A little SQ 350z Install. :)

[simplicityinsound]

So, just finished the first decent sized install of the new year. Kicking things off is a 2008 nissan 350Z coupe. A friend of Eugene's and a great guy. Thanks Paul! for being so great to work with

the goals:

1. to create a nice sounding system that he can take to the occasaional MECA comp.

2. to work with the slew of existing product he provided, which was quite a lot of stuff given such a small car. (everything except the front speakers and processor was given to me)

3. to save as much space as possible and install everyhting in a daily usable and classy manner. showiness wasnt important for this project.

lets get started, since he will be competing a bit, the pictures covers most of the basic points on installation. throughout the log, you will see various things circled in red, that usually points to termination or zipties securing things properly just FYI

first are two pics of the battery. the 0 guage power cable, as with all my 350zs, pass through the factory grommet behind the battery, this ensures there is no cable on metal contact at any point:



a stinger 150 amp circuit breaker provides protection for the entire system, it sits well with in 18" of the battery terminal, and all connections are loomed, electrical taped, and then heatshrink wrapped over the top. there is also red terminal grease on all the connections. the stock plastic battery cover provides protection against it shorting against the metal hood.



moving onto the interior. I was provided with an alpine 7998 headunit to use as signal source. its an oldy but goody. and of course, its ghost retractable face is nice for security purposes. here are two pictures with the face retracted and out:





a quick shot also of the wiring harness connections behind the HU:



Since the system uses a zapco DSP6 for tuning, here is a normal tuning mode with laptop upfront:

[simplicityinsound]

the front stage is a set of Seas Lotus Reference 6.5" two way component set, and as usual with SQ set ups for me, the tweeters are molded into the A pillars. Over the past few years, this design is the one i settled on for 350zs. the main factor here is that the tweeter is pushed as far forward as i can, cleanly, and off axis facing each other. this design to me, gives a nice wide, high stage with good center image. depths wise its average, but i think in a sense, its limited by the interior.

i apologize ahead of time for the dark pics, its been raining all week and i tried to find a bright time during the day but to no avail

here are the finished pillars in the car, wrapped in black vinyl:









here are some build pics of the pillars.

first the rings are aimed carefully and secured to the stock pillar:



then grille cloth was pulled, and resin applied, once that cured, duraglass/resin mixture was poured into the inside to fully strenthen it:



you can see the dark greenish stuff on the inside walls, that is the reinforcement. its strong enough that if i tried to bend the pillar, i will most likely break the plastic before this thing busts



next, the pillars are fillered and sanded smooth, and here they are, ready for application of vinyl:



a quick shot of the termination at the tweeters:



and here are hte finished pillars, wrapped in vinyl, tweeters pressure fitted in, and wires lead out. its not ready to go back into the vehicle:

[simplicityinsound]

the Seas midbasses are installed in fiberglass kick panels. wrapped in black suede to blend them into the dark interior and is more durable than vinyl. though wrapping curves with suede is a royal pain.

here are hte finished pillars, again, i couldnt quite get a bright enough shot of them:





here are the build pics for the kicks.

first the plastic stock panel was heavily scuffed with 40 grit, and 4 layers of chop mat was applied to give it strength. the ring baffles and the flushmount borders were made as well.



then sound proofing went on the stock panel, a hole was cut for vetting, and the ring baffles aimed and secured to the stock kick.



then, fleece was pulled to form the kick pod, resin applied, allowed to cure, strengthed from the inside via chopstrand and more duraglass/resin, and then the major imperfections on the outside smoothed out:



then, a thick layer of modeling clay was stuffed into the inside of the pod to prevent resonance:



then a final layer of sound proofing went over the clay to make it more dead and also help to hold the clay in place in high heat conditions. this combination has worked out well over the past few years in making sure the kicks are as dead as possible and also preventing gooey clay from detaching:



next, the pods are wrapped in black suede:





as you can see, it acutally doesnt come out from the stock kick panel all that much, about 1" at the front and 2.25" at hte back.

[simplicityinsound]

next the two midbass drivers are wired up:





and the speakers are installed into the kicks, grilles attached and now the entire pod is ready to go back into the vehicle using hte stock mounting clips:





next come a slew of wiring pics as the bundles are run from the front of the car to the trunk. circled in red at the points where the bundle attaches to the car itself, either with stock wiring bundles, or via ziptie holddowns. the bundles goes behind the back seat, into the open area, and then through a stock holes out into the floor of hte back trunk:

[simplicityinsound]

Now lets move onto the trunk. first is a shot of the normal view of hte trunk, very little has changed from stock, the entire floor rose up about 1.25" from stock. with the stock trunk mat in place, nothing really suggests a stereo system to prying eyes:



remove the stock carpet, and here is what you see, a new fake floor covered in black carpet, with various grilles over cutouts, and a strip of center trim wrapped in graphite CF vinyl similar to the exterior color of the car

[simplicityinsound]

remove all the covers, and here is what you see. three imgae dynamics amps run down the centerline of the vehicle. a Q1200 amp is at the very front, power two IDQ10v3 subs with 600 watts a piece. two Q450 4 channel amps line up behind the monoblock, each is bridged and powers each tweeter and midbass with over 225 watts RMS of power. the two subs straddle the amps, one on either side. and a cutout with my logo sits infront of the amps, mainly to add some cosmetic continuation of the trim to the forward part of the hatch area.













a quick word on this design. the original plan i had was for the amps to be in the middle, and two side fiberglass boxes molded into the rear corners of the trunk. however, after mocking it up, the beefy dimensions of hte IDQ seem to mean that the side boxes would be quick bulky and obtrisuve, leaving very little usable flat space on the fake floor. additionally, i was a bit concerned about how much air space i can squeeze out of those designs. so after much measuring and calculating, i decided to do everything on the fake floor and a build a very large, but thin, sub enclsoure that also acts as the mounting point for everything else.

[simplicityinsound]

so here are the build process pics of the trunk.

first, all stock components was removed from the floor, extrusions ground down and removed, and a later of sound proofing went onto the entire surface. if you look closely, you can also see where hte wiring bundles come into the hatch area:



next, the bottom part of the subbox was built, as you can see, its a combination of fiberglass and wood. the reason why the side portions are fiberglass, is so they can be thinner than the 3/4" wood and thus giving me the ability to make the entire structure thinner, and that leads of less raising of the final fake floor.



once 10 layers of cloth was on there and cured, i also put down a layer of duraglass mixed slightly with resign, to give it some more strength and make sure it keeps its shape. I had some extra mixture left over so i just brusehd it all over the wood lol the main supports for the top baffle is also secured to the floor board at this time.

this was allowed to cure fully over a long weekend:



once that was done, a top baffle was cut out, matching the shape of the trunk, but also making sure its small enough that the entire box can be installed and removed into the trunk.

this board was then spaced up and secured. now we have hte basics of the subbox. the top baffle was roundover rabetted to give attachment points to fleece.







once that was done, fleece was stapped to the top baffle, and pulled down below the bottom half, and thus forming the side walls of the subbox. once that cured, the walls are strengthend from the outside with 3-4 layers of cloth, and then from the inside with mat, chopstrand and duraglas/resin poured on top. to form a solid structure throughout.

[simplicityinsound]

the holes for the subs's motor structure to pass through was also cut out, and it is through these holes that hte inside reinforcement was pass through. it was a pain and meant a lot of dirty sleaves stained with glass, but after a while, it was finished





then i turned my attention to the top fake floor pieces.

here are hte main floor panels, before being wrapped with carpet:



and here they are wrapped with carpet



here is the center trim piece ready to go:



wrapped in CF vinyl:



and my logo plate attached as well as two support pieces at the back.



here are the three grilles that go over cutouts in the floor, all three are a combination of mdf, steel mesh, and then the breathable carpet over it.

[simplicityinsound]

now comes the wiring pics. the first is the grounding point, its right front of hte big amp, and is anchored with a stinger 0 guage grounding lug. the paint has been sanded bare below it and its secured via a stock bolt and a pan head screw.

in the next pics you will see that every screw used in the install is a panhead, no deck screws what so ever. sorry again for hte dark pic:



next come the terminal pics for both subwoofers, and each coil:









a part of the install that i forgot to take pictures of, was the stack of rings that spaces the subwoofer up to the proper level with the amps.. in this picture you can see what i am talking about. you can see also just how tight everything is below the fake floor.

with a somewhat crude calucation method, i estimage the enclosure to be somehwere around 1.6 to 1.7 cubic feet in interior volume, whcih i feel is a good range for hte two IDQ10s.

so here comes all the wiring pics under the floor. since we used two four channel amps for front stage, each amp required two rca Y adapters, this mae it a bit hard to neatly organize them within the tight confines, but i tried hehe

you can also see the zapco DSP6 on the driver side, middle of the entire structure. note the heatshrink, ziptie and tie down points throughout the process.











so thats it, i braved the weather and delivered it back down to southern california on friday. with some tuning help by Eng, i dare to say that this sounds pretty good. But perhaps i will let the customer and Eugene, who also heard the car, chime in a bit.

cheers!

Bing

[dvflyer]

Nice work as usual. As someone who's recently taken apart a Bing install (to send my amp in), I can tell you that the finish work is amazing. It's one thing to see the final result, but what's under and behind the scenes is just as detailed.

[stockman2010]

beautiful install, how long did the whole process take?

[Galante]

Whoa! Nice!

[WLDock]

Very nice! Your pillars and kicks are just so clean...you really have it figured out. Smooth as butta'

[athm3x]

That is beautiful, every element of this install looks really clean and well done. Good work!

[sirsaechao]

Sick setup. Great job on details. Anymore ziptie it will look like a centipede.

[scooter99]

Man once again you impress me with your skillz. I don't know how you got your suede to wrap like that but that's awesome! Great job once again!

[vwtoby]

did you have to cut any metal away for the kicks? or are they just vented into the carpet?
love the install

[jambo]

Wow that is great, and you managed to be left with a bit of trunk space which is pretty amazing in a 350z

[audio MD]

Nice work...

[vwtoby]

what do you use to secure the fleece to the plastic panels? (sorry for the 1,000,000 time this has probably been asked)

[Brian_smith06]

Id amps are the way to my heart

[Kenny_Cox]

your builds are always inspiring to me. if only I could crank out that level of quality in my own build lol.

[4frogger]

B,

thanks a million, the install and tune is amazing. It really was above and beyond my expectations.

[4frogger]

Originally Posted by vwtoby

did you have to cut any metal away for the kicks? or are they just vented into the carpet?
love the install

No metal cut for the kicks, I believe he managed to seal them.

[buddhaV6]

always nice to see Bing's work...