get home, driving at 35mph for fear that additional body parts were going to fall off the car. I had to rip several pieces off the underside of the car just to get it home. Grrrrr!



Okay, back on track. I decided to keep the existing enclosure for the 15 and go with an angled shelf for the Audison amp. With it being about 22" long, this really was the only option (within my limited capability anyway). Time to make dust.......

[Slammer]

Got the "rack" built for the amp and needed to do a test fit and make a few adjustments. I needed to drill a hole at the bottom so that I could fish the interconnects through (they go into the lower portion of the amp). And because the power, ground and speaker outputs would be coming out the top, I thought it would be a good idea to notch it there, so that they would definitely be lower and less likely to be seen.





Liking it so far, decided to get the stapler out and wrap it.







And a few pics with the amp FINALLY mounted to the finished product!

[BigAl205]

That turned out good.

[Hi-FiDelity]

Simple, stylish and functional, I like it.

[Slammer]

Pretty sure I posted this pic earlier in the thread, but here it is again. The 15" Memphis C3 is a dual 2ohm and I had it wired at 1ohm for the Hertz EP1D amp. The Audison Voce isn't 1ohm stable, so I had to wire it to 4ohms. Quick pic of my enclosure's guts.... Heavily braced and coated in resin for added strength.



All done. Look closely and you may notice my old school 8ga RF wire that I'm using for speaker wire.



Put the middle portion of the trunk liner back and tightened up my wiring just a bit. Ridiculously, what you see is all one piece. It runs from the taillight panel to the back of the rear seats, up the back, and then under the sun deck. Pain in the ass, trust me.



Had to relocate my ground for it to reach the Audison properly. Sanded, bolted and then sprayed with clear to prevent corrosion. I had two runs of 4ga power to the trunk and had planned to run a distribution block. Noticed when looking at the amp that it had a regular power input for battery, but also had an input from a cap or battery. Score! No need for distro, I ran both 4ga runs to the amp! Love it when I luck into something once in a while.

[Slammer]

Thanks Al and Nick for the compliments! Now for some unfinished business. If I didn't preface this build log with my trial and error experimentation with OE integration, I should have. Tried using lots of different LOCs and processors before deciding that I was never going to achieve true SQ without ditching the factory HU. Once I did so, I had left the dozens and dozens of wires that I had tapped into the factory amp concealed in the right rear quarter panel. I figured that since I had everything out of the trunk and was going for a clean install, this would be the time to get rid of all of the remains from the previous installs........

Uggh!


Much better!!



Put the left and right panels into the trunk and just about ready to put this girl back together! When I bought my speaker wire and the interconnects from my friend, I told him I thought 17' would be plenty. He told me to go with 20' to be safe and I obliged (thinking to myself that 17' was MORE than enough). Turns out he was right. Notice in this pic (after everything is tucked) that I don't have THAT much left over wire. Final connections were a little tight and I would have been fucked if I had gone with 17' runs........



LOVE the Stinger interconnects, by the way. Solid construction, lots of shielding and have screw down ends to LOCK them in place. Remind me of the old blue JL Audio interconnects.....

[TIMMAY!!!]

Yeap, looking really good. Running wires does suck majorly.

[Slammer]

Well damn! As much love as as I gave to the Stinger interconnects, these became quite a bitch to screw down tight because they were so damned close together. Took some doing, but I got all 6 supa tight!



Enclosure had to be forced in to get it in the trunk and there was no way I was gonna be able to do that with the amp rack attached. This turned out to be quite problematic. Had to put them each in individually and then attach the amp rack to the enclosure. Drilling a pilot hole was a bitch. Ended up running a lag bolt to hole the amp rack to the enclosure. Not quite as tight a fit as I had planned on (when is it ever) but it served the purpose...........

[Slammer]

Okay, that does it for the "catch up" on this build. I will be updating it from now on with future progress. I have lots of Dynamat to add in order to get rid of some lingering rattles, and still working on my time alignment. Thanks for the love so far, and stay tuned.