[slade1274]

The goal on this one was to see what could be done with a stock integration. Stock speaker locations are a bit quirky, but I wanted to see what kind of sound I could achieve.

Equipment list:
Stock HU
Audison Voce 28mm tweeter in the sail panel
Audible Physics XR3M in the stock door location
Kicker SSMB8 in the stock location under the seat
Hertz ML2500 subwoofer
Audison BitOne
Pair of Audison SR4 for the front stage
Audison SR1Dk for the sub

BMW has three different stereo setups stock from the factory on this model. This one happens to have the perfect setup for a stock integration as there is no EQ from the head unit and it has balanced level to the stock amp; so I could hijack the stock harness and splice RCA connectors onto the signal wires for the front speakers and put them directly into the BitOne.

Modifications made to the car were limited to: Fabrication on the inner piece of the sail panel to fit the tweeter, trimming of the carpet foam and a bit of the carpet under seat to give room for the midbass, the ash tray was modified to accommodate the BitOne DRC, and the stock wiring harness was hijacked for the signal and speaker leads. New wire had to be run for the tweeter as the stock system runs it in line with the midrange with a simple cap.

Midrange:
Two piece baffle was cut and mounted to the door with the stock nuts. CCF was used on the baffle/door card surface and butyl rope on the driver to baffle. For those that don’t know the Audible Physics 3” driver, it has a SERIOUS motor structure utilizing a push/pull design, so it is quite large and requires chamfers for driver to breathe as well as relief area for the wire leads.

Stock grill fits over making it look like factory

Tweeters:
As a said, a new wire pair needed to run for the tweeter, so I went in through a blank in the Molex connector to maintain the seal.

The sail panel is two pieces of plastic backed by a molded foam piece. The tweeters were mounted to the inside plastic piece and still leaves room for the stock foam to be placed behind it.

The tweeter press fits into the new recess using the stock mounting trim ring that were attached to the modified sail piece

 

[slade1274]

Midbass- kinda funky under seat contraption enclosure that vents into the car’s sub structure. Just needed to make a baffle to fit the stock box as the Kicker is a bit deeper than the stock driver…

You can see the foam that was removed to give excursion room as well as a corner of the carpet that was notched to keep it off the driver surround.

Stock grills over them with the carpet notch shown

 

[slade1274]

The subwoofer was a typical fiberglass mold for the corner of the trunk. It has a slick recess into the stock trunk tray that give an EXTREMELY tight fit allowing for it to fit without “need” for securement to the vehicle… again no drilling or cutting of metal in the car. I did utilize one of the push pin mounting holes to put a little angle bracket to prevent it from tipping out on the most aggressive of left hand turns…

The Mille 10” is MASSIVE, so in order to make things easier to work with, I mocked up the driver dimensions to the baffle ring so I didn’t have to deal with such a large, heavy driver for mock up.

Three piece baffle to recess the driver and allow for a speaker grill. This thing has good excursion for a 10” sub, so I wanted the extra recess to allow for said excursion and still facilitate a flush mount appearance with the grill.

Fleece pulled. Glass buildup was on the outside of the enclosure with inside work done on the joining areas from the back piece to the fleeced area. Also used a Dura-glass milk shake on the inside to help reinforce the baffle adhesion.

Grill:

 

[slade1274]

Trunk:
I was able to use some “extra” factory bosses to bolt in the amp rack. The BitOne is tucked under them bridging from another factory stud location.
I went with welded steel to give stout support and good air flow as the Audison amps are marketed as being designed to utilize “convection cooling”.

BitOne:

Amp rack:

Drilled and tapped to allow for easy removal of the amps as needed

Factory bolt locations…

 

[slade1274]

Wiring: BMW makes some things simple by putting the battery in the trunk, but then complicates things by adding some ridiculous things to it, hampering access to a battery post. Power and ground were run all of ~8” to a flat area that conveniently had stock bosses to use for my mounting board.

Ground wire:

Power wire:

All run to the Big Jesse Audison distro block (sneak peak on the beauty panels coming up later) I like barrier strips for wiring as it allows me to keep things clean and organized on the amp rack before I put it in the car. I like to put some black tape over them to protect from any “whoops” as well as help keep the screws from backing out.

 

[slade1274]

Beauty panel:
The first piece was to outline the amps and is covered in gray Alcantara. The second was to blend down to the trunk contours, so a frame was cut and glassed and fleece was pulled to make the contours…. As you probably noticed with the sub enclosure, I don’t seem to take pics once the resin starts to make an appearance.

Final look

 

[slade1274]

I think the last part is the BitOne DRC. I only use it for the presets and sub level control as the HU does an auto defeat every time you shut the car off so you don’t blow out the ear drums when you start it back up…. So I would have to turn the HU to max and then use the DRC every time you start the car. Plus, it’s tucked so neatly away that I don’t want to use it all the time. Bad thing is that I can’t use the Dynamic EQ feature on the BitOne this way….

Control area:

Fabrication pic:

I took the opportunity when running the DRC control wire up the center console to also run the BitOne USB cord to the glove box for any tuning sessions.


/build pics

 

[ErinH]

nice, man. I'm really looking forward to seeing this in person and seeing how you finish up the DRC. Have you considered painting the DRC face to match the dash? Only reason I ask is because it's something I'd like to do if I ever decided to use that as my source volume.

I'm jealous of the time you have, dude. Wish I could put the xr3's in my car.

 

[chefhow]

Looks beautiful!!!

 

[Genxx]

Great job just like the STi.

 

[slade1274]

nice, man. I'm really looking forward to seeing this in person and seeing how you finish up the DRC. Have you considered painting the DRC face to match the dash? Only reason I ask is because it's something I'd like to do if I ever decided to use that as my source volume.

Nope, brushed aluminum FTW.... it's under the ashtray door anyway.

I'm jealous of the time you have, dude. Wish I could put the xr3's in my car.

Dude, this was 2 months in the making between all my other activities that wasted too much time.... the XRs only took an hour because they were dropped in the stock locations You could do the same with some reducer rings into your current pods.....

 

[ErinH]

When I spoke with you the other day I was under the impression that you hadn't done anything yet. Therefore, I thought you did all of this in the past few days.

 

[slade1274]

LOL....

Started mid January with fabrication- I procrastinated most on the sub enclosure.

I was waiting on the XR3Ms to put the build log up..... we all know my last one and Jason's with so many iterations in an ongoing thread. I wanted this one to be a "built log" instead of a "build log".


Wait.... I don't know what you're thinking; we discussed the work/benefits of swapping out the Voce tweeters with some Vifa RRs. That would indicate I had some work done.

 

[eviling]

I <3 beamers

 

[JediMentality]

Lovely :thumbsup:

Listening impressions?

 

[Melodic Acoustic]

Wow Ryan that is sweetness right there. Great work dude.

 

[ErinH]

LOL....

Started mid January with fabrication- I procrastinated most on the sub enclosure.

I was waiting on the XR3Ms to put the build log up..... we all know my last one and Jason's with so many iterations in an ongoing thread. I wanted this one to be a "built log" instead of a "build log".


Wait.... I don't know what you're thinking; we discussed the work/benefits of swapping out the Voce tweeters with some Vifa RRs. That would indicate I had some work done.

dude, seriously?
you expect me to realize that you've got an install already when you know that I can barely stay focused for two sec..


wait... what?

squirrel!!!!!!!

 

[HondAudio]

Those Kicker midbasses look sweet... I wish they were still available.

 

[ecbmxer]

Really nice install! What is the sub enclosure volume? And is it mounted to a single MDF baffle or double? (I know you then have another thickness for the grill ring)

 

[bertholomey]

I'm going to pour over this tonight when I have more time (taking a 10 minute break from looking at medical charts ).

I think I have the honor of being the first to listen to it - sounded fantastic - I was surprised when Ryan said he has done very minimal tuning at this point. The entire install is so incredibly clean - sitting in the car with the little door closed, you would never know there was a hi fi in the car. Someone who doesn't know about car audio who looked in the trunk, might not even notice the amp rack and sub. Fantastic job!!!