The "Today I did something to my car" thread

Cheers for stopping by! T'was the least I could do but my god... I never thought I'd see the day that water beaded on that car. There really was enough tar on the car to fill every pothole in Ireland!

Came out amazingly well though. There's still work to be done though but happy with what was done today, car looks extremely well now.

Delighted.

Nice install.

Quick question though.

Since you went to so much effort to be neat with the routing of the wiring for the rear tweeters, how come you didn't mount the fuse horizontally and have less of the power cable exposed?

Top Dog wrote: »

Nice install.

Quick question though.

Since you went to so much effort to be neat with the routing of the wiring for the rear tweeters, how come you didn't mount the fuse horizontally and have less of the power cable exposed?

I agree with this.
Also,
I personally don't like the rear tweeters mounted on the shelf.:o

bmstuff wrote: »

Keep in mind you can not achieve great sound experience and music imaging by having all the components on the same axis. Many cars have everything on same slot in the rear and sound is poor.

By putting the tweeters away, not too close, not too far from the midranges, I managed to achieve greater sounding experience. It is something I am telling you, not just a fancy way of placing tweeters for fun, the location serves a very precise purpose.
You would be amazed at how good the music sounds in the rear.

I understand how speakers work.
It would only be my personal opinion on them there. I would prefer them possibly on the side pillars or elsewhere..

bmstuff wrote: »

Yeah got you but they are 4 AWG cables, they are big. Not saying it won't happen...but I am confident about their location.

As I said this was done on purpose and the goal behind the fact I am leaving the core of the backbone exposed is for demonstration purpose.

People will sit in my car to see how the Gladen speakers sound and I want to be able to show quickly what components are part of the system without having to remove trim etc.

Doing ICE installs I always hide things away, unless the customer asks me to expose something.

I can only assume this is a secondary fuse?
I would have thought as close to the battery was the ideal and safest place to use them?

bmstuff wrote: »

You dont need to be close to the battery, this is the main fuse for the main amp, directly connected on the the plus of the battery. 80 amps fuse.

We always hide things away, see below a job we did 2 weeks ago, fuse is hidden behind the trim on the customers car.

WHAT...!!! :eek:


Are you being serious?
what happens if the 4 awg cable shorts out ?

Any installer that knows their stuff will only insist on placing a fuse holder as close as possible to the battery.
You certainly would not be going anywhere near my car to do an install if that is the work you do..!

bmstuff wrote: »

Thanks for the insult. Try to blow a 4awg wire with a 600 watts amp. The 4awg wire supports about 1500 watts. The closer to the battery the less likely a wire will caught fire yes you are right. Everything is fine here.

It was not meant as an insult.
Just more like some friendly advice.
For the love of God put a fuse as close to the battery as possible.

Otherwise you are playing with fire ( no pun intended )

*EDIT*
Typed into google there and this is one of the first topics I looked at.

http://www.caraudiohelp.com/how_to_install_a_car_amp/how_to_install_a_car_amp.htm

Lo and behold ::

Install an in-line fuse holder (see photo) for the power wire as close as possible to the battery terminal connection (the IASCA rule is within 18" but less is better ). VERY, VERY IMPORTANT!!!!! This fuse protects your vehicle from burning up in case of the power wiring shorting out. It's not there to protect your audio equipment, it's there to protect your car. The wire between the fuse and the battery terminal will be unprotected, which is why you want this section to be as short as possible.

vectra wrote: »

It was not meant as an insult.
Just more like some friendly advice.
For the love of God put a fuse as close to the battery as possible.

Otherwise you are playing with fire ( no pun intended )

*EDIT*
Typed into google there and this is one of the first topics I looked at.

http://www.caraudiohelp.com/how_to_install_a_car_amp/how_to_install_a_car_amp.htm

Lo and behold ::

As I said you are right in principals, but this is just the theory without taking in consideration the specs of the components. But you are right this is a basic rule. But this is far from being good enough.

As I said, the equipment I use is high spec and a 4awg wire would simply not burn from even a short just like that. The 80 amps fuse on it will cut off the link way before. A 4awg cable can handle 125 amps for info. The cable won't have time to burn. Always use a smaller fuse than the cable can handle on those high power amplifiers/sound systems set ups.

If I were to use a smaller wire such as 12awg, yes I would connect it very close to the battery with an even smaller fuse. But 4AWG is just fine with a 80 amps fuse. Because there is such difference with the power rating between the 2 components, the fuse would blow instantly.

Having a wire power rating and fuse power rating matching would be a very dangerous situation, even when placed 2" from the battery.

And you know why?

Because most fuses can handle a bit more power than their current rating, so basically you could have a 50 amps fuse taking 60 amps fine for 10mn before it blows, but then the 50 amps rated cable would be on fire after 1mn already (Give or take).

So the closest location to the battery is only one part of the equation and is in no way a good enough consideration on its own.

On a less interesting note,

I got the front seats out of the mazda, washing machine is working away on them now. Plenty detergent in there