When removing the pillar trim i start at the back. There are two metal clips above the door opening that will stay one the car, and there are two clips on the windshield pillar that will stay with the trim panel. Taking them off just requires a clip tool and make sure your prying in the right direction. They will come straight down above the door opening and kinda diagonally off the pillar. But getting the top clip on the windshield pillar back in is the hardest as it always seems to be rotated the wrong direction when putting them back in. I just use a clip tool to push it towards the windshield when I put them back in.

As for the mids I used 1/2 mdf. Any thicker and it would hold the door panel out. Also I have quite a bit of material removed from the inside of my door panel to clear everything and it is still a pretty tight fit. These mids fit without removing any material from the door itself but the baffle cannot be any thinner and the mid has to be exacltly were it is at because the basket is about 1/8 inch from the door in several spots. Also I'm only using these up to about 275hz so if your planning on playing the mids up to where a tweeter will take over this probably isnt a good idea as they are just firing directly across at each other.

 

Thank you!

 

"Nice work"
Two simple words a professional appreciates hearing about what he did.
The attention to details, sound proofing and non-hardening clay are first class.
What a build! That job deserves a spread in a Magazine.
I needed to run a wire through the Firewall too.
I pulled the Coolant Overflow Tank and drilled through the Firewall 2-1/2" below the tank, which gave me a clean-through hole behind the top edge of the carpet.

Back to your sound job.
Excellent
How long did it take to do the whole job?

 

Wow, thanks for the kind words. There are some things I can improve on and will come rebuild time but I think I did alright.

Good idea for running the wire! I'll likely be upgrading my power wire to 0ga sometime in the future so I'll definitely keep that in mind.

I did it in stages, mostly on the weekends when time would allow, so it took about a month to month and a half from start date to finish date. Alot of that time was spent trying to figure things out, how to remove seats/panels/wire routes, etc.

 

Veryyy Clean install Bravo, couple of suggestions though. Box. box box box box box. do a complete custom box built to the type of music you listen to perfectly designed to the subs xmax and such. the difference is absolutly substantial (steavemeadedesigns or ROE will agree ). i like to say that the box is 70percent of a subwoofer system. the power wiring that you ran down the center was very clean but a lot more work than you actually needed to do. i ran my 4 gauge through the exact same gromit same corner to lol, but ran mine through the long skinny panel to right of the passenger seat on the floor and fit fine. I know mines a little smaller but i think it would run, allso if you do upgrade 0guage is unneccisarry unless your about to run 3 batterys or something. i then ran it under the seat and straight into the trunk and mounted my amp on the fold down seat along with a cap. If your ever interested in a box i can write up some 3d google sketchup blueprints for you with cut out sheets and all you got to do is put it together. and one last thing that dash kit is sooooooooooooo clean my lord i bet i could replace that kit with soap in the shower and come out smelling like roses, but was wandering do you think you could get that glowing blue monte carlo light without a dash kit, i was thinking if you put that in the back headrests or in the dash it would like so tight.

 

Welcome to the board man, seems like you've got a little audio knowledge under your belt too and that's always welcome around here. Stick around for a while!

Box - I knew I'd catch heat for going with a prefab, but I didn't do so blindly. I had no tools or even desire to build a custom box when I began planning this build, even more so once I found this box. It was built to the exact volume and tuning frequency of my subs as recommended to me by a tech at Image Dynamics, and the fact that it looks so damn good was just icing on the cake! The only thing I'd do differently is get one that's tuned higher cause this thing slams the lows but suffers on the higher notes (44Hz and up)....and mentioning SMD immediately renders your point null and void, haha. I don't like that place, filled with a bunch of nuthuggin', junk ridin', pompous inbreds who aren't allowed to tell the truth about the products or customer service of any manufacturer who has a presence on the board. If it's mainstream, you can slam them, but if it's an underground company who is a forum sponsor or partner then you can't say anything but good about them.

Power wire - I did in fact need to run it the way I did so I could keep my power wire and signal wires totally seperate. When I installed the components in my front doors I ran all new speaker wire to them and those wires were run inside the door sills so running the power lead along with the speaker wires is a big no-no in my book. Upgrading would definitely be necessary if I were to run enough power to exceed what the existing wire could handle, which I don't plan on doing. But my point is that the number of batteries you run is not the determining factor on if you need to upgrade the wire, it's how much current the amp or amps it's feeding is/are pulling.

Box design - Thanks for the offer but i've got that covered. I'm actually about to start my sub stage rebuild this weekend and am going to build a stout little sealed box with a double baffle/beauty board. New subs, sub amp, mids/highs amp, and front components all going in. Also going to relocate my factory deck to avoid complications I had the first go 'round.

Dash kit - That seems to be the thing everyone loves about my system. I think it's the best kit available, without a doubt. Not too sure if it can be had w/o the kit but I wouldn't be interested in putting it anywhere else.

Stay tuned cause I will be updating this thread shortly once I start the rebuild!

 

actually i 100percent agree on you on smd i dont even remember if i joined but just by going on the site i really didnt like it. respect steve though. Im all about roe though for my boom booms. on the prefab box tho it is a very good pre fab box, but still even though the designer says its the perfect box for it it never really is, its like how kicker brags about how there boxes are absolutly perfect for the sub when really there cheap and perfect for the average joe who thinks the gains are a volume switch .all so I ran all the speaker wires through one side and power on the other, lastly You just said you were gonna re locate your stock stereo to. are you having issues without using the stock? i currently am still running stock because of all the issues iv heard about pulling the stock out of montes. i refuse to buy a stereo untill i buy the best kenwood or pioneer double din on the market while FOR SURE retaining all the features such as door chimes and all so i have to have my steering wheel controls, i just dont think i can drive without them. and thats kinda a whole lot of money for a hu but it defiantly is on its way.

 

There's no right way or wrong way to run speaker/power wires so long as you keep your signal cables away from your power cables. You think I ran my power lead the hard way, I think you did your speaker wires the hard way, we're even!:p

Yeah, I began having tons of issues once I pulled the factory head unit, numerous and random lights would light up in the cluster, traction system would show faults and ended up being disabled everytime I started the car, random starting issues ending in not starting at all, airbags disabled, false abs control unit fault and numerous unfounded codes were thrown. It was all bad bro, really. How did this all get fixed? Starting issue may have been a coincidence but it was fixed by replacing the shift selector switch. I haven't had any further issues since putting my factory deck back in and resetting the ecu, imagine that.

So this time around I will be relocating the factory head unit to inside the center console armrest (if I can get it to fit, I think I can) so I don't have to deal with those headache's anymore.

 

did you use one of those kits that keeps all your montes stuff working cause i know they make kits for pretty cheap that plug into where your stock goes and sends all the info the stock stereo would normally but without the bulk. I wanted to see if those were any good before i go all out on mine.

 

I did, I used the Scosche GM09SR