good work. Man I have ZERO craft skills

 

awesome!now how does it sound???

whyd you mount it facing the trunk vs facing the cabin? i wanna do something similar and was going to fface it into the cabin... just compare reasonsss

 

Sounds pretty good but the installer reckons it's at 30% of what it can do. First of all I'm running a JVC head unit right now and it's not that good. Once I install the Alpine 9887 head unit sound quality will improve. Secondly, the tweeters are stuck on the dashboard but we will be making custom A-pillar pods and mount them on ear level which will help with stage effect. And finally, the installer told me to get used to it and run the speakers in for 2-3 weeks before he does a final adjustment which will improve the sound a bit more.

Even without all this I'm quite happy with the sound, it's very clear and I can turn it up to unbearable volumes without any distortion. I will try to record a video once the system is completed.

We have discussed a lot about placement of the subwoofer. The installers favourite spot was the spare tyre location but I wanted to keep the spare tyre so we decided to face the subwoofer towards the trunk. My installer is the Helix/Brax distributor and all his set-ups are SQ set-ups which means his emphasis is always on good quality and clear sound. He told me that due to small interior space the subwoofer is too close to the driver and front speakers when facing the interior which will have negative effect on overall sound quality and I can even sometimes hear the subwoofer flapping etc. Then he went all technical talking about sound waves, numbers, mhz, frequencies etc. which I mostly didn't understand lol but I got the point. Basically by having the sub facing the trunk I get a nice bass and enough space and time for the bass to travel but also clear sound from components inside the car. It is also very convenient, I can remove the subbox anytime I want, we didn't have to drill a single hole and fabricating a box for this set up was much less costly then fabricating one facing the interior plus it'd be a headache to match the exact curves of the existing lid/seat with buttons to open and close if we were to build a box to face the interior.

If money and time wasn't an issue and if the door trims were cheap and easy to get hold of, then the installer would modify them to angle the front speakers facing towards the driver/passenger. Details like that add-up and make the difference.

 

Stage 2:

Alpine CDA-9887 head unit installed: I never though a head unit could make such a difference. I always thought it was all about the amps, boy was I wrong. The whole music experience is totally changed with time delay function adjusted I can hear the music coming from the centre of the dashboard and the sound quality is 100% better then the old JVC head unit.

Also my installer wasn't happy with my door trim. It's maybe because he mostly works on german cars. We already had the door covered with sound insulation material and some kind of sound deadening sponge on top of it but he still wasn't satisfied so we covered behind the door trim with fiberglass, sound insulation material and again spongy material on top.





Up next is the custom tweeter pods. This will be our third try. At first we weren't happy with the look and sound when we placed them facing the driver and passenger, they looked like Mickey Mouse's ears and sounded like dogs *** so he installed some sort of analyser to find the best spot and to our surprise the best spot for tweeters on RX7 is just infront of the a-pillars facing up toward the windscreen. For anyone who will be installing tweeters I strongly recommend you to consider this set-up. It won't look the best but it will sound much better then any other spot. We tried behind the mirrors (too close and overtakes the midrange speakers), on a-pillars, facing the driver/passenger, facing the roof but angled towards the driver etc. None of it sounded as good as facing up infront of the a-pillars. The problem with this is the looks. It looks a little cheap so tomorrow we will get some pyramid shaped pods and see how it goes. Other option is to cut the dashboard and mount them inside but we decided it wasn't worth it for a pair of inexpensive tweeters. I will post pics of this later.

Here you can see some of work my installer has done in the past:
http://www.berkhifi.com.tr/foto-galeri.php

 

Holy ****. You went all out on that system. It's coming together nicely.

 

Dude mass produce that sub enclosure

 

Shipping costs to US would be a killer.

 

Thats A great install. Wish i had all that in my fc

 

I'm going to make my own enclosure that is similar to this this month. It will be the same dimensions of DamonB's enclosure but the front face of it will have flat sides to about 3 inches in and the middle 21 inches will be fiberglassed with the subwoofer extending outwards about 3 inches to give it that cool look. If you want I can send you some pictures and if you like it make a mold and mass produce it.

 

Derek, I will still send you the dimensions, sorry I didn't have time to go to my winter house and measure the box but I will soon. The dimensions of the back of the enclosure is obviously very similar to DamonB's enclosure (as big as it fits under the strut brace) but I'm guessing you want the dimensions of the side of the enclosure as mine is probably different to DamonB's.

Just don't do the same mistake we did and make the bottom pieces of the wood curvy like this pic.

 

No worries man. I got some dimensions I'm going to try.

 

Finally I had some time to have the new tweeter pods installed. As I said before, tweeters would look best mounted on the a-pillar or hidden somewhere on the door trim but we didn't want to sacrifice sound quality as we found that they sounded best in their current position.

I wasn't happy with just the tweeters stuck on the dashboard look cause it looked cheap, so this design is what I came up with. I tried to make it flow with the lines of the dashboard and cluster panel. It still doesn't look as clean as mounted into the dash or a-pillar but what can I do, at least it sounds good and tweeters are not overtaking the rest of the music.

Making the tweeter pods:









Covered in leather:



Finished and installed:

 

nice

 

Thanks. Still not 100% happy though. Apparently some tweeters can work (sound good) mounted on the triangle side mirror area. I'm looking at Brax tweeters with ss frame. They will improve the looks as well as sound quality. Alpine tweeters are not bad for their price but comparing to the rest of the system I think they are the weakest link.

 

That's quite an installer you found. If he used a pink noise generator and spectrum analyzer to check for locations he must really know his stuff.
I always thought the best place for tweeters was mounted coaxially in the woofer. It's just hard to find quality co-ax's so people use separate components. The trouble with coax mounted in the stock FD door locations is a low sound stage so people try to get coax with a aim-able tweeter or one pointed up. People who use separate components usually mount the tweeter just behind the mirror defrost vent. You get great stereo separation this way but have time delay and phase problems. Both of these problems are lessened as the speakers are moved forward. Thus, the kick panel installs. But in the FD, you can lose stereo separation with kicks, everything sounds like it's coming from the center of the car.
Those tweeter pods he made for you look great. I would guess the lower the tweeter could play, the better it would sound and if you could get a full range speaker there it would sound super ( but would not be loud enough).
Let's face it, the FD is just a hard car to install for. The glass is too close to get a big woofer in the door and the woofer resonates the panel, it's hard to find a good place for the tweeter, there's not much room for a sub. Everything is light and resonant and it's important that the finished install not add a bunch of weight to the car. I admire your efforts sir. I have learned much from your posts and plan to follow your project.

 

^^ Yeah my installer really knows his stuff. He's won 2nd in EMMA Germany few years ago and now he's building another car to win 1st in EMMA next year.

I don't know much about tweeter mounted in the woofer or coax stuff but afaik three way components is where its at. However like you said this may not be possible in a RX7 due to limited space. It's doable but not worth it in a sports car like RX7 imo.

I have so many other things to do to the car I have no time to try different tweeters but when I have time I will look for tweeters that'll work near the mirror area for a neater finish. We are pretty sure Brax or Helix tweeters can do this due to their design and specs but we still have to test and see. Btw I was the one who designed those tweeter pods, they just fabricated it for me.

As for weight, the only thing that adds weight is the subwoofer enclosure but I plan to ofset that by removing the spare tyre and tools. If it bugs me too much I have few options, a slim woofer with a smaller enclosure, a pioneer ts-wx77a, or cancel the sub altogether.

Btw, thanks for the compliments.