Focus RS Mk1
Hi all, some may remember a little thread i made before about a stealthy install i made in my clio. Basically i still used the boot and kept everything hidden. Looked good and i was ok with it for a short while.
The idea of having that setup was to still allow me to put the shopping in the boot. Tesco run once a week! But i was never really happy, the 8" hertz sub i was using wasnt giving me enough and i was still not using the boot as i didnt want to ruin anything.
So my thinking was that i may aswel do a design that im happier with and while at it, i'll change the sub. So the 8" Hertz was sold, shame really because it was a nice little number. In favour of a Diamond Audio 12" D3 dual 2 ohm.
So i cracked on with making my new build, so here goes:
Step one, all the equipment ready to go in:
Made myself a nice base to sit everything on, i will add now that most parts of the build are from 18mm mdf, some parts that are just visual are 12mm Mdf.
Amps in position and the rasied sections for the box to sit on:
Box and sub in position, I bought a box because it was an extra £10 on the price of the sub, so thought it saves me time:
Eq on the back:
Next i needed to decide on the real design, i know i wanted the sub n amps in the above positions but didnt really know what else, so several drawings later (you always think your boot is huge when drawing designs!!!!) and a few templates made up, one idea:
both sides templates:
This was an ok idea but i wanted to avoid using fibreglass as its not really somethig ive had much experience with, so i used this base idea design but without curves. Decision made i cracked on:
Sub front peice made for a flush mount:
The first side peice made:
Both of them in, these took me ages to make, getting the angles right, using only files to get the profiles I needed! took a while! worth it in the end!
Another angle:
Template for the top peice, will be all one bit when made:
Made in Mdf, getting there slowly:
Now i had to decide on how i wanted the amps on view, this was tricky because of the way the wires come in and out of the amps, didnt want anything on show but i wanted to see both power lights on. being a nice blue it matches the stinger volt meter i have, hmmmm what to do here:
So i thought about it for a while, more drawings later and i came up with a design. So cover made:
Marked out the right cuvre radius:
Cut that:
Then for the middle bit, template made:
I decided a nice little step down would be a nice touch, give the design a bit of depth rather than too many angles which i was finding hard to avoid. So 12mm rather than 18mm, i ended up with this:
Then everything was looking very angular so i made a start on some radius' on the edges of things, eg top cover peice, the amp covers, no router here, couldnt justify the £27 plus £20 curved bit so i used files and sand paper
Which leaves me looking like this, although this pics shows no radius' on yet!
Still to do is to make two peices that will cover the holes at each side of the install. easy to do. Then i need to cut a hole for the volt meter in the right hand upright. then carry on smoothing the design till im happy! Also have some more design points to put in, although more drawings are needed yet!
Side covers made:
Cut the hole for the volt meter, lft slightly large to allow for carpet thickness:
All the fabrication work done really, pretty simple stuff:
So onto the wiring. This meant everything out of the boot, a good thorough hoover up, stick the base back in and fix down the amps and the box supports with new access holes, you'l see these in the pics below:
So then, I managed to get hold of a shed load of wiring clips, so useful, keeps all the wiring very tidy! Took me 5, yes five, hours to get it looking like this! Wanted everything looking right! Also half way through had a Major disaster! Split a whole class of coke into the wiring, spent 20mins mopping it all up! Was so pissed off with myself! All sorted though!
Distribution in place and some of the wiring clips used, these were spot on for 4 gauge J
Power and earth routed to each amp all tied down with proper connections all over:
Remote cable routed, linked the two together ready to fit into the delayed remote from the EQ:
Speaker cable for the sub hooked up, more on this later on:
RCA cables plumbed in, as my EQ only has one output I have to use some splitter to join both amps, hence the big clump of connectors at the rear of the pic:
Slightly too long on the RCA's (1 meter) so had to double back to keep it tidy:
The main section of wiring, looking quite cool, well as far as wiring goes:
Onto the amp connections, made sure all was done right here, proper connections etc:
Same for the other amp, quite tidy I think:
And all the wiring done:
What a mission that was, so worth it and I actually really enjoyed doing it, huge lower back pains afterwards and the coke disaster was a nightmare but its all done and im very happy with it!
All that effort and its covered with two minutes:
Fitted my rainbows a few weeks back, thought it post a pic of them:
You'd think that'd be all for today, but no I thought why stop here! So I starting trimming. Done a fair amount of this in the past so knew what I needed to do. I don’t have any progress pics of me doing this, as its fairly boring stuff so I'll just post up my finished article pictures for you to see. Only thing I have to do now is to wire in my voltmeter (without spilling coke on it) and the install is 100% complete.
I hope you all like, I much prefer this to my old setup. Just need to bok myself into source to have the EQ set up.
Thanks for looking again!
Any questions then just ask.
The idea of having that setup was to still allow me to put the shopping in the boot. Tesco run once a week! But i was never really happy, the 8" hertz sub i was using wasnt giving me enough and i was still not using the boot as i didnt want to ruin anything.
So my thinking was that i may aswel do a design that im happier with and while at it, i'll change the sub. So the 8" Hertz was sold, shame really because it was a nice little number. In favour of a Diamond Audio 12" D3 dual 2 ohm.
So i cracked on with making my new build, so here goes:
Step one, all the equipment ready to go in:
Made myself a nice base to sit everything on, i will add now that most parts of the build are from 18mm mdf, some parts that are just visual are 12mm Mdf.
Amps in position and the rasied sections for the box to sit on:
Box and sub in position, I bought a box because it was an extra £10 on the price of the sub, so thought it saves me time:
Eq on the back:
Next i needed to decide on the real design, i know i wanted the sub n amps in the above positions but didnt really know what else, so several drawings later (you always think your boot is huge when drawing designs!!!!) and a few templates made up, one idea:
both sides templates:
This was an ok idea but i wanted to avoid using fibreglass as its not really somethig ive had much experience with, so i used this base idea design but without curves. Decision made i cracked on:
Sub front peice made for a flush mount:
The first side peice made:
Both of them in, these took me ages to make, getting the angles right, using only files to get the profiles I needed! took a while! worth it in the end!
Another angle:
Template for the top peice, will be all one bit when made:
Made in Mdf, getting there slowly:
Now i had to decide on how i wanted the amps on view, this was tricky because of the way the wires come in and out of the amps, didnt want anything on show but i wanted to see both power lights on. being a nice blue it matches the stinger volt meter i have, hmmmm what to do here:
So i thought about it for a while, more drawings later and i came up with a design. So cover made:
Marked out the right cuvre radius:
Cut that:
Then for the middle bit, template made:
I decided a nice little step down would be a nice touch, give the design a bit of depth rather than too many angles which i was finding hard to avoid. So 12mm rather than 18mm, i ended up with this:
Then everything was looking very angular so i made a start on some radius' on the edges of things, eg top cover peice, the amp covers, no router here, couldnt justify the £27 plus £20 curved bit so i used files and sand paper
Which leaves me looking like this, although this pics shows no radius' on yet!
Still to do is to make two peices that will cover the holes at each side of the install. easy to do. Then i need to cut a hole for the volt meter in the right hand upright. then carry on smoothing the design till im happy! Also have some more design points to put in, although more drawings are needed yet!
Side covers made:
Cut the hole for the volt meter, lft slightly large to allow for carpet thickness:
All the fabrication work done really, pretty simple stuff:
So onto the wiring. This meant everything out of the boot, a good thorough hoover up, stick the base back in and fix down the amps and the box supports with new access holes, you'l see these in the pics below:
So then, I managed to get hold of a shed load of wiring clips, so useful, keeps all the wiring very tidy! Took me 5, yes five, hours to get it looking like this! Wanted everything looking right! Also half way through had a Major disaster! Split a whole class of coke into the wiring, spent 20mins mopping it all up! Was so pissed off with myself! All sorted though!
Distribution in place and some of the wiring clips used, these were spot on for 4 gauge J
Power and earth routed to each amp all tied down with proper connections all over:
Remote cable routed, linked the two together ready to fit into the delayed remote from the EQ:
Speaker cable for the sub hooked up, more on this later on:
RCA cables plumbed in, as my EQ only has one output I have to use some splitter to join both amps, hence the big clump of connectors at the rear of the pic:
Slightly too long on the RCA's (1 meter) so had to double back to keep it tidy:
The main section of wiring, looking quite cool, well as far as wiring goes:
Onto the amp connections, made sure all was done right here, proper connections etc:
Same for the other amp, quite tidy I think:
And all the wiring done:
What a mission that was, so worth it and I actually really enjoyed doing it, huge lower back pains afterwards and the coke disaster was a nightmare but its all done and im very happy with it!
All that effort and its covered with two minutes:
Fitted my rainbows a few weeks back, thought it post a pic of them:
You'd think that'd be all for today, but no I thought why stop here! So I starting trimming. Done a fair amount of this in the past so knew what I needed to do. I don’t have any progress pics of me doing this, as its fairly boring stuff so I'll just post up my finished article pictures for you to see. Only thing I have to do now is to wire in my voltmeter (without spilling coke on it) and the install is 100% complete.
I hope you all like, I much prefer this to my old setup. Just need to bok myself into source to have the EQ set up.
Thanks for looking again!
Any questions then just ask.
