WOOOOOOO HOOOOOOO! All is right with the world again!!! Door pods are DONE!!
08-11-2000, 07:23 AM
#1
AudiWorld Super User
Thread Starter
WOOOOOOO HOOOOOOO! All is right with the world again!!! Door pods are DONE!!
This is kind of long and rambling so bear with me......
Well, I got my car back from the body shop last Saturday, completely repainted from head to toe.... what an abso-f*cking-lutely PERFECT paint job they did!!!!! It's a long story, but I had hail damage all over the car, plus a guy T-boned me with his Ford F-150... left a nice dent in my front door. Anyway, the body shop decided it would be better to just repaint the WHOOOOOOOLE thing rather than try to spot paint and blend the damaged areas... after all, 80% of the car had dents on it. This worked out great because I had lots of dings and dents all over the doors (from the previous owner), so I got all that fixed for FREE!!!!!!
When I got the car back last week, I wasn't done with the door panels yet... so I drove around for another week with no panels, no tunes, no power windows, no door latch (I had to pull the hook on the end of the cable to exit the car)... all I had to keep me amused was my thoughts (and believe me that can be quite amusing coming from this warped mind!), but also I was able to really hear the BEAUTIFUL sound of the engine, which actually was kind of neat, the engine was especially hear-able without insulation on the doors. By the way, did you know that when it rains water gets inside the doors?? That explains the drain holes at the bottom.
Okay, okay, now that the commercials are over with... back to my story.....
Anyway, after about three weeks of hard labor, late nights, setbacks, overbudget spending, headaches, blood, sweat, tears, countless trips to the hardware store, cuts, bruises, not eating because I was too busy, ulsers, locusts, plagues, and a pissed-off girlfriend (for neglecting her while working on these things..... god bless her for her patience!), I finally finished my door panels last night! It was about 11:30 p.m. when I finally put them in.... It's really warm and humid here in Chicago right now so the mosquito's were out in full force last night.... and they had a feast while I was out there.... but I didn't care... I was DETERMINED to get those panels in at all costs!
So I hooked all the cables up, (I used quick disconnect connectors for the speakers so I could easily remove the panels and reconnect them all I want without having to butt-splice the cables over and over again....) I slipped the panels back on... checked the glove box clearance (whew, plenty of clearance) checked that the doors close properly.... good... and checked the functions of the windows, locks, mirror, door light, and ejector seats... they all work fine.... but I forgot to open the moonroof before testing the ejector seat.... MAN do I have a headache today!
Then I fired up the Diamond Hex 6-1/2 inch-ers.... and..... well.......
H O L Y F * C K I N G W O W!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All I can say is.... I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO happy I did this! At times when I was in the middle of this project, hacking big gaping holes in my doors with the dremel tool, I was thinking to myself....."Self.... what the hell are you doing? How did you get yourself into this mess?!?!?!"
Talk about second thoughts. I was very anxious and nervous the whole time. I kept thinking, maybe I should just take the easy way out and just get the MBQ adaptors and settle for 5-1/4" drivers up front. But NO! I fought off the urge to give up and I pressed on.... determined, like a salmon spawning up-stream.
With a lot of reading, talking to installers, watching videos, and a little bit of common sense, a lot of mechanical aptitude, and a SH*TLOAD of dumb luck, I actually pulled it off.
As for the speakers... I still have a few minor adjustments to make. First off, I have the aluminum dome tweets.. and for now I put them in the stock location... held in place by.... don't laugh... duct tape!. I wanted to be able to move them if necessary so they are not permanently mounted yet. Out of the gate they sound a little harsh. So I'm first gonna screw around with the attenuation on the crossover. If that doesn't help enough, then I'll move them down to the kick panels.... no big deal. For now I just turned down the treble.
The 6-1/2" midbass drivers throw out a pretty impressive amount of midbass... tons more than the stock speakers but still a little less than what I was expecting. Of course, I did not enclose the back side of the speakers. All I did was seal the front. Since there are all kinds of leak paths around the side edge of the door panel itself, I'm gonna enclose the back side of the speaker anyway. This should add a little more midbass. Also, I still have to Accumat the doors.. which I'll do this weekend.
The speakers are angled upward at a much more dramatic angle than the stock speakers.. and slightly inward towards the listening area. When I lean in towards the center of the car to "center" my head between the speakers, I don't hear any difference... this is good! That means I've got a really wide sweet spot with these things. (I've noticed in a lot of cars when you lean towards the center, the sound DRAMATICALLY improves)
Imaging is really good... depending on the recording. I have the cd soundtrack for Blue Man Group... it's called "Audio". It's a really well recorded cd with all kinds of percussion stuff happening from all different directions. When I played it, the sound was thrown all around me. I could hear where the instruments were coming from.... I could visualize the stage and actually see what part of the stage that the sound came from.... it was cool!!!! I would imagine if I move the tweets down to the kick panels, that'll even improve imaging more.
The detail on these speakers is really great too. There's a clarity that comes through that you'd never hear on stock speakers. Subtle details in the music are very evident.
I still didn't make the grille covers yet... and ya know what.. these things blend really well with my interior without'em. The cones are a silver-grey color and the center dust cap is charcoal. The rubber surround is black, and the cast basket is silver. It matches my grey interior really well... BONUS! I'll make the grille covers this weekend.
One of the big problems I ran into was wrapping them in vinyl. What I thought would be the easiest part turned out to be the biggest nightmare of all! So I did something else to "simulate" a vinyl look. I used that texture spray paint that makes things look like textured stone. Then I slightly sanded it down to sort of smooth it out... yet leave a visible texture. Then I painted over that with charcoal gray- then several coats of clearcoat. It worked! It looks like vinyl, except a little shinier. Due to the humidity around here, it took a lot longer for the paint to dry... but finally it did.
I'm only running 30 watts to them for the time being.... until I get my Xtant amp. The Diamonds will probably sound a little better when I get some serious power to them. I have a 30 wpc x 4 clarion A1200, a workhorse from my last two cars and still going strong. Good little amp. Front two channels are running the Diamonds, rear channels are powering an old 10" JBL Pro DVC sub... nothing fancy... just running each channel at 4-ohms to the separate voice coils... sitting in a small sealed enclosure I slapped together in about an hour.
Now all's I need is my new amp, new sub/subs, and rearfill. A project in the works.. but for now it sounds great and will get me by...... for now.
BTW, I took pics during the whole build. I documented every step (except the f*ck-ups!), with pictures. I took them with a disposable camera, but they should at least get the point across. I'll get them developed to a photo CD then post them here.... but someone has to show me how to do it.
Okay... gotta run now... I'm gonna go listen to my stereo!!!!!!!!!!
Well, I got my car back from the body shop last Saturday, completely repainted from head to toe.... what an abso-f*cking-lutely PERFECT paint job they did!!!!! It's a long story, but I had hail damage all over the car, plus a guy T-boned me with his Ford F-150... left a nice dent in my front door. Anyway, the body shop decided it would be better to just repaint the WHOOOOOOOLE thing rather than try to spot paint and blend the damaged areas... after all, 80% of the car had dents on it. This worked out great because I had lots of dings and dents all over the doors (from the previous owner), so I got all that fixed for FREE!!!!!!
When I got the car back last week, I wasn't done with the door panels yet... so I drove around for another week with no panels, no tunes, no power windows, no door latch (I had to pull the hook on the end of the cable to exit the car)... all I had to keep me amused was my thoughts (and believe me that can be quite amusing coming from this warped mind!), but also I was able to really hear the BEAUTIFUL sound of the engine, which actually was kind of neat, the engine was especially hear-able without insulation on the doors. By the way, did you know that when it rains water gets inside the doors?? That explains the drain holes at the bottom.
Okay, okay, now that the commercials are over with... back to my story.....
Anyway, after about three weeks of hard labor, late nights, setbacks, overbudget spending, headaches, blood, sweat, tears, countless trips to the hardware store, cuts, bruises, not eating because I was too busy, ulsers, locusts, plagues, and a pissed-off girlfriend (for neglecting her while working on these things..... god bless her for her patience!), I finally finished my door panels last night! It was about 11:30 p.m. when I finally put them in.... It's really warm and humid here in Chicago right now so the mosquito's were out in full force last night.... and they had a feast while I was out there.... but I didn't care... I was DETERMINED to get those panels in at all costs!
So I hooked all the cables up, (I used quick disconnect connectors for the speakers so I could easily remove the panels and reconnect them all I want without having to butt-splice the cables over and over again....) I slipped the panels back on... checked the glove box clearance (whew, plenty of clearance) checked that the doors close properly.... good... and checked the functions of the windows, locks, mirror, door light, and ejector seats... they all work fine.... but I forgot to open the moonroof before testing the ejector seat.... MAN do I have a headache today!
Then I fired up the Diamond Hex 6-1/2 inch-ers.... and..... well.......
H O L Y F * C K I N G W O W!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All I can say is.... I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO happy I did this! At times when I was in the middle of this project, hacking big gaping holes in my doors with the dremel tool, I was thinking to myself....."Self.... what the hell are you doing? How did you get yourself into this mess?!?!?!"
Talk about second thoughts. I was very anxious and nervous the whole time. I kept thinking, maybe I should just take the easy way out and just get the MBQ adaptors and settle for 5-1/4" drivers up front. But NO! I fought off the urge to give up and I pressed on.... determined, like a salmon spawning up-stream.
With a lot of reading, talking to installers, watching videos, and a little bit of common sense, a lot of mechanical aptitude, and a SH*TLOAD of dumb luck, I actually pulled it off.
As for the speakers... I still have a few minor adjustments to make. First off, I have the aluminum dome tweets.. and for now I put them in the stock location... held in place by.... don't laugh... duct tape!. I wanted to be able to move them if necessary so they are not permanently mounted yet. Out of the gate they sound a little harsh. So I'm first gonna screw around with the attenuation on the crossover. If that doesn't help enough, then I'll move them down to the kick panels.... no big deal. For now I just turned down the treble.
The 6-1/2" midbass drivers throw out a pretty impressive amount of midbass... tons more than the stock speakers but still a little less than what I was expecting. Of course, I did not enclose the back side of the speakers. All I did was seal the front. Since there are all kinds of leak paths around the side edge of the door panel itself, I'm gonna enclose the back side of the speaker anyway. This should add a little more midbass. Also, I still have to Accumat the doors.. which I'll do this weekend.
The speakers are angled upward at a much more dramatic angle than the stock speakers.. and slightly inward towards the listening area. When I lean in towards the center of the car to "center" my head between the speakers, I don't hear any difference... this is good! That means I've got a really wide sweet spot with these things. (I've noticed in a lot of cars when you lean towards the center, the sound DRAMATICALLY improves)
Imaging is really good... depending on the recording. I have the cd soundtrack for Blue Man Group... it's called "Audio". It's a really well recorded cd with all kinds of percussion stuff happening from all different directions. When I played it, the sound was thrown all around me. I could hear where the instruments were coming from.... I could visualize the stage and actually see what part of the stage that the sound came from.... it was cool!!!! I would imagine if I move the tweets down to the kick panels, that'll even improve imaging more.
The detail on these speakers is really great too. There's a clarity that comes through that you'd never hear on stock speakers. Subtle details in the music are very evident.
I still didn't make the grille covers yet... and ya know what.. these things blend really well with my interior without'em. The cones are a silver-grey color and the center dust cap is charcoal. The rubber surround is black, and the cast basket is silver. It matches my grey interior really well... BONUS! I'll make the grille covers this weekend.
One of the big problems I ran into was wrapping them in vinyl. What I thought would be the easiest part turned out to be the biggest nightmare of all! So I did something else to "simulate" a vinyl look. I used that texture spray paint that makes things look like textured stone. Then I slightly sanded it down to sort of smooth it out... yet leave a visible texture. Then I painted over that with charcoal gray- then several coats of clearcoat. It worked! It looks like vinyl, except a little shinier. Due to the humidity around here, it took a lot longer for the paint to dry... but finally it did.
I'm only running 30 watts to them for the time being.... until I get my Xtant amp. The Diamonds will probably sound a little better when I get some serious power to them. I have a 30 wpc x 4 clarion A1200, a workhorse from my last two cars and still going strong. Good little amp. Front two channels are running the Diamonds, rear channels are powering an old 10" JBL Pro DVC sub... nothing fancy... just running each channel at 4-ohms to the separate voice coils... sitting in a small sealed enclosure I slapped together in about an hour.
Now all's I need is my new amp, new sub/subs, and rearfill. A project in the works.. but for now it sounds great and will get me by...... for now.
BTW, I took pics during the whole build. I documented every step (except the f*ck-ups!), with pictures. I took them with a disposable camera, but they should at least get the point across. I'll get them developed to a photo CD then post them here.... but someone has to show me how to do it.
Okay... gotta run now... I'm gonna go listen to my stereo!!!!!!!!!!
08-11-2000, 09:51 AM
#3
AudiWorld Expert
Sweet - can't wait to see the pics!
<p>Mark P
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