Volvo S60 build resurrected! Old School!

[americannight 10+ year member]

Hey does anyone have any tricks for getting your amps to turn on at the same time? As it stands, the Rodek kicks on first, then the Zed Deuce a few seconds later. So it sounds weird with sound first coming out of the center channel. If I could add a delay to the Rodek turn-on, that would be ideal. Not sure how this would be possible, though. Some kind of time delay relay?

 

[knotdrummer88 10+ year member]

this is a great looking build, anyone ever tell you that you like an older shawn white?

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

You guys are killing me with the lookalike jokes, lol. Actually, YES, I was skateboarding with my two younger boys at the school next door to my house and some kids came running over, asked for an autograph. Not joking, they totally thought I was Shawn White, that is until they saw how badly I **** at Skateboarding! Then the gig was up...

 

[audiobaun 5,000+ posts]

I wonder of a relay would work at all?Its gonna be almost impossible to get different amplifiers to turn on at the exact same time,having delayed on/off/soft on/off switches.I have the same issue running 4 amps/3 autotek bts,and one autotek mean..They are so close though..I just turn them on,at 0 volume and give it a couple seconds,like 10,and slowly crank her up..i will be adding a 40amp relay soon,should help out quite a bit,i would think.You do some very nice work!i love those Zed amps..all quite rare as well..Rodek,I havent seen one that clean since 94..lol that a friend had.great amps.I had a bookmark on relays some where, Ill see if I can locate it..not real sure if it will help out, but in my situation it will work perfect, as I will be adding cooling fans later,and will be needed.LOL..wiring can take a full day,0n a vehicle,and be a real PITA, but it is worth it in the end..Hardest vehicle Ive ever done was my 1990 240 sx,Ill never do another..LOL

 

[audiobaun 5,000+ posts]

Special Applications with SPDT Relays, Diagrams may help out..switches are unpredictable..lol

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

Special Applications with SPDT Relays, Diagrams may help out..switches are unpredictable..lol

Thanks a lot for all the info and checking out my build. I am hoping to just find a way to delay the turn on of the Rodek amp. If the sides turn on first and then the center second, I'll be fine with that. The annoying thing is turning on the system, just hearing the center and then five seconds later hearing the sides. The Zed Deuce has a long turn on delay, seems like about 5 seconds.

I'm envious of your 7100BTS. That was the first amp I ever bought and I'm sorry that I got rid of it. I had a lot of Zed stuff in the 90s including a massive Rodek amp, forgot the model number, but it was a four channel beast that had to be about two feet long. I could bridge two of the channels to my sub and run the other two channels to my fronts. It ran four twelves and plus pioneer fronts in a Ford Escort. It got stolen. That thing was loud for the day, hit 140db at Car Toys Car Wars here in the Seattle area. Of course there were louder vehicles but I was pretty pleased with that performance. I used a sealed box with a home made vario-vent in the back of each chamber. The variovent was basically a hole about 2"x4" cut into the back of the box. We used chicken wire on both sides of the hole, stuffed it with as much dakron foam stuffing as we could and then carpeted over it. It essentially would lower the tuned frequency of the "sealed" box. I'm sure that came at the expense of a bit of efficiency, but that thing would hit really low notes. Not sure if they still sell those but you could buy "variovents" which were essentially what we made with the chicken wire and stuffing. In that car I had four Autotek brand 12" woofers which were fairly decent speakers in the 90s. Now days their quality has gone down hill of course. After that system got stolen I downsized a lot. I went to a couple of Bostwick 10" speakers and an Orion amp. It sounded fine. But that ended my era of running really large car audio systems. Soon after that, the car died. After the second transmission started going out, I realized that car was a goner. Sold it for a few hundred bucks to a friend in need and then the audio system separately on Craigslist. I'm really excited to finally have a system again! It's lots of work but gratifying to be taking my time. It's really fun here to be pushing my build skills. A lot of this fiberglass fabrication is new to me. Have built lots of sub boxes and done lots of "MDF work" but this is new territory here. Thanks for the link!

 

[audiobaun 5,000+ posts]

Quite welcome,That link has alot of info for various things,sub wiring,all kinds of stuff.I myself started back in like 88/89 was my first large system,and still have several amps that I bought new that are still working GREAT!I am running 2-7150 bts @2ohms on ea set of subs atm, and a bTS 7204 on rear, and tweets up front@4ohms, and an Autotek Mean Machine 99 up front@2ohms..I do have 1 7100 bts left,and several 4-7050s,1-7030,1-7300,and several white Mean Machines.Those two are my favorite amps,and the Hifonic VII/VIII series amps.I will be setting back a couple amps enough for 2 more decent installs, and will be getting ready to let the rest go,i guess..Ive had them, and enjoyed them long enough..lol..not really, but They need to be used.I have too many,its almost insane..lol..Ive tried alot of amps, and I seem to always go back to the Zeds.They just shell out the power/cleanly and Brute compared to several other amps.I guess Im stuck in the 90s on amp power made by Zed..lol.Ill be getting 4 other subs together soon enough to replace what I have now..1k-1500 ea is what Im needing,and have in mind a couple,and I know gonna run me over $1k for them,unless I find a deal somewhere..unlikely.I love music,and loud clean music..Im not there yet, but working on it for sure.I run CDT front staging/rear,and old school USA made Audiobahn 10s(4-AW1008t-1000rms DVC2ohm) A used pair I bought last summer let me down, but my two I bought new 12/13 yrs ago still serving well,2 got stolen, as well as 2-2150 ,1-4080, and 1-4060.I know what you mean about theft especially theft recovery,Ive been cleaning my truck up past yr,and getting it fairly decent

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

Rodek,I havent seen one that clean since 94..lol that a friend had.great amps.

Ampguts posted a picture of the inside of my 225i. It's a very clean amp inside and out. Cool looking board!

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

So if you've been following this build, you know that the plan is to have black frames made for the amps out of black acrylic. Well, I heard back from the acrylic shop today that it would be very expensive to work off of the tracing of the amp I provided them because the shape is so complex around the corners. They would essentially have to do this cutting by hand. It would be time consuming and inevitably have some flaws. The estimate was over $300 for the two pieces. So in desperation, I contacted Stephen Mantz over at Zed Audio. Stephen was very cool and came through for me BIG TIME. He provided me with .dxf and autocad drawings of the amplifier shape which the shop can import into their computer to have the pieces machine cut. I can't thank Stephen Mantz enough for providing these. It sounds like he had to do some work to draw them, too, so it took some time on his end. You really would not get this kind of service with any of the "made-in-asia" manufacturers. Major props to Zed Audio here. Just awesome...

Here are links to the drawings I put up on my server in case anyone now or in the future may find them handy for their builds. According to Stephen, these would need to be printed 1:1 and then could be used as templates.

http://www.theamericannight.com/images/DEUCE-OUTLINE.dwg

http://www.theamericannight.com/images/DEUCE-OUTLINE.dxf

Lastly, here is a .jpg which I am providing just as an example so people know what they are getting in these files:

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

The acrylic shop just called and notified me they were successfully able to import Stephen's drawings into the CNC machine. The amp frames will be ready today! Look forward to picking them up this afternoon and sharing a picture of them here.

 

[Shinju 10+ year member]

/bump for a local.

Tip

I would get some techflex for your door speaker wire to help protect it agenst sharp edges and keep it rigid when the door opens and closes. It will eventually wear down at the holes it is running though.

Those Euro Molex plugs are a pain in the *** to work with!

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

I would get some techflex...

Thanks for the tip Shinju. I do plan to spend some time going back and focussing on the doors themselves. More deadening for example and building fiberglass pods for the speakers which will angle them more on axis behind the factory speaker grills. What is techflex?

 

[Shinju 10+ year member]

Its a wire netting sheath that goes over your wire.

Look at my build log here, you will see the black net looking stuff over my wires, it helps keep things looking clean as well as add rigidity to your wire keeping them protected agenst sharp edges ect ect.

You can get Techflex by the spool at Parts Express or eBay.

http://www.caraudio.com/forums/car-audio-build-logs-cars-trucks-suvs/545348-2005-scion-xb-sq-build-rebuild-hybrid-audio-alpine.html

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

OK, now that you mention it, yes I know what that is. Good idea. Just so you know, I don't have the wire touching any metal of the door frame. It is running through a hole I punched in the factory rubber grommet. But the techflex is still a good idea.

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

Finally was able to pick up the acrylic frames from the shop yesterday. They look sweeeeeeeeeeet! Thanks again to Stephen Mantz for making the auto cad drawing which the shop was able to import into their CNC machine. Here's a photo of the black acrylic frame on the amp. It's made from 1/4" black acrylic.