Actually I was hoping you give it to me as a gift
But hey, you're gonna sell it ?? Oh I'm gonna start saving money from this moment

 

I bought this car with every intention of building one last track ride to get the mod bug out of my system - I have a birthday present in mind for my 40th. Until then, I'm going to enjoy every single minute of this beast.

 

Ugh I want that Vorsteiner spoiler so bad!

 

The spoiler and new custom rear springs get installed the first week of January, I'll post some pics up. Pictures of that spoilers don't do it true justice, the workmanship is absolutely flawless.

 

Got a notice from customs today that a delivery was ready for collection - got excited that it might be my wheels, it wasnt but it was a nice surprise;



Been waiting on these for a while, I've got two bad/suspect wires that needed replacing. I've used KV85's on all my past builds, brilliant wires.

 

Eureka!

 

let me know how you make out with those wheels and brakes. if they have similar clearance to my stamfords they're not gonna clear, mine clear the front factory 500 brakes hardly, i mean like less than 5 mm.
__________________

 

I'm not following pal, the wheels are being custom made to clear the brakes.

 

Indeed

 

Santa just showed up in a UPS truck;



I hummed and hawed over this for a while but figured what the hell, might as well finish this car off properly with a new A/V system.

All Kenwood eXcelon;

DNX9980HD head unit (this thing is superb, absolute top of the line, very impressed)
XR-1S mono digital amp (reference series, very small and very light)
XR-4S 4 ch digital amp (reference series, very small and very light)
KFC-XW1000F x 2 subwoofers (shallow mount, takes up very little space and very light)
KFC-X1730P x 2 component speakers
KCA-iP302 iPhone/iPad/iPod interface
SWI-CAN2 & SWI-JACK to interface with the sterring wheel and keep all controls

Going to have the install done at West Coast Customs, starting to sketch out ideas tonight. As with everything else, I'm going to design the install on the lines of a factory issue look.

Stay tuned

 

^ That is AWESOME!!!

Are you going to fabricate a dash kit from scratch? If not, I'm using this one (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3504984640...ht_2180wt_1270) and can safely recommend it, atleast for a starting point. The finish is almost the same as the plastic in my Audio 20 HU and the fitting is perfect.

I can take better pics if you would like, but here's one from the night I installed the Pioneer HU:

 

I got one with the head unit but I'm positive that it's the C class one that needs to be shaved down. I'm not too concerned because the head unit surround will be customized to fit the HU without the trim ring and to match my interior. In other words, it's going to be cut, glassed and covered anyways.

That is an excellent find you have there though, as far as I know, that is possibly the only TRUE '05+ dash kit for the CLK.

 

Great, really looking forward to the results on this one. Good luck!

I've been doing my AV install in chunks. First was the HU, 2 days ago were the speakers. I will be compiling all the information and pics in one thread as soon as I find out this: How the hell do I attach photos off my hard drive in between text, so they dont all show in the bottom of the post?! Haha stupid question yeah I know!

However just to summarize my speakers install, to be honest I am not impressed so far. What I have is Polk Audio MM6501 component speakers in the front and the DB651 coxial in the back, being powered by a Pioneer 4-channel (60-70W RMS per channel). I have very limited experience (atleast compared to you ) of car audio installations, so researched the hell out of everything before I bought.

Reason of my disappointment is results of the bass from the speakers. Now I dont have those silly expectations that just because I have upgraded speakers they must sound like bass tubes. My expectation was simple: it must sound the same, if not better, than my OEM non-HK speakers. And at the moment, the speakers IMO are not dealing with the low end that well. They produce more of the "thud" rather than a more resonating tone that the OEM speakers did.

I have the following possible culprits, perhaps you know better:

1) Speakers havent been "broken into" yet? Supposedly speakers should get better with time. Myth or reality? How much better? How much longer?

2) (Lack of) Sound insulation: As you can see in Pic1, I bought Dynamat but figured that the same material is already installed by Mercedes on our door, and mainly because I wasn't comfortable with the installer stripping my door completely, ended up not installing it. Once the speakers were installed though, if you set the fader on your HU to fully rear and put your finger on the front speaker, you could feel it moving enough to believe that it was working as well, and same for if you set the fader to front and feel the rear speaker cone. Again, excuse my ignorance, but I'm starting to think that the speakers may not be doing the best job in reproducing sound due to the interference. I dont see how Dynamat would help this though as its still the same door.

3) Bad quality amp? I've been a long time Pioneer user, mainly of their excellent HUs (no offence to the diehard Kenwood fan ) and they're the only company in Doha to have a proper showroom and aftersales support. Why I think I may have made a mistake in getting this amp is that other than the bass issue, the highs, although crystal clear, doesn't have the "warmth" that I was expecting. Could again be the whole speakers-not-yet-broken-in thing though.

 

Forgot to mention, regardless of how the speakers are, my next and final chunk of installation is subwoofer and its amp, probably in 3 weeks. The RCA cables and power cables for them are already laid out, so it should be straightforward.

 

I'm a little pressed for time at the moment but I'll quickly touch on your 3 points;

1. Yes, there actually is a break in period for speakers/woofers! When I built my last IASCA competition car I did so to enter the "Ultimate Pro Sound Quality" division, I decided to go with 10" subs rather than 12's because a better punch and controlled bass was more important that shaking Flavor-Flav's 'gowd teef' out. Anyways, after getting it all installed and tuned I was really disappointed with the initial results - very weak bass. However, over the course of a weekend that my car was on display (with the AV system playing) in Canada's largest shopping mall something excellent happened - the subs broke in and the difference was night and day. Now, for small speakers the bass output is of course fractioned so the results won't be as dramatic but there will be a difference, 8 hours of play I'd say. Should mention that my car ended up being a zone champion and earned an invitation to the IASCA World Finals that year.

2. The door is essentially one large speaker enclosure so when you fade to one speaker the other becomes what is called a 'passive woofer' - this is perfectly normal. What most audio shops and installers neglect to tell consumers (because they don't know) is if the speakers are in a shared enclosure (as yours are in the door) they should be the same model and have the frequencies cut the same as well. I noticed your speakers are different front to rear - this is going to cause some (albeit it may be very minor) issues in regards to fidelity. All the sound insulation in the world won't correct the fighting between the two, a quick and easy fix is to enclose the front speaker. A small enclosure will inhibit deep mid range bass but that's okay, the rear speaker can make up for it.

3. I'm pretty sure the amp is okay even if it is a Pioneer What I would check is the crossover cuts on both the head unit and the amp itself - you may find that the installer has them cut too high and the lower end mid bass signals aren't even reaching the speakers.

That was fun, I forgot how much I loved car audio tech/trouble shooting!

 

Hey Kev, firstly happy new year! Hope it goes twice as better for you and all the other 209ers!

Thanks a lot for your expert advice.

Regarding the cutoff freqs, I made sure during installation as well as twice after installation that all the LPFs and HPFs on the HU and the amp are all off. Why I checked them again was because that's exactly how the speakers felt: like there is a filter not allowing the bass to the speakers. The crossovers for the front speakers have two settings on the high pass filter, 0 and -3dB and I have both set on -3.

Regarding the speakers on same door, what you mention is so common sense, only after you point it out lol. I had no idea about this, and can't blame the installer as I chose and ordered the different set of speakers on my own and just took it to them to install. Reason why I ordered different sets, out of ignorance now, was because firstly I didn't want to order component speakers for the back as I would have to fabricate some way to fit another crossover and tweeter (unless you can use just the woofers? dunno) and secondly I honestly thought the back speakers weren't going to make a huge influence on the sound as they are placed horribly right in front of side of the seat, so decided not to spend too much on them. There's another lesson learnt for me I guess.

I get how your suggestion for an enclosure would solve the fidelity problem (I feel the bass going all over the place in a series of constructive and destructive sound waves in some songs) but I don't see how I would make one and install in a door to be honest. Could you please elaborate?

3 more days since the installation, the speaker quality HAS gotten considerably better and bass is getting less "thud"dy and more boomy, however is shaking something in the right rear speaker. Will open the door and see what the issue is.

Though when I install the amp and subs and activate the low pass filters, I assume most of these issues I mentioned above would go away as the speakers wont have to deal with the lows anymore. Speaking of subs, I like yourself am also looking for sound quality rather than SPL. I would love tight yet punchy bass from a system that doesn't overpower the speakers yet won't be too low-volume either. Whats your suggestion on sizing? From what I know, your sub should be getting the same power as the sum of all your speakers, which in my case, is 60W RMS x 4 = 240W. Would a 12'' sub in a sealed enclosure getting 400W RMS be overkill? Or should I opt for 1 or 2 10'' sub?

As always, thanks a ton for your input. Folks like you on these forums make driving and modding the CLK way more easier and enjoyable!

 

+1 on the speaker run-in. All speakers have a break-in period sometimes running to 100's of hours like Magnepan!

 

WOW Thumbs up on the audio update. This build keeps getting better.

I'm continually amazed at the knowledge of our members here, we're in good company.

Oh and can't wait to see what your 40th b-day present brings............. p-car, BS, f-car...... so many choices!

 

Thanks pal, we certainly are all in good company here - its made this build an absolute blast and (for the most part) a walk in the park.

As for the big four oh present to myself, think "Double-O-Kevin"...

 

"Bond....... Kev-Bond".......... Good taste sir.

 

Got the car back with the new custom rear springs, stiffer and matched front & rear fender heights. Goes in tomorrow to have the interior trim refinished in silver to match the gauge bezel, resurface the headlights and install the Vorsteiner spoiler

 

Just read what you have written above, the 0 to -3dB isn't a frequency cut/filter, it's an attenuation setting. Set them at '0', you will immediately notice the speakers liven up. In audio, every 3dB is a audible doubling (or halving for that matter) of volume.

 

Kevwood bought Kenwood speakers... you did that on purpose

 

I haven't done any audio builds in 35 years or so, but what grech described made me immediately think of reversed polarity. So simple, but it used to happen a lot. Do new systems have a way of guaranteeing that won't happen, like different sized connectors?
Pardon my stupidity, but anything I learn will help if I happen to change .. . NO! wait! I'm not changing anythi.......

 

Well I didn't do it by accident! . Many many many moons ago when I started first playing with car audio I used Kenwood head units because of the fantastic sound quality, as time when by, the high end line, eXcelon, went on to have a full line up of heads, speakers, subs and amps. When I started competing in car audio (IASCA) I went with a full Kenwood system, I won my zone and earned an invitation to the World Finals. That year, Kenwood Canada actually used my vehicle over their own as a show car for the Phoenix Gold Slam Jam Finals. I got to know the guys at Kenwood and when the Sales Manager in my zone decided to leave the company and run his own, I got offered the job. I happily accepted.

While with Kenwood I built another personal car (this time in the Ultimate Pro category) and again won my zone and got invited to the World Finals. That car ended up in magazines.

So, now that it's time to do another audio system the choice was pretty obvious. And now you probably know how I got the name Kevwood....

Reversing polarity can actually benefit the sound stage depending on the system, speaker locations and staging of the vehicle. My last car had one speaker in the kicks out of phase and both tweeters out of phase - sounded excellent, by design. As long as the speakers are being used to produce high and mid range, phasing isn't vital. For mid bass and bass production, well, it goes without saying that it's pretty important to have the speaker punching rather than pulling

Some packaged systems come with connectors that are one way so the polarity will always be correct but most don't. Speaker wires are identified with one lead having a colored stripe, just make sure the lead follows one terminal on the amp to the corresponding one on the speaker - I always used the stripe for negative.