It's still got to be carpeted and there is a panel that sits over the battery and fuel tank that tidies things up nicely. everything is covered with filler dust at the moment, next week I will back the car out of the workshop and blow it off with compressed air, the workshop will get a sweep up at the same time.
Wiring always looks messy when it's ha;f way through but some cable ties and spiral wrap quickly tidy it all up.
I got this far then remembered I had forgotten to add a couple of wires from the indicator to the side repeaters. Bugger.
When I started this madness nearly 3 years ago I envisaged having a really decent sounding audio system in it but also had to keep focused on the bargain basement budget, quite a tall order. I used to deal in hifi and have played about with audio since I was a nipper so I had a pretty good idea of what I was doing and have long held the believe that in any audio system the speakers play the biggest part in sound quality. Most modern head units are pretty decent, the Sony head unit in my car was given to me by some friends who were scrapping the car it was in so that was a bonus. I had exactly the same unit in my mini so I knew it could sound quite decent. It has 4 x 45 Watt output and a line output for a sub woofer, which can be configured for volume, phase and low pass frequency from the set up menu.
The speakers for the 4 channels came from my scrapped Jaguar XF Portfolio, they are the Bowers and Wilkins premium units so they handle the power well and have the potential to sound really good. Initially I built a sealed cabinet for them, quite deep to give me a decent bass but I found it really needed porting. With that done the sound was much better, I used the B+W tweeters to give better detail to the upper frequencies and then added another two speakers to what is effectively a baffle board using the boot as a cabinet. I was happy with the ones in the enclosure but the other two were not really cutting the mustard until I put a floor in the boot, they were then transformed. The sound quality and sound pressure level from even very low power inputs is quite remarkable.
Although I was quite pleased with it all I still felt the really low bass was missing so I decided a sub woofer was needed, something to shift a massive amount of air, I wanted to feel the bass. I found a brand new 10 inch 350 Watt RMS sub on ebay at an unbelievably low 50 quid, I snapped it up. I then set about finding an amp to power it and was looking at the class d ones that are now so cheap and promise massive power but I came across a Juice brand one that had been removed from a powered sub of the same power as my Sony unit, at 40 quid it was another must have buy, I have to say it is far better than I could have hoped for.
Being so close to the battery is a massive advantage as I get very little volt drop down the power cable, it's also a very short run, from the amp to the sub. I have used super thick cable anyway, the 1500 Watt peaks demand the thickest cable that the terminals will take. It has to comply with IVA regulations so everything is neatly tied up, I have used spiral wrap to give an additional level of protection against abrasion etc.
I couldn't wait to try it out but some idiot - me - had cut the remote wire too short, this is the one that comes from the head unit and makes the relay in the amp switch on when needed, it was an absolute pain but I got there in the end. When I first tried it I was a bit disappointed but then I tried inverting the phase and the whole thing came to life. I have to say I am absolutely delighted with it, the quality and volume levels are way beyond anything I hoped for. Given that the whole system cost me just 90 quid I don't think it would be possible to do much better. I need to add some more sound deadening pads here and there and the boot lid needs a seal, it will only improve matters. I am well chuffed.
The other thing I got round to at last was the wiring for the bonnet, it has a sub loom for the lights and indicators so the bonnet can be removed by disconnecting one single multi pin electrical plug and removing 2 bolts. I had previously wired as far as the pivot point of the bonnet but had not taken the wires from the lights to the connector. I am 90 per cent of the way there but ran out of energy today so will finish it over the weekend - it's only 1/2 an hours work now, although there is an auto jumble on Sunday so maybe it will have to wait until Monday. Or Tuesday.
I did the major part of the wiring months ago and couldn't remember all the wiring colour codes, fortunately my little book of prayers had it all written down so joining it all up was nice and easy. It's all tested and working but I need to get a different flasher relay as the one in there doesn't like powering all 4 indicators when the hazards are on. It was one I had lying about, I have a bigger capacity one on order.
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