slief

So it begins. My lease ended on my 07 C6 convert. I was going to buy it but US Bank pissed me off. This turned out to be a good thing as I found a great deal locally on an 09 Z06 with 3700 miles.

My payments were damn near what the 07 would have cost me except that I went with a longer term to keep the payments where I wanted them.

I have been in to high end car stereos for 20+ years and competed in my share of audio contests. I wanted to swap the stereo on my last c6 but the fact that it was a lease kept me from tearing into it.

I have only had the new car a few weeks but times a wasting. The factory non bose system is nothing short of crap...
and I cant stand listening to.

I removed my K40 Calibre from my last vette with the intent on it going into the new one.

The install should begin next week. Thanks to Rick at Raamaudio for the sound advice and great prices.

While I am not going "crazy" with the sound system, I think it will suffice and provide a good "ear tuning". If nothing else, it will be a good starting point. The only thing that I might add down the line would be a second amp and possibly an electronic crossover if the passives dont meet my liking. Time will tell.


The plan is to gut the interior and add in BXT Raamat as well as Ensolite for sound dampening as well as insulation.

The list of equipment is as follows.
K40 Calibre radar

Pioneer AVIC-Z110BT head unit with Sirius.

Boyo VTL425 back up camera

Arc Audio 125.4 mini Amp bridged for the fronts.

Arc Audio 500.1 mini Amp for the sub.

Front speakers ID XS 65 components with CTX65cs tweeters. Tweeters will be mounted in the A pillars.

ID CTX5 5.25 coax for the rears.

Boxology sub enclosure from 4080enclosures.com

Image Dynamics IDQ10 sub

Of course there is also a bunch of Pac crap for the onstar as well as chimes and steering wheel control retention.

As I said, I am shooting for the install to begin next week if not the week after once I have all the components on hand.. The head unit is on hand now and the rest of the stuff will arrive first of next week.

I will update this thread with pictures as the build progresses. Stay tuned.

s4k4zulu

Subscribed

San Diego Z06

Me too. Good luck and post lots of pics.

slief

Thanks guys! The plan is to start on it Monday provided the sub enclosure shipped friday per 4080 enclosures estimate. I decided last minute to add the second amp which should arrive Monday or Tuesday. Other than the second amp and the enclosure, everything is now on hand. If all goes as planned, it should be done Thursday or Friday. I already stripped and cleaned a used set of A pillars I picked up for the tweeter mods. What a nightmare that was. A heat gun probably would have made that effort much easier..


I also picked up my double din bezzel and sanded the texture off and then painted it flat black to match the AC unit in the console. That came out nice and beats the hell out of the non matching texture finish it came with.

I should have some pictures of the progress Tuesday when I mat the inside of the car after gutting it.

0RAAMaudio

I will be watching as well

If my darn knees were not giving me so much grief matching system(pretty close at least since I supplied most of the parts) would of been done and tuned and really enjoyed by now.

As I tune more on mine I will learn more about getting the absolute best from these systems and pass it on, of course

Have fun, I always do!

Rick

calvie018

Nice, another documented build thread! I'm intrigued with the A-pillar tweeter mod that you're gonna do. Will you be doing that yourself? Also, where are you located? Just wondering if you're local, maybe meet up to check out your build, as I'm going to be putting in about the same equipment as you.

slief

I live in Simi Valley and work in Chatsworth. You are more than welcome to check it out anytime.

I was going to do the build myself but I decided against it as it would take me a couple weeks to finish up if I didnt take off from work for days at a time. I decided to bring it over to Sounds Good Stereo in Woodland hills as they have done a number of high end installs for me in the past and always worked with me on price. I dropped the car off yesterday. The have the car gutted and I will be heading down there later this morning to do the matting and insulation. They were working on the pillars as well. The tweeters will be mounted as low in the pillars as possible. They will be facing eachother but the tweeter mounts will allow me to adjust the tweeters direction from behind the pillar panel.

I will get some pics today and post them when I get home.

0RAAMaudio

Great to have you guys talking, meeting up, comparing, taking notes, whatever you do, etc.......

I am having so much fun doing this Vette audio stuff, when I get to SoCal someday maybe we can have a meet and great, cruise, dinner, etc.......

I will make arrangements to have one of the best if not they very best tuner in the world work on the final tweaking on these systems so it can be shared with everyone. It can be quite shocking as to just what a superb set of ears and experience can do to improve a good audio system.

(different source unit capabilities will make for some difficulty in getting it just right for everybody but if we cut out the EQ, etc, get the amps, speaker crossovers if used, etc dialed in and then find what specific freqs are the most in need of tuning in these cars we will get it very very close)

Have a great day gentlemen

Rick

slief

Its been a busy day! Lots of progress! The A pillars are done. Frank from Sounds Good Stereo in Woodland Hills blasted these out within a day. No bondo needed. Just fiber glass and sanding. I was very impressed with the results. I found a near perfect vinyl match for the pillars at an upolstery shop.
I spend the better part of the day matting the car with a layer of rammat BXT (like accumat) followed by ensolite which is a thin adhesive backed foam material. Backup camera was being installed as were the wires.

Things should come together tomorrow and I would expect the car to be done late Thursday. A small amp rack will be installed on the forward most portion of the rear hatch area. Front Crossovers will be installed in the stock amp location for easy access as they are highly adjustable. Calibre Radar front and rear LED's go in the center air vents and forward and rear radar sensors under the front and rear facia. Sirius antenna will be glued under the rear facia as well near the rear hatch.

Now for the pictures..

Here is a crappy shot of the car.


Rammat installed in the rear. I matted both the storage box and the battery box from top to bottom as well.


Rammat installed behind the seats.


Ensolite over the rammat. The front area where there is no BXT will have a piece of wood glued down so that the amp rack has something to screw into under the capet instead of screwing through the car. Great thinking on the shops part!



A pillar




Back side of A pillar


A pillar with tweeter bezzel


Finished A Pillar. Notice the tweeter. It can be aimed.. That will help allow some directional adjustments without having to remove the pillar..




Mounted A pillar. The tweeters can be swiveled in the pillar so they can be aimed and adjusted.


In the doors, at the advice of Rick from Raamaudio, extruded aluminum U channel (supplied by Rick) was added to the inside door skin behind the speaker. The idea is that the door is very flexible and stiffening it up will improve the speakers response.. You dont see flexible speaker boxes.... It extruded pieces were supplied with adhesive backing so it was just a matter of sticking 2 channels in place on each door skin. I then followed that with some rammat followed by a patch of ensolite directly behind the speaker location.

Here are a couple shots of the inside door skin as viewed from the speaker opening.
You can see the Channel and mat installed. The channels are about 4" apart and run parallell to eachother.


Bxt on top



So far so good. More to come tomorrow.

calvie018

Wow, lookin good so far! Can't wait to see how everything comes together. Hopefully I can get started on my project sometime within the next 2 weeks. Still need to do a bit more with the sub enclosure before stuff gets installed.

bx goat

Good job. Keep up the good work.

slief

There wont be much to report on today as the day will be spent running wires for the stereo and the K40 Radar install.

Today I received my Boxology sub enclosure from Ainslie at 4080 enclosures and I was very impressed with the quality of it. The enclosure is built like a tank but also very light weight since its made mostly from fiber glass. They built to to accomodate the larger diameter if the Image Dynamics IDQ 10 sub which actually is closer to an 11" diameter speaker. The speaker fit perfectly. Here are a couple photos of the enclosure.





Here is a shot of the backside of it. I was pleased to see that it had speaker terminals pre-installed. Very nice attention to detail. I cant wait to hear how it will sound but I have no doubt that I will be impressed with both the box and the IDQ sub from Rick at Raamaudio.


I am not sure there will be more to update on today. Tomorrow things will start going back together so I expect some better updates for you then.

Stay tuned!!

slief

Since we are mostly chevy guys around here, I figured I would help to derail my own thread with something I think you will appreciate...

I mentioned I have been into this car audio stuff for a loooong time.. I was competing in the IASCA audio challenges back in the late 80's and early 90's with a number of my previous vehicles. Up until the last several years, one would consider me a bit obsessive. Back in the day when KEF came out with the mobile DTS processors, I was an early adopter. I just stumbled across my old KEF DTS processor in my garage which gave me a good laugh.

I have a 68 Camaro that I have had for 20+ years. Back in the mid 90's I decided to do a full frame off and customization of the car that took me nearly 5 years to complete. Besides upgrading the engine to a custom small block 400 bored and stroked to a 407 topped off with a DFI/Accel Super Ram TPI setup, the interior and stereo were a top priority. The system was slated to be very large and very competive. Sounds Good Stereo who was and still is very highly regarded was in constant communication with Car Audio Magazine who was eagerly awaiting the completion of the car to do a full feature on it. The day the car was actually run for the first time (after engine tuning), I had to drive it up into our local mountains for the photo shoot. This car has won many car audio contest for both SPL and sound quality as well as many car show awards.. It has less than 2000 miles on it since I finished it up.

Below are some picture as well as scans of the article from the June 1999 Car Audio Buyers Guide. Enjoy!


Here is the engine I built for it.

tsts

I'm following and enjoying your thread for installing your system. I would like to thank you for offering your help with my battery problem following my Amp. & Sub. install. I also used bxt & ensolite from Rick over a year ago throughout, when I put my sub. in and I also used bxt & ensolite I still had on hand inside the Sub. enclosure.

I too was going to get a C6 Z06 but kept my C5 and had ECS build & install my LS7 (also wanted an automatic). I thought this way I'm free to do what I want to the car and not deal with warranty issues and higher insurance. I have the same Nav. system you are putting in and I think you will be happy with it, interface design is nice and easy. Still working out my battery discharge problem, but have eliminated the Amp. draw as a source of problem.

Good luck on your new system, it looks great.

snoopdan

See if you can get some time on a Termlab, if the shop has one.

slief

Another busy day.. Lots of progress!

Completed thus far:

All speakers are installed.
The doors are matted.
A Pillars are wired and mounted with the tweeters installed.
Amps are mounted and wired with fuse block installed.
Rear of the car is all back together with the sub installed and wire to amp.
Sirius antenna and GPS antenna are mounted under the rear facia just behind the rear window.
Rear radar sensor is installed behind rear facia.
Back up camera is installed.
Font passive crossovers are mounted to the stock amp bracket for easy access.

All that is really left to do is put the door panels back on, wire up the head unit, put the front carpet and seats back in, door panels and a simple carpeted cover for the amps, mount front radar sensor and diffuser and I thats about it. Tomorrow should get me bumpin!

Here are some pics:
Boxology Sub and carpet in. Sub enclosure fit perfect and matches pretty well too. It snaps into place so you can remove it within seconds. I am very pleased!


Amps being mounted:


Alumalite filler plate from Raamaudi installed.


Speaker installed in raamaudio filler.. It was a perfect fit with pre-drilled holes and covered in ensolite.


Finished door.


More to come tomorrow when the front of the car is put back together. Stay tuned!

slief

Its been a long day. I went to work this morning early and left work and arrived at the stereo shop around 1:00 this afternoon. Needless to say, we worked unitl just after 7:00 this evening. I have to thank Bret and Frank from Sounds Good Stereo to do what ever it took to get the car to the point where I could take it home. There are still a few things left to do. The front radar sensor gets mounted behind the bumper facia and after studying it for a while, it appears the bumper needs to be removed to get in there. I definately need to do some digging here to figure that out. If it needs to come off, I will take it to my body shop and have them remove it so I can mount the sensor and the diffuser. Thats a subject for next week.

In the mean time. There stereo is in. There were only a couple things that slowed progress today. First is that the Pac steering wheel remote interface isnt working. We tried to call Pac but their phone system was screwed up and would ring once and then go silent. That needs to be fixed. We extended the wiring for that so we could mount it above the removable panel above the pedals for easy access.

Behind the factory radio is a support mount. When we were ready to mount up the radio we found this got in the way and prevented the new head unit from mounting flush.


It needed to be cut out so Frank cut it out with a dremel.


Here is the head unit installed. It looks great to me.. Notice the nice matching mounting bezzel. I think I mentioned earlier in the thread that I sanded it and painted it.


Frank convinced me not to cut holes in the carpet for the amp wires. Since I was not familiar with these amps and as such didnt know if I would be sticking with them. We kept the amp wiring simple in case I decided to make a change. The day wasnt long enough to make the cover for the amps so that will have to be finished up next week.



By the time we got the car back together and did a quick gain adjustment, it was pushing 7:30 so enough was enough. Frank worked tirelessly well after he would normally have gone home and I am grateful for it. I also have to thank Bret who owns the shop for allowing me to to work along side Frank to get this done as fast as possible and for the great job at a great price. I have been a long time customer of Sounds Good Stereo.. Well over 20 years now and the quality and great service has never changed.


I will spend some time adjusting the crossovers this weekend.

With the way it sits now, I would say it sounds great but the fronts are too bright. I need to make some adjustments to the passive crossovers and I have a pretty good idea where to begin. The Bass is great. It makes my hair move and that makes me happy.. Very punchy and more than enough bass to keep up with the rest of the system.

The amps have separate gains for every channel which is good and bad. Since the front amp is 4 channels running bridged as a 2 channel amp, it is a bit of a pain to dial in the gains. On the otherhand it is very flexible for 4 channels installs. The amps seem to put out a rediculous amount of power for their size as well as rating and they do it very cleanly with little to no distortion at near full gain.

The speakers seem to be up to the power as well and seem to put out lots of sound.

Since I still have alot of work to do on tuning, I cannot really comment on its full potential but considering we have only minutes into the tuning process, it seems there is a lot of potential.

Needless to say, I am very happy with the results of the install and even more excited to hear it when its totally dialed in. Even as it sits it so far ahead of the stock system that most people would be stunned.

Thats it for now. I wil update more this weekend and take a few more pics.

0RAAMaudio

Looking great, makes me want to get mine up and running, dang pesky knees keeping me from much progress and I do not know anybody I would trust here, glad you have a great shop to work with

Very cool they let you work on the car with them, I do not run a shop but if I did I would almost insist on it, the few times I have installed systems for others I always have the owners work with me.

Between your shop and your ears, my buddy Jason's shop and experience, mine and ultimately the Master of tuning Eric at ID, we will maximize these systems for everyone to enjoy at the fullest.

If we come up with any weak link it will be addressed but I am pretty sure you are going to be very happy once finally dialed in

Thanks for posting all this up, something I had planned to do all along with my own install but so hard to work on that part of the car so I am way behind, this helps a great deal

Rick

0RAAMaudio

The location of the midbass on the door baffle is to create the longest path length to our ears and also clear our legs the best, just in case anybody was curious

slief

I took a long drive yesterday with a friend and had a chance to make some adjustments in the head unit via the EQ. Between that and setting the passive crossovers tweeter attenuation fo -7dB, I got the highs a bit more acceptable. This morning I went back out and changed the front tweeters so they were out of phase which helped some more.
I still think the front tweeters might benifit from the addition of a resistor to tame them a bit more but its much better now.

I need to clean the car so I can take some better pictures.