SMALL AUDIO STORM TROOPER 2015 CREWMAX BUILD

I'm running a JL HD900/5. Can you reccomend a cap? Hopefully something small that will fit under the seat (where the HD lives)

 

Ditto that. Probably be a good idea for me to put one in too. Where do they live on the wire? Down at the amp?

 

I believe they're supposed to be close to the amp. @Vector W8 will drop some knowledge.

Looks like he's using a 50farad cap.
Hopefully they make some incognito ones that dont look like it belongs in Fast and Furious.

maybe?

$120 Rockville 50 Farad 24V Surge Hybrid Ion Capacitor Voltage+Amperage Meter (RXC50D)

https://www.amazon.com/Rockville-RX...d=1526411115&sr=8-1&keywords=hybrid+capacitor

Edit:
This looks like the one in his OP

DS18 CAP50 Power Capacitor - 50 Farad Digital Power Capacitor with Rapid Requency Discharge, Electronic Polarity Protection Circut - Smooth Out the Current Draw and Distortion

https://www.amazon.com/DS18-Extreme-Capacitor-Station-Amperage/dp/B01B9KI72W

 

Get on google and search for 24 volt 1 fard capacitor. Don't buy 16 volt capacitors, they are a lower grade and you are pushing them hard.

 

Car audio specific ones or more industrial use ones like this:
https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetai...Z1n0r9vR22YqjN7vGN3ZS673ZwUzLPT17PFppQoaJcQ==

 

Found some on Crutchfield. Pricing wasn’t bad but I have no idea where’d I mount it. Under the driver seat maybe since the amp power runs down that side.

 

That will work just fine. Just be careful with exposed terminals and where you mount it. It has enough stored energy to kill. And it can unleash it instantaneously. 1 farad caps are no joke.

 

That was one of my concerns. Was thinking of making a cap for the terminals depending on what size it is.
Edit: I just realized the one from Mouser is OOS (all of the 25v 1f's are OOS).

Do you think that will work better than something like this?
https://www.amazon.com/Rockford-RFC...=1526416645&sr=8-3&keywords=1+farad+capacitor

 

I would go with your first pick. It is a better cap.

 

The closer you can get the cap to the amps the better.

 

Yes, Running the 50 farad cap.

 

Nice list of equipment!!
I look forward to watching as I am about to start the build on my IASCA SQC Tundra in the next few months for the 2019 season.

 

Well I have to apologize, The little Juke project is taking up all of my time and money at this moment. The truck is parked most of the time so I have been slow to work on the audio system. I should have things closed out in a couple of weeks on the Juke then it will be full bore back on the system in the truck. Had a guy come out for a photo shoot with one of the cars so that killed a weekend too.

 

I approve your choice of color!

 

As I do of yours!

 

Any updates?

Have you seen the recent posts of the guy doing a blow thru box?
https://www.tundras.com/threads/bed-cut-sound-system-tundra-cm.32807/

 

No updates, the truck project came to a grinding halt. I along with 15 other people were laid off from work 11 month ago. I had to find a new job. Unfortunately it meant relocating as I live in the middle of nowhere. So I now work at a place where I had to rent a 2nd home. So all of my money is currently tied up in survival. I am 7 payments away from paying off the Tundra . At that time I should have some disposable income. I thought I would have been done by the end of this summer with installing the audio system. No such luck.

 

Sorry to hear that! That's a real bummer.

 

Thanks Danimal86. It was a bit of a derailment. But I will survive. The good news is I now have a place to work that I absolutely love. All the people are great. The last job was the equivalent to the Vietnam war. Every day you dreaded waking up to have to go in a do combat. I was there for 5 years and out lived 400% of my colleagues. The turn over rate there was horrifying. I was one of 2 people that had been in my position for as long as I had. I was on my 4th boss when they hired a real schmuck. That was the end for me.

So its all for the better, just need to get a few things paid off and I will be back on solid ground to continue with modifying the audio system.

 

Thats great to hear! I just recently changed jobs also, going from a private firm to a public agency, and couldn't be happier. I took a bit of a haircut, but damn....not getting worked like a mule is nice.

It sounds like you are well on your way to getting back on your feet, and you'll be better off in the long run.

 

Well as life goes on I have been back working on the system in the Tundra. So things progress slowly around here when you work 279 miles from home its not easy to get back to the place and not have a million things to do around the house. The Tundra has been low on the priority list. So a few weeks ago I lost my job to Covid 19 and have had a little time on my hands to work on the system install. Please keep in mind that this system is being built for function over form. So you wont see any fancy custom fiberglass going in to this build. But we are shooting for a stellar sounding system. Truly all I care about as I no longer compete in IASCA. So on with some of the build. Things should have been done by now but I ran in to a piece of equipment malfunctioning and had to send it in for repair. It will be back on Friday May 15th and I will be able to fire the system up for the second time and actually listen to it.

Also there have been some changes to the system. I originally intended to use 3 amplifiers. Two 5 channels and one 4 channel. I have decided to use the two 5 channel amps and forgo the 4 channel amp.

We dropped the rear door configuration and everything is all up front and subs. So here we go with our current status.




The amp rack should look familiar I decided to cut up an underseat storage box a little and modify it for my needs.

 

Preparing for the install of the 8" drivers in the door.

 

Wiring the 8" drivers in series to get a more subdued 4 ohm load


My original 1/2" Spacer template was too shallow to allow for the 8" driver to sit far enough away from the window track. So I had to rebuild them using 3/4" MDF and then painting the wood with clear coat to seal it from the elements.


Using XTC Shallow mount foam baffels to keep the driver out of the elements and help with dampening the driver. Also a little more inside the baffle besides open air.



Baffle trimmed

 

8" Mounted in the door, NO TRIMMING TO THE SHEETMETAL. 100% drop in fit in the factory hole.


12 gauge Wiring pulled through the factory chase.


Foam baffle used to make a seal between the 8" driver and the door panel.
The back side of the door panel had to be trimmed to remove the solid wall used to mate to the 6x9" factory speaker. I don't think I will miss it.



Big Pioneer 8" shallow mount woofer now taking the place of the pathetic factory 6x9"


Door panel back home.

 

Next step to put a couple of 6 3/4" drivers in the kick panels. You saw them earlier in the build, just Q Forms kick panels with XTC Baffels and a little filler behind each driver.

At this point I have not committed to where the tweeter will be mounted, so I have a long length of wire pulled for it and I will move them around to see where I get the best staging from. I have 3 options at this point. Mount them in the Q Form, Mount them in the stock door location, or place them up where the factory dash speakers are on the Left and Right side of the dash. I am leaning towards the dash location to get the reflection off the front windshield. But I wont know until I try each location.

 

Fellow audiophile here, love what youve done. Always been a fan of pioneer for cost & performance. Im running the same 12s as u but in a ported box, theyre great. Only spent $90 a piece . I love that you put dedicated 8” midwoofers, thats gonna sound sweet.

 

The wiring mess that is the factory system. Tapping in to the stock amplifier to use it as my high level line output was fun. I am trying to keep things relatively stock in appearance so that you don't see a lot of the system. I would love to put grille cloth on the 6 3/4" mid-bass drivers, but Pioneer did not make the Grille very friendly for doing so. You have to slip the grille inside the perimeter of the plastic ring, which makes it impossible to have a nice finished edge in cloth. So the mid-bass drivers are visible until I decide what to do.

Sealed the RCA's up with heat shrink for two reasons, No grounding out on the amp under the seat and to keep things together so they don't vibrate loose over time.



Tapping in to the wire harness out of the factory amp.


And one more shot of it

 

Back to the nothing fancy department because it's behind the rear seat and you will never be able to look at it without removing the seat anyway.



Plenty of Dynamat throughout the entire truck. Made sure you wont hear the thin sheet metal oil canning while listening to your favorite tunes.



Just a 3rd angle view of the subs.

 

The amp rack installed.



And this is where we are at. Initial start up of the system everything powered up. But we had no signal passing through the Arc-Audio processor. It was seeing the proper signals from the Toyota amp but was not putting any signal out. So we sent the processor in and Arc-Audio did an incredible job turning it around very quickly. It will return home this week.

I will never use another processor other than an Arc-Audio piece. They are the best company on the planet when it comes to customer service. You the customer are definitely the most important part of their business.

So stay tuned and we will see how this system looks on the RTA in a few days. Should be fun to tune 264 channels of equalization.