WilliamW : 1998 Honda Accord LX

[WilliamW]

Amplifier Cleaning

I'm trying to sell my amps but if they don't bring in enough money, I'll just keep them. It's not worth losing such expensive equipment for less than 140 dollars.

Anyway, I brought my amplifiers to work today and took a look at the quality of everything. It turns out that a lot of the screw holes were stripped in some places and I only had 1 of the hex cap screw that holds the end caps onto the amps. They also hold the matching amp link on.

So I flipped it all upside down one at a time and took out all of the electronics. I re-tapped the holes with a 6-32 tap and there was a TON of metal shavings that came out. Now that the holes are all cleaned out I put everything back together and put it on a display board temporarily. Before I actually use the amps, I'll take them back apart at a later date and clean off all the old heat grease and apply new heat grease. But for now it's all good. It's bigger than I last remembered it since it's been over 2 years without my stereo in my car.




I thought I'd put this up too. I have power sheets that state the actual power ratings that the amplifiers made during quality testing at the factory and it's much higher that what their rated for.

The Rockford Fosgate Punch 301X, rated at 300 watts RMS, is actually 394 watts RMS.
The Rockford Fosgate Punch 601S, rated at 600 watts RMS, is actually 758 watts RMS.

So instead of 900 watts of power I get 1152... I love these amps...

[WilliamW]

I just got my Kenwood Excelon receiver back from ACP Electronics and they did a shit load of work to it.

Apparently it had water damage corroded some of the traces off of the circuit board along with destroying some of the components and transistors that allow the unit to turn on. He almost gave up on it but finally he came through and now I have my head unit back.



And of course the repair wasn't cheap, but WAY better than getting some new POS for 100 bucks.

[WilliamW]

I've started on my amplifier rack. It's somewhat crude at the moment but I'm trying to actually make something nice. I cut out a piece of plexiglass the same size as the foot print of the amplifiers. Then I made a double H frame to support it. I used heavy 1/4" thick angle iron for the frame so it'll be very solid and not allow the amps or rack to bend at all. Using this heavy gauge frame will also allow me to run 8 inch ground wires for my amplifiers. I will bolt them straight to this rack frame and then run a 1/0 gauge ground wire to my chassis.

I have a budget of 0 dollars. So I'm using anything and everything I come across.

[mercyboy]

nice....keep up the good work......

[WilliamW]

Working in an industrial setting has it's benefits.

I just happened upon the spool of 6 gauge solid copper wiring one of the contractors left at our facility a year ago. Now it's mine since my work will never actually use it, nor actually have a use for it.

I might be able to run 1 single 6 gauge copper line for my amps, but if it's not enough I'll just run a second 6 gauge line besides it.

400' of copper wire = AWESOME!

I just replaced someones belt on their Chrysler Pacifica and he's going to be paying me something. Woot for money.

[ChIoVnIdCa]

solid copper wiring o

Don't waste your time... Sell it and buy new wiring... You want something flexible.

[WilliamW]

Yeah, "solid" probably isn't the right word for it. More like 19 conductor wire. It's flexible enough to bend into position and it will hold that position. I'm broke and don't want to deal with selling it and then only being able to afford so much wire in comparison.

If I keep this stuff, I could do my entire installation 20 times over.

[WilliamW]

Slowly making progress.

I'm very close to being done with my industrial amplifier rack. I'm setting the amps in at an angle. I'm still unsure where to put the subwoofer though.



Here's the amp rack with the back stands I made tonight.



And here is the 6 gauge copper wire. It JUST barely fits into my Rockford amps which are rated for 8 gauge.

[WilliamW]

I've finished the amp rack. I placed the capacitors on 4 bars that I welded to the back of the frame. The angle iron just so happened to give me the perfect clearance and angle to mount the caps to so they would be horizontal above the amps.

I'm installing the head unit this weekend along with the monster 4 channel RCA cable, the Monster 2 channel RCA, the rear RCA aux input, the Ipod controller, and amp remote wire.

That way I wont have to remove the dash or head unit when the time comes to run the power wires for the amplifiers.

[WilliamW]

Well, I've actually finished installing everything on July 16th.

I've installed all the components, amps, wire, head unit and accessories.

This installation was a bitch though. That 6 AWG wire was the biggest pain in the ass to work with. If I'm ever rich I will always buy audio grade 0 AWG flexible power and ground wire.

I had to run 4 of these power wires to make up my 0 AWG wire. Never again.

I have more pictures to get up but I'm just lazy right now.

[WilliamW]

Here are the spec sheets.




I had gotten the deck partially installed at this point and tested it out on the internal 22rms. It's amazing how good they sound over the stock radio even with only 22 watts.


I ran the Kenwood Ipod adapter down the console and positioned the box by the shifter and the console. It worked out well for where I wanted my Ipod to be at.


I then ran the connector into the bottom of the center console. I removed the bottom tray and made it so it's just the right size.


Running the speakers on the deck itself was fine for all of 10 minutes, but getting the amps ready required new thermal paste to be applied since I had removed the boards to re tap the screw holes.


And finally after getting all the amps wired and mounted and running, this is how it looks from outside of the trunk. I still need to go in and clean up the carpet of all the small wire fragments.

[WilliamW]

Don't waste your time... Sell it and buy new wiring... You want something flexible.

I'm giving you rep points because as eager as I was to get my installation done, you (even though I already knew it before) are right.

The entire amp setup is out of the car and everything is disconnected. I'm extending some of the wires and I'm replacing the trunk lid material with 3/4" plywood. I'm also building in a sub box into the floor near the back to minimize wasted space.

I need to cut out the hole for the sub, sand down the wild edges, install the sub and sub wire, hook everything up and test it. Then remove everything again and carpet it all.

My work is really cut out for me.

[WilliamW]

I've finished installing the amp rack, new floor board and sub box all built into one unit. I've given it custom hinges so I can still easily get to the spare tire.

I still need to wire up the 2 capacitors in above the amps. I've also installed a 1 gallon air tank to the right of the subwoofer box behind the amps to hold my supply of air for the horns I've installed in the front. I only need 35 psi to operate these horns so my 1 gallon charged to 130 will be fine for a while on a single charge.

[MikeW]

Lookin good William.

[WilliamW]

Well. My wife has been driving the car around as the primary driver for a little while now and she's managed to get over 500 miles to a tank of gas BEFORE the gas light came on.

It was pretty good too because I purposefully drove down the highway an extra 2 miles to get the next gas station because the orange gas light hadn't come on yet. We got there and it STILL wasn't on so I turned around to go back home and just as we passed mile 500 the gas light came on. I put in 14.5 gallons of gas and that gives me an average MPG of 34.5 (mostly highway)

I gave her mad kudos. Primarily because it's proof that she's a better driver than I am when it comes to fuel economy.