My Sc400 Install Thread

[Electrodynamic]

The Lexus SC400 is going to be my new demo vehicle to take around to shows and meets. I did a little bit of the install today (I'll deaden the doors later) and thought I'd post up pics.

Pretty much a full day doing this stuff, but it was a LOT of fun. The Lexus comes apart really easy. Ok, enough about the car.

I decided to install my tweets and see what options I have as far as mids are concerned. The tweeters that are in it are TINY neo's (0.75" neo's). The cars come factory with an amplifier in the back and I decided to use the factory wiring.

I had to modify the Morel MDT12 by shaving ALL of the flange off or it wouldn't fit.

Oh, hey, wait a minute, let's do this in order: :D

Door panel removed:

The cool thing about the tiny 4.5" speaker in the door is that it has its own ported enclosure from the factory.

Here's a comparison of the factory mid and the Audax Aerogel:

And the Audax by itself:

[Electrodynamic]

I made baffles out of 3/4" plywood to adapt over my 5.25" Audax Aerogel's. While making the baffle I had to recess the screws that were going to hold the baffle to the existing enclosure. I also had to flatten the baffle and the 5.25" mid in order for the door pannel to go back on.

And then the ring installed:

Mid mounted:

[Electrodynamic]

I soldered and the Morel's in with the factory harness from the factory tweeter:

And the tweeter mounted on the bracket and installed:

Here's the top door panel portion without the grille:

And with the grille:

And a picture of the Audax installed:

The factory grille won't fit so I'm going to have to modify it in order to get them back in place. For now they'll go as they are - without a grille.

I only have FM, so I'm not going to comment on how they sound until my CD changer gets here.

I'll post up more about deadening, wiring, and the subwoofer/amplifiers install when the time comes.

[Electrodynamic]

Future plans for the audio include, but are not limited to:

RF3sixty.2

This unit (and its smaller, less-EQ, brother the 3sixty.1) is a fantastic unit to use if you want to keep your factory radio. I don't like losing integration and paying a LOT more for a double-DIN head unit, so I'm going to keep the factory radio and use the 3sixty.2 to not only EQ the input side, but also EQ the bejesus out of the output side. The .2 also performs auto-EQ and time alignment. The .1 EQ's the input side but doesn't have the ability to EQ the output side.

One Sundown Audio SAX-100.4 to power the fronts and two SAZ-1000D's to power the subs.

Two Stereo Integrity Mag D2's.

I messed around in my trunk the other day and found out that I can put 3 of them in the spare tire well. However, I'm only going to use 2 of them because it will provide more than enough output. With only 5.5" of mounting depth I'm going to be able to flush mount the drivers and maybe modify the carpet back there and use it for daily driving. You shouldn't be able to tell that any of the above equipment is installed when you look in my trunk after it's all done.

[Electrodynamic]

Updatezorz!!!!!!!!

Here are pics of the tweeter grilles hogged out - one being covered in grille cloth already:

And today was the mid grille work. Man, this took a LOT longer than I thought. There was a LOT of cutting, more cutting, and more cutting. I basically had to hog out the entire grille. BTW: from the factory, the black mesh is metal. That's right, metal mesh inset into plastic. Odd. Anyway, here we go:

Here is the factory grille on the left and the grille with the grille cloth removed on the right:

I hogged out the port and shaved the extensions around the mid:

Here it is all hogged out:

and from the backside:

[Electrodynamic]

And here's what they look like after they are wrapped in black grille cloth and installed on top of the ported mids:

While I was at it, I tore apart and re-wrapped the rear speaker grilles. I also removed the two rear speakers and left the sub for now...until I install the pair of Mag's.

[Electrodynamic]

And yesterday I ran two 4 awg runs of power wire for the install. The wire is run along the drivers side of the vehicle, behind the rear seats, up and under the rear package tray, and then finally inside the trunk via the now deadened open hole where the left rear speaker was. Here are a few pics of how it sits now:

The only place I could drill a hole large enough for the two runs of 4 awg (note: this is for power ONLY, not power and ground - twin 4 awg runs is almost equal to a single 1/0 run but it lays under the carpet a LOT better) is about 3" above the drivers footrest. It opens up into the fender, but it's behind the tire and will never touch the tire - it's in a little nook, which I then went up into the engine bay via the opening that you see in the last picture. I'll take a pic of the hole when I have the car raised up again.

[Electrodynamic]

So far I'm the only one who has posted in this thread. I think I'll stop posting until another member says something b/c at this point I feel like I'm posting just to waste my time. :(

[eatingupblacktop]

Nice work! I'm assuming the result is more than satisfactory because you haven't said anything in that regard. I think you should repost this entire thread and any more you have in mind to the Workshop Tutorials section: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index.php?showforum=14

Title it properly and it'll be an excellent resource for anyone having a similar project in mind. Goodonya!

[Airtraffic]

Nice job! I know the feeling about the posrs.. I assume it's because there are not a lot of our cars running atound, but there is not a ton of activity on this board.

BTW, I am trying to install an XM radio in the trunk. Would you happen to know where I can tap into a constant 12V power source and a switched source? Nobody;s answering my post either.

Thanks

[Electrodynamic]

Airtraffic, I'll look at my manual when I get home for the wires you can tap into. There are wires back there you can tap into - they feed your power amplifier under the CD changer.

I'll see about posting this up in the tutorial section later. For now I'll just update this thread.

Thanks guys! :)

[dcfish]

Very nice writeup Great job.

[UCF3]

This is a good install. Do you have any pics from the dashboard/Radio upgrade?

[Electrodynamic]

I'm not doing a radio upgrade. #1, they're too much of a pain in the butt. #2, with the RF 3sixty.2 you can keep your stock head unit and end up with the following features:

Have your incoming sigal EQ'd flat automatically (critical for starting off with a clean slate).

Be provided with 6 channels of 5v preamp outputs.

The front channels have their own 31 band EQ per channel.

Rear channels have a 27 band EQ.

Subwoofer channels have a 13 band EQ.

Full time alignment on every channel.

And it accepts line level (speaker wire), or RCA inputs.

It's worth its weight in gold. I'll post pictures of that little guy being installed soon. I'm planning on installing it above the CD changer but it might find a new home one I really start looking into where I'm going to put things.

[Electrodynamic]

Oh, and here's another update:

Updates:

First off, I got the battery installed. The connections were on the opposite side of what I needed so I purchased some aluminum (do NOT buy steel for something like this - it will rust) from a local hardware store and cut them to length. The finished look is this:

And here is where that big 0 awg ground goes to:

I then covered the dual runs of 4 awg and had to modify the fuse holder to accept the twin ring terminals. I didn't want to show the company of the fuse holder (SoundQuest) so I mounted it inverted:

[Electrodynamic]

And then I hopped into the trunk area and started taking out crap (like the POS factory amplifier and half of the CD changer mount, which the other half is the factory amp bracket). And of course, I deadened the CD changer mounting location. :)

I made a bracket out of 1/4" plywood in an attempt to have a good base to mount the SAZ-100.4:

I used the factory amplifier bracket to make the template for the bottom of the new amp bracket so I could secure it with the 3 bolts that are sticking up out of the floor:

However: all of that proved futile because even with 1/4" material, it's too thick and the nuts won't thread onto the bolts. Even after I routed out the plywood to 1/8" thick the nuts still won't thread on. I am going to purchase some thick aluminum to make the bottom bracket out of so it can be secured because the 1/8" thick plywood isn't cutting it. Here is the location where the amp will be mounted to. I only deadend a little bit of this just for mounting/testing purposes:

Disclaimer: I spent at least 2 hours cleaning the trunk, which is why I only got a little bit of work done yesterday. The trunk was incredibly dirty! I went through 75% of a roll of paper towels and a 1/4 bottle of Super Clean just cleaning the trunk. It amazes me how a trunk can get that dirty...but oh well, at least it's clean now.

[Electrodynamic]

So I made a plate out of steel and attached it. Yes I'm going to primer it so it doesn't rust, so don't ask. Anyway, here are the pics:

[Electrodynamic]

So I got *BLEEP*ed today.

Thinking of how I'm going to have to re-wire all of the system. If I'm running a wire up to the fronts just for the tweeters, why not add all new wiring? If I'm doing that, why not upgrade the mids? A single 5.25 isn't going to cut it for me. So here's what I'll be using instead. :D

Audax on the left, new woofer on the right.

And what is this mystery woofer?!

That's right, a 7" ScanSpeak Revelator. :D :bowdown: I figure one per door aught to cut it.

[eatingupblacktop]

Holy smokes Batman, with the size of those mags, you'll be blowin' off the doors with those things! What's their power rating? I wanna see the covers and how they fit!

[Electrodynamic]

Haha, those are shielding rings (commonly used in speakers that go next to TV's to not distort the image). The size of the magnet means d!ck when it comes to power handling anyway. :) Besides the motors method for cooling the voice coil, power handling in car audio has a LOT to do with the size and type of the enclosure. As you can see from the picture, these are rated at ~125 watts RMS. Anyway, these are being mounted in my doors.

ScanSpeak Revelators are the big boys in home Hi-Fi known for not only incredible lifelike detail and imaging, but also great midbass and even sub-bass. There's a company that uses the 5.25" version and they have it playing down to 35 Hz in a room. :)

[Electrodynamic]

Oh yeah, I should add that the reason why I was so pissed over the weekend is that I cannot integrate my 3sixty.2 in with the factory radio. Well, I can, technically. But there is a noise that is being emitted from the factory HU that sounds like scratchy morse code and I can't get rid of it. I've troubleshot down to it being the HU, which SUCKS because I was going to keep the factory HU for a stealth appearance. So since I tracked it down to the factory HU, I bought a double-din Kenwood unit and am going to re-wire the entire system so I can have full control over every speaker. I'll still be using the 3sixty.2 but I'll be using dual bridged Sundown Audio 50.4's on my front stage - one amp for the tweeters and one amp for the mids to allow me complete adjustability with every channel. Anyway, it should be fun. :)

[Electrodynamic]

And here is today's acquisition:

Yep, that's right - a 50.4 per pair of Morel MDT12's and a 50.4 per pair of ScanSpeak Revelators. :D Not to mention a pair of 1000D's per pair of new Mag v4's.

[Electrodynamic]

Ok...here is a BIG !Removed! update:

There was a LOT more work that went on other than what is pictured. I have to "give a shout out" (yes, I know that's !Removed!) to Jacob, Brandon, and Justin at Sundown Audio. Without them, none of this would have been accomplished. I employed Jacob's OCD skills in sound deadening to do the doors "half-assed" as he calls it. From the following pics, you'll see that his half-!Removed! is most people's over-kill. We had to keep the metal tape away from him or he would have gone ape shit and would probably still be deadening my doors.

Brandon did an excellent job on the door pods! They are smooth, fit perfectly, and are completely sealed. Thumbs up man!

Justin focused on the trunk portion and did a damn fine job! We tried to fit 3 Mag's but it simply wasn't working out with the diameter we ended up working with. Losing a Mag only lost 1.5 dB (theoretical), so it's no big deal.

The install isn't finished yet, but everything is neat and tidy. Wires are all tucked away, tied down, zip tied, soldered, shrink-wrapped, etc. It was quite the day! Now, on to the piczorz!!

[Electrodynamic]

First up is a picture of my deadened door in progress:

Notice the proliferous use of Second Skin deadener along with the gargantuan opening being filled with Second Skin Luxury Liner before it was to be sealed up. :)

Here is the door panel sealed up (AKA: the huge hole taken care of):

And now onto the door pods. :) The door pods from the factory are ported. We went sealed. The factory door pods are made out of stiff HEAVY plastic, so there was no need to strengthen the back of the door pods. The front of the door pods needed to have 7" adapters made and fiberglassed onto them in order to mate the Scan Speak Revelators into position. Brandon headed up this section of the install and he did a fantastic job. Here are some pics of the progress:

__________________

[Electrodynamic]

And here are the s*x pictures of the SS being mated to the pod:

And here is the SS being installed onto the door: