16 November 2001---
Well I've moved on to a different car, a 2002 Nissan Sentra SE-R Spec-V. Look for a page for that one soon. In the meantime, custom peices and equipment are for sale in the classifieds section of the message boards at http://www.stratusphere.org

Thanks!!!

(27 Aug) Well this is the car in it's latest form. As usual things change, so this is sure to be outdated soon, again. So we'll start from the top:

First off, a couple pics of the car:

This is after getting back home from Oklahoma City for the Tulsa show and Slamboree 2k.

Same thing, different view.

Getting ready to be judged for Slamboree 2000, a big car show in Oklahoma City sponsored by Pleasures CC. This was the 12th of August.

A pic of the new spoiler for the Stratus enthusaists. I listed it as Freedom Designs, since thiers is very similar, but this one will only run ya $90.00 at http://www.spoilers4less.com, very happy with it.

Well, I guess it's time to get to the good stuff, the audio system. Almost everything in the car is from Kicker, if they make it, I got it, as far as speakers and amps are concerned. Of course they don't make a 30-band EQ (yet) so I had to turn elsewhere, as well as a headunit. But RF and Kenwood (Excelon) back me up good in these respects.

For starters, a system diagram, to see your way thru the system. Mind the errors on there, I was in a hurry!

In this picture here, you can see the source unit, the Excelon 915, the remote knob for the bass controls on the XS100 (on the trim piece to the lower right of the instrument cluster). As well, this gives a good idea behind the stock cosmetic theme behind the entire install, sticking with the red, black and grey of the car. Note the custom fiberglass trim on the radio to flush mount it, as well as the driver's side kickpanel, and how it is shaped to accomidate the hood release. Also the use of matching paint to highlight areas, the radio, shifter plate, grills, and instrument cluster.

This view is looking right up from the passenger's seat. I made a custom fiberglass housing for the Symmetry RDAT and matched the unit to fit the cosmetics. Also the location gives ideal positioning for SQ adjustments and the RDAT can be removed and used outside the car for RTA adjustments.

This (bad) pic shows the freshly installed tweeter in the a-pillar on the driver's side. These tweets are crossed over very high at 16k and attinuated with a L-pad (unlike stated in the system diagram). They are great for raising the soundstage, and providing a little bit of ambiance. Also to note, the stock a-pillars were wrapped in a soft vinyl which enhances the sunk in flush mounting of the tweets.

Here is a closer-up look at the driver's side kick and the work put into it. The 4" is the new R4 and the tweet is a R25. A great sounding pair, the R25 is one of the smoothest tweets I have heard to date. The kicks were wrapped in matching vinyl both in texture and color compared to that of the stock panels. Of course all of my install items can be bought at select products! http://www.selectproducts.com

In this picture, the passenger's kick and door speakers are shown. The doors have R6 6" midbasses crossed over from 60-100Hz. They defintely provide more then enough bass reinforcement up front, and bring the sound of the bass right up front.

Looking in from a few feet away, to put an emphasis on the stock look to the install. Also it shows how the painted peices really highlight things well.

Here is the re-done rear deck area. To do this I used a combination of MDF, fiberglass, grill metal and matching carpet. Alot of people have questioned if the car comes stock like that, which is exactly what I wanted to achieve. The grills are 8"x10" and allow for plenty of bass to make it's way un-restricted into the passenger compartment.

Well here's the trunk, from a few feet away as one might first view it. Again as in the passenger compartment, I stuck with the cosmetic theme of the install. The amp endcaps, nameplates, grills and accessory windows were all custom painted to match. I chose to use carpet in the trunk area, since this is a daily driver, and I actually use the trunk now and then. Fiberglass and vinyl were and option, but I would tear it up way too fast in everyday use. The amps, Kicker ZR120's (on the left and right) and the ZR240, were arranged to provide a floating look at night with the neon on. Below them, in a position for optimal cooling, is the beast, the XS100 (50x2 rated 1400x1+ actual at 1 ohm mono). Another note in here, the upholstery is done in the entire trunk, no skimping here on areas like under the deck and whatnot, attention to detail is very important when competing in SQ, especially in Pro! Although in this pic, the trunklid cover is removed, I'm doing a couple cool things with that right now...

Moving into the trunk now, we come up on the Solobaric L7 12's. They are crossed over at 60Hz and below, and contained in a pretty complex 2.0 cu ft. enclosure. I hope to get some fabrication pics up soon, but to get an idea, we used a special technique to make 3/4" MDF as flexible as a sheet of paper. After the basic enclosure was made out of MDF, lots of glue, and 1 3/4" nails, I re-enforced it with a layer of fiberglass resin and cloth. After that, a 1/8" thick layer of Cascade Audio V-Block spray was applied to the entire enclosure to kill any unwanted resonances (this was also done with some special bracing techniques too). For those who are curious, the false floor of the trunk only raises it 4" over stock height also. For the grills on the subs matching material to that of the rear deck was used and then painted to match the install theme. I might swich to a set of CNC milled plexi grills, but I'm not too sure on that, since it seems to be getting more and more common, and also nothing you would see in a stock type install. The trim around the grills was done using a rabbit bit, roundoff bit and a 3/4" peice of MDF.

Here is the power distro center, to the left of the subs, with the cover off. In here is located fuses for all of the amps, processing, neon and the fan. This area was highlighted using a 6" tube of red neon. Also note the plexiglass can be removed promptly, to stick with the IASCA requirement for fuse access. On the bottom of the cover I am going to have etched the fuse, rating and purpose for troubleshooting. Also on the clear cover I might add a etched Kicker logo to highlight it a bit.

Off to the right of the subs is the location for the Symmetry main unit. This location keeps the length of the RCA needed for the amps to a minimum, allowing me to maximize the clean signal from the line driver to the back. This pic also provides a closer view of the sub grills and the matched endcaps. I tried to keep the seams for the upholstery as invisible as possible, and so far I've been pretty happy, there is about 6 seams there in that pic, but if you do them right they become alomst invisible.

Well this is it for the time being, please take a second and rate the page if ya could. And as always if there is any feedback or comments you'd like to share, just email me at stlthfixr@hotmail.com . Thanks!

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