[simplicityinsound]

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:

 

[simplicityinsound]

so after some hard work, this is the new trunk look. the oem carpet pieces are now all back in...the customer is going to source a new front floor section so we can swap in later as the current one is quite scuffed at various places.

but it is a lot more stealthy and spacious than before. a divider wall is at the front while a thin fiberglass sub enclosure is on the driver side, both have protective and breathable grilles over them. the right side of the trunk is now completely open. a new floor board was fabricated that provides a solid floor while allow easier access to the spare tire below:

pop off those grilles and here is what you see...three mosconi amps face back, trimmed in black vinyl, while a single illusion audio c12 is in the side enclosure.

two mosconi ONE 240.2 powers the midbass with 240 watts a piece and the sub with 700 watts, while a 120.4 sends 120 watts to each tweeter and rear speaker. everything is controlled by a mosconi 6ot8v8 dsp. Simple and clean is the goal and I think Julia and Jesse did a really good job

unto the build pics...one thing you may notice is that the air ride components are no where to be seen. The final appearance of the trunk belies how much work Julia had to do to actually make everyhting fit. All the components for the air now sits in a metal rack behind the wood amp rack.

first, the rack was welded together using bar stock, the weldes ground down, and the rack painted black:

here is the rack being test fitted to the car:

and the air tank bolted in place:

andt he compressors and other components all bolted in and wired up:

the metal rack also acts as a mounting point for the amp rack. the idea of the design is that you can remove four bolts and the entire amp rack can be removed, laid down on the floor and allow total access to the air components. here ist he amp rack all wired up by julia and bolted in place:

and here are the various pieces of trim and outter panels, after being upholstered, and being dyed to a slightly darker hue to better match the stock trunk carpet:

the side enclosure was Jesse's job. first, he taped off the entire area, cut out the bottom portion out of mdf, and then laid 6 layers of mat:

once that cured, jesse trimmed the mold to the desired shape, made the mounting ring baffle for the c12, and secured the two together:

then cloth was laid, reinforced with glass, and then filler applied and the enclosure sanded smooth:

and then it was carpeted, but sorry about the missing pics of that

and finally a shot of the breathable grille before it was carpeted:

so, thats concludes the first full build for the SIS The Next Generation team hahah I am quite happy without the outcome considering this wasnt the easiest of projects. We hope to have more of these in the near future.

as for it sounds, overall very pleasant, which it should consider the level of gear in the build. despite being not very well lined up with the factory grille, the c6 midbass sounded decent and looked decent on the RTA, providing very solid midbass impact and going up to 2000hz or so to meat the tweeter. the carbon tweeter, as usual, shines in basically any configuration...great detail yet not harsh, just very natural. imaging staging is all decent, depth is actually quite nice on this car. the single c12, in what really is a pretty undersized enclosure, still somehow manages to provide a nearly flat response down to 20-25hz on the rta, it has good output and good extension and blends well with everything else. its not cheap but it has some very unique attributes that makes it one of our favorite.

so thats it on this, hopefully next time, the TNG team will remember to snap more pictures for me to use

b

 

[mires]

Hey Bing. Do you mind sharing who makes that dash kit? It looks better than the ones I have found?

 

[simplicityinsound]

we order our kits from bestkits

b

 

[mires]

we order our kits from bestkits

b

Thankya sir

 

[mark620]

Pretty crazy how much you guys have grown. Not too long ago you were in your house garage. Now your a team of 4 with a full shop loaded with cars. Its nice to see your success and I hope you guys continue to grow. The work just keeps getting better..Keep up the great work I look forward to

 

[JayinMI]

I figured TNG meant "The New Girl." lol

So, I was wondering...is (are?) Jesse and Julia like full time? It seems like Jesse only gets occasional mention in build logs.

Great to see continued success for you guys. In another year or so, you'll probably have to move to a bigger shop. lol

Jay

 

[ben54b]

such beautiful work. a credit to you all. ben

 

[mrmill]

the new guy and girl knocked it out the park. i'm most impressed with the redo of the airride...very clean install.

 

[simplicityinsound]

I figured TNG meant "The New Girl." lol

So, I was wondering...is (are?) Jesse and Julia like full time? It seems like Jesse only gets occasional mention in build logs.

Great to see continued success for you guys. In another year or so, you'll probably have to move to a bigger shop. lol

Jay

jesse is our part timer, julia is the new hire

 

[quietfly]

nice job guys!!!
hope to see lots more great work like this!

 

[lightwave76]

Jesse and Julia did an awesome job on my car, I could not be more happy with the set up and the sound quality.

 

[lostthumb]

Nice work on the install!! I love the Mode Parfume bodykit too!

 

[captainobvious]

Really terrific work as usual. You guys sure are busy lately, eh?

 

[rton20s]

Nice to see that the level of quality and craftsmanship is held to the same standard regardless of who is doing the work.

 

[req]

i really like how they incorperated the air tank and compressors into the amp rack. that was a great idea and i think it turned out very well.

awesome stuff!!

 

[sydmonster]

C
L
E
A
N

...this is a proper daily duty install. nice!!

 

[colled96]

OUTSTANDING work.....very nice workmanship

 

[chesapeakesoja]

This is really nice! Where do you source the extruded metal for the grill on the sub?

 

[LaserSVT]

Purdy.