Random thoughts and rants from an ongoing install...

Nillaz

Man I love my Z but I forgot how much I loathe doing audio work in it. It's cramped to work in for anything other than the world's tiniest midget, the plastics can scratch if you so much as look at them funny, and I would rather eat glass than fish speaker wire through the door grommet/harness again (seriously, I'm never doing it in the Z again no matter what). And for the icing on the cake I just went out to monkey around with the new head unit a bit and realized that at some point along the way I threw a CEL that I'll have to investigate tomorrow. Super Duper!

I've always enjoyed good car audio but in 20 years of doing installs in every one of my vehicles today is the first time that doing it has ever made me feel old. I doubt I would ever rob myself of the satisfaction of doing it myself but man it would have been awesome to hand someone else the keys this afternoon!

Now having vented a bit...

On the other hand in fairness having done this once already in my first Z I knew what I was getting into, and ultimately it's totally worth it. I only managed to get halfway through the job today but things are starting to come together, so it wasn't all doom and gloom. I didn't have any nasty surprises with any defective gear (beyond a broken MHL adapter) that I needed to troubleshoot, and programming the ASWC was surprisingly painless this time around. Actually it was even kind of fun doing it from a cell phone.

I've never been a huge fan of class D amps but wow Arc hit a home run with their newest XDi amps. It's not quite perfect, but for the size and power output I'm not sure I've ever heard a class D that presents itself quite this well. I was a little hesitant to go with something untested, but all doubts have been completely put to rest. For the time being I'm not running active but even with a passive setup my Hertz speakers just came to life with minimal tweaking. I might just save myself the money on a processor.

There will have to be some serious sound deadening done that I'm not especially looking forward to but otherwise I think the worst of my trials and tribulations are behind me. Please, Lord, let them be behind me!

Today has been nothing short of a pain in the ***, but I'm not gonna lie I can't wait to have everything worked out and dialed in! After suffering with the stock system for the last few weeks I'm not sure how anyone who actually listens to the thing lives with it on a daily basis. I'm thinking that it might be therapeutic to use the factory speakers for some much needed target practice.

aszyd

Sounds like I made the right decision to have an installer take care of my stuff. I considered the idea of doing it myself, having done installs in my previous vehicles, but I figured since I was picking the stuff up at a shop, I might as well have them install it as well. The shop owner actually commented that the Z was far from the easiest vehicle to perform an install.

As for scratching, try doing headers, or anything around the transmission. No edges are ground down, everything is painful.

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brancky3

What's the pain point here? I have new door speakers to be installed and this was really the only part I was unsure of, I haven't seen any detailed write ups about this being a pain.

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bigaudiofanat

Sounds like overall a good install man.

I became an authorized dealer for arc audio last year and I've been very impressed with their products so far. Their class d amps are small and pack a lot of power.

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kenchan

yah, when in doubt (including your wisdom), call DE... ahem call Big

Nillaz

I understand engine/tranny work from a technical perspective, but have never had much hands on experience. This doesn't surprise me in the least.

There are several pain points here. There's nothing convenient about doing this whatsoever and I'm not sure how to explain it so that it makes sense, and Slik's isntall video doesn't do it much justice. You have to disconnect the door harness where it joins up with the body of the car behind the edge of the door. This requires opening the door to various degrees while reaching your hand in the space between the door and the body of the car in order to flip the latch securing the harness. You have to work at an awkward angle and space is relatively tight if you have larger hands. I'm left handed so it wasn't terrible doing this on the passsenger side but the drivers side was a royal pain.

After that you have to pull the car side of the harness into the vehicle from behind the kick panel so you can drill out a hole for your speaker wire. It's only held in place by a single clip that pops right out, but once again if you have larger hands it's awkward and there isn't a lot of slack in the wire to play with.

Those are the easy parts. Actually feeding the wire through the grommet inside the door skin sucks hard. You have to use one hand to feed the speaker wire through the grommet from inside the door skin while basically massaging the tubing from outside the door to make sure the wire doesn't get caught on the ridges of the rubber. You're basically feeling the wire through the sheath while it's feeding through. When the wire finally gets to the end of the tubing it has to make a 90 degree turn to exit the harness and the opening is far too small to get into with fingers or needle nose pliers. I had to use tweezers and a tiny screwdriver to guide it out.

Once you've manages to get the speaker wire fed from inside the door to inside the car you have to put it back together again. This is easier than taking it apart but is still awkward. You can't let the latch on the harness open all the way or it gets locked open and you have to take it back out and reset the locking tabs.

Everything here is doable but it's a miserable experience. Much swearing was heard throughout my neighborhood yesterday afternoon.

I'm using the new XDi v2 1100.5 and am extremely impressed. It sounds fabulous for such a small amp, and doesn't have the flat sound I usually associate with class D. I wouldn't call it a warm sound but it's perfectly respectable. Even at insane volume levels it barely gets warm to the touch so that's a bonus as well. Best of all, it seems to be completely free of RF interference, which I've had issues with in the past.

If I had to find something to nitpick it would be the placement of the adjustments behind the shroud. The shroud is held in place by some of the smallest hex screws I've ever seen used on an amp. I had to get out my precision screwdriver set to take it off. All in all, not a big deal, but I wish they had used a more common hex size.

Nillaz

Nillaz

Today is starting off better than yesterday. Turns out that fault code was just the keep alive memory and was most likely tripped by connecting/disconnecting the battery multiple times yesterday. Torque cleared that right up.

I think I'm gonna skip the sound deadening for today. It's just way too hot and muggy out there to be doing it. I would give years of my life for an air conditioned garage.

kenchan

unless im disconnecting something directly related to srs or ECU, i dont disconnect the battery to do any electronics work.

Nillaz

You sir are a braver soul than I.

RonRizz

Yeah, Brutal out there today. Had planned to wax her up for a stereo show in erie on Saturday tonight, had to flip on the Garage a/c as soon as I got home.
Still nasty in there.

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Mitco39

I second that! lol.

My Mrs. actually had an airbag blow up in her face while working at a Kia dealership. It cracks me up everytime she tells the story, I couldn't imagine.

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kenchan

Wow, that's crazy!! Hope she was unhurt.

kenchan

Nah, when you've worked on cars long enough you know when to disconnect.

When in doubt, just disconnect it.

Nillaz

I watched this happen to an audio installer in a shop a few years ago. Air bag in a Mercedes went off in his face and laid him out cold.

This is part of the reason why I always disconnect the battery nowadays. I'm not gonna be that guy.