ICE part 2

Getting the gear is only half the game, the goal lies in getting everything installed in the car. And a coupe is not exactly the best car for an ICE project, its small, dashboard is near and the windshield slopes too much. Kinda hard to achieve a natural wide soundstage. But then again, I am not exactly building a sound competition car.

First up, I've got to figure out where to place the tweeters. It will definitely be up on the dash, only problem is, I couldn't figure out if I'm going with an integrated tweeter pod within the A-pillar setup, or if a custom tweeter enclosure is the way to go. These are some pics of how the tweeters were set up in my previous ride.

I liked this implementation. It looks integrated and very stock though one downside is that once the pillars are fibreglassed, the driver positions were pretty much fixed. No mucking around or sudden configuration changes possible. It also takes quite a while to do. In the end, I decided to go with a more fuss-free option for the roadster.

Over here you see the test fit for the custom tweeter pod I will be using. Fits like a glove. The end product will be anodized matt black and that only went through once I was satisfied that the fit and wirings have no problems and was assured that there will be no issues with the end-product.

Next up would be the midrange drivers as well as the midbasses. There weren't much choice I had to begin with, and it was a good thing that the stock tweeter location could fit the midrange so nicely. On the left you see a picture of the stock tweeter cover removed and the midrange driver fixed on. There are wooden holders behind the panels to hold the speakers in place but externally, this is about as stock as you can get. In the second picture, you get a better idea of how everything looks like. You can also see the finished tweeter pod in that picture. Midbass drivers are hidden behind stock speaker covers. I did thought about doing an exposed midbass mounting, something like the picture below. But decided against it in the end, as I wasn't too certain about speaker integrity of such an installation.
Three layers of sound proofing went into those door panels as well, They damped the door critically and also has an added side effect of creating a nice thud sound on closing the door.

It also took about 30 meters of speaker cable to wire up all these drivers to the amplifers, which i think is an unbelievable amount of cable, seeing that the car isn't very long to begin with.

See the picture on the left? There are a few more pages of that in my notebook. Planning didn't get much simpler even after I have decided on the amps. To be honest, I was fretting over the small details. I know the amps can fit in that tiny well in the boot, main issue is HOW. I didn't want to just throw in the amps and call it a day. Everything has got to sit NICELY. I had a few preferred layouts and although they look more or less the same, I gotta admit it was kinda fun moving stuff around to see what kind of effect I can achieve.

These are pictures of the first test fit I had.

This would have been the preferred layout if I had not neglected to take into account the length of the wires as well as connectors. There is no way I could have spared another millimeter of space to accommodate the fuseblock. That's how tough it is to get an ICE display going on in an MX5.

Here you see the second test fit with the cable and connector lengths taken into account. I sorta kicked myself a bit at that point, as I realized the ridiculously long plugs the cable guy used when he was terminating the cables. In any case, that's about the only boner I have with this layout.

Here you see some pics of the completed product.

In this picture you see how the wires are configured. The two amplifiers are identical, both putting out 4x150W RMS power. However one is wired bridged to deliver 2x300w RMS to both midbasses and the other remains in 4 channel mode. You can also see the annoying proprietry connector that Alpine uses for its speaker connections. There's a piece of acrylic embedded with LEDs underneath the amps as well, although its not too visible in this representation.

Some more pictures of the setup. The amps take up the entire indentation in the boot. You can also see that the entire floorboard of the boot has been rewrapped in PVC for a more discreet look.

Some night shots. Not exactly very well done. I'm using my phone camera for all these images and I guess there's a limit to what it can do in the dark.

ICE

I'm very much into audio, especially within an automotive environment. So it goes without saying the first thing that I absolutely had to do is the sound system. Getting a base model basically means it comes "audio-less". I had to contend with a dual DIN Kenwood deck that the dealer threw in and the stock MX5 paper cones. The deck wasn't too bad, had decent sound and could change colours. o_O"

But psychedelic displays ain't what I'm after. So that has to go. In goes the Clarion HX-D2 deck from my previous ride(see pic). this thing has got the works. copper chassis, upsampling,etc. Only downside is the limited crossover settings, but its not a deal breaker. In fact, this HU is so good that its the only piece of equipment I never thought to upgrade. I pretty much got rid of all of my old setup except for this. Its the only piece of equipment I had that escaped two setups unscathed.

Next up will be the amplifiers. My previous amps(left) would fill up the MX5's boot COMPLETELY, which would be a problem, since I have no rear seats to fall back on.
I racked my head hard for this one. Took measurements of almost every decent amp out there, from Celestras to Stegs to Sinfonis, nothing really worked out. In the end, I had to settle for Alpine's PDX series of amplifers, the smallest amplifiers that I could find that had decent power. It was ironic that these were actually the cheapest of my choices as well. Not that i minded! I do wish I could have kept my Audisons though.

Speaker choices were more straightforward. There were only really 3 choices I had in mind, Alpine's F#1, Focal's Beryllium range and the Matrix setup from Brax. Settled for the Brax in the end, as I figured the F#1 and BE setups are probably way overdone over here. I didn't include a subwoofer this time, as I couldn't figure out where to mount an 8 or 10 inch sub as well as an additional amplifer without taking up substantial space. Went for an active subwoofer solution eventually; a compact, unobstructive sub thats under the passenger seat. Its by Phase Audio, and if you haven't heard of the brand, then that makes two of us. >_<Here's a picture of the speakers in their boxes when they arrived.

The 6 inch midbass drivers. There are actually 2 versions. I went for the one with the phase plug. The Brax steel plate is nice and all, but I can't quite figure out where(how) to put it. Its still in the box.The 2" midrange drivers. These are actually the ones that I am looking forward to hearing the most once everything's all run in.

The 1" tweeter units. The build around these drivers(as well as the rest) are phenomenal. Talk about German precision.

As for the cables, I'm using Rockford Fosgate 0 gauge for the power cables, speaker duty are provided by Van den Hul's The Skytrack Hybrid, which is basically a biwire version of its Skyline speaker cable, RCAs are on Belden 1505F terminated with Canare plugs. Didn't really take pictures of the wires though.

It actually took a while to round all these equipment up, since with the exception of the Clarion, everything was brand new, and not exactly something I can get in a hurry. I was just glad I managed to finalize the equipment list just about the same time the car arrived.

Next up, I'll be writing more about the equipment layout and the actual installation.

Making up for lost time

Well, this is going to be one lengthy post. I started planning for a change in vehicular transport sometime in the end of 2007. Kept telling one of my cousins that its gonna happen in May. Unfortunately, circumstances at that time made sure that did not materialize, but all the same, i figured i can probably do it now, so the months of July and August was spent earnestly prowling carmarts, in search of the elusive "cheapest buy". Due to the nature of my job, these searches were limited to weekends so it took a while before I actually booked the ride.

The car arrived on the 12th of September. Here's a picture of the car when it arrived at the dealer's.

I was thrilled when I first saw it in the flesh. I don't think its very sensible to drive a 2-seater as a daily mover, but then again, when you're behind the wheel of one of these, sensibility is something you can afford to lose every once in a while. Everything else more than makes up for it.
I also figured its now or never for me. I probably won't be getting a roadster after this one(I think^^).

Anyway, the planning began as soon as the purchase was confirmed. A lot of things were on my mind then. In no particular order;

• Bodykit
  
• Weds/Prodrive rims
• Coilvers
• Sound system
• GPS
• Tint
• HIDs
• Intake

I figured once I get the stuff above sorted out, the more performance-oriented mods will(may) follow. I'll probably write about my ICE setup tomorrow, since thats the first mod that was done.

First Post

Its been a while since i last maintained a blog. The last one i actively updated lasted about a year or so before i got too busy to keep it going. Its here if anyone is interested to read about the ramblings of a university student preoccupied with anything except studying.

I also had an automotive diary of sorts here. It isn't really a blog, more like an online documentary of the various stuff i did when I got the car. Though I must admit I stopped updating it after a while, so the pictures stopped but the upgrades did not. This blog sortof came up in my head as i "accidentally" browsed through that site. I wished I had setup something similar for my previous cars. Now there's nothing to remember them by.>_<. Anyway, I'm going to try updating this blog on a constant basis if I can, though as the title suggests, a certain four-wheeled machine takes precedence over happenings in my mundane existence.