A couple of days ago Justin and I finished the stereo wiring in the car! Ultimately I had great time and I learned a ton of fun stuff, but the stereo upgrade was a way bigger project than we had thought. Running all the cables and keeping them hidden was really tricky (we ended up pulling out tons of the body paneling). The mess of wires behind the head unit was intimidating but we got everything wired up a-ok. I will confess that it was a little frightening to see my car in so many pieces.

I got everything put back together earlier tonight and spent some time road testing it. For the most part I’m really happy with everything.  The two subs (JL Audio 8″) are fantastic. They give off nice tight base (which is what I wanted) but still sound very full. I replaced the stock speakers in the rear with some 5 1/4″ Kenwood Exelons (nothing fancy) which have a nice bright sound that complements the subs. I left the 10″ stock speakers in the doors- for now they get the job done just fine. Everything (subs and mids) run of the two Alpine amplifiers (both 250 watts).  As an aside, cramming everything into the trunk and still leaving room for the removable roof was difficult, but we pulled it off! Visually I think the set up is very appealing.

There’s a lot of tuning left to do, but I think the final result will exceed my expectations. Sadly I’ve got  humming noise that parallels the engine speed. I need to figure out where it’s coming from and what’s causing it. My initial hunch is that the ground wire is too long (the chassis of the car is fiberglass to we had to run the ground wire back to the battery- nearly 16 feet). It may also have to do with poorly shielded wires in the engine bay (i.e. spark plug wires). This, coupled with my Blu Ray sync issues, has made it a bad month for sound! Ah well- it makes me feel manly when I fix stuff.

Originally Posted April 18, 2009

After coloring eggs I commenced the wiring portion of my subwoofer / amplifier install. That’s going to be a big job. Mike was a huge help and we got the seat and some panelling out and and started running the ground wires and RCA cables. This coming week I’ll have to remove the center console and the actual receiver (from the instructions I’ve got it won’t be fun). But hey- that’s what life is all about: Doing things that aren’t fun with the hope that later something not fun that you did will result in fun.

Originally Posted April 13, 2009

The one thing I was able to do while I was a bachelor was start my new car stereo! I’m not an audiophile or anything like that, but I do like to turn my music up pretty loud while I drive. My friend Justin suggested that we add some sub-woofers and a couple of amps. He made some custom speaker boxes for the trunk area of my car (it’s hard to tell from the picture, but the boxes are sunk about 9 inches into the trunk bed). We put two 8″ subs in each box and we’ve got two 250watt amps (one for the subs and one for the mids). All we have left is the wiring (which will be the hard part) and I’ll be ready to blast out my ear drums.

I got to see “Fast & Furious” on opening night last week (thanks Fran!). Anyone who knows me can tell you I’m a fan of the series (and a little nutty about tricked out cars). I hosted a Fast & Furious party the Tuesday before the movie came out. I had hoped to make it through the first and third movie (I don’t care too much for the second), but there was so much action in the first that everyone had adrenaline overload and bailed. I felt like “Fast & Furious” was a nice addition to the franchise- it filled in some gaps in the movie arc and provided a few unexpected twists and turns. Definitely worth a watch.

Originally Posted April 11, 2009