Sound proofing went onto the backside to help tame any unwanted resonance:

then the panel was hit with a layer of black bumper paint so nothing would show up through the layer of grille cloth:

The focal coaxial was installed and wired up:

and black grille cloth pulled across the entire panel, glued down from the backside with CA glue:

The stock location received a pair of Morel MT22 tweeters, they were chose for their smoothness, as the customer wanted a very laid back sound, and for their small size and ability to fit with relative ease into the OEM location:

 

A pair of Seas lotus performance pw165 6.5" midbass made up the rest of the front stage. As some of you may know, the OEM midbass location on the MKV Golf/Jetta platform is at the very back of the door. To me this is just retarted...even with a good processor and the cars where i have heard utilizing this stock location, i feel there are some very serious detriment to this setup. Thus, in every MKV build, i have molded door pods to go into the front lower door. This car was no exception.

Here are the Seas midbass in their pods. I found the closest color dye that i could for the VW vinyl, the pictures make them look a lil lighter than they are in real life.

a quick view from inside the car:

Here is the build process for the door pods:

First, the door pocket walls were trimmed to the desired lengths:

 

Then the entire area was tapped off and the dimensions for the rear mold was drawn onto the tape:

eight layers of cloth went onto the door, followed by a layer of duraglass/resin mixture to prevent warping, the entire thing was allowed to dry for 24 hours before removal:

Then the two molds were removed, trimmed to the desired shape, and roughly sanded down:

Holes were cut to allow the airspace in between the OEM door panel and skin to be utilized:

and the part that would sandwich the OEM pocket wall was molded into the pod.

A layer of deamplifier pro went onto the mold:

Ring baffles for the Seas aimed and attached:

Mold cloth pulled and resin applied:

the inside was strengthened with four layers of cloth and a thick layer of duraglass/resin milkshake:

 

Filler was then applied and the pods sanded smooth:

the inside of each pod then received a layer of modeling clay to help tame resonance, followed by another layer of deamplifier pro for additional resonance killing and to help hold the clay in place on hot days:

Finally, the two pods were wrapped in light gray vinyl and then dyed with SEM Medium Gray color coat:

and secured to the OEM door panels via a plethora of screws, bolts and speed nuts:

The backside of each door panel also received a liberal dosage of deamplifier pro to prevent buzzing:

 

Finally, the doors were put back on, the new wires i ran into the door lead down to the pod area, and the seas lotus midbass wired up and installed:

So thats it for the interior.

Moving to the trunk, as mentioned, the customer wanted to keep the spare tire, and also see as little of the install as possible.

So here is the normal view standing behind the car looking to the trunk. Pretty much completely stock except for a very thin sub sub enclosure on the driver side:

Here is a close look at the subbox, it utilizes the outter most portion of the trunk side wall, and features a matching grille:

 

remove the grille and you see an Arc Audio Arc 10 subwoofer, the enclosure is approximate .6 cub ft:

Here are some build pics of the subbox. Here is a crappy picture showing the area taped off, and nine layers of cloth laid onto the area, here you see what i mean by utilizing the outer most pocket of the trunk carpet sidewall:

When that cured, the back mold was removed from the trunk and trimmed to the desired shape, the flush mounting ring baffle for the Arc 10 was then attached:

Fleece pulled and resin applied. When that cured, the cutout for the sub was trimmed out, and here is what you get:

Next, all the edges of the box and the sub baffle opening was sanded down:

A portion of the back mold was cut out, and the enclosure was reinforced from the inside with 8 layers of 3/4oz mat, followed by a whole quart of duraglass/resin mixture to seal any potential airleaks:

The back side was then put back together and the seam sealed with six layers of fiberglass cloth:

Here is the press fit grille:

 

Great build! I've been reading up on all of your MKV builds and have been impressed every time. I'm from 'burgh and NYC...real familiar with CMU campus ...my brother in law went there for his PH'd while I graduated from Penn State.

Anyways - I do have an MKV GLI and I'd like to utilize your sub set up for my ARC10's. I was planning on doing one driver's side (like yours) and passenger's side directly across.

few questions for this set up-
1. would you remember the length of your shims holding the MDF ring by chance? That would save me a heck of a lot of time!
2. if running subs across from each other, would it be a good idea to angle them towards the cabin? <--is it bad to have subs firing directly towards each other?
3. where can I find that blue ring you're using framing off the mdf bracket?

Moving to the front stage:
Eclipse CD7100, ARC IDX/IEQ combo - going active
Hybrids L6, L3, L1v2, and CDT UP219XT<--this was leftover from my older set up...so maybe if needed.

I'd like to utilize the OEM locations including that stupid hip firing location...I'm assuming the timing would be an issue no? KNowing it's not ideal, but what would you recommend on how to make due with this set up?

Thanks Beforehand - I appreciate any advice you can give me.

 

Both the subbox and the grille was then wrapped with heather trunk liner, and some white SEM dye was misted onto the carpet to give it a lighter hue, a closer match to the OEM trunk liner:

The subbox was then bolted to the car by two bolts that is fiberglass into the OEM trunk carpet:

Finally, for the amp and MS8. For the sake of keeping everything small, the customer chose a single JL audio HD 900/5 5 channel amp to power the front midbass and tweeter with 100 watts a piece, and the subwoofer with 400 watts.

Since maintaining the spare tire was paramount, we chose to do a very simple upside down rack on the bottom side of the rear deck. so here they are, when you duck your head down and look up:

Simple, functional and out of sight most of the time.

Here is the rack cut and all the threaded inserts bonded to the wood. everything related to this piece is secured with inserts and cap bolts.

Then trunk liner was applied. and the holes for the equipment mounting were cut out:

The JL amplifer and JBL MS8 was then secured to the board and what wires i could run outside of the car were connected and secured:

 

Next a series of cap bolts were hand threaded into the inserts on the top side of the board, they line up with a series of slide openings on the oem rear deck. So i simply pushed the entire rack up through the big hole, slide the entire thing back towards me, and started securing all the bolts, adding a lock washer along the way to each one. Here is the finished result, the entire rack is extremely secure, and you can rock the car with it

Finally, i leave you with a few quick wiring pics, its really hard to get any decent shot of the wiring in this angle...but i tried anyway...everything is ziptied, organized and secured to the rack every few inches:

So thats it...lets see, JBL processor, Morel Tweeter, Seas Midbass, Arc sub, JL amp, and Stinger wiring Yeah its a mixed bag for sure lol

But the final result was quite pleasing. the Morel/seas combo provided a nice sense of midbass impact with very smooth warm highs. the arc sub did an admirable job of filling the cabin with bass. As with any MS8 installs, having a center channel and rear fill (in this case the OEM rear door speakers were retained powering off the MS8) really makes it shine. The center image is solidly anchored in the middle, with good height and decent depth. I would say the major point that i can hear is that we can use a lil more power on the midbass drivers, but such is the compromise we make in order to design a small amp rack and keep things on a relatively low budget

Cheers!

Bing

 

Next a series of cap bolts were hand threaded into the inserts on the top side of the board, they line up with a series of slide openings on the oem rear deck. So i simply pushed the entire rack up through the big hole, slide the entire thing back towards me, and started securing all the bolts, adding a lock washer along the way to each one. Here is the finished result, the entire rack is extremely secure, and you can rock the car with it

Cheers!

Bing

hey bing, I've been having the hardest time removing the parcel off my MKV jetta. do you have pointers? thanks!

 

Very nice install as usual. Really like the enclosure. I pm'd you about your MDX install that you did back in February. Was curious about the pillar pods you built using the XR3m drivers. I'll be building some pillars using the XR3m and Morel MT23s. Was wanting to know how things turned out considering that you didn't have them in sealed pods. I plan on using your exact approach on my upcoming build. Could use a little advice regarding technique on the pods.

 

amazing stuff! the center channel was kind of meh, could of grilled that dif, i didnt like that. but those door pods always inspire me and get my brain spinning on what to do about my door pods, on one hand I kind of think it might help with rattles on another, it could open a whole cna of warms and sadly i think it might land on the can of warms because i'm just complicating things even more so with more joints hmmm what to do!

you didn't show us how you fascent it to the door though.

 

secured to the OEM door panels via a plethora of screws, bolts and speed nuts:

Was posted up above^^^

 

Looks good as always! Nice Job.

 

Looks awesome as usual...

 

as usual, looks great bing.

next time you do a set of doors like that, make up a second set and I'll buy them off you.. have no desire to do that much work to my doors, would rather pay you

 

+1

I'm willing to pay too.

 

thanks guys...eviling just remember the center channel is mean to be purely functional and hidden from view...the last set i did looked like this:

but unlike that car, this one used stock tweeter locations and having an obvious speaker grille in the middle of the dash would give away an other wise hidden setup

as for making two pairs of these...trust me i have very little desire to do it as well lol...they are quite a bit of a pita...

i will mold a set for you though if you just send me your door panels

b

 

Nice work, again! Love looking at your work.

The only thing that bothers me on this one is the size of the box. Maybe newer subs don't need much space, as I tend to use only old school stuff, but the enclosure seems awfully small to get any decent low end out of. How is the sound and, more importantly, is the customer happy?

 

low end is pretty good actually, the sub calls for .65 ft^3 optimal...

with a quick water test i think this box is right around .55 to .6 cube

add that its stuffed with Focal Blackhole Stuff, its more than adequate

the box may look small, and the back mold is pretty thin, but remember the sub baffle is spaced quite a bit out from the back mold so it pulls the entire front wall forward and gives it more airspace.

as for the customers thoughts, i will see if he wants to chime in

b

 

I have my IDQ sealed in just about that much space as Bing does here and it sounds perfect...

Bing's work is Da $hit!

 

Great install again Bing.

 

I never said right or wrong. I'm just not used to boxes looking so small. It could be deceptive, though, as the baffle does come out quite a bit now that I look at it again. As that sub needs .65 cubes optimally, to me, that is like a shoe box. Crazy small requirements for a sub. I'm comparing this box to one I made a couple of weeks ago for a pair of original xtrs, which each needed 1.25 internally!

His fabrication skills are second to none, no doubt about it!

 

thanks guys, but some of the comments were a lil over the top hehe.

1. if i am wrong i am wrong and its just bad, if i stuck the sub in like .3 cube it would be a disaster lol

2. my fabrication skills is in fact, "second to thousands"

eddie, if you think .65 for a 10 is small, try the stereo integrity BM 12" sub in a .4 cube sealed

 

2. my fabrication skills is in fact, "second to thousands"

Bing-
Aside from your fabrications skills, the above is part of why you are so well respected.....kudos to you on both "skills" and your humility

 

Great job as usual Bing,these ID's & Arcs likes the small enclosures.These types of installs are really my cup of tea and also gave me inspiration...

 

hey is that a v1 or v2 idq12? i still wish i can get my hands on those...those were the first true subs i ever started to put into customers car and absolutely love em...wanna sell? lol

 

Bing, you make everything look so easy. Simple and clean, great install..

 

I had to laugh when I read it was a low budget install, and then saw a $1k amp and a $800 processor. Awesome work as always.

 

Yes, me too! Until I had to hand over the green bills

I am the lucky owner of the Jetta TDI and all I can say is WOW. The new system just puts a smile on my face every time I listen to it (literally). A bit of background: I love classical music (orchestral) and classic rock and have a pretty decent home system (B&W 703, JL fathom f112). The stock Jetta sound is truly horrid. I now spend 2x 45 min a day commuting and decided that I needed to make this part of my day more enjoyable. Initially considered finding the OEM Dynaudio amp and speakers from ebay but quickly gave up. Read about Bings' previous install in a GTi and all the comments on his work unanimously praising the "immersive" quality. Long story short and my bank account a bit slimmer, I step into a truly immersive and engaging system. Driving down on the freeway, I can feel like I am in a mini concert hall. The instrument presentation is quasi-holographic, the soundstage is wide and deep and the tonal balance is just perfect. Bass extension is plentiful with kick drums punching you in the gut. Have not tried organ music to check on low frequency musicality.

Anyway, I love the system, my wife loves it and for the first time ever, my 2.5 y old daughter said "LOUDER" when I turned on the music. Just goes to tell you about how great musical reproduction speaks to our innate side.

I also would like to mention how much of a pleasure it was to do business with Bing. He listens, analyzes and provided a thoughtful answer to all my questions.

Cheers,
Max

PS: Bing, who is the artist that plays the instrumental version of "on the dock of the bay" on your demo CD. I would have thought Clapton.

 

I agree...you make it look easy. I wish you were closer to do my kicks and pillars. But, I guess I will have to use you logs as a guide.

 

With upside down amp racks like this....where are you grounding at?