Since I've never posted full build threads here and not everyone has seen my website, I'm going to start posting copies here in the appropriate forums. If you wish to check out my cars entire build log, go here:

http://www.ms-fbodies.com/jade_ta.htm

With the car now legal and seeing more time in public, the unfinished interior and lack of tunes is really starting to get to me.

While originally I wasn't planning on going extreme with the stereo, a few weeks worth of reading on http://www.fiberglassforums.com led me down the path of custom car stereo again. After placing an order for good fiberglass supplies I realize how horrible the Bondo brand stuff is. This in combination with the fact the regular contact cement doesn't hold up well under hot temperatures will lead me to redo and change up some of the items I've all ready finished.

Step one is to develop a plan and get the items needed. Main stereo components will consist of all JL Audio components: C2-525 components for the doors or kick panels, 6W3's 6.5" subs for the doors, 13TW5 for the sub, 500/1v2 powering the sub, and a 300/4v2 running the front stage.



While the old Sony looks really nice in the HUmount kit shown on earlier pages, it's getting pretty old and won't handle an iPod very well. I searched around different brands and man have things changed since I was list into this. Sony by all accounts doesn't make top quality stuff anymore, there's a lot of ugly receivers out there, and to really get the control I'm after I would have to go to a screen type unit. Seems the 1 or 1.5 DIN units make controlling a large collection of music more difficult then it needs to be. Even the Alpine unit purposely built to only control an iPod has a lot of complaints about controlling an iPod.

About the only double-din model I could find that had a removable face, 4v+ outputs, and no navigation was the JVC AVX820.



I've seen plenty of people put double-din's in 4th gen dashes so I knew it would fit. Hell, you can even buy pre-made trim rings to go around the unit to keep it looking stock. I figured I would get the unit mounted and see how hard it would be to make my own trim ring or at worst buy one of the pre-made models. Got the mounts bent and installed:



With the face installed. Just barely enough room for this unit.



I'm not sure if there's such a thing as "over-sized" double-din, but this radio is significantly taller then any of the pictures I've seen of other units installed in a 4th gen dash. Even if the face was stationary, there's no way any of the pre-made trim rings would fit. Once you add in that the face gets slightly taller as it motorizes out I'm stuck making my own trim ring.

Two stock rings, a lot of Dremel wheels, some filler, and a lot of sanding later I had a trim ring.



Getting the lines straight and the gaps right was pretty difficult. I had to keep adjusting the radio mounts in order to have some type of line along the bottom and still have a line on the top. Of course leaving enough room for the face to move just added to my troubles.



The only issue I still need to work out is clearance on the top foam part of the dash. Outside of the car and top line of the trim ring is straight, but the portion of the dash it goes against is not. The stock trim ring has enough "meat" along this area to push the foam dash out of the way and keep the straight line. With the trim ring being so thin, the dash is more powerful and bows the top every so slightly.

 

Next up is covering this piece in vinyl. I moved on from the regular contact cement to "Landau Top" professional cement. Works the same, but doesn't fail under sunlight and heat. The vinyl I've been using is a perfect match to the seat leather, but is too dark to match the dash. I've been dying the other pieces I've done with the darkest color SEM makes, but under flash and fluorescent it appears too light against the dash. It's been acceptable under normal lighting conditions, but all the other pieces have been on different plains of view. IE, the other pieces were at different angles from the dash and wasn't noticeable. With the trim ring laying directly on top of the dash I'm not happy with it. I'll probably recover it with no dye, along with all the other pieces I've done (most of which need to be recovered due to glue failures anyway). If the darker then the dash look doesn't work either, I guess I'll start figuring out sewing/pattern making and just cover the whole dash.

Anyway, here's some views of the trim ring covered.







As you can see from some of the pictures above, I've started working on getting the 4th gen door panels in the car. The door panels are kind of like the a-pillars. Many people have said how easy they are, but few show pictures. Those that show pictures don't show any of the problem areas. Again like the a-pillars, you can make them fit with trimming, but they are not going to look stock. Here's a picture of the 4th gen panel I was playing with before the wreck:



Looks great right? Sure in that picture. It's tweaked all kinds of ways to get it to fit, there's exposed screws holding the edges down, there's up to a 1" gap at the bottom, the door metal is cut, and the door wouldn't shut with the kick-panels/sill plates in place. After once again jumping into this, I realized that I'm going to have to make my own.

I started by getting some thin panel board, coated on the back side for water protection. I cut it to match the stock 3rd gen panels (which were cardboard anyway). I drilled out all the holes for the stock plastic clips and attached the stock upper trim.





Test fitted to the door. My base fits just like the stock panel.

 

I struggled for a bit trying to figure out the best way to recreate the 4th gen look on a blank canvas. I then realized I could just mold the main section of the 4th gen panels to the 3rd gen base. This would give me the 4th gen look with the standard attachment and fit of the 3rd gen panel. Step one would be cutting all the tabs and pieces of the 4th gen panel to make it flat.





I then trimmed everything that was deeper then the cardboard insert. I then lined up where I wanted it to sit and screwed it down.



I trimmed around the front and rear edges of the door to allow the door to open and shut with no issues.





The plan is to further clean up the edges and fiberglass them to the panel board in a nice clean consistent edge. Once that's done I'll cut out the middle of the panel board and strip the attached pieces of the 4th gen panel. I'm still trying to decide if I want to put the component set in the kick panels and leave the doors stock looking with just a 6.5" woofer, or go ahead and go radical and put all three speakers in the doors.

On to the sub. Bass in a convertible is always tough. I've got the 6.5" subs for the doors, but was trying to find a way to get low bass up front. I could have put the sub or subs in the trunk, but you lose a lot trying to fire through the top and into the cabin. The best bet is to put the subs in the cabin, but that usually means ditching the rear seats and that's not something I wanted to do. Chances are no one will ever sit back there, but I happen to like the look and did spend money on the leather covers. These new thin mount subwoofers let me do some thinking. After some rough measurements I decided to try something a little different. I'm going to try putting the sub IN the back seat.

The stock rear seat consists of a hard plastic back shell, a thick foam cushion, and a cover. The goal is to have the sub mounted into hard back piece, a fiberglass box in the shape of the cushion, and the seat cover slipped back over the top.

First up is to cut out all the hollow ribs used to give the back piece support:



Then I routed out hole for the sub. The hole is for the outside edge of the sub as it will recess into the piece to be flush with the back:



I then routed out a piece of MDF for the sub to recess into:

 

You can see that the back of the seat plastic is curved. An hour or so on the belt sander and the MDF is contoured to fit:



Here's the ring attached to the seat back:



Next is to place a second piece of MDF that the sub will actually mount to, plus some scrap pieces along the sides. These will take approximate the size of the ribs I removed when I place the stock foam back on.



After placing the seat foam back in place, I wrapped it in plastic wrap to help get a consistent shape and pre-compress the foam. The goal is to have an approximation of the foam shape when the seat cover is on.



I then wrapped this in a fleece blanket.



I then spread straight fiberglass resin into the fleece. The fleece absorbs a lot of resin, so this took quite a bit.



No need to coat the backside and this is going to be just for a front shell. Once hard, I cut out the shell and now had a hollow seat back in two pieces.

 

The back side get wood and duraglass for strength:



While the front gets multiple layers of fiberglass matt:



While waiting for some of the layer to dry I did cut out the wings into the back recess area and test fit the sub:



With the two haves completed, it was now time to join them together. Large gaps along the top and bottom were filled with fiberglass matt and duraglass. Once this was set, I cut out the sides that were centering the top and filled those in with glass.



Once all the edges for sealed from the outside, I sanded it all down and and used some duraglass to smooth it out and make a consistent shape.



To make sure the box was perfectly sealed, I used a "milkshake" mixture poured into the sub opening. Milkshake is a fiberglass resin/filler mixture that hardens quick, self levels, and fills in any holes.



Had a scare when I went to put the stock seat cover on as a test fit. This was the cover that came off of this rear seat and not my custom one. It wouldn't fit! I'm not sure why the size of this rear seat is different then the one on my car, but I had visions of having to start over or sanding for hours. I removed my existing seat from the car and test fitted the new cover. It was too big! Crazy, but the seat in the car is a lot bigger then the seat I build my sub box out of. So good news, I had enough room to put 1" foam on the box. Good if someone does ever sit back there, plus it helps smooth the cover out more.



Here's the new seat cover fitted outside of the car:

 

Next step was some new seat brackets. The top half of the sub is clear, firing into the opening for the convertible top, but the bottom half was flat against the sheet-metal of the car. I needed to pull the seat forward a little to give the sub some excursion room. Top seat bracket consists of a mirror image flat piece of metal. Left side lines up to the bolt holes in the seat, right side allows the stock latch to bolt to the bracket.



Holes are 1.5" apart. Wrapped in carpet and installed on the seat you are hard pressed to notice the difference.



The bottom bracket is a simple metal strap with holes 2" apart.



Finished product installed in the car:



With the seat back and locked, you can see how much room it has.



Here's the view everyone else has. Sub? What sub?



All right. I had tested the seat-sub out and found that the tonneau cover and trunk lid vibrated like crazy. I set up some tables covered in blankets and pulled both so I could work on them.

I started by laying the inside of the trunk lid with RAAMmat. Some quick taps showed me that with the outer layer was still vibrating like crazy. So I taped up most taped up all the edges and filled all cavities with spray foam.



Rest of the RAAMmat installed, without getting into the area where it seals. You can see the foam is now in.

 

Repeat for the trunk lid. It has the seal on it, so I was able to run it right up to it. Since the mat closed up all the holes, I could use less tape when filling it with foam.



Pulled the carpet up in the rear and laid matt anywhere it covered. I'll get the rest of the trunk later.



The rest of the interior was all ready done when I was doing the initial build of the car.



Used the Raam Audio ensolite and spray glue to line the trunk area:



Used the ensolite peal-n-stick to cover the trunk lid and tonneau cover. Remarkable stuff and easy to work with and shape. I thought about doing fiberglass trim panel, but this helps the sound/noise and finishes it off well. Lines are from where the material was folded during shipping and have mostly expanded back out.

 

Since the gray vinyl I had been using doesn't quite match under fluorescent & flash, I needed to recover the tonneau panel. I still haven't picked a new vinyl yet, so I decided to try out the matching tan I had.





Really like the look it added. Almost a Ferrari style flare to it. I finally decided to do something with the seatbelt trim that butts up against the tonneau cover. Stock they have a hole that the seatbelt retracts into. It's also two pieces to allow you to slip it on without removing the seatbelts. You can see them in this stock picture:



The black plastic blended with the gray vinyl, but completely clashed with the new tan. That and I really didn't need holes in them since I switched to a harness bar and new belts. So, I joined the two together and removed the hole.







Wrapped in ensolite. I've found it makes a nice base for vinyl to give you that high end soft feel. (and makes it easier to hide imperfections from showing through)

 

Wrapped in vinyl and installed. I didn't use contact cement sticking the ensolite to the piece and it pulled up after I put the vinyl on. I knew it would hold the vinyl down, but I didn't think about the vinyl pulling the ensolite up. It actually turned out well though. I probably should have shaped the piece like this to begin with.

 

With various parts cars around the shop, I was able to pull doors from another car and set them up. This lets me not have to glass on the car, and will keep everything lined up while the resin cures. In the next two pictures you can see where the problems areas are when trying to make these fit the door.





I put a small piece of mat across the top to attach the new panel to the old top piece. Both pieces were sanded well and drilled about every quarter inch.





With the top fixed, I put a few key screws around some of the edges to keep them in place and then foamed up the large gaps.

 

Shaped the foam out, drilled the plastic, and then started laying up glass over the top.













Once cured I now had a solid door panel to work with.



I then cut out the wall board along the inside of the mounting clips.

 

I then took out all the guts: arm rests, speaker pod, & leather insert. Panels still attach to the doors no problem.






I ordered some grills from PE, got ED the measurements (leaving enough room to let the grills press fit when all the foam, vinyl, & grill cloth is attached) and had my rings in about a week. The 6.5" ring wound up being huge, but I don't want to surface mount them and I need a grill to keep the 'could be stock' look I'm going for.

Here's the best placement I could come up with.







Woofer is angled towards the front and down while the mid is angled towards where a dome light would be. Final mid placement will be done in the car while listening to it.

The angling helps in several areas. It lets me fit everything without going into leg territory, keeps the mid low enough to have a defined 'handle/arm rest', plus I think it looks better then having a huge parallel growth on the bottom corner.

It actually takes up less space then laying the woofer flat since I don't have to space it up to clear the back of the magnet.



I'll probably bevel the inner edge of one part of each ring in order to get the rings a little closer together.

 

Here's some test shots of what the finished pod would look like. Wrapped around the front and sweeping up the panel on the bottom like the stock piece. Straight edge along the arm rest and then a short step down like the stock piece. Then swooping up to the mid range following the arc of the door handle.








Well time to start on the back of the pods.

Taped a piece of loom to represent the wiring for the switches.



Layout some foil.



Tape the edges.



Tape up the rest.



Layout the lines from the stock pieces.

 

Lay on the glass.



So here it is cleaned up and popped off the door with a few more layers:



Working on smoothing out the transition to the back board:







So at this point I started testing the panels in the car. With just the subs in the front it would be annoying. Your leg would rest right up against the cone. With the 5.25" mid with it I would have to angle the sub out. This would be unacceptable, having the ring push your leg over. I could just have the subs in the doors, but I don't have enough room for the component set in the kick panels (clutch).

Bottom line, the subs are not going to work in the front of the doors. Not enough depth to make it work.

So I start looking around to see if I can squeeze these any where else. Ruled out steel boxes under the car. Ruled out extended center console between the rear seats. Best thing I could come up with is mounting them in the rear of the doors. Plenty of depth and still contained within the doors.

So I started on rear enclosures:

 

Added sides to the front pods and started planning what the subs would look like:







Laying out where to cut the panel for the rings. Trying to keep both sides symmetrical is becoming a pain!!





I was originally going to go flush into the existing panel, but with so many curves and the edge of the door panel, it was going to push the ring too deep and high. So ring is level with the door and will be smoothed out into the panel.

 

I'm keeping the curved inserts the same. The door panel flows so well with them. So the insert will actually cover about a quarter of the sub. Sub will be covered with a grill covered in tan grill cloth. If I can match the cloth to the vinyl, it should blend without being that noticeable.





Got the rear rings smoothed out into the panel. Still a little work around the back corners and some overall smoothing.

I tried to make it flow like it should be there and also create a straight line on the bottom (panel is shorter in the front).

 

Ok, not enough airspace for the 6.5" subs. I cut some out and extended them higher up the door:





Got my third USC order in. Getting more comfortable and trying some new things out. Talc, chopped mat, glass bubbles, more resin, smaller mixing cups, more gloves, smaller sticks, and more spreaders. *disregard the can of bondo, old can and only used for milkshakes**

Made some nice bubble filled mix with some chopped resin to fill in the concave areas of the rear pods to fill in the complex curves.



Rage came in. Went to work smoothing out the passenger panel. First time using it, this stuff is awesome. Still figuring out the work time.

 

Driver's side is getting close to needing Rage.





Threw them on for a car show and discovered a few issues. Front lower curves are at too short of a radius and hit the kick panels a tiny bit. Major issue is the passenger rear of the top plate must have moved since the last test fit (and before all the duraglass and rage) or it warped during curing. Top rear of the panel is about 1/2" too high. Had to cut a V cut into it and re-glass it pulled down.



Half inch high on the end.. Cut a V-shape slot in it and pulled it down.



No issues on the other side. Marked up to help me get everything lined up to the other trim.



Mounting rings spaced and suspended. I wasn't cutting a full sheet of MDF to get two pieces that will be mostly covered in glass.

 

The speakers will mount through the ED rings on the panels, to the inner mounts. Hard to see, but the inner mounts do have t-nuts installed. So the pods will mount to the door, door panel goes on, speaker sandwiches panel to pod.





The shape of the panel is making me glass to the outside of the sides, but the insides of the top and bottom. I should have done the roundover on the otherside for the top and bottom. Oh well.

Glassing the sides while on the door. I'll be able to remove the temp supports after that and glass the top and bottom off the door.

Got some resined ponte on the sides and filled the small gap with duraglass.






In other news, got my 1/0 in and the rest of my power stuff. Doing the Big 3 as well.

New block ground on, old line visible:



10' of ground getting ready to snake back up to the battery:



Grounds finished. Body ground was a mount for the old coolant tank. I taped around what the ring terminal didn't cover and then sanded off all the paint where it did.

 

Got phase one of the positive lead done.



This goes all the way to the back. Nice ring terminal on the factory positive post.



Phase 2 is to get a matching cable and ring terminal to go from the post over to the battery and a matching cable going from the battery over to the alternator.



I know the fuse should be closer to the battery, but there was really no good place to put it on that side without making a stupid looking figure 8 trying to get the wire back to the other side of the car.

Using the fuse box post is going to work out really well. Tapping the entire electrical system off of the single 1/0 will let me keep the same clean and simple dual ring terminal post on the positive battery side. I am having to slide the starter cable under it, but it should hardly be seen.


Dual 1/0's in the same style terminal as ground. Starter cable under them.



Both run across the front of the car, with one turning and going to the alternator. Second one going to the car's main positive lug.

 

In other news, stretched some ponte across the upper portion of the rear pods and got a couple of layers on in the next picture. Forget to take pics of the process, but it started out like the lower section shown. Ponte stretched and resined to get the shape. The ponte shown was just getting hard. Once I cut it down, all I had was the concave curve of the gap between the pod and ring.



Top and bottom currently have about 3-4 layers of 1.5oz on them. I just got through running a small amount of milkshake around the inner edges to get rid of any possible leaks.

Here are the pods all finished up.





Back of the pods:



Speaker terminals. I got them from work, they're designed to go into wall plates in home audio. I was really happy only two 3/8" holes had me some double sided terminals... Then I realized they had a banana jack hole running all the way through them. Wound up going ahead and putting the inner speaker wire in place and duraglassing the terminals to maintain a sealed pod.



Dampened the door skin and started cutting out the real door to fit the pods.





First pod hooked up and pop-riveted to the door. Metal is too thin for screws to really hold, and no way to get nuts on the back side. There's going to be dampening material over the edges and the final foam over the entire thing, so removing it was going to be a pain any way.

 

Door panel attached. The speaker pulls it tight, which is good since the plastic pins are getting loose real quick.



Speaker installed. Philips bolts right now since I'll be pulling everything off shortly. I quickly hooked it up to the 500/1 and I'm pretty impressed. I'll be able to play with it more once I get the other side hooked up. I'll throw the 300/4 in to get some safer wattage to really stress it.



Since I didn't need to squeeze two drivers in the front of the panels anymore, I pulled another set of stock speaker pods that were uncut. Unless I got really good at my Singer, there would be no good way to wrap the pods. So I started to fill in the map pockets and make a solid piece.

Pods attached to panel, insert taped up and put in place.





Three layers blending up into the pod and duraglass in the corners:

 

Insert removed and back of pocket trimmed to follow the front of the pod:







Pockets filled with foam:





Foam fully cured and trimmed to match the contours:

 

Cut the awful 'cup-holder' from the passenger side:





(Side note, GM's wonderful planning of the 93 Trans-Am produced a cupholder in the center console (right in the way of the shifter) and this warped afterthought on the passenger door panel. After many complaints, the 97's (console I used) went overkill. Pull out cup holder on the front of the console, one farther back in the middle of the console, two in the back of the console, and of course they left the wonder holder in the passenger panel.)

Anyway. I cut down the door shaped back plates and placed them under the now cut down pods. Stock tweeter locations should be pretty spot on, mid rings will be aimed (instead of pointing down towards the front of the center console):





Backs attached to pods with plumbers tape. Plumbers tape slightly bent in pics as I elevated the back slightly. This, like the rear speakers, will suck the panel to the door when I screw the pods down to the door.





Laid a few layers of glass over the foam. You might be able to make out the strips of glass I laid between the pod and back plate to secure the connection.



Layer of duraglass on the pockets to smooth it out:

 

Had to add a lot to the cup holder area since it appears the panel curves in to where the cup holder jutted out. I'm trying to make both sides match as best as possible.



Taped up the back gaps and did a full two layers between the back and pod:





Attached the rings to the stock tweeter area as my pivot point and then used some plumbers tape to give me some adjustment.

 

I then attached them to the door panels and installed them in the car to set my final location. I got the general location that sounded best and then pulled everything off again. I was able to get both sides symmetrical while off the car and then secured them with tongue depressors and hot glue.







The stock tweeter sections wasn't letting me get a good stretch with the ponte, so I did wind up cutting them out. Forgot the camera for a few nights, so the next shots are after I resined the ponte and got a few layers of matt on.







Added some Duraglass to make up for some inconsistencies between the two pods.

 

Got that all sanded down and now have a few passes of Rage on and sanded down.

 

Tweeter cups molded in, first coat of primer and glaze on the pods:











Started doing final molding on the door panels:

 

 

Few coats of different high build primer:









Got the panels assembled for a small meet the week before CTC:

 

Just enough room for vinyl/foam:





Got the outer panels spot filled and foam laid down. Not enough room for the foam and vinyl around the edges, so foam is cut to just be on top.







Got them wrapped in vinyl. Not the happiest with how some areas turned out, but you can't see the issues when in the car. Been working on them with a steamer lately and think they'll be fine. I've got to do a some hand stitching on a seam on each panel, but it's behind the speaker pod and on the hinge side of the door.





I've now got the speaker pods wrapped in foam, but unfortunately there's no way to wrap them in one piece of vinyl. I've been practicing my sewing the past few weeks. I've got a Singer 201 that works awesome on straight sections, but doesn't do too well on curves. I've got templates that are good and can do the initial seam fine, but I'm having issues getting the exposed top-stitches right. I've been getting to know a local upholsterer, hoping to use his machine and get it done.

 

To position the new door handle correctly and have more mounting points for the panel, I cut out the area of a 4th gen door:



Cut it into pieces, bolted them to the new panel and then attached them to the door in the correct places:



Cut some metal and covered up the larger holes in the door:





First layer of Raammat on the outer skins:





Removed rear bumper and tail lights to start work on the trunk area:



Made a mount and installed rear-view camera:

 

Raammat installed on trouble areas under the bumper and tail lights. Also put Ensolite where the tail light bolts go through:



Rear bumper had a lot of flex to it. Problem solved. Also added some mat to the backside of the tail lights:



Ran out of the regular RaamMat I was using and had to order some more. Rest of the trunk was done with the BTX II.

 

Followed up with ensolite. The trunk got a lot smaller then I remembered, plus ASC didn't think about someone trying to get mat and ensolite into every hollow cavity when they designed the top's mechanics.









Cleaned up and loomed a lot of the loose wires. Got everything going to the tails and turnk release is secured and out of the way:





Put the final pieces of mat on the door and covered them in ensolite:

 

Laid out the power distribution on the left side of the trunk. I know capacitors don't really do anything, but
1: It was cheap from one of our distributors
2: It looks cool, and most common folk think it's needed.
3: It fills up the space I didn't know what to do with, and is less work on the cover panel.



It's not that big of a piece, but gets a lot bigger in the car:



With the stock cover in place:



Piece is screwed to the frame rail with three screws and lays flush against the large frame/body seam. Picture with the power cables ran from distribution to cap.



Right side panel for the Audio Control DQX. Not as much metal on this side as the spare tire normally goes here and no gas tank filler. Piece is bolted to the spare tire brace. Front side is contoured to stock panel. I used some speaker grill snaps to hold it in place.



Stock right panel drilled and glassed:



The stock panels are rough cut to fit the convertibles. (In fact the 91-92 verts came with molded carpet). I robbed these from a parts car. Turns out the way the stock panel lays isn't quite as vertical as the piece I made, so you can see where I had to extend the upper edge to meet the trunk seal:



Two layers and some smoothing. Hole cut out for EQ, I had to extend the front edge a little bit. Also shaped the edge around the trunk hinge:

 

Back side rough filled, just to keep the front from peeling off:



Close to finished test fit in the car with EQ:





The tight confines of the left panel made me get creative. It's going to be open to the power stuff, and the front edge is a complex curve that can't be made of wood. Here's a shot of the cover supported in the place it needs to be with what ever I could find. Getting this out as one piece was real fun.



Ponte stretched over the above mentioned curve area:



Resined with a couple of layers of mat:



Got a little lazy and neglected to take pictures. Essentially I glassed the stock panel like the right side. Also filled in the areas where the stock panel normally had a door. Here's a shot of the curved area filled and contoured to make the panel align perfectly.



Molded panel in place:

 

You can see where the panel 'tabs' into the fiberglass piece:



Right side rough painted and wired up. Right angle RCA connect to the EQ. Crossovers on a top plate. Going to put a connecting block on top as well to handle the currently wire-nutted remote trigger, reverse camera trigger, and camera power. You can also see the old school Phoenix Gold distribution block I'm using to power the EQ. I needed to fill up the 4 out exposed distribution and power the EQ, but 4g doesn't quite fit in the EQ. I'll have plenty of power options for anything on the right side...



Power dist wrapped in vinyl with grommets and equipment installed:



Front and rear panels wrapped and in place. Rear is just cardboard. Real tight clearances and only needed to block the back off. Please disregard the extra glue on the front section. Still need to clean that.





Testing the panel fit.



Installed back into the car and all the power wires hooked up.



And the panel still fits...

 

Plan for the exposed area you can see in the next picture is a lot of extra vinyl on the cover tucked up under the trunk seal and then flowing down into the hinge area. It's unfortunate that it has to be sloped that much, but the struts are completely different on a coupe and it has to be this way to clear them on a vert.



Amps are going to be mounted to a heavily modified stock rear panel. There's a recessed area I'll try to get some pictures off the next time it's out. Basically it's 1/4" MDF in the recessed area screwed through the plastic into a matching piece of 1/4" MDF behind the plastic. Sandwiching the two pieces together.

The actual amp mount is another piece of 1/4" MDF with 3/4" inch pieces along the sides for mounting the cover. This piece screws to the other 1/4" MDF is is removable to get the side cover in. The angled sections of the plastic panel that were going to be in the way were cut out.



Since the amp is larger then the sandwich, 3/4" strips are on the bottom attached to the plastic and amp panel.





Amps mounted to check everything.

 

With everything mounted in the car with the side panels lined up. Everything is very secure and will have no visible screws.





Mocking up the trim cover with cardboard:







Panel cut out of 1/4" with cutouts for the amps:

 

I'm using a piece of bull-nose molding for sheetrock to make a curved transition to the top piece.







Taped some ponte to the flat portion around the amps and then stretched it back over the edge where the seal goes. Shoved whatever I could find between the edge and plastic piece to get a nice tight fit.

Here's some shots after the resin and a few pieces of .75oz mat in a few key areas.





With an even layer of .75oz matt and three layers of thick cloth:





With a layer of duraglass smoothed out right up to the seal edge.

 

Rather then have a lip on the left side, I built the left panel up to be flush with the rear panel:







Panel outside of the car. Final smoothing with Rage. Holes cut out for light and latch pull down.







Also added a little bit to the right panel to get rid of the rear panel edge. Hard to see in the pic, but will be easy to spot when back in the car.

 

Got the side panels wrapped in foam and vinyl. Trying out some high density foam. Kind of like it.

Final test fitting on the rear panel as well. The magnets are not holding the center section in place as well as I thought. I need to figure out something on that to keep the distance from the amps even.

 

Got the rear cover all wrapped up.











Had to make some trim pieces to go around the amp holes. Couldn't stretch the vinyl enough.







With no time to find a Juki or Consew, and only having two yards of discontinued matching grey vinyl, I dropped the speaker pods off at an upholstry shop. Hoping to have the doors finished soon.

 

Subscribed.......

Amazing work. I wouldn't even call your panels 4th gen door panels anymore, you've got about 10% of the original panels left!

 

wow, serious skill and nice pieces. great job!

 

Well you have FAILED in the design and install of this for a job at one of the
PIMP MY RIDE JOINTS.
Your design is discreete, well thought out, built, installed with no portion over powering the visual senses. Interior door panels have the appearance as though it was a factory option of a high end system. Your modifications to the dash give an illusion that the replacement head unit was a easy plug and play design. Are you toyally unaware that aftermarket systems must assault both visual and audible senses when installed?

If you can't tell I'm loving this system, the overpriced system that was in my wifes Camaro when I got the car was the first thing to go. That is one hell of a job you did.

 

Very nice work,when will you be coming to Kansas,I have never seen so much stereo
stuff put into a car like that.Wonderful job.Now we need you to make 800 door panels,
800 trunk pieces,and come over to our houses to install stereo system.Thanks for taking the time to share your work with us.

 

BTW a friend of mine is from Hattiesburg MS I'll have her look for your car next time she visits her mom.

 

y did u install a capacitor? they dont do anything....

 

nvm, i read the top of one of your post where u know they dont do anything lmao