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05 Monte Carlo LT Build

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#1 ·
Intro! If you just want pretty pictures, keep scrolling, there’s a ton. If you have 3 minutes to spare, read on.

Finally starting a build log for my 05 Monte Carlo LT. A little bit about the car: I decided to go with the red/black/chrome theme, and began adding little accents soon after I got the car.



Red stripe:



Seat/steering wheel covers:



Carbon fiber Di-Noc /vent trim:





Brake calipers. While working on painting the front two calipers, I did a stupid thing and jacked up both wheels. The tire jacks caved as I was taking off one of the front wheels and the weight of the car was resting on one corner of the jacks and the tire. See here :eek: :D:





But it all turned out alright:

 
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#29 ·
I woudlnt honestly put 220 into those, if you have em bridged id make sure you go easy on those gains, i meanwith 220 with proper gain settings your gonna do like 150 which is what they want, but i had 187 rms rating at 100% on my pdx's and i ran them as low as 40% on the gains and they were beautiful, so don't push them all out :) they'll treat ya good.
 
#32 ·
Yeah, I used to think putting that much power (or more) on any speakers was pretty crazy too since even at loud listening volumes, you're really only using 10-15 watts. But Miller and I went to the Alabama GTG and heard Kirk's car that has like 600+ watts to every driver... talk about headroom. Nobody could say that car wasn't dynamic. The extra power isn't just to get loud (a normal car speaker can play 100+ dB with 16 watts, then add in multiple drivers, etc) but just to provide the dynamic headroom that can really make music come alive. Sounds kinda cheesy, but we heard the difference.
 
#33 ·
We got a lot of work done on my doors this weekend after strakele finished his.

Same basic concept. Raammat / Damplifier all over the doors first. I know they're not sealed due to this huge hole with different contours, door linkages going through it, etc, but it's not as simple as gluing a board or something over it. The only thing I can think of that would fit the changing contours would be doing something with fiberglass, but I don't have the time or money to learn how to do something like that right now. If anybody has any other suggestions to seal this huge hole, please let me know!

Before:



After



MLV and Ensolite were cut to fit over the door:



Ensolite stuck to MLV:



Gorilla taped to the door:



Raammat and Ensolite added to the door panel:





End result? Basically no more door vibrations! It sounds so much better. Unfortunately I used all the Raammat on the doors and didn't leave any for the rear deck, so it still needs to be deadened. There are also several vibrations in the dash that I have to kill as well. Every single interior piece in this car, minus the seats, is plastic...

Then a few other things.

I replaced the white footwell and rear view mirror lights with red ones to keep with the theme of the car:



Covered the rear Chevy logo with carbon fiber. I might also try black instead of graphite, depending on how this survives a car wash.

 
#34 ·
how did that deadening help the door? these panels creak allot when you lean into them, did that deal with allot of that?
 
#35 ·
The Raammat virtually demolished all rattles and echoes and vibrations that used to be in the doors. The panels used to creak like all hell but after the deadening and some Ensolite, I don't really hear from them anymore. Still needs a lot of work, but for what it is, it's great.
 
#36 · (Edited)
Alright, so it's been a while since I've had anything to update here. The past couple days have consisted of little things, but necessary as far as audio goes. The pics aren't great quality because my camera's memory card eloped with the USB cable and I have yet to track them down. Bring on the camera phone shots.

First, I had a bit of fun with the engine cover. Painted it red and went over the lettering with carbon fiber vinyl. Worked well:

Taped over the lettering with gorilla tape. It turned out to shield it from the many layers of spray paint better than expected.



Cover painted with an initial layer of VHT spray paint.



Carbon fibered the lettering. About to do touch-ups. Did several more coats after I covered up the CF again. Ran out of tape so it got in some places it shouldn't have, oh well, paint remover to the rescue.



All said and done. Thing about the paint is that it rejects absolutely anything that invades its space, so I may have to redo it, find a way to get rid of the streaks, or cover it in a layer of something shiny. Both paint and CF have held up extremely well in driving so far.




Final result in engine bay:





So that was a fun middle of the night project. Now on to the audio stuff.

I got 4 square feet of Hushmat today and some peel-and-stick ensolite and went to town on the interior of my dashboard. Being a Monte Carlo, of course, everything in the front 2 feet of the vehicle had to be tampered with/removed, a-pillars included, to get underneath the dash.

Even the windshield wanted in on the party. My dumb ass left a massive ~10" crack in it while trying to get to a bolt that never did come off. Because it wouldn't budge, I had to just lift the front of the dash and do what I could with the damplifier and ensolite (although it seemed to still be effective). So, windshield wasted, once again trolled hard by the bolts in this vehicle.

Hard to see with the phone camera, but I couldn't get the entire thing in the picture and still have it be visible. =/




Moving on, I did my best to cover as much of the noisy plastic, clips and the like by damping every surface I could get to. Obviously, since I couldn't get the dash off, I couldn't get any photos of inside, but it's just about blanketed entirely with a layer of hushmat, and ensolite over it.




Also took the front end of the dash off (closest to the windshield) with the massive vent, dampened it and put a line of ensolite across the point where the dash and the vent piece meet. I pushed it back so it's not visible, but left it up just for the (crappy quality) pic:



Finally, I went back to all of the clip holes and stuck some ensolite in there so the metal clips would quiet down. Seems to have worked like a charm.




Then I put it all back together again, I think. I always wind up with a couple extra screws... I wonder sometimes, just how in the hell do I do that.... I had a seriously bass/midbass HEAVY cd with dubstep remixes. The dash sounded miserable before with that cd because the range of low frequencies is insane, and after damping with just a few square feet, there are virtually no rattles or vibrations in there anymore. Now it's just all in the rear deck, side panels, and some in the doors still. Sigh.

Overall, I would say mission well accomplished, sans the windshield fail. All in all, a small update, but crucial to making the car sound that much better. Tune in next time to see me tackle a new head unit and bracket, hopefully without destroying something important this time.
 
#42 ·
Then I put it all back together again, I think. I always wind up with a couple extra screws... I wonder sometimes, just how in the hell do I do that.... I had a seriously bass/midbass HEAVY cd with dubstep remixes. The dash sounded miserable before with that cd because the range of low frequencies is insane, and after damping with just a few square feet, there are virtually no rattles or vibrations in there anymore. Now it's just all in the rear deck, side panels, and some in the doors still. Sigh.

Overall, I would say mission well accomplished, sans the windshield fail. All in all, a small update, but crucial to making the car sound that much better. Tune in next time to see me tackle a new head unit and bracket, hopefully without destroying something important this time.
I have the same thing going on :blush: I keep them all in my front cup holder. i have like 15 screws in their now...but ive done allot to my car, and allot of the screws were replaced, the speaker baffle screws were replaced with something longer. so theirs 6 right their.

i love how deadend you have yours. i sitll need to get around to deadening mine up, but i'm still working on these damned pods first. i have one done, for the most part, needs some flats fill but that wont take long, than i have the passenger side that still has the first bondo coat on it..that one's gonne take awhile, but i wont have enough time to do them till monday, than thuresday or wedsday i'll finish em up and hopefully get em flocked up.

 
#44 ·
Heh, you have to deaden yours, I have to get pods on mine.

With a 15" sub in the back and some low frequencies, rattles are going to be extremely obvious, on top of the midbass the JBL's are producing. It's still difficult to get through virtually any cd without having something rattle. And anyway, how can I fully test the drivers if there's a ton of rattles marring their efforts? I figure it's best to deaden first, if anything.

The pods are looking good though, hope they give you more success than your past attempts.
 
#47 ·
Foam is like the jesus of dampening.

That's the thing with jobs. They give you the money to do this stuff but not the time. Win-lose? That's why I got a job at an auto store. Doesn't pay much, but I get to stay in the automotive world while I'm there. I had the problem of not having a job and not having money to do this stuff for a while during the school year, that's why it took me up until now to even get a head unit. So I feel your pain sir. But not having money stinks. I wish you the best in finding a job, hopefully you haven't been out for too long now.
 
#48 ·
Just a quick update for today, I had a bit of leftover peel-and-stick ensolite that I used on all of the plastic door panel clips that have been making a nuisance of themselves since day one. I simply just took out the clips, put a square of ensolite over the top of their mount and slid them back in. They don't even move anymore! So my doors are sounding even quieter. Before and after pics:

Before:



After:




They even held up against a song with INSANE amounts of bass. If anyone wants to truly test their damping, play the track "Eye of the Tiger (Club remix 2009)" by Fast Foot. You can find it on youtube. The bass is so heavy, the car started making noises it's never made before; even my rear view mirror make some very audible rattling noises, something which I've never had happen before, and I play a lot of bass with that 15" sub. It's absurd. And an awesome song in general. :)
 
#50 ·
Pretty sure if I played it at full blast right now, the windshield would completely shatter.

I had a guy from ABRA come out to replace my broken windshield. Once he took off the old one, he went in his truck to grab the replacement - and it had one large crack diagonally across the whole thing. He has to install it anyway, and when he does, it cracks even more, rendering the car undriveable (legally) for a few days until I get a new-new one. Kinda funny, although a minor inconvenience. Ah well, no biggie.




And yep, those are glass shards chilling on my dash. :inquisitive:
 
#51 ·
that sucks, of course he payed for the one HE broke correct? the 3rd one is on the house i assume? btw thats tempered glass and it has plastic in it, it won't shatter, it'll just spider vain.
 
#53 ·
well yeah it won't shatter...lol if it was gonna, it would of from the first crack.
 
#55 ·
I found taking that foam off the door panel much quieter, i just deadend the whole panel.

the biggest problem i had with them once i started deadening them were the grips, it was very hard to get the driver side to stop creeking, the pasenger side was easier becuase i had more surface area to deaden, but with the holes and such on the driver side it was pretty hard.
 
#57 ·
More deadening today, this time I took on the rear deck, a bit of the trunk, and my door panels before I ran out. I had 18 sq ft total (thanks to Rick at RaamAudio for the deadener). Here's what I had on my rear deck when I took everything out today:



Not much.

After a layer and some of Raammat:



Sealed up with a layer of peel and stick ensolite:



Some of the trunk (the other half of it I couldn't get a photo of)

Before:




After:




Then I spent a couple of quality hours with the squeaky door panels.

Before:




All done:



For now. I ran out. Unfortunately I can't test out the new mat until I get a head unit back in the Monte, so for now, a review is on hold. It looks as if it's going to be very effective however.
 
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