Midas1 C5 System Install (Dial-up = no no)


First off the equipment, he already had an Alpin radio with IPOD integration with the soundgate adapter. We ripped the soundgate adapter out and put a standard GM harness in. For the rest he went with a pair of JL amps the 300/2 for the speakers and 500/1 for the JL 12w6v2. He used Focal 165 K2P components. NCR Dave provided the speaker plates and sub box (more on this later :-)). Knukonceptz wiring, its almost becoming a standard for me and it seems the forum, such a great product.
We started by taking the center counsle apart to get to the radio. For those not farmiliar with this http://www.vetteessentials.com/instr...brake_h_b.html has a great writeup on it. I basically pulled out the soundgate plugged in a GM harness and used the power antenna, ground, and 12 source. Ignition power was picked up in the ignition harness (normally the fuse box is easier IMO. Here is everything shown in a semi mess.

Now as far as doing a full install with amps etc, I recomend removing the seats and generally the carpet allthough I didnt completely remove the drivers side. The seat pops right out with 4 16mm I believe nuts, sorry guys no pics of this. The side trim also lifts write out literally and the carpet comes out as you can some what see in the previous picture.
Next its time to pull the door panels, just follow these instructions http://www.vetteessentials.com/instr...or_handle.html its very simple, my one word of advice to all is take your time popping the reflector piece and the door pull trim ring off. Now when it comes time to pop that door off just grab and pull like none other, its a real PIA to get off the first time you will thing stuffs gonna break but its fine. Here is a pic of the stock bose sitting in the door.

Now undo the bolts holding the bose garbage in and away to ebay it goes. Here is what you are left with.

We put a little bit of deadening in the doors mainly right behind where the speakers fire, not a whole lot is needed to make a huge improvement in sound quality, this is something everyone should do wether it is 20 dollar speakers or 1000 dollar stuff.

Now running the power wire is cake on this car if you reach in the door you have a huge whole to feed wire into from as you can see here, our speaker wire is easily ran next to the stock wiring.

Now on the inside there is a plate covering this whole just use a flathead screwdriver and pop the bottom up and route your wiring through as seen.

Now we have the woofer and tweeter mounted in the speaker plate with the crossover mounted to the door, some will keep the crossover under the seats to ease adjustments I like to put it in the door depending on the car and size of crossover. NOTE: On the drivers door you can not put the crossover in the same place, when you go to put the door panel back on it hits the ac vent as we learned today. So we put it on the inside of the door panel with a nut and bolt setup, sorry no pics. As you can see there Focals are beefy as can be and quite a nice crossover, you can select 0 to -7db in 1 db incriments, currently they are being ran at -3 db.


Obviouslly route the speaker wires to there appropriate amps and connect the crossovers etc, if anyone has questions on how this happens feel free top post of pm me. With the carpet up the wiring is easily taped down and organized. All excess RCA wire which you will have can easily be wrapped and layed under the carpet below where the seat goes and you will never see it. Now its time to run the 4ga power wire through the car. Easiest way is to remove the battery and cut a whole in the huge grommet there and just feed the wire right into the passenger kickwell as seen. Once the wire is in just route it along the floor to your amps etc. We put in a distro block under the passenger seat so we just slit the carpet and ran the wiring up, this works because its hidden yet accesiable by moving the seat all the way up. For the ground we didnt use a distro block we just ran each amps ground to the seatpost bolt, make sure this is tight as one of mine wasnt tight enough and the amp kept cutting in and out but right away I knew what it was when I moved the seat and it powered up. Here is a pic of the wire running through the grommet behind the battery. Use a gm sidepost battery terminal to connect to the battery, this is better then tapping the +12 jack on the side of the relay box.

At this point we snaked a speaker wire from our amp under the carpet to the rear storage comparment where the JL sub goes which is mounted in NCR daves sub box. This sub is one monster and so is this box, very solid.



We decided to mount the amps behind the drivers and passenger seats on the rear wall, what we did was took 3/4" mdf and liquid nailsed it to the rear wall, the liquid nails had a lot of trouble setting up but its not really a huge issue as once this is screwed together its not going anywhere. We cut a slit in the bottom of the carpet and ran our wiring into the bottom of the amps and screwed them throught the carpet and into the mdf mounted behind it, all wiring is hidden under the carpeting as you can see, it gives a very clean stealthish install. When it was all done i tucked the wiring up under the amps a little better, with the seats reclined the amps cant be seen at all and with them being down that low it only cuts into like 1 inch of seat travel.



From here I set the crossovers and gains on the amp and we started to put the car back together. Here are a few shots of the alpine deck, horriable pics I know. Soon there will be an illumintaed corvette face plate, optima, and a big 3 wiring upgrade.


The one and only shot of the car, yeah I got a little close to the bike but dont worry guys lol

Now my review. First off the Alpine deck is killer I really like the IPOD integration its the way to go for anyone interested in the IPOD stuff hands down, as well as its very easy to control. The 12W6 is a killer sub, i compare it to an elemental designs 13ov2 main differneces being price in all honesty, its very similar IMO otherwise both are very tight subs. This thing pounds hard especially for being a vert. The amps as expected work flawlessly and look sexy not much else I can say about them, they are amps and built quite solid. The components though wow sound rediculously amazing and you could tell they were starting to break in as we played with them, with the tweeters in the doors it sounded like it was coming off the dash very clean and crisp I was quite impressed to say the least. I love the Elemental Designs EDI6500s and these are deff a nicer components system, but it all comes at a price.
Now I give lots of props to NCR Dave, his box is the most solid C5 box I have ever touched, it blows subthump out of the water the build quality is top quality and so is the customer service. The fit of his box is incrediable very very tight, prly a PIA to take out but that means its not going anywhere, it fits perfectly and the box couldnt be more sealed, I recommend him to all forum members he is a great guy to do business with, it was my first time touching one of this boxes and lets just say when we redo out C5 his box will be in it. His speaker plates are also of nice high quality, nothing crazy highend just 1/4 mdf cut drilled and spray painted ready to go in. This man really knows his stuff and whats going on in the industry. His products will take him a long way hands down.
As a whole I am very hapy with the install only minor holdups were, trying to mount the drives side crossover in the way of the ac vent and I dropped the bolt for the gm sidepost battery adapter into never never land so we had to get a new bolt. Otherwise the system blends amazingly and sounds great, the sub is very tight and acurate. No bass boost used at all on the amp. No rattling from the hatch at first I though there was but it was the lights on the outside of his garage haha. The sytem turned out great and we went out for a cruise to crank it up a bit and really see what it sounded like when moving.
Let me know what you guys think and if you have any questions. It took around 8 hours id say and we moved at an average pace, not in too much of a rush.
Last edited by pentavolvo; Aug 11, 2006 at 11:12 PM.
First off the equipment, he already had an Alpin radio with IPOD integration with the soundgate adapter. We ripped the soundgate adapter out and put a standard GM harness in. For the rest he went with a pair of JL amps the 300/2 for the speakers and 500/1 for the JL 12w6v2. He used Focal 165 K2P components. NCR Dave provided the speaker plates and sub box (more on this later :-)). Knukonceptz wiring, its almost becoming a standard for me and it seems the forum, such a great product.
We started by taking the center counsle apart to get to the radio. For those not farmiliar with this http://www.vetteessentials.com/instr...brake_h_b.html has a great writeup on it. I basically pulled out the soundgate plugged in a GM harness and used the power antenna, ground, and 12 source. Ignition power was picked up in the ignition harness (normally the fuse box is easier IMO. Here is everything shown in a semi mess.

Now as far as doing a full install with amps etc, I recomend removing the seats and generally the carpet allthough I didnt completely remove the drivers side. The seat pops right out with 4 16mm I believe nuts, sorry guys no pics of this. The side trim also lifts write out literally and the carpet comes out as you can some what see in the previous picture.
Next its time to pull the door panels, just follow these instructions http://www.vetteessentials.com/instr...or_handle.html its very simple, my one word of advice to all is take your time popping the reflector piece and the door pull trim ring off. Now when it comes time to pop that door off just grab and pull like none other, its a real PIA to get off the first time you will thing stuffs gonna break but its fine. Here is a pic of the stock bose sitting in the door.

Now undo the bolts holding the bose garbage in and away to ebay it goes. Here is what you are left with.

We put a little bit of deadening in the doors mainly right behind where the speakers fire, not a whole lot is needed to make a huge improvement in sound quality, this is something everyone should do wether it is 20 dollar speakers or 1000 dollar stuff.

Now running the power wire is cake on this car if you reach in the door you have a huge whole to feed wire into from as you can see here, our speaker wire is easily ran next to the stock wiring.

Now on the inside there is a plate covering this whole just use a flathead screwdriver and pop the bottom up and route your wiring through as seen.

Now we have the woofer and tweeter mounted in the speaker plate with the crossover mounted to the door, some will keep the crossover under the seats to ease adjustments I like to put it in the door depending on the car and size of crossover. NOTE: On the drivers door you can not put the crossover in the same place, when you go to put the door panel back on it hits the ac vent as we learned today. So we put it on the inside of the door panel with a nut and bolt setup, sorry no pics. As you can see there Focals are beefy as can be and quite a nice crossover, you can select 0 to -7db in 1 db incriments, currently they are being ran at -3 db.


Obviouslly route the speaker wires to there appropriate amps and connect the crossovers etc, if anyone has questions on how this happens feel free top post of pm me. With the carpet up the wiring is easily taped down and organized. All excess RCA wire which you will have can easily be wrapped and layed under the carpet below where the seat goes and you will never see it. Now its time to run the 4ga power wire through the car. Easiest way is to remove the battery and cut a whole in the huge grommet there and just feed the wire right into the passenger kickwell as seen. Once the wire is in just route it along the floor to your amps etc. We put in a distro block under the passenger seat so we just slit the carpet and ran the wiring up, this works because its hidden yet accesiable by moving the seat all the way up. For the ground we didnt use a distro block we just ran each amps ground to the seatpost bolt, make sure this is tight as one of mine wasnt tight enough and the amp kept cutting in and out but right away I knew what it was when I moved the seat and it powered up. Here is a pic of the wire running through the grommet behind the battery. Use a gm sidepost battery terminal to connect to the battery, this is better then tapping the +12 jack on the side of the relay box.

At this point we snaked a speaker wire from our amp under the carpet to the rear storage comparment where the JL sub goes which is mounted in NCR daves sub box. This sub is one monster and so is this box, very solid.



We decided to mount the amps behind the drivers and passenger seats on the rear wall, what we did was took 3/4" mdf and liquid nailsed it to the rear wall, the liquid nails had a lot of trouble setting up but its not really a huge issue as once this is screwed together its not going anywhere. We cut a slit in the bottom of the carpet and ran our wiring into the bottom of the amps and screwed them throught the carpet and into the mdf mounted behind it, all wiring is hidden under the carpeting as you can see, it gives a very clean stealthish install. When it was all done i tucked the wiring up under the amps a little better, with the seats reclined the amps cant be seen at all and with them being down that low it only cuts into like 1 inch of seat travel.



From here I set the crossovers and gains on the amp and we started to put the car back together. Here are a few shots of the alpine deck, horriable pics I know. Soon there will be an illumintaed corvette face plate, optima, and a big 3 wiring upgrade.


The one and only shot of the car, yeah I got a little close to the bike but dont worry guys lol

Now my review. First off the Alpine deck is killer I really like the IPOD integration its the way to go for anyone interested in the IPOD stuff hands down, as well as its very easy to control. The 12W6 is a killer sub, i compare it to an elemental designs 13ov2 main differneces being price in all honesty, its very similar IMO otherwise both are very tight subs. This thing pounds hard especially for being a vert. The amps as expected work flawlessly and look sexy not much else I can say about them, they are amps and built quite solid. The components though wow sound rediculously amazing and you could tell they were starting to break in as we played with them, with the tweeters in the doors it sounded like it was coming off the dash very clean and crisp I was quite impressed to say the least. I love the Elemental Designs EDI6500s and these are deff a nicer components system, but it all comes at a price.
Now I give lots of props to NCR Dave, his box is the most solid C5 box I have ever touched, it blows subthump out of the water the build quality is top quality and so is the customer service. The fit of his box is incrediable very very tight, prly a PIA to take out but that means its not going anywhere, it fits perfectly and the box couldnt be more sealed, I recommend him to all forum members he is a great guy to do business with, it was my first time touching one of this boxes and lets just say when we redo out C5 his box will be in it. His speaker plates are also of nice high quality, nothing crazy highend just 1/4 mdf cut drilled and spray painted ready to go in. This man really knows his stuff and whats going on in the industry. His products will take him a long way hands down.
As a whole I am very hapy with the install only minor holdups were, trying to mount the drives side crossover in the way of the ac vent and I dropped the bolt for the gm sidepost battery adapter into never never land so we had to get a new bolt. Otherwise the system blends amazingly and sounds great, the sub is very tight and acurate. No bass boost used at all on the amp. No rattling from the hatch at first I though there was but it was the lights on the outside of his garage haha. The sytem turned out great and we went out for a cruise to crank it up a bit and really see what it sounded like when moving.
Let me know what you guys think and if you have any questions. It took around 8 hours id say and we moved at an average pace, not in too much of a rush.


Last edited by pentavolvo; Aug 12, 2006 at 12:43 AM.

Is that black plastic part covering the right 1/2 of the door factory? I could have sworn in most C5 that's open and is a bit source of road nosie. I know EG made a custom filler panel for his.
So what is it?
So what is it?
Install looks
The Best of Corvette for Corvette Enthusiasts
That JL sub did look beefy. I have only seen a w6 from the top cone view... I'd say you did a great job doing all of those pics and the install in 8 hours...congrats!
First off the equipment, he already had an Alpine radio with IPOD integration with the soundgate adapter. We ripped the soundgate adapter out and put a standard GM harness in. For the rest he went with a pair of JL amps the 300/2 for the speakers and 500/1 for the JL 12w6v2. He used Focal 165 K2P components. NCR Dave provided the speaker plates and sub box (more on this later :-)). Knukonceptz wiring, its almost becoming a standard for me and it seems the forum, such a great product.
At this point we snaked a speaker wire from our amp under the carpet to the rear storage comparment where the JL sub goes which is mounted in NCR daves sub box. This sub is one monster and so is this box, very solid.
Soon there will be an illumintaed corvette face plate, optima, and a big 3 wiring upgrade.
Now my review. First off the Alpine deck is killer I really like the IPOD integration its the way to go for anyone interested in the IPOD stuff hands down, as well as its very easy to control. The 12W6 is a killer sub, i compare it to an elemental designs 13ov2 main differneces being price in all honesty, its very similar IMO otherwise both are very tight subs. This thing pounds hard especially for being a vert. The amps as expected work flawlessly and look sexy not much else I can say about them, they are amps and built quite solid. The components though wow sound rediculously amazing and you could tell they were starting to break in as we played with them, with the tweeters in the doors it sounded like it was coming off the dash very clean and crisp I was quite impressed to say the least. I love the Elemental Designs EDI6500s and these are deff a nicer components system, but it all comes at a price.
Now I give lots of props to NCR Dave, his box is the most solid C5 box I have ever touched, it blows subthump out of the water the build quality is top quality and so is the customer service. The fit of his box is incrediable very very tight, prly a PIA to take out but that means its not going anywhere, it fits perfectly and the box couldnt be more sealed, I recommend him to all forum members he is a great guy to do business with, it was my first time touching one of this boxes and lets just say when we redo out C5 his box will be in it. His speaker plates are also of nice high quality, nothing crazy highend just 1/4 mdf cut drilled and spray painted ready to go in. This man really knows his stuff and whats going on in the industry. His products will take him a long way hands down.
As a whole I am very hapy with the install only minor holdups were, trying to mount the drives side crossover in the way of the ac vent and I dropped the bolt for the gm sidepost battery adapter into never never land so we had to get a new bolt. Otherwise the system blends amazingly and sounds great, the sub is very tight and acurate. No bass boost used at all on the amp. No rattling from the hatch at first I though there was but it was the lights on the outside of his garage haha. The sytem turned out great and we went out for a cruise to crank it up a bit and really see what it sounded like when moving.
Let me know what you guys think and if you have any questions. It took around 8 hours id say and we moved at an average pace, not in too much of a rush.
I am humbled by your great comments, and I thank you for the compliments as well!! P.S. I have the illuminated humounts.... email me or pm me.
man does it sound great. Thanks again on the wonderful install.
You are a class act thats for sure.......
I have a ? when you mount your MDF behind the seats did you put them up on pedestals or did you mount them flat and cut the carpit all the way around them?????
Anthony
It rocks like yours as well...another satisfied CF member!!!
Thanks for the great writeup !











that piece is factory but some choose to replace with wiht a more rigid piece









