Hey everybody. Haven't done much posting around here in a long long time as I haven't had much to contribute, but I have still been lurking about occasionally. Last year I traded in my old tC for a brand new 2011 WRX, a car I had been lusting after forever. The plan for the install is to lose as little space as possible and work with what I've got (new car = no extra money). I pulled most of the stereo components out of the tC with the intention of putting it in the WRX - an Alpine 9887, two Dayton HO 10's and a eD 9.1 and 9.2. Add to that a set of eD e9.65 components that I pulled out of a friends car that he won't be needing, and that's everything.
The 9887 made it's way within a month or so as the stock h/u's are garbage like everybody says - it's too bad, they have bluetooth connectivity and nice ipod controls, but the sound quality is terrible. I found a guy on a subaru forum I think (svxdc) that makes custom harnesses for the new wrx's to retain the steering wheel controls w/o having to splice into anything - I got that along with the metra axxess unit and every function works flawlessly on the 9887. I didn't get any photos of installing the h/u, but there are plenty of write-ups on subaru forums...plus it's cake, definitely the easiest headunit I've ever installed.
The WRX has big cavernous spaces underneath the front seats, so I decided to put the crossovers and distro blocks under the driver's side, and the front stage amp under the passenger's side to save as much space in the back and to also keep the car's center of gravity a little lower. I intend to eventually replace the 9.2 w/ a 4 channel amp so that I can run active again (used to have 2 9.2's on ID mids and seas tweets, but there's not enough room for both amps).
Pictures! Sorry some of them are so awful, I couldn't tell until I uploaded them.
The car
The only one I have of the headunit
Making spacers for the mids
I just threw this door gasket stuff on to alleviate rattles between the spacers and doors until I have the time and money to do a proper deadening job
I just sprayed some rattle-can bedliner on the spacers before putting them in.
The tweeters I've just thrown in to the stock sail locations for now until I have the time to make some a-pillars. I didn't even sand the plastic after drilling the holes, and they're held in with duct tape. :laugh:
I cut a piece of mdf to mount the crossovers and distros to under the seat and also sprayed it with a couple coats of bedliner
Wired up
The 9.2 on the passenger side
Both ready to go
Seats all the way forward
Seats where they normally are
I didn't really get any photos of running the speaker/power wire. I already had the 0 gauge power line run for a temporary setup I had before (just subs). There's at least a couple other tutorials around that show how to run it through the side of car where there's a large grommet that most of the other electronics come through the firewall. That and running two runs of 12 gauge speaker lines through the door grommets was by and far the most time consuming, frustrating, son-of-a-pain-in-the-@$$ part of the whole thing.
So now I'm working on the sub enclosure/sub amp rack. The spare tire and tool kit have to go to make room for them - I have AAA and can always just call a friend if I need rescuing. This will be my first go at fiberglassing and as such, I'm trying to keep that part minimal and simple. I'm only going to be glassing the bottom of the enclosure, the rest is mdf w/ a double 3/4" baffle on the top to recess the faces of the subs. False floor to follow. I measured the volume w/ the packing peanuts method and got 1.33 cu ft before driver displacement, so about .6 cu ft per driver after. Should be about right.
Pics of the progress on that so far:
Measuring
Amp location
Upside-down w/ baffle
So that's it for now. I still need to order the fiberglass material, but I'll update when it happens. In the meantime, any comments/suggestions are appreciated. Thanks for looking.
The 9887 made it's way within a month or so as the stock h/u's are garbage like everybody says - it's too bad, they have bluetooth connectivity and nice ipod controls, but the sound quality is terrible. I found a guy on a subaru forum I think (svxdc) that makes custom harnesses for the new wrx's to retain the steering wheel controls w/o having to splice into anything - I got that along with the metra axxess unit and every function works flawlessly on the 9887. I didn't get any photos of installing the h/u, but there are plenty of write-ups on subaru forums...plus it's cake, definitely the easiest headunit I've ever installed.
The WRX has big cavernous spaces underneath the front seats, so I decided to put the crossovers and distro blocks under the driver's side, and the front stage amp under the passenger's side to save as much space in the back and to also keep the car's center of gravity a little lower. I intend to eventually replace the 9.2 w/ a 4 channel amp so that I can run active again (used to have 2 9.2's on ID mids and seas tweets, but there's not enough room for both amps).
Pictures! Sorry some of them are so awful, I couldn't tell until I uploaded them.
The car
The only one I have of the headunit
Making spacers for the mids
I just threw this door gasket stuff on to alleviate rattles between the spacers and doors until I have the time and money to do a proper deadening job
I just sprayed some rattle-can bedliner on the spacers before putting them in.
The tweeters I've just thrown in to the stock sail locations for now until I have the time to make some a-pillars. I didn't even sand the plastic after drilling the holes, and they're held in with duct tape. :laugh:
I cut a piece of mdf to mount the crossovers and distros to under the seat and also sprayed it with a couple coats of bedliner
Wired up
The 9.2 on the passenger side
Both ready to go
Seats all the way forward
Seats where they normally are
I didn't really get any photos of running the speaker/power wire. I already had the 0 gauge power line run for a temporary setup I had before (just subs). There's at least a couple other tutorials around that show how to run it through the side of car where there's a large grommet that most of the other electronics come through the firewall. That and running two runs of 12 gauge speaker lines through the door grommets was by and far the most time consuming, frustrating, son-of-a-pain-in-the-@$$ part of the whole thing.
So now I'm working on the sub enclosure/sub amp rack. The spare tire and tool kit have to go to make room for them - I have AAA and can always just call a friend if I need rescuing. This will be my first go at fiberglassing and as such, I'm trying to keep that part minimal and simple. I'm only going to be glassing the bottom of the enclosure, the rest is mdf w/ a double 3/4" baffle on the top to recess the faces of the subs. False floor to follow. I measured the volume w/ the packing peanuts method and got 1.33 cu ft before driver displacement, so about .6 cu ft per driver after. Should be about right.
Pics of the progress on that so far:
Measuring
Amp location
Upside-down w/ baffle
So that's it for now. I still need to order the fiberglass material, but I'll update when it happens. In the meantime, any comments/suggestions are appreciated. Thanks for looking.