Budget Audio Upgrade - Parts List - Suggestions?

Passenger side door is done and the box is in the rear. Tomorrow, I will work on wiring it all up, then I should be good to go as far as firing it up is concerned. I'll have to get some time to go to a parking lot and do the tweaking of all of the adjustments. There are a few seemingly random bolts in the rear area, are those good for a ground? I'll grind the paint off of the chassis. I don't see why it wouldn't work out.

Attached is a video of the difference that sound deadening makes - not that any that have gone through with it need any convincing. The rear doors are untreated (I'll put a little something on them eventually, I think) and the front door has about 50-60% coverage on the outer skin.

 

I really should do mine... need to hear your set up when its all done

 

For sure. We'll meet up whenever I get it all done. Fingers crossed that will be tomorrow, but who knows. Depends on how many unexpected issues I run in to .

If you tackle the doors and need any help, let me know. Can't fit too many hands in there, but could divide them up and work on them at the simultaneously. It'd save a decent chunk of time.

 

The good news is, I got it working. Everything powers up, plays, etc.

The bad news: It sounds like shit, looks like shit, the lights on the radio don't work (thus no dimmer, either), there is a buzz when it is muted, and neither of the seats fold back up due to one of the amps being too thick. The looks is on me. Some of the wire I planned on using was incorrect and not flexible enough. The sound obviously needs some work from a tuning standpoint. The rest, I'm just pissed about. Likely dropping it off at Car Toys or something and letting them install the amps again to see if the source of the buzz is somewhere in there. I guess I'll need to hack the box further, remove part of the driver's side enclosure, then make a spot to mount stuff in there so that my seats can fold back.

Not really happy with the time and effort put in yielding this result. I hoped to be spending the next bit of time tweaking the sound. One of the tweeters was crackling. I tinkered with a bunch of stuff, eventually just swapping RCA cables and it was fixed. No idea, there. Without a doubt the last car stereo I will have installed this lifetime. I've worked hard so that I don't have to do this shit myself anymore.

I'll start another thread asking about the dimmer situation. Obviously something is amiss with the wiring harness.

 

Dang i wish i could offer some advice but i havent wired up an HU in a decade.

Car Toys did mine so i dont even know what it looks like behind the radio. On the buzzing, doesnt that come from a possible grounding issue?

 

Hate to hear of the troubles, but it's part of the learning curve. Sounds like your 'education' might be over though. However if you decide to try and troubleshoot this yourself, I'd start by re-checking all your connections first...yes behind the dash too since you wired up a harness and have funky functionality now. FWIW, soldering back there really isn't necessary and takes a lot of extra time. You really aren't moving much current through those wires so butt-splices are perfectly acceptable - most shops use them for such things. I use them in my vehicles. Car Toys will probably use them if you let them. Maybe that will save you some time.

So check all the cables and connections first. It also sounds like you may have a poor ground. Make sure you have metal to metal contact there (no paint or any other metal treatment). ALL your devices should use the same ground if possible. You can paint back over it once you get a solid connection. Another suspect regarding noise is that LC2. If I had a nickel for every issue I've read with these, I'd be a wealthy man. The units themselves I hear introduce some noise, but the real issue comes from proper initial setup - which I understand is a tad tricky. Setting multiple gains through the same chain takes some patience and is somewhat advanced technique. Each stop in the chain gives you a place to introduce issues.

Best of luck whichever way you go. This hobby can be both frustrating and rewarding. Like it or not, frustrating comes first. The shop may indeed be the way to go if you just want sounds without the pitfalls of DIY. If you're in a big town, I'd research the shops in the area before settling on Car Toys though. Rates will be similar throughout the industry and you may prefer the more personal feel of a smaller shop i/o the turn & burn mentality you'll find at the bigger chains.

 

I'm not so sure there isn't a problem with the LC2i. I made a few adjustments and it sounded pretty good on the way to work this morning. I was letting it go fairly loud and was at least happy with how it sounded. Really happy, actually.

Then after about 30 seconds, half the sound dropped out and the left speaker started crackling really badly. If I swap the RCA cables, the crackle goes to the other side, so it is somewhere between the head unit and the amp. It could be wiring, it could be the left output on the LC2i. I haven't played with it enough to eliminate the RCA cables as the culprit. Too bad as there was at least some small silver lining.

 

For grounding, is there any issue running in to a distribution block that is properly grounded? I'll redo the ground to see if that is the source of some of my problems, but I want to make sure that this is an acceptable way to achieve a common ground.

 

I got another quirk. The bluetooth controls on the radio don't work with my phone anymore. For instance, when I click "pause" on the head unit, the phone stops for a half-second, then keeps playing. When I switch from Bluetooth to FM radio, the track doesn't pause, nor does it pause when I turn the truck off.

Is this another issue with how the reverse harness is wired? I could really use a picture showing how that needs to be installed to see if I got anything backwards.

 

Maybe you get lucky and just have a bad cable? It isn't uncommon.

No, that's far and above what most people do - just cram a bunch of stuff on some random bolt. You're at least trying to do it right. If you're sure your ground is good, I wouldn't bother with it right now. Figure out that RCA thing, get the LC sorted & see if that brings it in.

 

Don't PM about it, yet, but I'm likely putting the LOC, amps, and sub up for sale. Sick of it all.

I spent 3 or so hours tonight getting the box reconfigured. I'd already sealed it off, cut out the other opening to make space for one amp and the LOC, and painted it. Now I was wiring it up and mounting stuff to the rest of the enclosure. First attempt, I went to drop it in and the amp sitting in the middle section was hitting the seat bracket. Pulled the whole thing out, cut new wire so that I could turn the amp 90 degrees and move it to one side, then got it all mounted. Dropped it back in place and the fucking thing doesn't fit. I hadn't hooked anything up yet, but I could not get the seats back up all the way. On the driver's side, nothing sticks out further than the depth of the box (much less, actually) and that seat wouldn't go all the way back up. Passenger side? Same thing.

I wired the fronts up off the head unit for now until I decide what to do. The other option is to buy a custom box, but them I'm out a big chunk of change on top of the $50 in sunk costs for the existing box. I'm livid about the whole thing, though.

If I'm honest, I'm considering dumping the truck altogether. There is a rattle that comes from behind the gauge cluster area that comes only when the weather is warm, best I can tell. It started before I started this venture, so it isn't anything I caused, but it is frustrating as shit. I know what you're thinking, just a rattle, but it is a high pitched squeaky rattle that cuts to the core. If the audio worked, I considered paying some shop to pull the whole dash out, put rubber washers on everything, then put it back together. That money either goes to a box or to bourbon.