Ice
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When it came to fitting ICE ( In Car Entertainment ) I was a complete novice, I had no idea where to start let alone how to finish it all off looking nice.
My first port of call was the Audio section of the Celica Club, I inundated every one with questions on subs, amps, fuses etc etc. I was especially dependant on the club ICE Man – NJay (cheers dude !)
Here are a few things that I found interesting or tricky, hopefully it will help you on your own install some time in the future?
Contents |
HARDWARE
I knew I wanted 2 Subs (subwoofers) to give the sound a bit of ‘umph’, so without really looking into the various variants available I went wading on to the E-bay web site and bought myself a couple of VIBE 10” Pulse 3 series PT100's they are 330watt RMS (4 OHMS) with a max power of 600 watts each
To power the subs you need an amp (amplifier), now these vary greatly in price and specifications.On the guidance of one much more knowledgeable in this area than I (NJay) I went for an Alpine V12, 2/1 Channel Amp (MRV-T420), 600 Watts Max, 340 Watts RMS Bridged, High/Low Filters, Bass Boost
The amplifier has to be balanced to the subs, ie too much or too little power and your subs will sound crap! Basically you can’t just chuck money at it, the match has to be right.(so I’ve been told)
CONSTRUCTION
The first stage of the install was of course to design your ideal finished set up, this will enable you to construct the various parts with a view to them all fitting together at the end. One of my main criteria was that I wanted it removable should I wish to use the full boot space and also that I could remove the spare wheel without stripping out the install.<o:p>
I also use
the boot on a regular basis, so a flashy ‘in your face’ install taking up
the whole boot was unfortunately not an option.
FLOOR
To enable access to the spare wheel I decided make the floor section in three pieces (two side panels and a centre section that could be easily slid out to get to the wheel. Even if you don’t want this access requirement you will still need to upgrade the existing floor panels as the OEM ones will vibrate and also possibly sag once all the heavy ICE is in place.
ENCLOSURE (SUB BOX)
When constructing a box for your subs you must take into consideration that they need to be a particular internal volume for your subs. The sales literature or instruction sheet that comes with your subs will tell you what the required volume is.
In my case the Vibes each required 1.25 cubic feet of box to sound their best.
So, I had two options, I could either go for one large box of 2.5 cubic feet or split the subs up into two separate boxes. My original intention was to have the subs placed one either side of the boot so as to not take up to much boot space.
Unfortunately the mechanics of making boxes of these exact volumes turned out to be a nightmare. Because of the complexity of the plastic side mouldings in the boot, the only real way you could get 1.25 ft3 was if you had a contoured rear to the box that would fit snugly against the existing side panels. If you tried to do it with flat angular panels the whole thing protruded way too far into the boot for my requirements.
To make a contoured rear required the use of fibreglass etc which was far too messy and difficult for my first install, consequently I decided to go for one sub enclosure along the back of the rear seat. Even this wasn’t as simple as I first thought! (I wanted it to be removable as well!)
If you remove the plastic floor tray that goes along the base of the rear seat, you will find that there is a structural steel box section underneath it, so any enclosure (sub box) to be fixed here will need to be constructed around this shape or sit on top of the highest point.
As space was a deciding factor I decided to try and replicate this shape into the base of my enclosure.
The box ended up looking like this
As you can see it makes use of all the space at the base of the rear seat, whilst allowing room for the structural steel section that was found after removing the long plastic tray.
Calculating the exact dimensions required was a right ‘pain in the arse”! you have to deduct the thickness of the material you have used from the outer dimensions to ensure you have an accurate inner volume. With the majority of subs, you also have to deduct the volume of the actual sub that will be inside the box, as this cannot be included in your overall volume. You basically need a box that in my case has external dimensions that will give you a volume of 2.5 cubic feet + the volume of the sub + the thickness of the MDF all round ! (does your brain in !)
The Enclosure must be not only the right size but also the right shape, ideally the back surface should be angled rather than flat to the sub, this allows the sounds to deflect around the enclosure rather than bounce straight back towards the source.
Additionally it MUST BE STRONG ! A good sub kicks out massive amounts of force (moving air) and vibration, so you don’t want the enclosure to vibrate or leak air through badly constructed joints/seals.
I went for 15mm Medium Density Fibreboard (MDF) which I think is about the minimum thickness you can sensibly use for the sort of forces involved. This was fixed with PVA wood glue and Zinc plated screws. After the enclosure had taken shape I also ran a thick bead of ‘No Nails’ type adhesive around all the inner joints to ensure an air tight and rigid seal.
I also filled any joins or surface imperfections on the outside with standard car filler and sanded them to a nice smooth finish. This will help later when covering the enclosures with your choice of ‘finish’ (yet to be decided at this point)
This design of enclosure if connected with lengthy speaker wires can be either slid back against the front seats or removed completely should you wish to use the boot with the seats folded down. Another factor that I feel I should mention is the height of my enclosure. When calculating the dimensions required, it soon became clear that the box was going to take up more of the boot space than I ideally wanted so a decision had to me made. To reduce the amount that the front face of the box protruded into the boot, I increased the overall height of the box by about 3”, this meant that the top of the enclosure ended up 3” higher than the parcel shelf. I found a way to fit the parcel shelf later in the install.
SIDE PANELS
To give you a better idea of what I am talking about in this section, I will show you a picture first:-
As you can
see the floor panels are in place, complete with a circular hole for viewing the
spare wheel, this will eventually have a perspex window and hopefully some neon
lighting. The sub enclosure is
firmly up against the rear seat and the side panels have already been
constructed as a nice tight fit, this is so that when everything is in place and
the rear seat is ‘firmly’ pushed into it’s locked position all the parts
hold each other in place without any actual requirement for permanent fixings.
The left hand side panel is viewed here:-
This was
designed to take an Alpine DVD sat nav system, Panasonic CD changer and a DVD
player. It is permanently fixed to the first of the flooring sections and cut at
the same angle as the front face of the sub enclosure. The panel is basically three sided with an open rear section, it
protrudes under the plastic interior trim by varying amounts.
Here is a picture looking down on the top surface of the panel, where I have marked the
varying depths.
The top line as seen here shows the area that is hidden once the panel is in place, the lower more curved line shows how the parcel shelf rail overhangs more in this area.
If you look
carefully at the far left of the top line you can just about see a metal right
angle bracket I fabricated and recessed into the MDF. This has a hole which
matches up exactly to the OEM fixing point for the plastic bag hook in the boot.
All I did was removed the hook and used the same bolt to fix the panel in place.
I did the same on the opposite panel and these are the only two points that the
install is actually fixed to the car, as previously stated the overall rigidity
as obtained by tight fitting pieces and the back seat pushing it all together
once it’s ‘clicked’ back into place.
The right hand panel is constructed in a similar manner, but with the Alpine amp in mind
So there you have it, the basic construction of a boot ICE install ! All you have to do now is trim the enclosure, floor and side panels with a covering of your choice and add lighting or what ever else you fancy for your overall look.
TRIMMING
As I use the boot on an everyday basis I needed the covering to be hard wearing, so the likes of alacantra or suede were not really a viable option. I shopped around various outlets until I found a web based classic car restoration company that supplied cheap vinyl in suitable widths (56”) to allow fitment without unsightly joins on the sub enclosure.
As my car
is thunder grey with interior mods to date being in silver, I didn’t really
want the boot install to be too bright or ‘in your face’ consequently I went
for a grey vinyl that almost matched the rear seat colouring. This, was applied
with a combination of ‘evostick’ contact adhesive and also a spray type
contact adhesive obtained from the same supplier as the vinyl.
The corner joins were made tidier by the use of a lighter grey piping.
To protect the subs I used pre-drilled perspex discs, these are not to every ones taste, but as I have overnight bags and lap tops etc in my boot during the working day I needed to protect the paper cones of the subs.
You can also see in this picture that I’ve added slim neons to the side panels and there is also a full size full length neon running along the rear plastic panel of the boot (nearest to you in this picture, but not visible from this angle.
Where the holes were cut for the various units, the vinyl is tucked into the holes for a nice snug fit. No allowance was made for the vinyl when cutting the holes, but it compressed nicely and makes for a nice clean finish.
The neons are powered via the existing wiring for the boot light and also have an independent in line switch to allow me to turn them off at shows when the boot is likely to be open for long periods of time.
ADDITIONAL INFO/NOTES
When fitting the DVD player etc into the left hand panel I found that I needed to remove the plastic cover that allows access to the rear light and jack etc, this gained me that little bit of extra space I needed for the back end of the player and its wiring etc.
I haven’t found any need for a ‘cap’ (capacitor) as I don’t have the sound system fully ‘pumped up’ that often. However you may find that if you do, your head lights can dim when the amp is taking excessive amounts of power. I’ll leave the full technical explanations to people who are more knowledgeable than myself.
I eventually fixed the parcel shelf to the top of the sub enclosure with 3 aluminium hinges, these fix to the rear of the enclosure (nearest the seat) so are only visible if the seat is in the down position
At the time of writing this guide, I am still awaiting my 18” Konig Imagine spare, so this will hopefully set the install off nicely when it’s all lit up at night.
The basic wiring is relatively easy, you need to run a fused power cable directly from the battery to your amp. You also need a remote on/off wire that will enable the head unit to switch the amp on/off. All you have to remember when your doing this is that you should try to run the power cable on a different side of the car to the speaker cables, otherwise you may here a ‘loud thud’ every time the head unit and amp are powered up.
You can buy amplifier wiring kits from most good audio stores that will include all the bits and pieces you require.
There are many different ways that you can wire the subs up to your amp, consequently I will also leave this area to some one else, as I wouldn’t want to give to bad advice.
Note by the author:
This is how I did it, it may not be the best or even the easiest way to go about this project but it’s how I did it. If you have any doubts whatsoever regarding the wiring up of your system you should seek advice from someone more experienced in this area. You could also possibly build your bits and pieces and have an audio shop do the wiring for you?
Good luck with your own project! I hope my notes have been of some use to you in deciding how to (or not to) go about it.
