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Jared's '79 5.3 244 Project: The Qwikbrik

Started on the stereo upfit today in earnest. I was kinda waiting for my carpet to show up but it's gonna take some time to rewire the car anyway, so no sense waiting on that.

Got the rear door cards pulled off and the speaker mounting changed to the door panel today, just some speaker rings screwed to the door down low. I had previously had the speakers mounted to the sheet metal of the door and the panel pushed over it, but it turns out that's not the best. It would probably be better if the front of the rear seat bottom didn't obscure half the speaker, but maybe I'll find another pair of door cards and change where the speaker mounts on them. With the pair I have, the speaker position is kinda locked in.

So basically here's the rundown:

Clarion M508 head unit
JL Audio JD500/1 mono amp for the subs
Pioneer GM-DX874 4-channel amp for the door speakers
5.25 Diamond Audio D351 components in the front doors
6.5 Alpine SPS-600C components in the rear doors
2x 12" Infinity Reference Subs in the trunk.

I may add a pair of rear hat shelf speakers. I do have a pair of the cool looking Volvo Sound package tray boxes that fit 5.25 components, and I have a couple extra 5.25 speakers kicking around. I do have a third amp, an Audio Art 100MS, but finding room for that wouldn't be easy. Plus, my power cable for the two amps I'm already planning on running is 4ga, and I don't know if I'd want to stress that with another amp. 6-channel amps get real spendy, real quick.
 
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This has turned into a whole thing. I kinda hoped it wouldn't but planned that it would. Oh well.

So I can't really re-use any of the existing speaker wiring in the car since it was all running up to the stereo and my new amp is going in the trunk. That's kinda okay, since the factory wiring in the front doors is 43 years old. Both of those speakers would get some crackle/static anyway, and the insulation was crusty. The rear doors originally had no speakers, but I had added it years ago. I did a horrible job though, so that's getting redone.

I've also re-routed a lot of the lazy wiring I did over the years throughout the car, adjusted the ebrake cables and the center console mount, and some other stuff. The new speaker wiring is going to all be 16ga running along the passenger side of the car. I've routed my amp power wire along the driver's side, and been careful to cross the power wire at a 90* angle with the speaker wires from the driver's side.

I guess I also need to re-route the fuel pump power wire since right now it's running along the passenger side with the speaker wires and RCAs for the amps. Might not make a difference, but I'd rather take the 15 minutes to do it now than get everything buttoned back up and discover it's inducing hum.

I'm also printing a new set of speaker mounts for the front doors since my new 5.25s won't fit in my printed grilles. Oh well. Need to figure out a way to mount the tweeters on the sail panels too I guess, shouldn't be too hard.

I was hoping to get everything done over the long weekend, but I'm maybe 20% done.

On the upside, the sound deadening makes a massive difference in how the doors sound.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Vj3nIhuDggw" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Current state of the interior :gulp:

Hc9j1J0h.jpg
 
Does your speaker set up interfere with that dash grab handle at all? I had one on my dash, and with the bne 5.25 speaker grills installed I couldn’t close the door without the grills hitting that handle, I had to remove it. If they were just a few hairs more shallow it would be fine.
 
rearwheelpeel said:
Does your speaker set up interfere with that dash grab handle at all? I had one on my dash, and with the bne 5.25 speaker grills installed I couldn?t close the door without the grills hitting that handle, I had to remove it. If they were just a few hairs more shallow it would be fine.
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Nope, mine cleared fine.
 
rearwheelpeel said:
Does your speaker set up interfere with that dash grab handle at all? I had one on my dash, and with the bne 5.25 speaker grills installed I couldn?t close the door without the grills hitting that handle, I had to remove it. If they were just a few hairs more shallow it would be fine.
Click to expand...

Did you try the second set of mounting holes? Those suck it in closer.
 
Continuing on with the stereo install, tonight I made up some tweeter mounts. I went to Lowes and picked through the plumbing section until I found something that looked perfect...a kitchen sink tailpiece.

qz99HI8h.jpg


I cut the end off leaving a little step:

YJin5YDh.jpg


And drilled a 1-5/8" hole in the sail panel:

scDoaGhh.jpg


The pipe piece slipped in perfect after just a little sanding on the sail panel hole, and the tweeter is a perfect fit in the pipe:

J24WP4Fh.jpg


Then I epoxied the parts together and hit it all with SEM trim black. It looks great to me, and clears the mirror hardware no problem.

jV4n3uLh.jpg


Tomorrow should just be running the new wires, mounting the speakers, and then installing the new carpet and reassembling the interior. It'll probably be a full day at a slow pace, but I'm thinking I'm over the hardest parts.
 
propav8r said:
On the upside, the sound deadening makes a massive difference in how the doors sound.
Click to expand...

Good ol' mass damping... that should make a noticeable improvement in NVH coming up through the tires while driving too I think. Are you doing any deadening on the floor or firewall? I have my dash & HVAC box out right now and am thinking it'd be rude not to do something similar on the firewall.

propav8r said:
Then I epoxied the parts together and hit it all with SEM trim black. It looks great to me, and clears the mirror hardware no problem.
Click to expand...

Very slick, nice job. More evidence that SEM trim black is a magical substance.
 
I approve all of what is going on in here. The sail panel tweeter dome is also a solution that worked extremely well for me as well.

Related to Duder’s comment: I did MLV and open cell foam for all surfaces ahead of the front seat hump and bottom of windshield. It made some difference. Adding aluminum/fiberglass shielding in the engine bay side of the firewall seems to help a great deal also.

I’m going to try lizard skin in the front wheel wells. There is no liner there and I do perceive a significant amount of vibration could be absorbed by putting down mass damping in that area.

As far as stereos go, adding insulation in key areas and building enclosures for my speakers has done far more for sound clarity than amplifier and driver selection ever has. My 4” components have more range now than 6.5” coaxials did in the last stereo setup I built in a 2-series.
 
Well I test fired the stereo a few minutes ago and I’m blown away. I’ve never had a setup sound this good before, and I don’t even have the subs working.
1qu8sAOh.jpg

Gotta call it quits for tonight but I’ll get the rest of the interior in when I get back next weekend and fine tune the audio from there.

So far this has been worth the effort.
 
Clarion support says there may be an issue with the head unit. Hopefully a firmware update takes care of it, but if not it'll have to go back and be swapped out. Really hope the firmware update gets it working.
 
doucheNozzle said:
What's the issue?
Click to expand...

Subwoofer isn't playing. The amp turns on, I've swapped RCA cables, and the sub output is on in the radio menu. The subs worked with the head unit I took out.

I just didn't have time to really troubleshoot it last night.

My sub amp has a feature to turn on when it sees an audio signal, and if I set it to that, the amp doesn't turn on, so I can only assume there's no signal coming out of the head unit.

I can apparently play a test tone and check for AC voltage on the RCAs when I get back too.
 
propav8r said:
Subwoofer isn't playing. The amp turns on, I've swapped RCA cables, and the sub output is on in the radio menu. The subs worked with the head unit I took out.

I just didn't have time to really troubleshoot it last night.

My sub amp has a feature to turn on when it sees an audio signal, and if I set it to that, the amp doesn't turn on, so I can only assume there's no signal coming out of the head unit.

I can apparently play a test tone and check for AC voltage on the RCAs when I get back too.
Click to expand...

Sounds like it's an issue with the RCA outs but out of curiosity, is there a sub volume control? Is it way low?
 
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