For the Love if I-Drive ;) E60 5 series sq set up...

[simplicityinsound]

as some of you may know, working with BMWs are a pita, working with newer generation bimmers featuring the infamous I-Drive is even bigger pita...but...had to deal with this nonethelss

car is a 2006 bwm 525i...and ALL the equipment was supplied by the customer, so please dont ask me why certain equipment was chosen

i want to thanks my boy Jeremy, for coming and helping me wire up the car, he wired up the CES bimmer last year and did a great job and did a great job once again

the goals:

1. install a new HU into the car (not pleasant to do lol)

2. very nice SQ out of the system

3. keep all trunk space available as this is a daily driver for a family with kids.


lets get started.

the customer supplied me with a rockford Denon 8250 headunit...the hardpart is putting it into the car. The I-drive, as i found out working with the CES car last year, will go bezerk or simply not work if ANY part of it is unplugged from the chain. meaning, say you removed the stock CD player, the screen acutally wont even light up anymore...so, this means, EVERYYTHING stock in the dash, related to the I-drive, must be kept.

this leaves only one spot for a new HU to go. and is only possible, on the non-navi equiped bmws. this is, to put the HU in the spot of the stock pocket, below the stock CD player.

but htis involves trimming the stock panel extremely thin to accomodate it, and its still an insanely tight fit due to the stock wiring and vents in that area.

infact, I would venture to say, that if hte HU was any more than 1/16" tall, 1/8" wider, or 1/4" deeper, this whole thing wouldnt have worked.

so...after the same amount of cursing and finess, the 8250 now resides in this spot:



obviously, a black HU would look more integrated, but again, i didnt pick the HU, but its amber lighting does match well with the bmw's interior.

here are two quick build up pics of the pice, first its cut to fit hte HU and them molded and sanded...you can see just how thin the panel had to be cut below the HU to fit it, down to about 1/8 of an inch...



and then painted and the HU attached to the facotry module below it ready to go back into the car:



sorry for all the dark pics, as it gets dark around 4:30 nowadays, and by the time i snap these pics, its usually well past 6...

the system consiss of zapco DC reference amps, and the tuning cable can be taken out of hte glovebox, to tune with a laptop:

[simplicityinsound]

Front stage consists of a set of Seas Lotus reference 6.5" two way comps, the midbass were mounted into pod attached to the lower door. Since the E60 only has stock 4" front seakres in the middle of hte door, and kicks was not allowed by the customer, this was the only choice avaiable the speaker itself, is acutally slightly larger than the area in the lower door, so it was biult out a little and aimed slightly upward and backwards.

[simplicityinsound]

here are some build up pics of hte pod:

first, a rear mold was take, dampened and a ring baffle attached:



then it was fleeced and resined, after htat dried, it was strengthened from the backside with glass, and then each pod recieved first a layer of modeling clay to kill resonantion, and then a layer of dampening to kill resonatoin even more and also to hold the clay in place, here you see one pod alread finished, while the other has clay in it waiting for damping to be applied.



then the sanded smooth



and finally, they were vinyled, and the back side of hte door car, also recieved a lot of sound proofing.



and finally, the pod attached to the door:



same goes for the other side:

[simplicityinsound]

the tweeters were molded into the stock A pillar, off axis aimed at each other:









two quick pics of the pillar, first the mold and then sanded smooth:



and vinyl applied, tweeter installed and ready to go back into the car:

[simplicityinsound]

so thats it for hte interior. moving onto the trunk. as mentioned, the goal is to keep EVERYTHING in the spare tire well, quite a task for 3 amplifiers and a single sub. but here is the normal view, the stock carpet goes ontop for a 100 percent stock appearance, not an ounce of trunk space was lost:



remove hte carpet, and here is what you see, the stock bmw spare tire coveringpanel was replaced by a panel fake floor covered in black suede, suede was chosen instead of vinyl for more durability, as this trunk will get used a lot. two grille pieces are in the fake floor.



remove te two grilles, and you can see a 10" Seas lotus subwoofer and one of hte 3 zpaco amps, a dc 360.4. the goal was never to be showy in this install but to be stealthy and space saving:









two quick pics at below the fake floor, first the stacked zapco amps and their wiring, quick lucky actually, each tier wtih 2.5" of spacing (just right for the amps), builds up to be almost hte perfect height needed.

one DC350.2 powers the tweeters at hte bottom, another 350.2 poweres the sub in the middle, and the aforementoined 360.4 is bridged on the midbass at the top:



and a .75 cubft sealed semi-fiberglass enclsoure houses the seas 10 and sits behind all the amps:



a snug fit eh?

got some quick tuning on it and hte car sounds quite good. stage is very high and well cnetered, pretty wide with good depths. midbass is strong and snappy (more so than i would hvae thought being thats an attached door pod type, and midrange and highs are smooth as characteristc of the lotus. bass blends well, though with only a single 10 and 300 watts in such a well sealed car, its not earthshattering loud...but it serves it purpose well

i think i am going to limit myself to just one I drive install a year lol...

[Vestax]

After doing bimmers for CES, you must be a pro.. LOL!


Wow expensive ride, expensive equipment... that guy must be rich. I hope he paid you good money for quality work.

[norcalsfinest]

looks good bing. How'd you attach the pods to the doors?

[simplicityinsound]

duct tape...rolled over, 3M brand...

lol

a million and one screws and speednuts... i always put on a crazy amount, dont want them to come off or loose, besides, all that clay and dmapening, the pods prolly weight close to 15lbs wiht the speaker in them...

[jayhawkblk]

looks good B. Did he vent the rear deck. Since these Bimmers trunks are sealed very well. I am in the process of redoing my car. Great job on those does. And yes I drive is a Pita Next time I am using the factory souce unit and will get an oem intigration piece. Hopefully next year I will be adding and M5 to the garage next to my 530. But we shall see. You do great work my man. If I had the time I would send my car back out to you. But I have made the car my daily driver.

[simplicityinsound]

ooo M5...damn man!!! cant wait to see, send me pics when yo uget it no rear deck venting, wasnt in he plans or hte budget, to do it properly involves quite a bit of work...i am surprised by the differences between this and yours htough, for example, very few screws was torx in this car, majority simple phillips...where as yours was full of torx everyhwere difference between the 06 and yours?

[evan]

Very cool! Do you have any detail pics of how you made the sub/amp grills and what they're made of?

[simplicityinsound]

one is just mdf wtih vinyl, the other is a mdf ring, rabetted, and grille mesh attached, and then grille cloth pulled over it ..

dont hvae pics of that but if you dig through my previous installs, some of them may have detailed pics of grilles.

b

[Roadmaster11]

How much would you charge for speaker pods? I want to get some built like yours and i don't want to be over charged. Their for a 2008 Hyundai Accent.

[jayhawkblk]

Originally Posted by simplicityinsound

ooo M5...damn man!!! cant wait to see, send me pics when yo uget it no rear deck venting, wasnt in he plans or hte budget, to do it properly involves quite a bit of work...i am surprised by the differences between this and yours htough, for example, very few screws was torx in this car, majority simple phillips...where as yours was full of torx everyhwere difference between the 06 and yours?

Wow no Torx that is unusual for a bimmer. Yea I am working on a M5 but gotta get the wedding paid for first and recoupe my money from the market some how. So it wont be until late in 09 at the rate this economy is going. so with out it vented how is the sub output?

[DaleCarter]

Wow, just wow!

What can you NOT do?

I want to install three amps and a 10" sub in the glovebox of my Escort and I am pretty sure you can make it fit, sound great and be stealthy.

[simplicityinsound]

wedding? congrats Marquies am I invited?

the suboutput aint bad, it blends well, sounds decent, but not like yours of course, but then again, yours had two 12s and three times the poewr, so its hard to compare...i dont know hwat your car would have sounded like just a single 10 off of 300 watts.

dale, sure, i can do it, as long as you dont mind me molding hte glovebox down and taking up the etnire front passenger quadrant of the car lol

[FrankstonCarAudio]

Once again an outstanding job, Bing.
I share your pain, working with late model BMW's!.. iDrive is the curse of installers!

Looking forward to your next job...

Mark

[lowpoke]

Shit Bing, your work is SO immaculate. I keep coming back time and time again to look at your installs.

[jdc753]

Amazing work as always and certainly a challenge for sure.

Thanks again for sharing yet another amazing build and for all the detail pics.

[Powers]

I didn't read all the replies, but how does the RF/D head unit work with the I-Drive? Is it a selectable input now?

[simplicityinsound]

it doesnt, the system, everything i installed,all the wiring, is completely separate from the factory I drive system, even down to the antenna no part of the stock system or I drive was touched or removed, its all still in the car.

[circa40]

Damn another great looking install! Do you ever sleep??? lol

[Powers]

Originally Posted by simplicityinsound

it doesnt, the system, everything i installed,all the wiring, is completely separate from the factory I drive system, even down to the antenna no part of the stock system or I drive was touched or removed, its all still in the car.

So does the I-Drive not have sound at all?

I'm confused, as you can tell. If they both have sound, it would seem like they have to connect at some point.

[simplicityinsound]

well, the I drive is not just the stereo, its the computer interface system that is hooked to vritually every facet of the newer bimmers, from audio, to climate, to car's maintaence info, to trip computer to etc etc...

the trouble with it, is that you cannot just pop out hte stock headunit, and mold in a aftermarket one, like you can do on ohter cars, beucase the minute you disconnect anything from it, it goes nuts.

but as far as wiring goes, why do they have to connect? i have done several cars where the stock system is left intact, including my own car.

stock system:

stock headunit with stock wiring to stock amplifier, then stock speaker wires to stock speakers

the new system:

new heaudnit with its own wires, with RCAs going to new amplifiers, then new speaker wires to new speakers installed in non-stock locations.

completely and utterly separate from the stock system.

basically, the new system is for audio, the I drive will just handle the rest of the car's functions from now on, but its audio component IS avaiable if one wants to use it.

[drake78]

You did it again.... with another spectacular seamless install. top notch baybay...