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Here is somewhat of a milestone for us here at Simplicity in sound...This is the first ever build where Joey and I had virtually zero hands on time...we laid out the basic ideas and design layout, and the entire job was done by our young guns, Jess and Julia (come to think of, whats with all the "J"s here?!). Jesse has come a long way since starting with us from the get go, and i think he has now had enough experience that we'd trust him with something like this, and Julia already has the mercedes build under her belt...so this seemed like a good project to have them collaborate on. 
This was by no means a walk in park, the car is a 98 Lexus GS400 VIP style show car. It has a air suspension system in the trunk and a less-than-stellar build by another shop. As the car is getting older, the owner wanted to change out the trunk so there is more room for a baby stroller, and to able to enjoy a more sound quality oriented system as the car transitions to more of a daily driver.
the goals:
1. reorganize the air suspension system to provide more space in the trunk
2. achieve a higher level of sq compared to the previously installed system
3. remove all remnants of the previous install and obtain a clean, stealthy and far more usable trunk design
once again, please excuse a few missing build pics as they are slowly getting into the groove of taking all these build pics....which is hardly natural to any installer (just ask joey
)
lets get started:
first, here is the car itself, despite being over 15 years old, this GS still looks really nice and clean:
the signal source is a customer supplied pioneer 5600bhs double din headunit, we swapped out the old dash kit which was falling apart with a newer one
Jesse also hooked up a customer supplied pioneer backup camera:
jesse also took the time to completely redo the harness and wiring behind the headunit, which was...a bit messy
The front stage is a set of Illusion Audio Carbon C6 components. Jesse fabricated a custom mounting baffle that fits the oem mounting points on the door, and then coated them with truck bedliner to help protect them against the elements:
the baffles we then bolted in place, new wires run into the doors, and the door was treated with ac ombination of STP damper and stinger foam:
the area around the stock sepaker grille was also sound proofed to help with resonance:
The carbon tweeters were molded into the a pillars, aimed relatively at the opposite listener, and finished in dash matching black vinyl:
here are some builds from Jesse of the pillar process:
first the two pillars were stripped of their oem covering material, and the two rings aimed and secured:
the area was then taped off and jesse used the method of building up filler to create the smooth blended in shape.
The pods were then wrapped in black vinyl, and the illusion tweeters mounted
at the customer request, a set of Arc audio XDI 6.5" coaxials went into the back door to provide some additional sound for rear passengers:
so thats it for the interior. the rear deck sub was already removed and the deck sound proofed from the previous install. Jesse re-ran completely new wiring but didnt take any good pics of that process hahaha, so time to move onto the trunk.
this is the previous install (photo taken 5 years ago at the time when it was completed)...as you can see, it takes up quite a lot of room and the hard corners and big gaps showing bare metal was that cosmetically appealing. the fit and finish, especially after 5 years of usage was pretty poor.
behind the air tank on the right hand side was a wooden rack housing the compressors, whcih didnt have the neatest wiring nor the best mounting integrity:
This was by no means a walk in park, the car is a 98 Lexus GS400 VIP style show car. It has a air suspension system in the trunk and a less-than-stellar build by another shop. As the car is getting older, the owner wanted to change out the trunk so there is more room for a baby stroller, and to able to enjoy a more sound quality oriented system as the car transitions to more of a daily driver.
the goals:
1. reorganize the air suspension system to provide more space in the trunk
2. achieve a higher level of sq compared to the previously installed system
3. remove all remnants of the previous install and obtain a clean, stealthy and far more usable trunk design
once again, please excuse a few missing build pics as they are slowly getting into the groove of taking all these build pics....which is hardly natural to any installer (just ask joey
lets get started:
first, here is the car itself, despite being over 15 years old, this GS still looks really nice and clean:


the signal source is a customer supplied pioneer 5600bhs double din headunit, we swapped out the old dash kit which was falling apart with a newer one

Jesse also hooked up a customer supplied pioneer backup camera:


jesse also took the time to completely redo the harness and wiring behind the headunit, which was...a bit messy

The front stage is a set of Illusion Audio Carbon C6 components. Jesse fabricated a custom mounting baffle that fits the oem mounting points on the door, and then coated them with truck bedliner to help protect them against the elements:



the baffles we then bolted in place, new wires run into the doors, and the door was treated with ac ombination of STP damper and stinger foam:






the area around the stock sepaker grille was also sound proofed to help with resonance:


The carbon tweeters were molded into the a pillars, aimed relatively at the opposite listener, and finished in dash matching black vinyl:






here are some builds from Jesse of the pillar process:
first the two pillars were stripped of their oem covering material, and the two rings aimed and secured:


the area was then taped off and jesse used the method of building up filler to create the smooth blended in shape.


The pods were then wrapped in black vinyl, and the illusion tweeters mounted


at the customer request, a set of Arc audio XDI 6.5" coaxials went into the back door to provide some additional sound for rear passengers:



so thats it for the interior. the rear deck sub was already removed and the deck sound proofed from the previous install. Jesse re-ran completely new wiring but didnt take any good pics of that process hahaha, so time to move onto the trunk.
this is the previous install (photo taken 5 years ago at the time when it was completed)...as you can see, it takes up quite a lot of room and the hard corners and big gaps showing bare metal was that cosmetically appealing. the fit and finish, especially after 5 years of usage was pretty poor.

behind the air tank on the right hand side was a wooden rack housing the compressors, whcih didnt have the neatest wiring nor the best mounting integrity:
