Andy's 2014 Honda Accord Sport

There's a non-defeatable HPF on the stock head unit and these can't be replaced without losing some important features of the car.

The most acceptable solution for me was to add an Alpine CDE-HD149BT in the lower dash pocket (kudos to keep_hope_alive for the idea).

I used this diagram to build a bypass harness with Metra 70-1729 and 71-1729 adaptors to avoid cutting into stock wiring.

























I've since relocated the USB cord to behind the dash so I could put a voltage meter in the 12v accessory plug.

Amp rack mounted on the rear deck.






1/4-20 threaded rivnuts to hold everything in place.




I used 1/2" MDF to create the amp rack. The rear deck is not completely flat, so you can see there are 2 pieces of 3/4" MDF spacers near the sides so that all mounting locations were solid.




Amp rack just fits Alpine PDX F4 (tweeters and midrange), F6 (bridged to mid bass), M12 (sub), Streetwires CBR44M and a Helix DSP.




A bunch of 8-32 T-nuts were used to avoid from the MDF stripping.

Not a whole lot to see as far as wiring goes... just tried to follow stock wiring runs.




Ran some 2/0 welding wire I got in a trade to power the system. Too big to fit under the side trim panels, but there is a hole at the bottom of the driver's side seat that allowed me to get it in back.

The tin can doors needed a lot of attention.






3/4" HDPE speaker rings.






DB3 MLV from Home Depot held in with bolts. Again I used 8-32 threaded rivnuts. Installed Hertz ML1600.2 in the doors and they sounded great.




ScanSpeak D3004 tweeters for the sail panels.






Fits perfectly!










Tried some SI TM65's for a while, but eventually put the Hertz back in and was much happier.




And then I bought a pair of AudioFrog GB60's from a DIYMA member. Although I didn't pay anywhere near retail for them, its still been the most expensive mid I've run to date... no need to explore other speakers.

Sound dampened the rear deck and covered in CCF (not pictured).

After hearing another member's sick IB install, there was no question that it needed to happen in my car.

Sealed off the stock speaker locations with MDF. Played around with my friend's table router to copy the stock speaker shape.

Test fitting an IDMAX15... its huge and heavy.




















Cut a hole in the arm rest of the back seat to allow bass to flow through.






I had to build a new floor piece to accommodate the baffle depth. I made a bone head mistake and didn't mount the sub high enough.

Because of the angle and depth of the sub, the magnet sat below the floor piece by about 1/4" inch. You can see how I accommodated for this (not very noticeable unless you're looking for it).











I eventually put an all weather trunk liner back there, so the floor looks a lot better now.

The sub sounds amazing and has plenty of output for my needs, although getting swapped out soon.

However, there were a couple of buzzes coming from the roof that were driving me crazy.

The headliner just fits out of the rear passenger door.






Added some heat barrier.









First time sound dampening a roof and was only thinking that I'd kill any rattles and reduce some wind noise up there.

I was pleasantly surprised that the bass clarity and overall sound improved! I'm a believer now.

I was planning on running a 3-way in the car, just didn't have time for a while.

Here are some A-pillars that I worked on, but ultimately ended up going a different direction.

Originally I planned for Audible Physics AR3's in the A-pillars.








Laser jig I made. I eventually made a new jig with this laser and flush mounted it (much better accuracy):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00X356WZQ/




Testing to see where the stock tweeter were aimed.










Don't be an idiot like me and fiberglass to the bottom edge of your A-Pillars if you want them to fit back in your car.

More bad/expensive decisions.

I found some AudioFrog GB25's for a good price.










Test fitting.




Somehow I got to this point in only a few hours (doing them twice helps ).




The additional depth of the stage was great and the stage was pillar-to-pillar, which is generally typical for these types of installs. I could've probably buried the speakers a little more into the A-Pillars due to them being bite-size.

The tweeters in the sail panels definitely helped by adding a few sound cues of additional width.

I had always wanted to try midranges in the sail panel location and because of the size and volume requirements of the GB25's, it was doable.

I contacted Andy at AudioFrog and he amazingly sent me a complete set of mounting hardware and answered my potential install questions. Awesome customer service.

Not too many pictures as I was trying to crank these out quick.








Used some SEM Texture Coating








I eventually wet sanding them with 600 grit and the final texture looks very OEM in my opinion.







Just need to find the grills...

And this brings us up to today.

I have 2 more planned bad decisions.

Here is one of them.

Bought a pair of AudioFrog GB10's with a minor discount off of retail from a member on here. The Scans would've worked equally as well, but the matched aesthetics of the AudioFrogs was worth a few extra dollars to me.

Started A-Pillar #3 for this build on Friday. Again, minimal pics during a speed build out.

Because I really really really want these to be the last A-Pillars I need to dink around with for this build, I did extensive testing and I think just above the dash hump and pointed a bit off access sounded best to me.









Just waiting for some grill cloth to arrive.

Hope you've enjoyed my good and bad decisions as of date.

More to come in the last stretch of the build.