fastrat350

Alrite the time has finally come around to install my JL Audio System into my Jeep JK. I've been collecting parts since October and finally got the little details to start the install. So follow along as I detail all the items going into the Jeep and build details with video's and photos to follow, I need to have this finished by Saturday Night since I work on Sunday.

List of New Audio System Components:

Ipad 32gb (Wifi)
CableJive Dock Xtender
Ipad dock
Monster THXIMINI Cable
JL Audio CL-RLC
JL Audio HD 900/5 Amplifier
JL Audio C5-650 Components
JL Audio C2-650 Coaxials
JL Audio 13TW5 Subwoofer
Diehard Platinum Battery
Kicker ZCK44 Wiring Kit
Kicker Subwoofer Wire
Dayton Audio Heavy Duty Binding Posts
Dayton Audio Banana Plugs
SecondSkin Audio Damplifier Pro
SecondSkin Audio Luxury Liner Pro
DEI Spray On Boom Mat for Hardtop

Also going to coat the inside of my hard top with spray on sound deadener, stay tuned for that also or maybe I'll do another thread for it.



Today I received the last bits like the Sound Deadener materials and speaker adapters.

Night 1 Start of the Tear Down:
Today after class, I went to lowes and picked up a sheet of 3/4" MDF Board that measured 8'X4' so it had to be cut down in half in order to feet in the jeep.



I wont be using that much for the sub woofer box but it was the only size sheet available now and it was cheaper in the larger size. While I waited for UPS I started to clean out the jeep, it was mess, I didn't really care of the mess because I was waiting for this build to start. I started from the back, I removed the rear cargo carpet and rear side carpet on sides of the tub. I gotta admit, i rather see the tub instead but I have my truck for that. Also I was able to take out the rear passenger carpet without removing seats. Took the doors off, and front freedom panels. The hard top is ready to come off tomorrow morning once I get an extra hand. I started trying to remove the seat bolts...........................:crazye yes::c razyeyes::crazyey es:

DAMN are they a pain, I was able to remove 4 of the rear seat bolts, I left the rest soaked in some liquid wrench for tomorrow.

Also I removed the sound bar, and found out something that needs to be addressed for optimal speaker response from the new coaxials, one plan already was to spray some sound deadener on the insides of the sound bar, and now im going to fill the hollow center section with some expanding foam to make the sound bar into two seperate enclosures.

Tonite was only tear down, tomorrow morning the real fun begins.







Day 2: Continue Tear Down and Start Prep For Audio

Alrite started somewhat early today, had to get some supplies like some duplicolor bed liner, silicone, spray foam insulation, RadioShack Project box and other lil nick nacks.

Started tearing back into the Jeep around 1pm, and just called it a night after a long long day, with some problems along the but they were minor.

Started by finishing the tear down, took the hard top off, and decided to only take out the front seats for better access to lay down sound deadener. Took the front seats out, pulled the front speaker enclosures, removed my old harness/adapter that interfaced the Ipad with OEM Infinity system, took out the Infinity amp as well. After the seats were out, I started by doing clean up on the floor, lots of crud I vacuumed and cleaned.





Passenger Side Enclosure Removed

Drivers Side Enclosure Removed

Enclosured Emptied and Ready for New speakers

All the Old Infinity Speakers, one is blown but im suprised by the side of the magnets

Cleaned the hard top and prepped it for some spray on sound deadener/bedliner............After masking I started laying down the DEI Spray On Boom Mat, this stuff lays down great and thick, I only bought 3 cans, as each can was said to be enough for 20 sq feet, WRONG, I was short by one can to have gotten perfect single coat, unfornately no one local carries this stuff so I cant wait for next week to come around, overall I got 99% covered, and extra can would have helped me do touch up. I had some bedliner and I must have gotten a bad batch of two cans, because the damn stuff would only come out like silly string, I switched nozels with new ones and no luck.

With some masking

After the first and final coat of the DEI Boom Mat, it layed down great but I ran alil short, as you can see a couple spots where I need some extra.


While that dried I took up the Issue with sound bar being hollow between the center, leaving empty air space between each speaker, so I decided to fill the center section with spray foam insulation. I left the stock wiring in there in order to keep the dome light in working order, I ran seperate wire for the new speakers through an existing hole.
Ill post pics of the sound bar tomorrow in the daylight

The most time consuming portion was laying down the sound deadener, I bought 36.5 sq feet of the stuff, and its great stuff, but takes forever to roll out, this process would have been quicker with second help, but I wouldn't trust someone else on my first full system. 36.5 feet covers the Jeep JK Unlimited 98%, but in my layout I think it did a great job on placement, I started from the back and worked myself forward. I focused on obvious problem areas by taping the floor and looking for portions that rattled easily or seemed thin. Flowed myself forward, again focusing on certain areas of the floor, after covering the essential areas, i doubled back with the left over sheets and lay down where it seems the most beneficial.
I'll post pics tomorrow of the sound deadener layed down, its great because the back is black and looks great layed down.

NEW UPDATE
Alrite I was going to update every night but I ran into some tool problems on saturday night that frustated me, so I didn't get to build my box till today, but the rest of the system was placed in and I took pics along the way.

Ran completely new wiring for each speaker, for the front components, I had trouble find a good spot for the crossover networks, they were on the large side, so I took my old infinity amp, and removed its mounting bracket, and mounted my crossovers on there and now the crossovers are located under the steering column in the OEM Amplifier Location.






Also here are some shots of all the sound deadener and also the small amount of the luxury liner I put in the front floor pans, and my jeep is noticablely quieter now, after a drive today, i noticed less air noise and tire hum from under the front pans, I could feel it in my feet as welll. Though with sound deadener and the liner, the front carpet didn't fit snug like before, only noticable by the seat mounts. The luxury liner is thick, almost 1/2" inch thick.





Also mounted my Ipad dock inside a Radioshack project box and made holes to allow the Line-out cable to feed out and also a slot in order to connect the cablejive dock extender cable that connects to the Ipad. This is a temporary solution, later im going to remove this and use an External DAC from HRT called the iStreamer.





For today I got the subwoofer box built finally, the reason for the delay was that the brad nailer seized, then the regulator was malfunction after i got a replacement nail gun. But today I was able to put it together, and test it out. Damn it hits hard, but haven't gotten its full potential since I still need to tune my system.
Here is the box bare with the binding posts placed for the banana plugs, I terminated my wiring for the sub box with banana plugs, makes eash connecting and looks clean. The box will be coated in bedliner sometime this week.





Also today I was able to mount my amp under the passenger seat attached to the seat rails, one side of the rail has a flat edge while the other had an angled edge, for the angled edge in order to get the rail to be level with the other, I mounted my cut rail, bolted it down, and put my weight on it till it was flush across to the other bracket.




Here is the seat adjusted all the way back, its unnoticeable and hides nicely underneath, dont mind the wire, its just there to test the subwoofer.

It sounds great but he front to back balance's are off, so I need to tune it this week. But overall sounds awesome, the lights do dim alil bit even with the Diehard platinum but I'll address that later down the road with a second battery..........NO CAPACITOR FOR ME.

fastrat350

Thanks, when I got the Jeep it had a Mygig, that was amazing but im one of those people that has stopped buying CD's and only buy blu-ray's. I thought the mygig was amazing then I pulled the trigger on the Ipad, I been using the Ipad with factory infinity system since July, its great for "ME". The Ipad aint for everyone, almost perfect in a vehicle, the Motorola Xoom is a no go for me now, since they placed the power button on the back of it.

Also FYI, for the mean im using the Line out from the Ipad, next month im switched to an external DAC.

damunoz32

Can't wait to see the finished product, didn't know your plan was gonna be so extensive! this will be good.

fastrat350

Haha yeah I wanted to knock it out all in one punch, I have a hard time listening through phone, so I hope the sound deadener helps out with that also. The luxury liner stuff is THICK though, about alil over 1/2" thick, I only could afford 9 square feet, but I already want more down the road. Luckily that stuff can be slipped between the carpet and floor later. I wont be 100% finished though, next month Im getting an External DAC for the Ipad other than Line-out from the Ipad dock, this will provide even richer signal and overall better sound. In the summer I may pair the DAC with another sound processor from MTX.

I got an itchy head right now, after getting an idea of the space under the seat, its possible my subwoofer could have enough air space under there, but thats another project for the future.

DAMN I CANT SLEEP even after exhausting myself tonite.......

mattymat04

Sweet bud glad to see you got most of your stuff together. U know if u need any help just hit me up like always. For me I'm still undecided if I'm gonna go extensive on the audio $$$ is a factor now. Post a lot of pics

fastrat350

Thanks man, yeah it been long enough for me, and It is pricey but I'm glad I stretched it out this long, otherwise I could of one a cheaper lower quality system but I wouldn't have been happy. Well I'm off to auto zone and lowes for a couple supplies

fastrat350

Day 2: Continue Tear Down and Start Prep For Audio

Alrite started somewhat early today, had to get some supplies like some duplicolor bed liner, silicone, spray foam insulation, RadioShack Project box and other lil nick nacks.

Started tearing back into the Jeep around 1pm, and just called it a night after a long long day, with some problems along the but they were minor.

Started by finishing the tear down, took the hard top off, and decided to only take out the front seats for better access to lay down sound deadener. Took the front seats out, pulled the front speaker enclosures, removed my old harness/adapter that interfaced the Ipad with OEM Infinity system, took out the Infinity amp as well. After the seats were out, I started by doing clean up on the floor, lots of crud I vacuumed and cleaned.



Passenger Side Enclosure Removed

Drivers Side Enclosure Removed

Enclosured Emptied and Ready for New speakers

All the Old Infinity Speakers, one is blown but im suprised by the side of the magnets

Cleaned the hard top and prepped it for some spray on sound deadener/bedliner............After masking I started laying down the DEI Spray On Boom Mat, this stuff lays down great and thick, I only bought 3 cans, as each can was said to be enough for 20 sq feet, WRONG, I was short by one can to have gotten perfect single coat, unfornately no one local carries this stuff so I cant wait for next week to come around, overall I got 99% covered, and extra can would have helped me do touch up. I had some bedliner and I must have gotten a bad batch of two cans, because the damn stuff would only come out like silly string, I switched nozels with new ones and no luck.

With some masking

After the first and final coat of the DEI Boom Mat, it layed down great but I ran alil short, as you can see a couple spots where I need some extra.


While that dried I took up the Issue with sound bar being hollow between the center, leaving empty air space between each speaker, so I decided to fill the center section with spray foam insulation. I left the stock wiring in there in order to keep the dome light in working order, I ran seperate wire for the new speakers through an existing hole.
Ill post pics of the sound bar tomorrow in the daylight

The most time consuming portion was laying down the sound deadener, I bought 36.5 sq feet of the stuff, and its great stuff, but takes forever to roll out, this process would have been quicker with second help, but I wouldn't trust someone else on my first full system. 36.5 feet covers the Jeep JK Unlimited 98%, but in my layout I think it did a great job on placement, I started from the back and worked myself forward. I focused on obvious problem areas by taping the floor and looking for portions that rattled easily or seemed thin. Flowed myself forward, again focusing on certain areas of the floor, after covering the essential areas, i doubled back with the left over sheets and lay down where it seems the most beneficial.
I'll post pics tomorrow of the sound deadener layed down, its great because the back is black and looks great layed down.

Tomorrow I'll start the build of the speaker box, my circular saw burned out, and finish of the install, for now good night everyone, im drained after 11 hours being outside. Tomorrow im adding some budlight to the end of my afternoon

Sapper12b

I'm curious as to where youre going to place the amp?

fastrat350

Under the passenger seat, I for a couple options that I'll look into tomorrow, first plan is to make a shelf hang down from the seat track rails, plent of lip to get some brackets hang from there to hold the amp, other idea is to just make an MDF amp pedestal to sit on the floor under the passenger seat.

Sapper12b

Is there no room to put it in the same spot as a factory amp? I was thinking about doing something very similar to your build, now 4 the sound deadener have you ever heard of a company called lizard skin?