50lb of stuff in a 5 lb bag? :) 11 Camaro - Arc , Illusion, Audiomobile, Mosconi

[IBM/2SS/RS/LS3]

My build log from DIYMA:

Originally Posted by simplicityinsound

I am always one for keeping functionality and stealth factor to a maximum when building a car, which often involves trying to fit a large number of components in the stock space in the trunk. But even that has its limits, and when the customer presented his idea on his 2011 Camaro SS, I have to admit I had my doubts that it was possible...

Lets visit the goals set:

1. Achieve a nice level of sound quality utilizing stock mounting locations and signal source

2. NOT A SINGLE HOLE drilled in metal, zero pieces of metal cut or trimmed, not even for rivet nuts, meaning everything had to be somehow secured via oem hardware

3. fit 3 amps, signal processor, two subs and all the accompanied wiring and enclosure in the trunk without sacficing an ounce of trunk spare.

So, normally, this isnt a big issue, and the camaro's spare tire well is pretty large, however, there was one big problem with that, and that is, a decent sized battery sits smack dab in the middle of the spare tire well

here is a picture to show what i am talking about, pulled from the web:



Hence the title of this thread, I really felt we were pushing it trying to cram all that gear around the battery in the well, but Joey was somewhat confident in being able to pull it off, so off we went.

The car's stock signal source was retained, so nothing to show there.when trying to run speaker wires into the door, I encountered an issue that I guess I sorta knew about going in. That is, the oem molex was completely filled. The limitation of not being able to drill and metal means running our own separate loom and tube was out of question. I talked it over with the customer and in the end came up with a compromise:

I would run a very short length of new speaker wire outside of the oem hose, but dive into the hose right away. every effort would be taken to ensure the exposed length of wire is protected and as invisible as possible.

There is a bit of empty spare above the molex plug for the wires, in this case, two pairs, to go through, what I did was slice a thin hole in the factory rubber hose, heatshrinked the length of wire that will be exposed, dabbed a little bit of silcone around the opening, and passed the wire through. Here is the end result with the entire plug removed from the kick panel area.



It isnt the preferred method of course, but under the limitation I think it came out pretty good Here is the plug back in place, with the two sets of speaker wire ran:



Since no additional holes were to be drilled for rivet nuts, I utlized a Bestkits GM spacer that uses the same snap in and single bolt mounting system as before, and made a stack of spacer rings to mimic the oem mounting location:



The rings were coated with several coats of truck bedliner to protect them against the elements, and the secured to the Bestkits plastic adapter:





This whole assembly was then secured to the car, the outter door skin recieved a few pieces of Blackhole tile, and then adapter itself was sealed against the door with STP bomb damper:





The heavy factory sound proofing material was quite sturdy and thick so it was left in place. I then secured the Illusion Audio Carbon C6 midbass to the spacer:





I focused my attention next on the door card, which recieved a combo layer of Focal BAM XXXL and Blackhole foil damper:



This whole process was of course repeated on the passenger side:















The tweeter assembly was relatively straightfoward, involving taking apart the factory mounting pod, removing the stock tweeter, and securing the Illusion Carbon tweeters, they barely fit, but they fit





Next comes a series of wiring pics showing the bundle as they travel from the front of the vehicle to the rear, only speaker wires were ran with a backup remote turn on wire incase we could not find a good source in the back, the speaker wires from the driver side cross over under the back seat so all of them enter the trunk on the passenger side:





















As they enter the trunk, they are ziptied to stock loom, the Mosconi 4to6 DSP is mounted to a board that is secured in a empty space to oem mounting points, and the rca cables join the speaker wires in the run to the spare tire well:







The customer supplied me with a T harness with RCA adapters soldered in place (********), this I plugged inline with the oem amp, and ran a pair of rca cables and remote turn on wire to the DSP and the spare tire well:



Here you see all the signal wires going into the spare tire well from the passenger side, running along the bottom next to oem wiring and then pops out the front side infront of the battery. this is so the enclosure and amp rack can be built above it:



Here is the simple mounting board for the dsp, the back foamed to prevent any rattles:





To gain maximum bass response in the cabin, the customer came up with a pretty cool idea. He wanted to make sure the back up sensor beepers, which is routed through the oem rear speaker, was retained, so he instructed me to cut out the midbass speaker but keep the bridge mounted speaker above it which is used for the beeper, the result was pretty cool and works perfectly:





The speakers were then mounted back in place, and the rear deck recieved some BAM XXXL:



The outter shell was then painted black:







and the entire inside was covered in carpet via several steps, the subwoofer wiring was ran at this time as well:









at this point, i took over and started wiring up the amps, when they were done, all the wires can come into the battery area via a slot Joey had cut. as you can see, quite a bit of wiring:





a final look at the battery and bare spare tire well before the structure went back in the car:



finally, a few shots of the various pieces before and after carpeting.

the rack above the battery:





the battery top cover, with spacers secured to the backside to properly locate it in the correct position each time:







and finally, the top cover, with its vents, before and after:





so thats it the sound was pretty good with so many limintations. the stage is nice and high, the center is okay but slightly diffused perhaps with how the oem spot fires into the dash, but width is superb and midbass impact is spot on. The oem signal source was decent, and overall tonality is nicely balanced. The bass was okay, though with only two little 8s in a big car, they aren't earth shattering, but it does have decent extension and blends in very well.

Though Joey was confident going into it, he later commented that if any of the components was any bigger, even perhaps by half an inch, this idea would not have worked...so big kudos to him

This was a seemingly simply build but presented several challenges, and I am very pleased to say they were all overcome and the customer's strict limitations were met 100 percent!

cheers,

Bing

[darkrider01]

You took your car to one of the best installers in the country. They do some incredible work.

[lscamaro]

I spend some time over on Diyma and I have to say, Bing is amazing at what he does! How do you like the new system?

[lscamaro]

Originally Posted by darkrider01

You took your car to one of the best installers in the country. They do some incredible work.

x1000000000

[Iwantone2]

"Wow" is an understatement!

[IBM/2SS/RS/LS3]

Originally Posted by lscamaro

I spend some time over on Diyma and I have to say, Bing is amazing at what he does! How do you like the new system?

I've had it home since Thursday and so far so good. I'd like to clean up the wiring a bit but other than that

[grocerygetter]

Bing ...nice! Good job!
-john Sketoe

[montej23]

very creative

[TeamTCA]

Nice job! Great use of space...

[IBM/2SS/RS/LS3]

Thanks everyone

[mbober99]

Originally Posted by IBM/2SS/RS/LS3

Thanks everyone

Just curious, how long did it take to get that work done? It came out super sweet....i have a camaro also, and was doing a ton of work to it but its taking forever for me because of weather and lack of experience doing it for first time...hahaha

[IBM/2SS/RS/LS3]

Originally Posted by mbober99

Just curious, how long did it take to get that work done? It came out super sweet....i have a camaro also, and was doing a ton of work to it but its taking forever for me because of weather and lack of experience doing it for first time...hahaha

They had it almost 2 weeks.

[lscamaro]

With bing it's definitely worth the wait though

[terry_b]

Great build!