My 8000W/4500W Sound System Build - Fi Audio, Rockford Fosgate, Hertz

[ahl395]

Hey guys, I posted most of this in my build log already. But I figured I would make a separate thread in the audio section after getting inspired by a few other member's threads.

I've had several other systems ranging from 300 to 3000W, but this one takes the cake. Largest and craziest system I've ever done.
This thread/post will be very long and picture heavy, feel free to browse through, hopefully it gives someone the inspiration to tackle something similar

Since this post I have downsized the system to 4500W. Details on Page 3.

Specs/Components...

~8000W RMS
Subwoofers: 2 x 12" Fi Audio SP4v2
Front Speakers: Hertz Millie Legend Active 3 Ways (Woofer & Mid in door, Tweeter in pillar)
Rear Speakers: Hertz Millie Pro Coaxial
Subwoofer Amps: 2 x Rockford Fosgate T2500-1bdcp (Rated @ ~3500W each)
Speaker Amp 1: Rockford Fosgate T600-4 (Front & Rear woofers)
Speaker Amp 2: Rockford Fosgate P400X4 (Front mids and tweeters)
Sound Processor: Helix DSP Pro
Enclosure: Custom Built Ported Subwoofer Box (Tuned @ 32hz / 5.7cu.ft. Gross / 3.5cu.ft. Net / Birch Plywood)
Cooling: Four 70mm Fans mounted above amps
Vibration Damper: Sound Deadener Showdown CLD Tiles (used in doors, trunk, and trunk lid)

Electrical Upgrades:
370A Singer Alternator
XS Power D4700 AGM Front Battery
XS Power 500F Supercap Bank
KnuKonceptz 1/0 AWG OFC Power/Ground
Two 1/0 Power & Two 1/0 Ground from front to rear (ran under car in ENT electrical conduit)
One 1/0 Power run from alternator to battery
Custom made battery terminals


First thing first, the final product.

The box does look crooked in the photos so I believe there is a little room for it to move when the seats are down. However I made sure the back seat is above the box/board so that it cant go past it.

As pictured you can see I used several brackets to hold everything together. There are straight brackets holding the amp walls to the box in the rear, and brackets holding the front of the amp boards to the board in front of the box, which is then L bracketed to the box. Also L brackets on the top of the boards and to the box. Keeps everything nice and secure and holds everything together. Feels very sturdy and all one piece. The left back seat goes back, the right one does not since the two amps on that side are longer. I may try to make a notch in the seat for the amp corner to sit in so I have the ability to close the seat. I usually ride with it down anyway though.

The gap in the back of the trunk, and the cutouts are for my upcoming methanol injection tank. Left cutout is for the hose to run through and allows some access to the pump, right cutout is for the wires. I may have to move the box slightly forward to fit the tank and condense the wires to the right side. This is coming soon.

Fuse holders for the driver-side amps are mounted on the board in front of the box, the passenger side amps fuses are near the battery. I would have rathered put them all out of sight but there was not enough space to do it any other way. Same with the terminals on the front of the subwoofer box. Sound processor is mounted on the backside of the driver-side amp board.

Some photos of the amps before the box was put in...

These are pics I snapped while in the process of installing so things look a bit neater now.

View attachment 270587



Next post will be the wiring and electrical upgrades, and the box building pics.

Sponsored

 

[ahl395]

So for the wiring and batteries...

Trying to fit these wires through the car would be impossible, running them under the car was slightly less impossible

Ran the wiring through the wheel wells and under the car. Used friction tape around the wires going through bends or against metal. Used hard ENT conduit for the runs under the car, and wire loom in other spots. Secured everything with a series of bolted in cable hold downs, plastic zip ties and metal zip ties.

At no point is the wire the lowest point on the car. The frame rail or jacking rail is the lowest point, so it should be nice and safe.

Battery and Connections...

Couldn't find any battery terminals for the front battery on the market that would fit the tiny bit of space we have in the battery compartment, especially with the top of our battery not being flat. Had to cut the front of the battery tray but otherwise fit well. Overall the wires are nice and protected and safe. It does look a little cluttered since there are so many, but with the amount of wiring going on here I couldn't find a way to make it look any neater. Ran a wire from the upgraded alternator to the battery. That cable is fused to 400A (370A alternator), the other cables are fused to 300A each. Allowing for 600A to transfer to the rear, which should be sufficient for music.

Got the battery cover to mostly fit back on. The wires were touching the hood at first so I raised the rubber hood stops a bit and seems good now. No marks or anything on the cables.

As you can see I hooked up two 500A battery isolators in the spare tire well to keep the batteries separate when the car is off. May not be needed since both are AGM but I wanted to play it safe.

]

Hextall's ACM harnesses that I used to get RCA's and tie my speaker wiring back into the factory plug.

 

[ahl395]

Subwoofer box building and speakers...

Built the subwoofer box out of Birch plywood for weight savings over the typical MDF. Sealed with silicone in all the seams. Stained afterwards to a grayish blue color.

All the partial walls near the back of the box are the turns in the port to get the required length for the tuning frequency of 32hz.

Speakers...

Front door speakers were a bit of a job. When I first installed them the speakers were hitting the door panels when turning the volume up. When installing the speakers I installed the Hertz woofers into the factory speaker bracket. Unfortunetly my only choice to fix the problem was make custom spacer brackets or cut the door panels.

I chose to cut the door panels, and mount the included grilles. However it turned out Ford did not put the speaker grilles where the actual speakers are, it's slightly off center. This means my holes didnt line up and I couldn't install the grilles onto the speakers. I opted to attach the grilles to the outside of the door panel so it didn't look too ugly. It's the worst part of the install unfortunately, I'm not 100% happy with how it came out.

Vibration Dampener...

Used SDS CLD Tiles which were shown to beat out traditional Dynamat, etc. Applied it on the trunk lid, trunk, and doors.

And just some miscellaneous extra pictures of the woofers with it's massive 4" voice coil, in car wiring, rear battery terminals, and my Helix bass knob.

Hope you guys enjoyed :cheers:

 

[mumbles]

WOW!!! I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that the cabling weighs more than the sub box... that is a lot of cable!!! :lol:

Seriously excellent choice of equipment.

 

[z06psi]

Great job but I gotta have my trunk space. I would've bought an SPL van or truck from the junkyard to do that much. Lol

 

[UserName]

That’s a huge stereo. Have you had any thoughts on using the Director with the DSP?

 

[mumbles]

That’s a huge stereo. Have you had any thoughts on using the Director with the DSP?

You also have an awesome list of components. I'm curious as to why you went with the 650's instead of a Morel woofer?

Also, not sure if your DSP is a Pro or regular, but here are some good discussions about the Director and the DSP over at DIYMA.com;

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/general-car-audio-discussion/381522-helix-director-users.html
http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...ussion/109253-helix-dsp-whos-got-answers.html

 

[UserName]

You also have an awesome list of components. I'm curious as to why you went with the 650's instead of a Morel woofer?

Also, not sure if your DSP is a Pro or regular, but here are some good discussions about the Director and the DSP over at DIYMA.com;

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/general-car-audio-discussion/381522-helix-director-users.html
http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...ussion/109253-helix-dsp-whos-got-answers.html

Thanks. The DSP is the last gen 8 channel regular version that was pulled from my previous car and may end up not being used for this install after all. Everything except the SI subs and Morels was either in my previous car or purchased with a different car in mind. If they don’t play well together I’m still open to using Morel woofers.

I know two things for sure:

First, the 9 speaker shaker is terrible and second, I want to see Ahl395’s stereo in action. It’s got to be insane.

 

[ahl395]

WOW!!! I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that the cabling weighs more than the sub box... that is a lot of cable!!! :lol:

Seriously excellent choice of equipment.

I think it's around 150lbs in cable lol. To compensate for the weight in the trunk I had two spring spacers put on each side.

Great job but I gotta have my trunk space. I would've bought an SPL van or truck from the junkyard to do that much. Lol

Thanks man. I know lol but I've been used to no trunk space since my first car for the same reason ( just a less powerful system with a large box) :lol:

That’s a huge stereo. Have you had any thoughts on using the Director with the DSP?

I have the Helix bass remote knob, but the Director looks awesome. I love the feature that you can change the level on the fly of a certain frequency. I'm out of money though and I have nowhere to mount any more screens :lol:

Thanks. The DSP is the last gen 8 channel regular version that was pulled from my previous car and may end up not being used for this install after all. Everything except the SI subs and Morels was either in my previous car or purchased with a different car in mind. If they don’t play well together I’m still open to using Morel woofers.

I know two things for sure:

First, the 9 speaker shaker is terrible and second, I want to see Ahl395’s stereo in action. It’s got to be insane.

Let me know if you're ever in Jersey and I'll show you Not that sound system videos ever come out good but I'll take one one day soon and post it up here.

 

[essque]

WOW! just wow lol. This is the most impressive Mustang build I've ever seen. Must be stupid loud, are you blown away with the results? Please post video if you can, hearing this is a must! Great work from the design to the equipment to the install. That box must have been a crazy tight fit.

 

[ahl395]

WOW! just wow lol. This is the most impressive Mustang build I've ever seen. Must be stupid loud, are you blown away with the results? Please post video if you can, hearing this is a must! Great work from the design to the equipment to the install. That box must have been a crazy tight fit.

Thanks very much, im very happy with the results. It has the capability of blowing your eardrums out with bass but still having great sound quality for the mids and highs.

Volume level supposedly goes up to 35 with a completely clean signal. 25 is about as high as I can take it before it just hurts your ears. 28 is the highest I've ever gone lol. The only limit to volume is how much your ears can take, which was exactly what I wanted. Plenty of overhead available to never have to worry about clipping.

With the Helix remote you can switch between two profiles (EQ, crossovers, etc). So far I've only set up one for HipHop/Rap/EDM which didn't take too much adjustment to get sounding good. I still have to set up the other profile for Rock/Metal and I can tell that is going to take more tweaking to get sounding right. This is still on my todo list once I get the time. Took me around 2+ hours to tune the first one so the rock/metal profile will probably take even longer.

The box was ridiculous to install. Barely fit, had to remove all the seats and slide it in through the front. Even with two people though trying to get it into the trunk crouching down in the back seat with no leverage... was tough. Box is probably around 250lbs. Not too worried about it getting stolen it's almost impossible to remove lol.

Believe it or not it was so tight that this was actually the second box I made. The first one was a completely different design. Even though I took the measurements and had them written down, I forgot that the trunk opening was smaller than the actual trunk, and the box didn't fit. :frusty: :lol:

 

[z06psi]

Volume level supposedly goes up to 35 with a completely clean signal. 25 is about as high as I can take it before it just hurts your ears. 28 is the highest I've ever gone lol.

Puzzie. :lol:

 

[ahl395]

Puzzie. :lol:

Hahaha. My eardums feel like theyre turning inside out at 28. :headbonk:

 

[UserName]

I have the Helix bass remote knob, but the Director looks awesome. I love the feature that you can change the level on the fly of a certain frequency. I'm out of money though and I have nowhere to mount any more screens :lol:



Let me know if you're ever in Jersey and I'll show you Not that sound system videos ever come out good but I'll take one one day soon and post it up here.

They make the Director without the housing that seems like an easier way of install in a custom trim piece or something. Mainly fishing for ideas before I tear into my car for the install. At the minimum, the bass knob for the sub amp can do what I need, although the preference is having instant access to multiple tuning setups via the Director.

I've not yet been to NJ yet in the better part of a half century, but if that changes...

 

[ahl395]

They make the Director without the housing that seems like an easier way of install in a custom trim piece or something. Mainly fishing for ideas before I tear into my car for the install. At the minimum, the bass knob for the sub amp can do what I need, although the preference is having instant access to multiple tuning setups via the Director.

I've not yet been to NJ yet in the better part of a half century, but if that changes...

With the Helix remote there is a "Mode" button at the bottom that will let you switch between two setups. Not as many as the Director but just FYI since it's alot cheaper lol.

Second to last photo in Post #3 shows it.

Sponsored