Retrosound, Amps & Sub Install

[Auzdart]

The lack of tunes in my car was driving nuts so I decided that I wouldinstall a stereo in my Dart.... It got a little out of hand.

I went with a Retrosound model two head unit a 4 channel & a mono blockamp with a 12" sub. My car is a 74 Sport space saver. Instead of going foran off the shelf sub enclosure I decided that I would build my own sub box.

Here is what I started with.

 

[Auzdart]

Pic of the amps, speakers & front kick panels. I got the kick panels from a guy is Brisbane Australia and speakers from ebay.

 

[rumblefish360]

Nice kick panel. How many inch's in diameter?

 

[74DartSwinger360]

Nice kick panel. How many inch's in diameter?

look like 6 1/2 to me. Been wanting a set of them for awhile just haven't pulled the trigger

 

[Auzdart]

First thing to do was to get the old parcel shelf out and figure out how to install the rear speakers. I considered installing the speakers in the front of the sub box but I thought this would look a bit crap.

Installing the speakers in the parcel shelf presents a challenge because of the trunk springs, they had to go to make room for the speakers. I removed the springs and cut the parcel shelf to make room, no turning back now.

While I had the parcel shelf out I took the chance to add inertia real seat belts as well.

 

[Auzdart]

Nice kick panel. How many inch's in diameter?

They fit a 6 1/2" speaker, The speaker fits well but the right hand side speaker magnet just touches the 'A' pillar.

 

[74DartSwinger360]

Where did you get those belts I like that Idea a lot and would do it to my car too

 

[buckshotbishop]

do you know if there the gprs panels http://www.gprsmopars.com/shopping/pgm-more_information.php?id=86

if not could we get a link to the seller?

 

[Auzdart]

I don't have any pic's of the sub enclosure construction, just got to busy doing the job. I built it out of 5/8" MDF. The thing is heavy, if I had to guess with the speaker and amps I would say 40 to 50 pounds. The total volume is just above 1.75 cubic feet.

The idea was to have it fit as close to factory as possible.

I mounted the amps on the front side of the enclosure and will use a piece of forming ply to mould to the rear wheel tubs and parcel shelf shape.

Because of the shallow depth of the sub box the speaker hits the front of the box so I made a spacer to move it back 5/8".

 

[Auzdart]

Where did you get those belts I like that Idea a lot and would do it to my car too

The seat belts are just off the shelf items from my local parts supplier. It you do this you need to get 180/180 belts to mount under the shelf.

 

[Auzdart]

do you know if there the gprs panels http://www.gprsmopars.com/shopping/pgm-more_information.php?id=86

if not could we get a link to the seller?

That's the place. It took a long time to get them eight weeks or so The guy builds them as needed and when I ordered mine he was in hospital.
The fit is not perfect but pretty good. I'll show what I mean soon.

 

[Auzdart]

The parcel shelf took a while to build. Because of the way the shelf sits under the rear window seal I built it out of 9mm MDF. I originally wanted to have a more factory looking shelf and mount the speakers underneath. But the limited MDF thickness coupled with the overall height of the speakers would not allow it. I used 8x1/4" bolts and t-nuts so the wont be any vibrations etc.

Because the shelf does not resemble a factory look I thought I would add the mopar M in the middle.

I used some seatbelt guides/runners from a FG Falcon so the belts don't wear down the vinyl when trimmed.

All the wiring tidied up and installed.

 

[Auzdart]

Here is the cover for the amps, I may remake this as its not perfect. I added some child seat anchor points as well. I just need to have it trimmed and it's all done for the rear.

Next is the head unit install.

 

[Abodybomber]

Looks great to me. That reverse speaker ,firing into the trunk gonna rock. Nice classic installation. Curious, what crossover, what's the sub/mid crossover set at?. Always had /have great luck,with Pioneer subs.

 

[Auzdart]

Looks great to me. That reverse speaker ,firing into the trunk gonna rock. Nice classic installation. Curious, what crossover, what's the sub/mid crossover set at?. Always had /have great luck,with Pioneer subs.

Good question... I don't know, I have never had a car with amps so I need some advice on how to set them up. I'll Google on the set up but any advice is welcome.

 

[Auzdart]

Here is the retrosound head unit and front speaker install. Don't mind the poor looking dash, I will ordering new decals to fix that up.
Dear God is it loud, I listen in rock & metal so the doof boys will have little competition.

At first I was going to mount the splits in the kick panels but all late model cars mount them in the doors so that's what I did. I could not fit the splits in the middle of the trim because of the door actuation rod so that's why they look a little low.

The kick panels are a bit short, so there is a short fall from the factory pinch weld in the 'A' pillars. I will fix this later.

Next is to upgrade the alternator and box the trunk out.

 

[mopar79sean]

Very nice work. I like your attention to detail!

 

[MTmopars]

Looks great, although I am kind of curious as to how well the bass resonse will travel from the trunk to the passenger compartment with 3/4" MDF blocking it path. no doubt it will sound great, but I cant help think a few dB will be lost in the low range.

 

[74DartSwinger360]

Here are 2 other options for speakers in the kick panel

I was lookin at these as they have round 4 Inch speaker holes: http://www.classicindustries.com/mopar/parts/MA819102.html

And these hold 4x6 Speakers and fit more flush (Top 3 on the page)
http://www.classicindustries.com/mo...s/panels-moldings/?y=1973&sm=81&p=1&sb=0&r=15

 

[Auzdart]

Looks great to me. That reverse speaker ,firing into the trunk gonna rock. Nice classic installation. Curious, what crossover, what's the sub/mid crossover set at?. Always had /have great luck,with Pioneer subs.

Very nice work. I like your attention to detail!

Thanks for the good words. It means a lot when people notice the little things. I was just saying to a mate of mine today that "that all the small things that you put most of the effort into most people will never notice". Paint, engine & wheels get noticed straight away, spend 3 hours getting trim to look good and no one cares.

I have found one problem that I need to address. The trunk skin vibrates against the trunk frame. The noise is no issue when sitting in the car, but from outside it's horrible. I can push the trunk lid down about a 1/16"

The best answer is to drill some holes in the lower skin and weld the it to the trunk lid. This require me to paint the trunk lid, far from the perfect answer. Maybe I can drill some holes in the lower frame and fill it with filler foam to stop the noise.
What do guys think?

On the upside the retrosound head unit is awesome, I got myself a 500GB hard drive and have mounted in it in the glove box. I mounted the mic for the hands free on the rear view mirror. Overall I am very happy with the stereo. After reading some reviews on this site I am concerned with the reliability so I guess I will see.

 

[Auzdart]

Looks great, although I am kind of curious as to how well the bass resonse will travel from the trunk to the passenger compartment with 3/4" MDF blocking it path. no doubt it will sound great, but I cant help think a few dB will be lost in the low range.

Subs are meant to mounted like this. They only boost the low end side of things.
I can tell you first hand that the sound is awesome. I listen to rock & metal so I don't need the low end that the doof boys crave. The sound hits you in the back like a **** and I'm stoked with it.

 

[RedFish]

Looks great.
I will kindly ask you to post an update if you should break plastic speaker grilles in the "kick" panels. That is my only concern/reservation. Otherwise I would have bought a pair of these long ago. Happy moparing

 

[Auzdart]

Looks great.
I will kindly ask you to post an update if you should break plastic speaker grilles in the "kick" panels. That is my only concern/reservation. Otherwise I would have bought a pair of these long ago. Happy moparing

Good point, I do kick the speaker grill when getting out of the car sometimes. I'll keep you posted.

 

[MTmopars]

Subs are meant to mounted like this. They only boost the low end side of things.
I can tell you first hand that the sound is awesome. I listen to rock & metal so I don't need the low end that the doof boys crave. The sound hits you in the back like a **** and I'm stoked with it.

I apologize if I sounded like a d-bag in my reply. That was not, by any means, my intention. Until 10yrs ago I was an installer and competed and judged in car audio competition.

When mounting a rear facing sub like that, some response will be lost trying to get through that mdf. The good thing about low frequencies is we feel it as much as hear it. The second potential drawback to a rear facing sub mounted under the parcel tray is phase cancellation. Sound waves are like ocean waves with peaks and troughs. Mounting facing back towards the rear of the car can cause the waves to reflect off the rear out of phase and cancel out your sub to varying degrees. I experienced his once so bad there was barely any bass. In the end I reversed the polarity of the sub and viola, I had bass again!

One last point, sound staging. The goal in SQ competition was a balanced sound stage, where the sound to the listener was balanced l-r, balanced in volume across the freq. range, and sounded like it was coming from the front at eye level, as if you are at a concert. This is where you would like your kick panel speakers to face your face in a way. Tilted up and forward. This is another area where our ears can be tricked a bit. Our hears have a hard time finding the direction of frequencies the lower they are. Throw a set of tweeters up in the a pillar area and our ears are tricked into thinking the sound is coming from that area. Look at where the tweeter is mounted in many factory "premium" sound systems now days. I quote premium because these "premium" Bose, Sony, infinity, etc... Sound systems are junk. For nearly the same price an aftermarket system can be purchased that will be light years ahead in sound quality and build quality.

 

[Auzdart]

MT, I didn't think you were a D-bag, maybe I sounded like one.
That's some great info you gave me. I still have a lot to learn about this stuff, so maybe I got lucky when installing this but I'm happy with the sound. Bass is defiantly there and responds when adjusting gain. Maybe volume is down a bit, but dear God it's loud, so I' happy enough.