Frosty

iTrader: (7)

I still consider the TL my daily, just not when there's 3 feet of snow outside. Ironically, Frosty doesn't like his ride to be frosty :wink: I have a Ford Expedition that I drive in the bad weather. 4x4 is nice.

Alright, here's a little picture update, boys.

I had already "dynamatted" a large amount of the car (see post #1), but I got more in order to completely seal off the front doors (both inside and outside metal panels, as well as the plastic interior panels), and also to deaden the rear deck cover. In addition to the dynamat, I applied foam to the inner and outer metal panels of the front doors, and just the outer panel on the rears. The dynamat will help to reduce vibrations and rattling, and the foam will block out road noise.










I ran 14 gauge speaker wire into each of the front doors. (This was a pain!)



Ran 12 gauge speaker wire from the trunk to the front.


Got some Image Dynamics CXS64 V2 components to replace my Pioneer TS-D1720c components.





Had a custom fiberglass corner enclosure made for my JL 10w3v3.

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

I still can't believe how patient and well orchestrated your projects are for a guy your age...even with the experience I have, I have a hard time taking my time to that degree. Awesome, Luke...going to sound amazing. I have those speakers as my rears...they sound awesome.

jnc2000

This looks familiar

CLtotheTL32

iTrader: (3)

Damn, awesome work!

Kaiii

iTrader: (1)

agreed...great job frosty!

Steven Bell

iTrader: (2)

Wow, well done.

BlueAc

iTrader: (2)

I'm late to the party but I just read through this entire thread and I must say

Great execution and even better that you do most mods yourself (my balls aren't even that big) lol. But the car looks great, kinda how I visioned my WDP to look before it got smashed

Quick question, what guide did you use to figure what bulbs you needed for the dash? Mine are shot and I would like to replace them as well. Thanks and keep up the good work, It's nice to see a young guy come on the forum and not be a dick

DarkTower19

Been catching up on your thread, very impressive. Love the tails - I may have to pick up a set!

Steven Bell

iTrader: (2)

Frosty, I love the way you spread everything out!

Frosty

iTrader: (7)

Thanks guys! BluAc - I just used the picture diagrams on DCHAutomotiveParts.com.

New picture update coming soon.

Frosty

iTrader: (7)

This project has definitely been an undertaking, but I'm making progress. There've been a lot of changes since the last update.


Non-Audio
First, I'll talk about the changes that have taken place outside of the sound system. I replaced my reverse bulbs with CREE 25W LEDs awhile ago. I was always happy with their output, but I recently noticed that iJDMToy came out with a redesigned CREE 30w LED, so I decided to give them a shot. I wasn't able to compare them at night, but from what I could tell, they light up the reverse housing much more due to the 3-rear facing LEDs. It's not a night and day difference, but definitely brighter. The 30w is also more white and less blue (camera makes it look yellow though).

30w on left, 25w on right.



I also got a new tailgater switch (momentary this time) and moved it to a different location. It was originally in the dummy switch location of the dash; now it is hidden at the bottom right corner of the dash panel. The LC-1 is also gone now. I won't be using it with my new system.


I added an OEM accord fog switch to the dummy switch location and wired it to independently control my inspire fogs. So now, I have completely independent lower and upper fogs. All 4 used to come on at once. Both upper and lower are still using Nokya 2500 halogens.




All 4 turn signal bulbs were replaced with LEDs (finally!). I always wanted to get Tritons, but could never justify the price. And I assumed every non-Triton LED would suck in the daytime. But after some research and discussion with paperboy, I decided to try out the JLC 50W CREEs. I have to say, these things are WAY brighter than I was expecting! I haven't tested them in direct sunlight, but I'm sure they will be more than enough. I opted for the resistor-less method of eliminating the hyperblink, and just installed a new .24 ohm 1 watt resistor on the turn signal relay in the fusebox (that thing was a pain to remove).



I replaced my Duralast Gold battery with a Diehard Platinum. People had nothing but good things to say about them, so that made my decision easy. I guess this is somewhat audio-related, but I didn't buy it for that reason specifically.


Audio

I widened the speaker holes in the doors to accommodate the ID CXS64 woofers. I then mounted 1" MDF Speaker rings, filled all of the gaps with plumbers putty, and installed the speakers.







I had to do some modifying in order for the door panels to fit. First, I removed plastic from the door panels themselves, then I shaved down the outside edges of the MDF rings.



I had everything put back together, and then realized I was having issues with my rear windows. Some of you may have seen the video I posted on the FB group pages. It turned out to be a problem with the plug and socket connection between the car and driver door. I was super careful not to hit any pins while I was drilling the holes for my new speaker wires, but whenever I pushed the two together, one of the pins got bent and was touching another pin. I pulled the wires out, fixed the pins, put the wires back in and tried it again, making sure to keep no slack on the wires as I connected the plug and socket. Rear windows worked this time, but now the front passenger window didn't work!

My wires must have just been too big or something. I didn't want to risk breaking a pin or permanently screwing something up, so I removed the wires and routed them a different way. I drilled a small hole in the door and ran the wires from the wire harness boot to this hole. I made sure to seal the hole with a plug and silicone. It's really not that noticeable, especially with the door panel on.



I mounted the crossovers behind the glovebox and wired them up.


So now I'm in the process of tuning the front stage. The speakers sound REALLY good. But I'm getting a lot of alternator whine, and I cannot figure out how to get rid of it. I assumed it was the RCAs, so I replaced them with Stinger 8000 series (the best that Stinger makes). No luck.



Yesterday, I tested everything, one component at a time. There was no noise when the speakers weren't plugged into the amp. So the noise isn't coming in through the speaker wire (very rare for that to happen). No noise when the speakers were plugged into the amp and the amp had no RCA inputs (so the amp itself is grounded properly and is not defective). No noise when the speakers were plugged into the amp and the RCAs were plugged into amp (so the RCAs aren't picking up noise on their way back to the trunk).

As soon as I plugged in my RF BLD line driver (located in the factory amp location), the noise appeared. Keep in mind, the RF BLD has no input signal at this point. I originally had the RF BLD grounded to a distribution block in the trunk with the amps. I moved the ground point up to a factory ground location within 1 foot from RF BLD. No change. I tried adding ground wires to the output RCA negatives on the BLD. No change. If I move the RF BLD around, the noise changes (gets louder and softer). If I touch the RF BLD, the noise gets louder.

I have the gains on the RF-BLD set so that it puts out 2.5v (which is the manufacturer recommendation for when the input is balanced). This gain was set using 1k Hz test tone at 0dB, and with the headunit volume at 32. Sure, I can get rid of the noise by turning the gain way down, but then I'm not getting anywhere near the output that I'm after. I wonder if I set the gains to 2.5v with the HU volume at 40, would it help? Supposedly, the TL's HU puts out a clean signal at 40. That way, I'd be able to turn the gain down on the BLD, but still send the same output to the amp in the trunk.

Any help / suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I need to get this noise figured out before I start working on the trunk setup.

Pics

Rios-TL

Love your build!!! Really clean

CLtotheTL32

iTrader: (3)

Wow, AWESOME work dude.

klene259

Great work!

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

Nice Job, man!

About the noise...are you getting your signal AFTER the oem amplifier? I chased alternator whine for about 4 months. The way I finally got rid of it was to buy an amp that could take low level inputs...I soldered rca wires from right behind the headunit and ran them through 2 ground loop isolators. Silence.

Frosty

iTrader: (7)

I'm getting my signal before the oem amp, right after the HU. I read that taking the signal after the amp can be easier, but you will always have to deal with a small amount of hiss due to the dirty signal. Whereas taking it before the amp will give you a perfectly clean signal (but it can be a little trickier to achieve).

My amp does accept low level inputs, but when coming directly from the HU, I have to have the gain turned up about 60% to get the desired voltage output. This is part of the reason I was using the RF-BLD - with that installed, I was able to have the gain on the amp set to 0. I used standard butt connectors to attach the FR and FL HU wires to RCAs. After reading a post here (link), I'm wondering if this could be my problem. Maybe I should have soldered instead like you did.

Today, I'm gonna make some shorting RCA plugs (pos and neg wrapped together), and plug them into the amp inputs and see if the noise is still there. Some amps mute themselves when there is no detected input (which is what I did the other day), so this wouldn't have been an accurate test for noise.

If the noise is still there with shorting RCAs (no input), I will need to start moving forward in the signal path to find the issue. Perhaps my passive crossovers are picking up EMF from their location behind the glovebox.

Ideally, I'd love to not even have the RF-BLD factored into the equation at all. I want to be able to just go straight from the HU to the amps, but everyone said it's more likely to pick up noise on the way back their with such a weak signal. I would think that my RCAs should reject that though. In fact, I'm almost certain that the noise is not being induced through the RCAs on the way back to the trunk, because I just remembered that I ran my old RCAs OUTSIDE the car yesterday (away from any and all noise interference), and the noise was STILL there. So it's either coming in before my RCA run, or after it.

Tell me more about these ground loop isolators, Jeremy. A lot of people seem to think of them as more of a "bandaid" fix. But if it will cure my problem with no ill effects, I may consider it. Which ones are you using? Why did you use 2? Where are they located?

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

My guess would be the RF line driver is the problem...how was the noise with the amp at 60 gain with NO line driver?

Try adding some cheap noise filters after the RF to see if it'll help. I think mine are PAC audio.

ACCURATEin

Very nice modifications Sir.

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

Bandaid or not...it got rid of any hiss/alt whine once I bypassed the oem amp. I ran directly down the center console...they both rest, taped with electrical tape under the metal bracket that the ebrake tightens on, then from there, under carpet and under rear seat to back.



1 RCA per channel...so 1 of the above covers 2 RCA...2 of them cover all 4 inside channels (no center).
I think my rear set is the Image Dynamics like yours...(Matt IHC gave them to me) and my fronts were Massive Audio...similar cutting/mdf setup too!

J.

Steven Bell

iTrader: (2)

Dude, righteous work! Congrats.

ct_ua6

Cars looking great man! Those tail lights go great with the white and black

o4Komodo

iTrader: (2)

Redonk for real

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

No Frosty, No care.

Frosty

iTrader: (7)

The noise was the same with the RF BLD bypassed (maybe a tad worse). I had the gains adjusted on the amp accordingly, so I was putting out the same voltage from the amp that I was with the RF BLD hooked up.

I'm only using 2 channels (FR and FL), so I would only need one of those filters if I decided to go that route. I'm really hoping I can fix it without one though.

Yesterday, I made 4 shorting plugs from a couple old sets of RCAs (PS2 and N64 to be exact). For those of you who don't know, you cut the RCA so there's about 1" of wire after the plug. Then you basically just strip the outer wire casing to expose the negative wire, and strip the inner wire casing to expose the positive wire. Twist the two together, and wrap it in electrical tape. That's it. The point of this is to completely isolate the amplifier from any audio components that come before it in the signal path. It has absolutely zero input signal with these shorting plugs, so you can find out if the noise is coming before or after the amp.

In my case, there was absolutely zero noise when using the shorting plugs. So this tells me that the noise is entering the system sometime before the amp. As I stated earlier, I tried routing the RCAs OUTSIDE the car, from the driver kick panel (where they splice with the HU wires) to the trunk (with no RF BLD hooked up). This would have eliminated any chance of the RCAs themselves picking up noise along their path. However, the noise was still there. This leads me to believe that the noise is entering even before the RCAs. I'm seriously thinking the noise could be due to a poor connection where I spliced the HU wires. I'm going to try soldering them to see if that fixes it.

I also want to get a 3.5mm to RCA connector so I can plug my phone directly into the amp and see if the noise is still there while using a source other than my HU.

Frosty

iTrader: (7)

So I found a 3.5mm-to-RCA cable at my house, and I just got done testing with it. First, I plugged the RCAs directly into the amp inside the trunk. Everything played perfectly from my phone, and there was ZERO alternator noise (or whatever it is that I'm hearing). So then, I connected the RCAs on the phone cable to the RCAs that are up at the passenger kick panel, which run all the way back to the trunk. Again, everything played perfectly and there was ZERO alternator noise through my speakers. ()

I wasn't sure how fair of a test this was because I know the HU has a super low output voltage (making it very susceptible to pick up noise before being amplified), but I did some research, and the iPhone headphone jack output voltage is around 1 volt also. So this test really narrowed it down for me - either my splice connections from the HU wires to the RCA plugs are not good and need to be redone (soldered this time!), or there is something wrong with my actual headunit.

I wonder if anyone has had to re-ground the factory HU, or do something to stop it from being noisy ?

On a side note, I am seriously blown away by how good the CXS64's sound. WOW. I don't even have my 10w3v3 hooked up yet, but it still sounds incredible. The woofers hit SO freaking hard; you can actually feel it. And the tweeters just make the snare drums "crack". I love it. Really love it. It was also quite beautiful to have silence in between songs while I listened tonight from my phone. Maybe I'll just forget about using the headunit and stick to my phone

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

I re-grounded everything, like I said, I chased this problem for 4 months.

As an aside, you only need 1 jumper to test the amp for noise since you don't need to test all 4 channels at the same time.

Good luck. Why ask for advice if you're not going to try it? Guess you're against the noise filters? At the very least, you're welcome.

Undying Dreams

iTrader: (3)

Good Lord, Frosty! Awesome updates!

I also didn't see you were 18 till J mentioned something, I need to step up my game.

And on another note, I really like the look of your car with the dark A-Specs and tail lights, looks awesome!

One more thing, do you happen to have a picture of the OEM Accord fog switch and how it attached to the Inspire fog harness? Or was it plug and play? I hate the switch that came with the Inspire fogs.

Frosty

iTrader: (7)

I didn't rule out the filter completely. It's just a last resort for me at this point. I'm really motivated to figure this out without adding another piece to the puzzle. I do appreciate the suggestion though.

Thanks, dude! I really like the new wheel color also. I STILL have not even driven the car since putting them on! Soon enough though.

I'm not sure if the OEM accord switch is plug and play with the inspire harness or not. I never used the inspire interior harness (or switch). I originally just used the inspire engine bay harness for power, and tapped the inspires to the upper fogs, so whenever I switched on the factory stalk, all 4 came on. This time, I completely rewired everything with an OEM interior harness. I am still using the inspire engine bay harness for battery power though, so I didn't need to buy an OEM engine bay harness. I think they stopped making those anyways. (Hopefully that all made sense)

Undying Dreams

iTrader: (3)

Haha, it did, thank you!

Hope you get to drive it soon!

rdurham36

was so scared to cut the bumper but i finally went ahead and installe my inspire fogs.....

thanks for the inspirtation @frosty

ff4930

Wow great progress! Keep it up!

Drei

iTrader: (2)

Just read through this whole thread and you've done a hell of a job man!

May I suggest Type-S headlights?

Frosty

iTrader: (7)

Cool!

Thanks!

Thank you.

But no way! I love my custom '04 lights too much.

TuanYe

Look sick! This only work on white car?

Where did you get those tail lights from?

Frosty

iTrader: (7)

JnC.

Steven Bell

iTrader: (2)

Any new updates?

Slyck

Redonk is such an accurate license plate for your car. It looks really good, it looks really clean but you can still tell it has been modded. The contrast on the wheels looks awesome.

Frosty

iTrader: (7)

Yes, TONS. Just haven't had time to put one together. Soon though!

Thanks!

Steven Bell

iTrader: (2)

Cool-I'll just wait over here......

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

Really? What's been keeping you busy?