cleaned up the exhaust a bit

I ghetto rigged a half broken desk lamp onto the rear deck of my car as a work light so I don't waste my battery with interior lights, and it works so much better than interior lights! :o





Visibility is much better now, and I'm not constantly squinting to see stuff. I'm using my Hobo hoodie and the cheap ass memory foam pillow as padding, That crappy pillow sucks for me as an actual pillow, but it's amazing as work use padding :o

I need a plate depressor to remove my steering wheel, I believe which my step dad is going to bring home, so I won't mess with the re installing the dash until then.



Painted the housing for the interior light and sunroof switch black, and I'm going to paint the other light housings black as well. I can always switch to the blue ones if I don't like it, and I can also use the blue one to easily fabricate a new 3 way rocker switch for my sunroof if I can't fix the current switch.



While I make this post I'm going to wait to finish this part here switching pedals and whatnot because I don't wanna make it harder than it is, so I'll take this time to rewire my sound system with better wire, and I never wired the front speakers to the back amp yet. While I do that, I hope someone helps out with this:



Do I need to remove those 4 bolts and the other one somewhat hidden to remove the brake pedal, or is there an easier way? I really don't want to yell at it for an hour to get those really hard to reach bolts out, but I see no other way for the brake pedal. The gas pedal was just a snap ring and pull out, the brake had a snap ring, and that removed it from the pressure plunger thing, but it looks like I'm going to have to remove the entire frame around the break and disconnect the electronics, including those pain in the ass bolts, so can the brake pedal be removed at the fulcrum above the plunger; it's REALLY hard to see in detail so I could be missing something. Or do I need to remove the entire frame around the pedal which looks like it's completely TAC welded together?

I'll go work on other stuff for a while hoping I get a quick answer on that, lol.

robotennis61 wrote:

nice.but whats up with the sizing of the pics?

You have no idea how much Iv'e downsized these pics, lol. My new camera is 24.3 mega pixels >_>




My general use lens is garbage right now, and I have no macro lens yet, but that's a 100% crop of the above pic. I don't see what's wrong with my sizing

Wow, nice work so far. Interesting seeing the the interior completely removed. But yea I was wondering why that 95 was a "parts car"..till I read about how the engine runs. Yea i'm sure it's toast, and besides the steering wheel that's an awesome blue interior, I agree. You don't see the interesting color interior all that much, besides the usual gray and tan. I think there is red, that blue, a light blue, and some kinda ugly green.

I almost want a parts Riviera now...

But I still say...Turbo!!! or top swap! Haha.

Quote :

You have no idea how much Iv'e downsized these pics, lol. My new camera is 24.3 mega pixels

Just set the image display size using BB code. It can be 100 MP and it works the same:

https://rivperformance.editboard.com/t2496-image-size-code-please-use-it

AA wrote:

Quote :

You have no idea how much Iv'e downsized these pics, lol. My new camera is 24.3 mega pixels

Just set the image display size using BB code. It can be 100 MP and it works the same:

https://rivperformance.editboard.com/t2496-image-size-code-please-use-it

Thanks for that link, now most of my pics will definitely be smaller but clickable



I'll leave this a bit bigger cause I though it was so cool, and any smaller, you wouldn't see any detail at all :p


I was up all night, redoing all the wiring to my sound system, but most of the time was me figuring out the best possible cable rout to completely eliminate cross talk between audio wires. I'm going to post a Write-Up a little later on the best possible cable management setup to be 100% invisible, as well as no cross talk that is primarily a guide to wire a 4 channel amp in the back to your door speakers without using the garbage crappy gauge wire in the wire harness, which means you also don't have to hack up cables that are factory to get some of the nicest cable setups. My years of building and overclocking computers with extreme care of cable management really helped there, lol.

FYI, panoramic views are one of the least efficient ways to display images on our board. The width is key, and 720 pixels is the magic number. You can get creative and capture very tall portrait images with good results. In some of the write-ups for example, you can have very good detail while still meeting the 720 pixel width requirement. Since you have the high MP capability, it's very easy to crop an image down, effectively zooming in. This also helps focus, eliminating unnecessary areas in the scene (example: we could do without the stretch of road in front of the white house in the image above, reducing width and preserving detail).

AA wrote:

FYI, panoramic views are one of the least efficient ways to display images on our board. The width is key, and 720 pixels is the magic number. You can get creative and capture very tall portrait images with good results. In some of the write-ups for example, you can have very good detail while still meeting the 720 pixel width requirement. Since you have the high MP capability, it's very easy to crop an image down, effectively zooming in. This also helps focus, eliminating unnecessary areas in the scene (example: we could do without the stretch of road in front of the white house in the image above, reducing width and preserving detail).

Very true, lol. I guess I have been going Apeshit with pics lately lol >_>

Then again, I just started trying to seriously fix up my car. there's so many little things inside the interior you'd never think about, easy to lose, hard to keep track of, very frustrating, easy to break.. It goes on lol.

I guess the good news is since spending like 10 hours meticulously cabling through my sound wires over and over agian, redoing it multiple times until I was happy, I could probably rewire most of the electical in the Riv, and diagnose a lot. Mostly engine harness is where I'd be screwed at the moment, but today hopefully I'll hqave swapped the carpet, pedals, console, seats and belts, and possibly more.

I'm pretty sure I there was a contact plate inside the 3 way rocker switch for my sunroof, but I didn't even see one in there. It's like it dissapeared, so I'm going to have to go to radioshack, and see what I can do about this issue, lol.

Also, a big time saver, are the brake pedals easy to remove or am I missing something? Seems like there's a pin permanantly fixed to the frame holding it in at the fulcrum, and the snap ring fixes it to the plunger, then you need to remove those annoying bolts :/

There is a reason that the brake pedal is "tough to remove" and if I were you I'd leave it alone. If you just "need" something to do consider the following please:

+ You might consider getting some masking tape and a pen (a ultrafine point Sharpie(TM) and marking those dangling wires, at least the ones that are not obvious (for instance the antenna lead is obvious).

+ You also might consider getting some 12v green pilot lights from Radio Shack to add in places where you could use them but they were not put in factory, like the well that holds the auxiliary front powerpoint, inside the *exterior* door handle pull wells, and the undersides of the seats (to glow the rear passenger footwell area, you can get the 12v hotwire from the power seat switches, check a wiring diagram to find the ~12v line). You can simply wire each of these to the nearest respective instrument light.

I was actually thinking of going green high output LED's if I could find them but it'd be hard to find, so I'd have to first find parts then fabricate most likely. Speaking of fabrication..













I ended up re engineering my cabin light into hallogen lamps which are much brighter now

I'm pretty sure I need to re fabricate the sunroof 3 way swtich as well. shouldn't be too hard with the right one

Some day in th e future when I have time, I'll re-abricate my headlights

Corey, how did you tint your tail light? Will you upload some close up shots of the finish?

those halogens are kinda interesting but I think they will run way too hot for their intended purpose - as map lights.

For LEDs you can fabricate into things try

www.oznium.com

for LEDs ready to plug and play in auto fittings (taillights and what not) try

superbrightleds.com

Albertj

charlieRobinson wrote:

Corey, how did you tint your tail light? Will you upload some close up shots of the finish?

https://rivperformance.editboard.com/t5202-write-up-tinting-headlights-turn-signals-tail-lenses

Corey, if you have any photos of the process, please post at the above link. Thx.

charlieRobinson wrote:

Corey, how did you tint your tail light? Will you upload some close up shots of the finish?

I'm going to tint the tail lights from parts Buick and make a. Detailed Write up.

albertj wrote:

those halogens are kinda interesting but I think they will run way too hot for their intended purpose - as map lights.

For LEDs you can fabricate into things try

www.oznium.com

for LEDs ready to plug and play in auto fittings (taillights and what not) try

superbrightleds.com

Albertj

Thanks for the link. Much apriciated. By the way, I ran the halogen bulbs on house power for over an hour before the full cure time of the plastic epoxy, they are low watt 12 volt bulbs super easy and cheap to replace.

AA wrote:

charlieRobinson wrote:

Corey, how did you tint your tail light? Will you upload some close up shots of the finish?

https://rivperformance.editboard.com/t5202-write-up-tinting-headlights-turn-signals-tail-lenses

Corey, if you have any photos of the process, please post at the above link. Thx.

I'll make a write up in that thread if you wish

RE the Halogens - I will keep that in mind. You got a number for those bulbs?

I'll have to look at them again in a few days to tell you as I'm in DC visiting my brother, lol. That aluminum backplate really helps to disperse the light evenly too, and I sort of found some small halogen lights laying in the woods hop no on needed so I decided to try to fabricate them into my map lights while the dye was drying on my headliner.

albertj wrote:

RE the Halogens - I will keep that in mind. You got a number for those bulbs?

http://www.satcolightbulbs.com/satco-s3171-10t3-cl.asp


Those are pretty much the same exact bulbs that I'm using, but the cheapest online. As for the housing, you can use anything from a crappy cheap flashlight parabolic mirror to focus the light, from any number of premade Halogen lights that you might find for cheap to make your life easier if you wish to do that. It's an easy thing to do to find crimp connectors that the lights will easily slip in and out of, but I'd recommend finding the right seating made for the bulb from somewhere. Other than a complete bulb housing assembly I'm not sure where to get the plug that the bulb plugs into though, but puck lights are pretty cheap anyway.

turtleman wrote:

cool! i want high res pictures of all this dash stuff/wiring!
BTW, take that dash top piece off. It helps a lot to have it out of the way. with the pillar trim off and the front panel screws out it's already loose - just pull it kinda out towards the rear of the car and disconnect like 1 connector

https://2img.net/r/ihimg/a/img854/3738/dsc00828b.jpg

Here's a pretty high res pic of the Parts Buick wiring harness. I put the one in my buick back together all fine, but it's slightly different since I didn't use any reference or service manual what so ever, but it's slightly tweaked the way I liked it there, so this is perfectly stock on a 95 Riv which is almost identical to any newer one axcept for a few plug housings are slightly different. You can easily use this as a map to put a new wire harness in any new generation Riv, which I didn't have the luxury of using at the time, lol.




I decided to use the top part of the console from my Buick because the one in the Parts Buick is messed up, and I don't wish to repair it, so I'm going to scrape off all that wood, primer it, sand down the ABS plastic smooth, make the ABS satin black, and the metal plate part will have a high gloss black finish. I'm going slightly two tone to not make so much blue make the interior look too cheesy. The dashboard, top of console, certain light housings, and steering wheel and it's housing will be black.




I died the steering wheel from the parts buick black. I might just take out the steering wheel controls because it seems that the wire harness has to support it, which mine doesn't. The leather was also died black on the bottom. The top has no leather because it was torn up bad. I might try to find some leather some time to re wrap the top part eventually, but the vinyl actually looks and feels nice the way it is.



Took off most of the crappy wood veneer



These are pretty nice 5.25" Kevlar drivers which can take about 40 watts RMS, no idea on peak power but I'm sure it's over 200watts. They are sturdy woofers, and sound really good. I will use the crossover system from the Alpine 6.5 inch speaker kit I bought a while ago, and the swivel mount silk dome tweeters will be mounted left and right of the dashboard on the corners of the door part od the dash. I made holes right next to the two holes on those panels to mount them, so there is now 3 holes and the tweeters will be at near ear level, and the front speakers with tweeters can handle about 75-80 watts RMS I'm guessing. Tweeters will sound really clear

This will just be my setup for a while until I can figure a way to better fabricate some fiberglass for the 6.5 inch Alpine speakers which can handle 80 watts RMS and well over 200 watts peak with the tweeters also hooked up. I haven't hooked up tweeters yet because I'm painting the panels from my buick now and doing prep work to make the gloss black, but I hooked up the woofers for a bit to test midbass, and those little 5 inch woofers have more midbass than the Alpine 6x9's, which blew my mind! I could feel the bass really well even without my subwoofer on, although obviously it's not going to vibrate my skull like the two 12" I have in the back I'm also going to stuff in a lot of polyfill into the door cavity, and try to line the metal with some rubbery foam stuff to try and reduce any resonation that might come from the metal, but use as much space inside the door panel as I can to make the drivers respond better. I'll probably use the rubber/foam lining off the parts buick door panels, and glue patches of it inside the door cavity then the polyfill will take care of the rest.

I will also try my best to make a guide for people who wish to wire a 4 channel amp in their trunk to the door speakers without using the crappy wire harness wiring from the pics I took, but it's not going to be easy to remember all the details and such.

I was really glad that the blend doors from Parts Buick seem to work, but my AC still has no cold air but I think I need to recharge the AC. Blend doors were a pain in the ass to replace with the instrument panel behind the dash in, but I got it done

I still have to swap the pedals from Parts Buick, finish the console, put the underside of the dash in, paint the headliner interior light housings black, swap out the hood and trunk from Parts Buick, My gauge cluster got sent to professionals to get rebuilt, because it's not working right. (By the way, a 95 Riv Gauge Cluster won't work right with a new generation. so you all know)

Also, I have to figure out how to swap the trunk locks and glovebox locks (I think my door panel trunk button doesn't work because my glove box isn't wired in and without the glovebox there is no circuit to the trunk button on the door panel do to the switch to lock access to the trunk via doorpanel inside the glovebox? The gas cap button seems like it want's to work and I can hear it click but I think it might not be aligned right so I have to figure that out and if all else fails I can take the button assembly out of the door panel from my buick and use the blue trim off the Parts Buick. I also have to figure out why my sunroof rocker switch doesn't work, and I may have to fabricate my own 3-way rocker switch for it, which I'm not looking forward to. Wiring the switch will be easy, making it look like factory will be really hard. So other than that, and a few trim panels, and the seatbelt assembly is still not swapped yet, my Buick is pretty much almost done being put back together. I'm hoping to finish it within the next few days, get it to pass inspection and get new tags, then redo tinting my tail lights since my tailights got cracked a while ago from my car, so good thing I have an extra set. I might wanna get brighter bulbs for the housing assembly though. Also I'll make a detailed guide to tint the tail lights and make it look good for people who requested

Thanks Corey! That's a good reference shot for the dash. What is that plastic box that teh big bundle of wires goes to? It's a hard to tell in the pic - a connector or one of the modules?

turtleman wrote:

Thanks Corey! That's a good reference shot for the dash. What is that plastic box that teh big bundle of wires goes to? It's a hard to tell in the pic - a connector or one of the modules?

No problem



I think you meant that? It plugs in under the dash somewhat close to the pedals and you need a 6mm socket driver I think, but it's really hard to read the lettering on the only driver I have that happens to fit it. I think it's either a 6 or 8mm hex bolt, but yeah that's the entire dash wire harness right there.

I'm really beginning to wonder why Iv'e spent dozens of hours in the past week trying to restore my interior to like new quality, when my car's bluebook is worth less than my sound system, it's worth less than my wheels retail for brand new, it's worth less than my engine block as is and it's not even an L67..

Anyway I think I'm going to try to swap my pedals over today and also the seat belts from Parts Buick and maybe the hood and trunk. I noticed my gas cap won't electronically release but it clicks, and I'm thinking it is an alignment issue so I might actually swap gas caps too. Trunk wouldn't release because my glove box wiring was disconnected just as I thought.

Oh and also I want to finish my panels on either side of dash and the console top piece today. I want those damn swivel mount silk dome tweeters and crossovers installed, and I'm going to stuff polyfill in my door cavities and line the back of the door at least with rubbery foam stuff to delete any echoey resonating that might happen from the metal/paint coats reflecting sound.

other than that I'm pretty much completely done re wiring my sound system and it's as good as it's gunna get. No power wire, remote wire, pre amp cables or speaker wire is even touching one another, whatso ever at all in any point in the entire wiring of my car, and my damn 4 channel Alpine STILL BUZZES, but it's a lot less than before and barely there. IT used to sound like a damn turbo was in my car. I'm just going to assume the amp as no filtering in it or it's broken, and since I want to get my MB Quart RA 4200 fixed and I think I just need to replace busted capacitors to do that and I'm good to go, and that amp never buzzed,




What I plan to eventually do for my sound system is to get an Asus Nexus 7 Wifi version

http://durexscomputerstore.com/Nw-ASUS-NEXUS7-Jelly-Bean-Android-Tablet-P2839521.aspx?utm_source=google&utm_medium=Product_Search&utm_campaign=google_base

http://www.google.com/nexus/#/7/specs

It has GPS, a 720P 7" (pefect size for the doubled in space) IPS screen (which has the best color accuracy out of any panel technology out), android 4,1 Jelly Bean which supports USB audio (see where I'm going here?) oh and it has an awesome GPS nav system in it too. Also that Tegra III quad core is extremely powerful for a tablet, and it's pretty much as fast as a netbook.

I'm going t fabricate that into my dashboard and probably silicone or epoxy it in so I can remove it without damaging the dash if I need to, hook up wiring in the space behind it, and mount a high end 24 bit 192k USB dac into the dash flush mounted with nice looking volume knob, wire the USB DAC pre outs which will be 2 volts to a line driver to boost it up to 20 volts I believe,

http://amazon.nuforce-icon.com/NuForce-Icon-uDAC2-Silver-Headphone-Amp/M/B003Y5LY1C.htm

http://www.amazon.com/Rockford-Fosgate-Balanced-Line-Driver/dp/B001P86SJ8/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1349079396&sr=1-1&keywords=line+driver

I will wire a 4 port powered USB hub to an OTG adapter into the tablet. One port will be going to the USB DAC, two of them will be flush mounted card readers to add 64gb+ SD cards flush mounted to the dashboard, and the last one will flush mount a USB port discretely on the dashboard. I plan to find a better DAC than that and that's just an example, but I want it to have Line input available, and I will flush mount a line input to the dash as well. I'm also hoping I can figure out a way to use bluetooth to reverse the AD2P interface to turn the tablet itself into a bluetooth receiver for any phone which would be REALLY AWESOME. I will also hook up a bluetooth OBD II reader to the car to have the tablet read engine stats, engine lights, diagnose and have the ability to delete codes, and record 0-60 and quarter mile times with a working skid pad as well.

My Galaxy Note will be a 4g LTE hotspot using my grandfather clause unlimted data plan, giving the tablet internet when I want to while the phone charges or whatever.


This will give my car a completely lossless audio sound system when I play FLAC files, have the ability to interface somewhat with my phone, Pandora and GPS will be available, and I literally won't need to change a damn thing in my wiring because I already prepared my car for the switch.



So far I don't think this has ever been done to a car, and this will surpass any stock head unit that retails for even over $600, with better GPS than any purpose built GPS system as android navigation is the best you can get, and my music will automatically mute for directions while it talks, making driving safe. The line in will be extremely useful too, just to connect anything to my head unit, and the volume knob will be an awesome touch, so I'll just have the tablet hooked up and a volume knob next to it, and discrete places for inputs and SD cards. Also I can get Wifi external hard drives available to endlessly expand the storage capabilities of the tablet, but 150 or so gigs from the SD cards plus tablet storage would be more than enough especially when I could get 32gb cards for about 30 bucks each and just load up FLACS on those and label them and use them like miniature CD's.

I'm hoping I can get everything together for the tablet conversion within a few months, and finding the right DAC will be hard, and I'm not entirely sure how well the line driver will work with it but I'm pretty confident this is going to work well, and it will kick ass, and be an extremely good system, because the DAC makes such a big difference and I have a lot of experience with that. I'd put up a build log about it too. By the way I could literally hook up a true surround sound system in my car that way with true Dolby 5.1 watching ripped blue rays on the tablet if I wanted, but that would be retarded, because I will barely ever do that and music is only coded in stereo. I kind of wish that they had high end 4.1 channel stereo SPDIF decoders available for cars though, and the fact that they don't really tells you that this is pretty much not very normal to do in a car, lol.

speaking of which my tail lights are in my basement for when I have time to wet sand it smooth to prep for tinting them lol

The dash side panels are pretty much done being repainted now and I got the swivel mount silk dome tweeters installed. These are going to sound so damn amazing at EAR LEVEL, and instantly adjustable to almost any angle, paired with Kevlar drivers taken straight out of my professional studio monitors, using a really good crossover system from a really good set of Alpine 6.5" set of speakers. I'm going to glue some rubbery foam on the back of the door cavities and then stuff the door cavities with polyfill to eliminate wire vibration and make it sound better as well. I'm actually super excited to hear my sound system later today when it's finished

I finally got my panels fit in!

It sounds SUPER CLEAR, just a tiny bit of echo but I'm sure that's because I'm missing most of the upper panels in my car that would absorb that sound. I need to EQ it a bit, tune the gain some and whatnot, but it sounds just about as clear as my professional studio monitors did. I wouldn't be able to tell this if I didn't sample about 300 songs that I know extremely well and realize the DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) in my head unit reading music off my little thumbdrive (ALL THE HEAD UNIT QUALITY HERE) was is pretty crappy. I noticed today how extremely well Staind seems to record their songs and how good they truly sound on 320k today though. Playing Staind sounded pretty much just as good as my professional studio monitors hooked up to my extremely high end video card sounded on the same tracks.

By FAR, the weakest link of my sound system is now the recording quality of my music, and the head unit DAC itself, and most people would NEVER complain about this, but I want truly high fidelity sound out of my car, with eventually completely lossless audio. The thing I love about these silk dome tweeters is the angle they're set to at ear level completely fills the car (even in the back seats) and no legs or anything can possibly muffle them, and they are super crisp and clear but even at max volume will never sound harsh at all.



Cleaned up the subs a bit, added 500,000 Micro Farad giant capacitor to extend my peak power and eliminate light dimming when the sub slams, and bolted my amps to the back of the sub enclosure. Yeah, yeah, I know Alpine Type E 200 watt RMS, 750watt peak is considered garbage, but they will vibrate your skull and disrupt breathing a little, and sound decently clean while doing it. The really nice sub box REALLY helps these subs on the lows. I plan to have better subs eventually, but I definitely don't need louder, I'd only want deeper, and 25Hz really aint bad. Next sub build will aim towards at least flat to 15Hz or less.





A big issue is driver side panel. It's pretty mangled up because when I screwed in the retention nuts that fix it in place, it snapped off the plastic by not much force at all, so I had to find a way around it, and manhandling it in place took it's toll. I kinda wish I learned the valuable info I found out BEFORE I drilled a hole through it and put a giant screw through it, but you all can learn from my lesson:

if you ever break those plastic flimsy bolt on parts that screw the door panels on, you can most likely take one of the retention nuts, flip it around, and use a short, somewhat fat screw and use the nut as a washer, and screw the panels in place, and it will work just as well as the factory made it.

Basically I'm going to get a really heavy duty pair of end nippers, cut the screw, dremel it flush with the panel, sand it smooth, going past the clear coat, masking tape the hell out of the door, add another basecoat of satin black, another clearcoat, let the clearcoat dry for a week before touching it, then sand it smooth past 3000 grit, buff it with compound, then use plastic polish to seal it.

So it was bothering me all night why my sound system just didn't sound quite right, and I realized exactly why when I noticed it sounded much better with the door opened



Actually, the way those swivel mount silk domes are mounted like that, I can literally back my car up, pop the trunk open, open the doors and have a very big, but portable boombox lolol, it sounds super clear from over 20 feet away, behind the car

Anyway, the problem was be being stupid with dyslexia and I wired the left and right speaker terminals into the amp backwards, which was causing phase issues from about 250 Hz+, making it sound weird and ever so slightly muffled. A normal listening audience would NEVER instantly pick that up most likely, but I do have trained ears, and it was REALLY bothering me. It was still super clear wired phased like that, but since a 250 Hz sound wave at 72 degrees, at sea level with probably about 40% humidity should have around a 4.5 ft wavelength, which is about the length from front to back speakers, give or take, I was haveing phase issues probably around 200 Hz simply nearly canceling each other out, and 250-400 being muffled, then about 700+ having just weird phase problems ever so slightly, and 8,000+ just wasn't as clear as I'd like. My DAC is still crappy and I could still tell, even moreso, and I REALLY noticed how badly I need to fix my MB Quart RA 4200 amp and set it to rear and left/right channel, then simply use the line out fromt he MB Quart for subs instead of using a ghetto RCA splitter the way I am now. This solves voltage issues much better, and I have to measure it with a multi meter but I'm pretty sure it's probably less than 1.5 volts for the component speakers at the moment which means I have to play at max gain, which causes some distortion at max volume. The sub has cleared up great though with the new wiring and capacitor, Also, I'm working on finishing my Pioneer 10" dual subs in a 1 cu ft sealed (and I mean SEALED, with lots of glue and silicone sealant) box wired into a 2 ohm load for a 400 watt RMS 2 ohm really small, compact sub with 1600 watts peak, which is flat down to about 27 Hz, and when I tested it before it was sealed as well, it was actually more musical than my Alpine 12"s, and hit almost as hard. I was ASTONISHED at that, and might even end up replacing those dual 12"s with the 10", or simply sell the dual 10"s for a nice price when I'm completely finished making it look nice and pretty which will take about 3 tubes of epoxy putty, lots of sanding, and some good spray paint. It stands on little plastic feet





New head unit color matches the blue interior and green gauges so well




Today I plan on finishing this console top piece and smoothing out the ABS plastic a bit, and getting a nice gloss finish on that clear coat on the aluminum piece I painted black.


So you guys know, Kyrlon Fusion sticks AMAZINGLY WELL To automotic primer, so automotive primer and then krylon fusion, followed by Kyrlon fusion clear UV (takes forever to dry by the way) after about 7 days will be a rock hard finish and much more durable than a crappy enamel finish and look MUCH better in my opinion with proper prep work done. I got lazy with the dry time on my panels, and that really showed, but I can fix that pretty easily. I'm hoping to get a really nice gloss finish on that metal piece where the wood trim was

This was the center console top piece before I refinished it, from my Buick.



This is after I repainted it. The ABS plastic needs a couple more coats and the clear coat needs more dry time cause it's still soft so I'll redo the sanding, but I'm really pleased with how it came out

Time to put a few more coats on the ABS, then start finishing my tail light tinting redo, then later put my console back together

Shifter plate looks nice. I'd like to know how well the Krylon sticks to your wheel after a while, after 6 months and a year of normal driving. I'd also like to know how the interior smells after painting the panels. Is it tolerable?

As for your sound quality issue, the reason it sounds so good behind the car is phase (time alignment). Phase improves because the speakers are more equidistant to your ears. Inside the car, phase becomes misaligned between the midwoofer and tweeters, because of their path-length distances to your ears is different. This can result in the tweeters sounding like their doing their own thing, not seamless with the mids. Or the music just doesn't have much life.

The hard thing about phasing problems is that they can't be corrected with EQ. Only speaker placement or special delay circuits can improve the sound. Oddly enough, flipping the polarity of both tweeters can resolve phase misalignment by delaying the wave a fraction of a second, so that it better matches the mids. This isn't guaranteed, but sometimes it works when the tweeters are installed high in the door or dash. It's a trick some sound quality installers have known for a long time. Even some OEM systems employ reversed polarity with dash mounted tweeters, even though they mark the wires correctly so as not to confuse anyone.

If I where you, I'd try swapping the phase on both tweeters to see if it helps. Maybe attenuate the levels since they are so close to your ears. Even so, there's always going to be a greater path-length ratio from your ears to the tweeters than from your ears to the mids due to the high location, which is not something that can be fixed. This is why you see mid/woofer/tweeter locations is always on relatively on the same plane in home audio, and sometimes they even move the tweeter back, so the voice coils are aligned. Same things happens in a car, and it's one reason coaxial speakers have been proven to sound so good, even in the lower price range.

AA wrote:

Shifter plate looks nice. I'd like to know how well the Krylon sticks to your wheel after a while, after 6 months and a year of normal driving. I'd also like to know how the interior smells after painting the panels. Is it tolerable?

As for your sound quality issue, the reason it sounds so good behind the car is phase (time alignment). Phase improves because the speakers are more equidistant to your ears. Inside the car, phase becomes misaligned between the midwoofer and tweeters, because of their path-length distances to your ears is different. This can result in the tweeters sounding like their doing their own thing, not seamless with the mids. Or the music just doesn't have much life.

The hard thing about phasing problems is that they can't be corrected with EQ. Only speaker placement or special delay circuits can improve the sound. Oddly enough, flipping the polarity of both tweeters can resolve phase misalignment by delaying the wave a fraction of a second, so that it better matches the mids. This isn't guaranteed, but sometimes it works when the tweeters are installed high in the door or dash. It's a trick some sound quality installers have known for a long time. Even some OEM systems employ reversed polarity with dash mounted tweeters, even though they mark the wires correctly so as not to confuse anyone.

If I where you, I'd try swapping the phase on both tweeters to see if it helps. Maybe attenuate the levels since they are so close to your ears. Even so, there's always going to be a greater path-length ratio from your ears to the tweeters than from your ears to the mids due to the high location, which is not something that can be fixed. This is why you see mid/woofer/tweeter locations is always on relatively on the same plane in home audio, and sometimes they even move the tweeter back, so the voice coils are aligned. Same things happens in a car, and it's one reason coaxial speakers have been proven to sound so good, even in the lower price range.

I'll try the tweeter polarity swap tomorrow, and thanks for the tip! they still sound super clear actually, but I don't mind improving any way I can. Honestly, I like the tweeters where they are because it fills the whole car up evenly compared a coaxial.

Also, I made a video of my speaker system, which has crappy bass from the in camera mic ofcourse, but in the vid, I walk 150 ft away from my car and the sound is STILL super clear, it was ridiculous. still have to make the bitrate way lower then upload though

The farther away you walk, the clearer and more realistic it will sound, because the path length ratios become more similar between midwoofer & tweeter, and left & right channels. It's just physics. The best place for tweeters inside a car is as close to the midwoofer's voice coil as possible. This is why basic coaxials can win against even the best separates, if installed incorrectly. Get in the back seat of the Riv and recline the seats - you will notice it starts sounding better already.

Not sure what you mean by "fills the car up evenly". If you mean for visual effect, I understand that. Musically speaking, putting the tweets up high just makes them louder and out of time alignment.

Your ears are smart. They can tell when a sound is 16" away vs. 20" away by triangulating the difference in time it takes to reach each ear. Ears can tell a few milliseconds delay, so when the treble reaches your ear before the right, the brain says, "that sound is to the left"; when the treble reaches both ears before the midbass, your brain says, "this doesn't sound realistic". As a result, staging and imaging can be degraded, even if the components are top notch.

I spent a few years thinking my friends' stereos sounded "good", some who were even competitors. Then I had the privilege to sit in Kirk Perry's Pontiac LeMans around 1993, which was THE FIRST car to officially score a perfect RTA in competition. Kirk realized that installation (specifically speaker and listener placement) mattered more than the equipment itself, so he gutted the front seats and routed the steering wheel and pedals to the middle rear seat, mounted the front mids and tweets on a flat baffle in each kick panel. No rear fill. There were IB subs in the hatch, but they were only for SPL contests. For SQ and normal listening, the subs were shut off. It was arguably the best sound quality set-up ever, maybe even to this day. Since that day, I never had even the slightest inclination to mount tweeters anywhere but right next to the mids. I also installed more than one coaxial with very good results.

Here's a link to Kirk's car. No pics, but they talk about the set-up. I may actually have some pics of this car at home. It was also featured in Car Audio or Car Stereo Review magazine:

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/technical-advanced-car-audio-discussion/30062-back-seat-driver-sq-car.html

AA wrote:

The farther away you walk, the clearer and more realistic it will sound, because the path length ratios become more similar between midwoofer & tweeter, and left & right channels. It's just physics. The best place for tweeters inside a car is as close to the midwoofer's voice coil as possible. This is why basic coaxials can win against even the best separates, if installed incorrectly. Get in the back seat of the Riv and recline the seats - you will notice it starts sounding better already.

Not sure what you mean by "fills the car up evenly". If you mean for visual effect, I understand that. Musically speaking, putting the tweets up high just makes them louder and out of time alignment.

Your ears are smart. They can tell when a sound is 16" away vs. 20" away by triangulating the difference in time it takes to reach each ear. Ears can tell a few milliseconds delay, so when the treble reaches your ear before the right, the brain says, "that sound is to the left"; when the treble reaches both ears before the midbass, your brain says, "this doesn't sound realistic". As a result, staging and imaging can be degraded, even if the components are top notch.

I spent a few years thinking my friends' stereos sounded "good", some who were even competitors. Then I had the privilege to sit in Kirk Perry's Pontiac LeMans around 1993, which was THE FIRST car to officially score a perfect RTA in competition. Kirk realized that installation (specifically speaker and listener placement) mattered more than the equipment itself, so he gutted the front seats and routed the steering wheel and pedals to the middle rear seat, mounted the front mids and tweets on a flat baffle in each kick panel. No rear fill. There were IB subs in the hatch, but they were only for SPL contests. For SQ and normal listening, the subs were shut off. It was arguably the best sound quality set-up ever, maybe even to this day. Since that day, I never had even the slightest inclination to mount tweeters anywhere but right next to the mids. I also installed more than one coaxial with very good results.

Here's a link to Kirk's car. No pics, but they talk about the set-up. I may actually have some pics of this car at home. It was also featured in Car Audio or Car Stereo Review magazine:

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/technical-advanced-car-audio-discussion/30062-back-seat-driver-sq-car.html

Actually I meant that the tweeters actually do a great job and this setup sound MUCH MUCH better than my Polk DB521 coaxials with swivel mount silk dome tweeters did. Then again the polks were 91db efficiency and only took like 35 watts RMS whereas my Kevlar studio professional studio monitor driver hooked up to the crossover can take about 80 watts RMS, and still keep 90db efficiency, the Polks were simply drowned completely out by the subs. And it does sound pretty even, maybe a tad off, but I'll see how it improves with the headliner in, and in the back it sounds way way better than it ever has. If anything I can invest in any equipment I'd need to even it out











got the tinted tail lights done, and I'l try to make a write up on it soon. Looks better than my old tinted lens that got cracked lol





If anyone wants to see how my camera portrays my sound system, from 150 feet away. I have a really crappy mic, so bass sounds bad, but It's pretty funny because I was like wtf how can I hear this clear", lol.

Oh, and since it's all dark, I'll try to get a better video of it soon