How much time should I budget for DD conversion/install?
#17
12-03-2011, 08:44 PM
Update for those lurking, since this thread has 330 views....
It took about an hour and a half to install the new JDM trim/headunit, and interior trim. My 15-month old son was crawling all over the car and me as I did this, so it could probably be done in a little less time than that. Bundling wires and shoving them below the space where the head unit resides is key. I also had a fifteen minute delay because I had planned to run three ground wires up to the upper bracket mounting screw, but when I got the trim/headunit in, I found the wires weren't long enough to reach, so I had to pull it back out and solder on extensions to those ground wires.
I made one error at this stage, which I'll describe later.
Front door speakers: It looked like there was no way the Infinity Kappa 60.9 tweeters would fit in the Coupe sail panels. There are two threads on this site that are conflicting. One member gave up after an unsuccessful attempt installing these. The other was able to make them fit by removing one of the "bolts" from the rearview mirror...I suspect "bolt" actually means "nut", but not certain.
After cuttting both the stock tweeter mounting bosses out of the sail panel and removing the "spike" from the Kappa tweeters, I found they fit easily if they were stuck to the door frame using industrial strength double-sided tape...without removing any mirror hardware. I did cut a small rubber protrusion sticking out from the doorframe to make them fit. Total time for modification of sail panels and installation of tweeters: 45 minutes.
On to the woofers. I got thrown a curve here because I didn't realize I'd need a spacer for the door. Not wanting to wait several days for spacers to be shipped, I made a pair from some leftover 1/2" MDF I had laying around my workshop. This took about 45 minutes. Ideally, one would want a 3/4" spacer, as I found after installing the woofers I still have a 1/4" gap. That will work for now.
The crossover installation on both doors was straightforward, requiring about twenty minutes per side for installation and wiring.
Still no sub, I had to give the project a rest for several days. The Infinity Kappa speakers are a huge improvement over the Bose units...the highs from the tweeters will take some getting used to, given the stock tweeters are so bad. I had been a bit worried about the tweeters not being exactly centered over the sail panel opening, but that proved to be a non-issue. Kinda concerned the highs are ridiculously overpowering, but will reserve judgement until the sub is installed.
I found the GPS on the Alpine INA-W910 was taking up to five minutes to locate satellites, so I decided to relocate the GPS antenna from the location concealed behind the clock, to a discrete location on the glareshield where the defroster ducts are located. This is where my headunit installation error revealed itself. I had left the GPS antenna cable bundled as it was from the factory, because the cable was long enough to reach the location behind the clock. The problem now was I couldn't pull enough cable up to relocate the antenna. I had to remove the headunit/JDM trim again to cut the tie constricting the cables. The good thing is it only took 20 minutes this time to get the interior taken apart and headunit out, and about fifteen minutes to get everything reassembled.
The GPS locates satellites and establishes position within seconds now. Much improved.
I finished making the subwoofer enclosure today, and got the sub mounted in the trunk. I still haven't pulled out the rear deck 6x9's...not certain when I'll get to that. With 300 watts RMS driving the 10" Alpine Type R, the sub level is good. I haven't had a chance to really crank the system up yet, but at volume levels 40% and less, the sound quality is very nicely balanced. My concerns about the Kappa tweeters being too shrill was premature.
So, in summary:
About two hours to remove factory head unit, and remove it from trim.
About an hour to swap nav, JDM ac controller, original bracket, and new DD head unit into JDM trim.
About three hours to wire steering wheel controller, dd head unit, and run wires back to trunk mounted amp. Most of this time is triple-checking to ensure the correct wires are being spliced into.
About two hours to install and wire amp.
About 1 1/2 hours to reinstall JDM trim and new head unit.
About two hours to modify sail panels and install front door speakers and crossovers.
Twenty minutes to install sub. I spent about three hours building the enclosure. Half of this was creating templates to fit the trunk.
Having done it once, I could do it again in a little over half the time, so if anyone is considering doing this...try to find someone local to you who has already done this conversion to help.
Sound quality is night and day different, as is the improvement in usability over the factory Bose system.
Photos of completed install to follow in a few days.
Thanks a million to Wrathernaut, Docron, and others who have contributed information here on the forums. Without these references, this would have never happened.
It took about an hour and a half to install the new JDM trim/headunit, and interior trim. My 15-month old son was crawling all over the car and me as I did this, so it could probably be done in a little less time than that. Bundling wires and shoving them below the space where the head unit resides is key. I also had a fifteen minute delay because I had planned to run three ground wires up to the upper bracket mounting screw, but when I got the trim/headunit in, I found the wires weren't long enough to reach, so I had to pull it back out and solder on extensions to those ground wires.
I made one error at this stage, which I'll describe later.
Front door speakers: It looked like there was no way the Infinity Kappa 60.9 tweeters would fit in the Coupe sail panels. There are two threads on this site that are conflicting. One member gave up after an unsuccessful attempt installing these. The other was able to make them fit by removing one of the "bolts" from the rearview mirror...I suspect "bolt" actually means "nut", but not certain.
After cuttting both the stock tweeter mounting bosses out of the sail panel and removing the "spike" from the Kappa tweeters, I found they fit easily if they were stuck to the door frame using industrial strength double-sided tape...without removing any mirror hardware. I did cut a small rubber protrusion sticking out from the doorframe to make them fit. Total time for modification of sail panels and installation of tweeters: 45 minutes.
On to the woofers. I got thrown a curve here because I didn't realize I'd need a spacer for the door. Not wanting to wait several days for spacers to be shipped, I made a pair from some leftover 1/2" MDF I had laying around my workshop. This took about 45 minutes. Ideally, one would want a 3/4" spacer, as I found after installing the woofers I still have a 1/4" gap. That will work for now.
The crossover installation on both doors was straightforward, requiring about twenty minutes per side for installation and wiring.
Still no sub, I had to give the project a rest for several days. The Infinity Kappa speakers are a huge improvement over the Bose units...the highs from the tweeters will take some getting used to, given the stock tweeters are so bad. I had been a bit worried about the tweeters not being exactly centered over the sail panel opening, but that proved to be a non-issue. Kinda concerned the highs are ridiculously overpowering, but will reserve judgement until the sub is installed.
I found the GPS on the Alpine INA-W910 was taking up to five minutes to locate satellites, so I decided to relocate the GPS antenna from the location concealed behind the clock, to a discrete location on the glareshield where the defroster ducts are located. This is where my headunit installation error revealed itself. I had left the GPS antenna cable bundled as it was from the factory, because the cable was long enough to reach the location behind the clock. The problem now was I couldn't pull enough cable up to relocate the antenna. I had to remove the headunit/JDM trim again to cut the tie constricting the cables. The good thing is it only took 20 minutes this time to get the interior taken apart and headunit out, and about fifteen minutes to get everything reassembled.
The GPS locates satellites and establishes position within seconds now. Much improved.
I finished making the subwoofer enclosure today, and got the sub mounted in the trunk. I still haven't pulled out the rear deck 6x9's...not certain when I'll get to that. With 300 watts RMS driving the 10" Alpine Type R, the sub level is good. I haven't had a chance to really crank the system up yet, but at volume levels 40% and less, the sound quality is very nicely balanced. My concerns about the Kappa tweeters being too shrill was premature.
So, in summary:
About two hours to remove factory head unit, and remove it from trim.
About an hour to swap nav, JDM ac controller, original bracket, and new DD head unit into JDM trim.
About three hours to wire steering wheel controller, dd head unit, and run wires back to trunk mounted amp. Most of this time is triple-checking to ensure the correct wires are being spliced into.
About two hours to install and wire amp.
About 1 1/2 hours to reinstall JDM trim and new head unit.
About two hours to modify sail panels and install front door speakers and crossovers.
Twenty minutes to install sub. I spent about three hours building the enclosure. Half of this was creating templates to fit the trunk.
Having done it once, I could do it again in a little over half the time, so if anyone is considering doing this...try to find someone local to you who has already done this conversion to help.
Sound quality is night and day different, as is the improvement in usability over the factory Bose system.
Photos of completed install to follow in a few days.
Thanks a million to Wrathernaut, Docron, and others who have contributed information here on the forums. Without these references, this would have never happened.
Last edited by Irrelevant; 12-03-2011 at 08:48 PM.
#18
12-11-2011, 05:42 PM
Well, with that being said, I may have to phone a friend in the near future 
I'm working on getting the JDM kit/controls and Kenwood NAV with the iPod & steering wheel controls...can't be that bad?!......
I'm working on getting the JDM kit/controls and Kenwood NAV with the iPod & steering wheel controls...can't be that bad?!......Headunit install, I'd say about 3-4 hours if you're comfortable removing interior trim.
Front doors, if you're re-using factory wiring (recommended) about 30-60min per door.
Removing the rear 6x9s, 2+ hours, since there's quite a bit to remove to get the rear deck off.
Running the amp wiring, about 2 hours, again, it's more about how comfortable you are at removing interior trim that determines the time for this step.
Basically, if you budget one solid day, you can probably get it done alone, less if you have help, but I'd just expect a weekend to be spent doing it.
Not sure where you're located, but if you're anywhere near Georgia, you can take to me and we'll make a day of it.
Front doors, if you're re-using factory wiring (recommended) about 30-60min per door.
Removing the rear 6x9s, 2+ hours, since there's quite a bit to remove to get the rear deck off.
Running the amp wiring, about 2 hours, again, it's more about how comfortable you are at removing interior trim that determines the time for this step.
Basically, if you budget one solid day, you can probably get it done alone, less if you have help, but I'd just expect a weekend to be spent doing it.
Not sure where you're located, but if you're anywhere near Georgia, you can take to me and we'll make a day of it.
#20
12-14-2011, 05:41 PM
It took one hour to pull the rear 6x9's this afternoon and put the car back together. An 8-mm socket connected to a 1/4" ratchet is nice to have, otherwise a stubby phillips head screwdriver is necessary to remove the screws holding the speakers.
Just prior to this, I measured the dB level inside the car at max volume, cd source. I didn't take the time to chase down a CD with a lot of bass prior to the test. I just used the NoFx cd already in the deck. Prior to speaker removal, I was only registering aboug 90 dBa in the 30-125 Hz range. After removing the 6x9's, playing the same track in the same point in the song, I was registering a solid 105 db in the same frequency range. Just to review, this is with an Alpine 10" Type R driven by two of 4 channels bridged on a Kenwood Excelon X600F (300 watts RMS to sub)
The test was conducted using the Audio Tools app for iPhone. Phone placed on dashboard in front of clock during both tests.
So pulling the rear 6x9's definitely increased the bass level heard, and it's a quantifiable amount.
Next step...fill the gap around the head unit as much as is practical. Oh yeah, and vacumn the carpets so I can take horizontally-composed photos to post here.
Just prior to this, I measured the dB level inside the car at max volume, cd source. I didn't take the time to chase down a CD with a lot of bass prior to the test. I just used the NoFx cd already in the deck. Prior to speaker removal, I was only registering aboug 90 dBa in the 30-125 Hz range. After removing the 6x9's, playing the same track in the same point in the song, I was registering a solid 105 db in the same frequency range. Just to review, this is with an Alpine 10" Type R driven by two of 4 channels bridged on a Kenwood Excelon X600F (300 watts RMS to sub)
The test was conducted using the Audio Tools app for iPhone. Phone placed on dashboard in front of clock during both tests.
So pulling the rear 6x9's definitely increased the bass level heard, and it's a quantifiable amount.
Next step...fill the gap around the head unit as much as is practical. Oh yeah, and vacumn the carpets so I can take horizontally-composed photos to post here.
#21
12-14-2011, 06:28 PM
I have the matching sub to your 6x9s for sale if you're interested 
The real reason I replied was to 1. Thank the original writer for a good estimate of time WITH a baby crawling around as I will be also, and 2. to suggest to you that you check out a textile store, or online retailer and use leather to fill the gap...it's the route I will be attempting this weekend with my DD install...I think that if you take a coat hanger and bend it to fit the rectangular shape, you could fold the leather all the way around it?! Just a thought that crossed my mind...and I know I've seen somewhere on here where someone put some vinyl in there and it looked nice!
The real reason I replied was to 1. Thank the original writer for a good estimate of time WITH a baby crawling around as I will be also, and 2. to suggest to you that you check out a textile store, or online retailer and use leather to fill the gap...it's the route I will be attempting this weekend with my DD install...I think that if you take a coat hanger and bend it to fit the rectangular shape, you could fold the leather all the way around it?! Just a thought that crossed my mind...and I know I've seen somewhere on here where someone put some vinyl in there and it looked nice!
#22
12-14-2011, 08:24 PM
Thanks for the suggestion about using a coat hangar/leather combo. The face of the head unit extends out about a half inch before tilting perpendicular to the unit, so I can't have too tight a fit with whatever I use. I think I'll order the scoche trim ring, make a cardboard template, then cut and sand to fit.
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