Still interested in your reply but I've already gotten about 3 emails and pms stating I need to cut those baffles open.

So...tomorrow will be spent cutting those baffles open.

Jay

 

Nice work
OK... why did the dash come out ?
Maybe pop up tweeters like the B&O Acoustic Lens type ?

 

in my opinion its killing your speaker

 

Yeah, I got a few emails from some folks saying the same thing. I'm convinced, the door panels will come off and I will cut the baffle off.

Dash got pulled out to upgrade the interior. Entire interior getting an overhaul at the same time.

The tweet are molded in the A-pillars.

Jay

 

Now on to the sound deadening of the cabin but first a few pics of the original dampening material:







And some more I added:















I did the back wheel wells and all back behind that area as well as all the vertical parts of the back hatch. I didn’t take any pictures of that but you get the idea.

Jay

 

Now for the true sound deadening material:











And I do similar applications to the back along the wheel wells and inside quarter panels and vertical areas. All in all it takes me about 3 months of working here and there to get this part done. I will not be quitting my day job, I would starve trying to do this for a living.

While having the car apart I wanted to have my tweets in the A-pillar. Problem was I did not know how to do this but I did know someone that did. Problem was this particular someone would not do them without the car present so he could properly aim the drivers. So matter how much I tried to get him to do it he wouldn’t. I respect a man that sticks to his principles. Good man Bing! So I tried to line up a fellow Corvette forum member to let him borrow the car for an afternoon. I just about had this done when Bing emailed me saying he had another C6 in the lineup for an install. Send him the A-pillars pronto and he could get them done. So off they went to bing for his magical treatment. Here’s a few pics of them. I borrowed some previous pics from Bing but the process is the same:











The pillars are then sent off to be covered in black Alcantara. All in all it takes about 5 months to get the pillars sent to Bing and back from the leather shop. It takes forever but the end result is worth it.

Jay

 

Ok, so now we have all the sound deadening done…and thank God for that. I swear I’ll never do that again. It was a PITA…worth it…but a PITA. I’ve got all the interior parts off being covered in leather or Alcantara. I sent the Dash and carpet to Caravaggio and many of the other plastic parts to APSIS for covering. Those are trickling back little by little. This gives me time to start the component placement and wiring phase of the project.

My biggest issue now is where to place all the parts. I’m having spatial issues with the amps and PC and other bits and pieces in the back…I just can’t seem to get everything to fit and keep my hatch area volume loss within my specifications. So I called on a very well known installer here I had gotten my DSP6 from, Bing. He and I started chatting about options. He was very nice to answer my emails and give me some pointers. He helped me pick my drivers, which I bought from him, and sold me the DSP6 and DRC controller.

After much debate I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to stay with the Macs, I would have to raise the floor up past the lip in the back. The other option was to go with different amps. Ones that were very thin that would allow me to keep the floor within my limits. After much thought and the pros and cons of each, I decided that keeping the floor to my max height was more important that using the Mac amps. Bing advised that I could go with the Zapco DC Ref series amps that would do all the processing I wanted (one of the goals was to be able to do the processing from the drivers seat…that’s why the DSP6 was such a great option for me). I would still be able to use the PC and the circuitry in the amps was the same as the DSP6. So this was a major deal, I could eliminate one box. The opened up the cubby hole on the drivers side and I could put the PC down in that hole.

Looking at the physical dimensions of the amps I could tell this would be a much better solution and open up a lot of valuable space I could use. I also decided to go with a pair of SLB-U volume controllers. One would be the master control for ALL drivers and I would split that signal and use the second one for Sub volume control.

The drivers were installed as previously described. The mid bass and mid were in the door, kicks were not an option for me due to limited foot space in the Vette. I over did the doors knowing these drivers would go there and knowing they were not the optimal spots but if the doors were done right would maximize their performance. On another note, I did remove the baffles to the mid bass drivers after several folks told me (Bing being one of them) that this was not a good idea and would not be best of SQ and would really hold back those mid bass drivers.

So I purchased 3 Zapco DC Ref amps. A 650.6 for the mids and mid bass. Channels 1,2 and 3.4 were bridged for the Seas RW 165 mid bass drivers. Channels 5 and 6 for the DLS UR 2.5 mids. For the Seas rt27f tweets I got a 200.2. Finally for the DLS Reference W10 10 inch sub (got two of those), I got a 1100.1 amp to drive those two. I plan on running those in parallel at 1 ohm (both SVC at 2 ohm). The subs will be housed in a custom fiberglass enclosure in the back corners.

So that’s the plan and so I started laying out parts to see the best fit. Here’s are a few pics





I went through a number of spots for everything placing, pickup up, moving and finally this is the end result where all the back parts ended:





The computer went into that cubby hole in the upper left hand part of the shot. It’s hard to see and I’ll post some more pics of that here in a bit. But for the most part, this is what it looks like today. I’ve wired up everything as seen. There is a power block and ground block. There are distribution bus bars and a few relays that control fans, amp turn on and retained accessory power functions. There is a video security system in the back as well. This can be access by the PC and videos reviewed. This automatically records when the car is turned on and stays recording for a specified amount of time after it’s turned off. I still have a few more security features to add.

I did not want to drill into the floor board in the back hatch. There are things like brake lines and gas tanks and what not that would not react well to screws. So I needed to epoxy threaded stand offs to hold the parts in place. A buddy of mine got me some aerospace epoxy used on the YF22 for just this sort of thing. Turns out one can buy the stuff mail order as well:





And a few pictures of the stand off going into place:









Next, we’ll get into the PC and how that evolved over time.

Jay

 

Ok now on to the PC. This was a complex endeavor and involved quite a bit of research before deciding on a system. I needed something compact but also needed/wanted a TosLink optical out to go to the Zapco DAII DAC. The first PC I ordered met these requirements but the case it came it just wouldn’t fit where I needed. So I have a buddy build a fiberglass case that fit into the cubby hole in the back and installed a metal plate to act as a shelf for mounting. I took all the components out of the case and installed into this box.











Seemed like this would be a great idea…and it would have been. However, something with the motherboard on this PC just did not like the power supply or the environment or something because it kept having power on and power off issues. Just would not boot right in the car with the Opus power supply but would boot just fine with a regular ATX desktop supply. After screwing with this for a week, I finally canned it and decided to use it in another project. I bought a new PC…this time in a case that would actually fit in the cubby hole in the back. I mounted the power supply inside the case so the unit was a nice contained unit. This did the trick and is the PC in the car today. I added a second hard drive to hold all the music, videos and pictures. The primary HD is for the OS and software.











I back up this PC using Windows Home Server and the connector software and that keeps a nice backup to restore in the event of a catastrophic failure. I’ve had to use that a couple of times and damn glad I had it as it made life quite nice for me.

Jay

 

This is an amazing project! I wish I was close by so I could see it and hear it in person. I bet with all that sound deadening it's like the "Cone of Silence" in there.

 

Jay...Are you going to use the PC for lossless music storage? I have considered doing something similar to store music. Equipment has to have a small footprint as I have a convertible. My trunk space is precious as I travel sometimes with my wife. She carries everything!
I know for home setups some use a MAC. I wondered if a MAC if gutted to some degree, could be used?

You have a great project going on there and I wish that I could see and hear it.

Thanks
Steve

 

It's notably more quiet now than before. I was particularly amazed at how it really cuts the exhaust noise down considerably...so much so that I sometimes find myself on the highway with the butterflies open and I don't even realize it. The one place you still get significant noise is through the gear box...but there's not much I can do about that. Road noise is still present but more subdued with the Nittos and deadening material.

As for the sound system, I haven't even tuned it yet. I've set basic crossovers and gains and input the data for the time alignment but other than that no RTA or adjustments on that end as of yet. I still have a couple more items to do in the back and I want everything in it's final state before messing with the tuning.

Jay

 

That's the idea. I played around with FLAC for a bit but I had issues with Centrafuse recognizing and cataloging the format so I just have .wav files for now. At some point I will convert everything to FLAC or some other lossless format and play with the SQ more but for now I just wanted to get the thing actually playing music.

I toyed with the MAC idea as well as I have an old Mac Mini laying around I got my wife a few years ago. The real issue with those is powering them. You just can't use an inverter in the car to power these as they create all kinds of noise issues and power issues for the PC. You really have to have a power supply designed for an automotive environment that will turn the pc on and off with the ignition. Plus, you then need a clean signal out and that gets complicated if you are using a standard analog out signal...noise again becomes an issue. I got around that by using the TosLink, I have no ground loop noise at all, the only noise I have is the hiss of the recording.

Jay

 

I don't think you can go wrong asking Bing for advice. I agree with you on the quality of his installs. What did you do with the McIntosh amps? The install looks great so far. Looking forward to seeing your updates good luck

 

I still have the Macs sitting in the closet. For sale if anyone wants them.

Jay

 

Jay what do you do for a living?

 

Ok, now that all the major hardware is installed and wired in, now it’s time for the accessory electronics. We’ll start with the screen, then proceed to the OBDII appliances, the Laser and Radar devices, XM and audio switcher, video security and finally the steering wheel controls.

After looking at a number of screens and trying one and not liking it much I finally decided to spend the money and buy the high dollar Transreflective Lilliput screen. Glad I did because it is night and day better than the other screens out there (or at least the ones available at the time). I wanted it to also blend and look stock. This required a melding of screens case along with a double DIN installation frame. I could do the marriage, but I didn’t have the skills to do the fill and blend work to make it look stock, so that was sent off to someone else that could.

First thing I did was to take the screen apart from the its bezel and trimmed off excess material to get a flush fit inside the DDIN frame:



I then tool the DDIN bezel and sanded down the texture using progressively finer paper and finished with a wet 600 then wet 800 grit. This gives a similar texture as the OEM plastic housing for the ash try and A/C controls.



I also wanted to move the IR sensor into the bezel so I could control the screen with the remote. So I drilled a hole, desoldered the sensor and use a silicon adhesive to mount in place:





I then epoxied the two pieces together:







I then sent bezel to a guy who I found that did really nice fill work and bezel work. Here are some of those pics:







Jay

 

Some more and finished bezel pics:











Jay

 

Now I needed a place to put a DVD player for the PC, a USB hub and the Zapco DRC controller. The only spot to put any of this was in the glove box. So I needed a custom fiberglass job for this. For this I called on Nexson and his talents. We exchanged a few emails, I told him what I wanted and what the parameters needed to be and we agreed on a design and placement of the parts. I sent the glove box, DVD, USB hub and Zapco DRC to him for fitting and testing and he went to work. Here are the picture of the progression:





















Jay

 

More pictures of the glove box:





















Jay

 

Wow