Sound Deadening: Dynamat/Ensolite project complete

[ex-chevyguy]

Yeah it's deff a time consuming project! I did everything but the doors in my truck this past week. I started pulling stuff apart at about 10am and got everything put back together at about 11pm. It was a long day! Hopefully I'll have another open day to do my doors soon. It's alot of work but I kind of enjoyed it and it does make a difference both in road noise and speaker output, (my subs hit way harder now.) Really need to get my doors done now, having everything else deadened makes the noise that comes through the doors much more noticeable.

[Jumbo Jet]

Originally Posted by markramirez

Alright, I feel a little better. My plan was to finish all 4 doors and install some boston pro 60's this weekend. I guess I'll settle for doing 2 doors and maybe installing the bostons. Patience grasshoppa.

Oooooo ! I have a brand new pair of Pro 60's sitting here too. If you get yours in this weekend let me know how they sound, I cant wait to get mine all hooked up. Built my "on axis" mounts last week for them.

Today I got my power wire run through the firewall, installed my 120 amp breaker and pulled my RCA's and remote turn ons. Tomorrow will be setting up the amp rack and wiring up as much as I can till the 8120 comes in.

Get them Boston's in, I wanna hear how they sound.

[markramirez]

They won't sound great since I'll be running them off my deck for now. I'm waiting for the new JL 600/4 HD amps to come out. I'll let you know either way.

[Jumbo Jet]

Got alot more work finished up this weekend. We had 2 soild days of rain so it was a perfect time to sit in the garage and knock this stuff out.

Yesterday I pulled my 4 awg power wire thru the fire wall. I planned on using the boot on the passengers side, but after double checking my length I decided to just use the main boot on the drivers side. lol, excuse the dusty engine compartment, we've had crappy weather here for about a week. Toyota leaves us a perfect spot for extra wire runs, there is a rubber nipple sticking out from under the main boot. I snipped the tip of the nipple and with a little help from some soap I fed the wire thru.




Next I pre-drilled 2 holes and mounted my 120 amp breaker to the side of the engine bay wall. I wrapped the power wire in loom for some added protection and cable tied it to another sleeve to help keep it from moving. I will attach the short run from the breaker to the battery once everything else is in. The breaker clears the hood piston with room to spare and the lid on the fuse box comes off with out any problem.




Today I tore out the interior one last time (third times a charm) and ran everything that needed to go to the back wall to the amp rack. Timed myself and had the entire truck stripped clean in 45 mins. I ran the main power wire down the drivers side sills, the front speaker wires got pulled down the drivers side next to the transmission hump and the RCA's and amp remote turn-on got pulled together down the passengers side hump. I'm using 12 awg speaker wire to power my Pro 60's because I got it so cheap, but it was a bear to fit 2 runs of it thru each door boot (one for mid and one for tweeter). I used some car wash shampoo to help convince it to go, and that seemed to do the trick.





Last weekend I fabricated a jig to build a pair of speaker brackets that allow the Boston's to sit "on axis" and point more towards the listeners heads instead of at their shins. I made this jig out of 1/2" MDF and made the main circle about 1/8" larger than my mounting rings. I glued a scrap piece of MDF on one side so when the mounting ring is placed in it it sits up higher and out on one side, but flush on the other.



I then glued the mounting ring into the jig and marked the center point of the ring for a reference later. After a few minutes for the glue to dry I ran the jig over the upright belt sander with 50 grit paper. The 50 grit goes thru it like butter and I end up with the mounting ring sanded flush with the jig.



Once the ring is pulled from the jig I end up with a perfect axis mount to attach to the main speaker bracket that I've already cut out of 3/4" MDF. The jig allows me to make an exact duplicate of the first ring so I know that both speakers will be on the same axis. The axis can be adjusted by simply turning the ring until you find your desired angle. Once I found my angle I used my marks I had made earlier and took it over to the passengers side and set it to the same angle. The passenger speaker points towards the driver's head, and the driver's speaker points toward the passenger's head. Once I had everything set, I glued and screwed the mounting rings to the main brackets, pre-drill my speaker holes, did a quick test fit with the door panels on, and then painted them black and added a coat of flat lacquer to help them stay dry.





Thats it for this weekend. This coming weekend will be getting the amps, crossovers, distribution blocks and sat. tuner mounted on the rack and wired up. The 8210 is about a week and a half out, so hopefully it'll just be a few solid hours of work to get it up and going since I've already got the hard stuff out of the way.

Mark

[bbolton]

Awesome work as always Mark. Can't wait to see it all complete, that system's gonna scream! Thanks to your help, I finished up mine this weekend! It was raining like a mofo here so I'll try to snap some pics today and get them posted. My hat's off to you Mark, you're the car audio man!

[Jumbo Jet]

Originally Posted by bbolton

Awesome work as always Mark. Can't wait to see it all complete, that system's gonna scream! Thanks to your help, I finished up mine this weekend! It was raining like a mofo here so I'll try to snap some pics today and get them posted. My hat's off to you Mark, you're the car audio man!

Thats awesome Brad! I'm glad you got it finished. Cant wait to see your pictures too. I'll bet yours sounds amazing.

[Norm07tundra]

So Jumbo, are you just going without the back plastic wall completely? I have thought about this because we would gain alot of room, but it does look a little tacky. But I always have my seats up anyways so it doesn't rally matter. Also do you have any advice on running the RCA's down the door wells?

[Jumbo Jet]

Originally Posted by Norm07tundra

So Jumbo, are you just going without the back plastic wall completely? I have thought about this because we would gain alot of room, but it does look a little tacky. But I always have my seats up anyways so it doesn't rally matter. Also do you have any advice on running the RCA's down the door wells?

Hey Norm,

Yeah, the ugly black rubber mat is not going back in, if thats what youre referring to (I have a DC and it doesnt have the plastic wall like the CM). The plastic trim panels on the sides will be there as normal, but the rubber mat is gonna be gone. I think the black carpeted amp rack is gonna look ten times nicer than the rubber mat.


There is nothing wrong with running your RCA's down the door wells, but for this build I decided to make my signal runs straight down the center because I wanted to make sure I had enough length to make it look nice and neat on the amp rack. But going down the wells is fine.

One thing to mention though, if you run your amp power wire down the drivers door wells, run your RCA signal cables down the passenger's side wells to avoid noise interference. When I ran my power wire down the door wells, I fed it through the big white plastic clips that secure the factory looms in place and cable tied it to that all the way to the back. The cable ties just keep it looking nice and neat and kill any chance of rattles. Our door well covers just pop right off with a firm tug, but to get the center pillar trim panel off you'll need to remove the seatbelt bolt with a 14mm socket and pull off the trim panel. In places like that the power wire touched the metal of the truck as it came over that hump so I wrapped it with some left over scrap of Ensolite so it would'nt rattle around.

[PS-RagE]

Have you test fit your door panels with the jigs in place yet? I ended up having to sand mine down quite a bit to get it all back together

[Jumbo Jet]

Originally Posted by PS-RagE

Have you test fit your door panels with the jigs in place yet? I ended up having to sand mine down quite a bit to get it all back together

Yeah, I did and it fits perfect. I used 3/4" MDF for the base and 1/2" for the mounting ring. Since the speakers are on axis, the rings are slightly angled up and to the sides, so that little bit of a turn gave me about 1/8" clearance between the mounting ring and the door panel. I didnt test fit with the speaker mounted, but I did trace the speaker onto the wood before it was painted and the pencil mark cleared the little plastic ring in the door just fine.

For the rear speakers I had to build both the mounting ring and the base plate out of 1/2" MDF, things are a little tighter back there.

[Norm07tundra]

Yeah I currently have my power down the driver side and the RCA's down the passenger side, but I still have a little noise in the system that is driving me nuts. I went out and bought the most expensive RCA's I could find to try and eliminate the noise but they run right next to that huge loom in the front passenger kick so I'm sure there is some induction from there. I really like the rack you made and the speaker mounts. Wanna make another set? Your not far from me I might want to hire you for a weekend to help with my truck.

[Jumbo Jet]

Originally Posted by Norm07tundra

Yeah I currently have my power down the driver side and the RCA's down the passenger side, but I still have a little noise in the system that is driving me nuts. I went out and bought the most expensive RCA's I could find to try and eliminate the noise but they run right next to that huge loom in the front passenger kick so I'm sure there is some induction from there. I really like the rack you made and the speaker mounts. Wanna make another set? Your not far from me I might want to hire you for a weekend to help with my truck.

Aw man, lets do it! Order us some pizza and we'll call it even.

I actually have an original set of mounting brackets for the fronts that I made first before I decided to make "on axis" mounts. Odds are I wont use them, but they are just regular mounts, not axis mounts. They are already assembled but still raw with no paint.

If you want the axis mounts, I'll make you a set, no problem. Just need the mounting dimensions of your components.

Mark

[Norm07tundra]

Cool man. I'm only bout an hour from Deland. I'll come to you. My components are JL XR650 front and rear. We made some MDF mounts but they have started rattling a little lately. So definitely let me know and I'll be there like white on rice.

[Jumbo Jet]

Originally Posted by Norm07tundra

Cool man. I'm only bout an hour from Deland. I'll come to you. My components are JL XR650 front and rear. We made some MDF mounts but they have started rattling a little lately. So definitely let me know and I'll be there like white on rice.

Ok, no problem. You want the regular mounts or the axis mounts? You dont have to drive that far if you dont want to, I can drop them in the mail for you.

[Norm07tundra]

I would prefer the axis ones just because of the trick factor they provide. It's really no problem to come up to deland. I would really like to see your setup and get your advice on some sound deadening.