MKIV Golf Audio Build Thread

[Farfromovin]

Alright, I know there have been a couple audio build threads as of late so that's a good thing. Get more info out there so people can get different ideas! Here's the ingredients list:
Kenwood KDC-X995- Simple yet feature packed single din unit with hands free calling and Pandora ready.
JL Audio HD600/4 150wrms x 4 bi-amped to my components in the front doors.
JL Audio HD750/1 750wrms x 1 sub amp.
JL Audio ZR650-CSi 6.75" component speakers with passive crossovers and aluminum dome tweeters.
JL Audio 10W6v2 10" single subwoofer.
JL Audio XD-PCS2-2B 2ga amp wire kit with a dual fused distro block that breaks it down to 4ga inputs for each amp.

Start off with pics of gear in the garage I was piling up just waiting for everything to come in:

Yeah, it looks like I'm a JL fanboi and I suppose I am. I hung out over at DIYmobileaudio.com for a while and they're all big advocates of mixing the speaker brands and sizes yourself instead of buying pre-made "speaker kits" like the door speakers I chose. I figured it's like any other upgrades, you can do it yourself and experiment to find the ultimate results 2 years later and after 3-4 rounds of upgrades, or you can just buy pre-made "packaged" kits which is what I chose. I've been a huge JL fan for the last 20 years and have had a few systems with bits of their equipment here and there. This time I chose to just match everything up and it turned out pretty well I think.
All started with the head unit. I chose the Kenwood due to the features and price I felt it offers a large bang for your buck. I installed this in place of the stock double din Monsoon. It has a USB port on the back which I plug into my iPhone dock pretty much all the time I'm in the car. Charges while doing voice guided nav with hands free calling simultaneously through the car's speakers. Pretty nice upgrade over OE... I don't have pics, but I got the PAC audio adapter that Crutchfield sells for the late model MKIV's (mine's a 03). It works fine, but I'm a little dissapointed as it seems like I spent $60 just for key in acc line when I could have tapped into that coming out of the ignition switch. In either case, it works well:

It was all going to stop there except I saw the JL HD line of amps while shopping for the head unit and just fell in love with their size. They're like a high school text book, maybe a smidge thicker but not much. So, I set about purchasing the rest of the equipment. Some is new grey market, some I purchased used from locals via Craigslist, etc... The only thing I paid retail for was the Kenwood and that's because I got it the week it was released and I couldn't find it anywhere but an authorized reseller. Overall, I spend considerably less than half of MSRP for all this stuff, it's the only way I could afford it
Next up is the door speaker install. I pulled the panels off and realized I had to drill out the riveted baskets. Got those removed and now had to pull the inner card to properly sound deaden the entire cavity. VW doors are nice BTW, as they're well sealed compared to other makes!

If you plan on going this route, don't let the doors intimidate you, they're not too bad. There is a good writeup on one of the passat forums (I'll edit a link in here later if I can) that tells you how to remove that inner metal panel.
Here's with some Dynamat Exreme applied to the skin and the metal panel:

Then did the backside of the door card itself:

That added significant stiffness and mass to both the card and the door. Opening and shutting is really quite a treat now. Feels much more luxury in my book.

 

[Farfromovin]

Then I cut out some adapter rings out of 3/4" MDF for my mid bass drivers and they dropped right in with good clearance. Also, I put some modeling clay in between the ring and the door to help seal things up and provide substantial extra mass right where there is a lot of energy (the woofer mount):

Here's a shot showing the aftermarket grills I used. I liked them because they just looked better than what was OE in my opinion:

For the tweeters, I installed them in the stock locations as well. I had to dremel out the mounting for the OE tweets a bit and hot glue the new ones in place taking careful note of alignment. I'm not building a competition system here of course, but I'd like it to sound half way decent so both sides are aimed slightly off axis to help reduce the "harshness" that some folks hear with aluminum domed tweets.
I didn't take much pics of the wiring throughout this whole ordeal, but wiring the doors is real easy. VW uses HUGE grommets in the door hinge area and getting large wires through there is easy. I'm using 4 conductor 12ga wire which is giant and it fit no problems. Next up I ran the power wire and RCA's for the amps. Under the hood I had to drill a hole in the firewall next to the existing hole that is under and in between the N75 and brake booster area. That was fun With that taken care of with a grommet, I was able to snake the 2ga wire around the side and through the wiring plenum. Yes, I could have hid the whole fuse block better, but I wanted it accessible. I still may put some black "tech flex" on the wire to get that bright blue out of there (even though it looks good in my book):

Then I mocked up a temporary amp rack to tide me over until I had some more time and energy to figure out exactly how I wanted to handle the space situation in the hatch. Here's a simple MDF board I put down in the back to mount everything to. I routered (routed?) the underside of the panel so the wires wouldn't get scrunched up:

Spaghetti monster in the back seat area lol:

With everything tidied up, I just plopped my sub back there in it's pre-fabbed box it came with:

While this was a great start, it left me wanting much much more. I had plans for a false floor, and this was half way at best to where I was getting at. Still, just doing this took me a complete day and a half. This was my "phase one" of the install. To get everything in the car and operating, adjusted, settled in, etc... The bad part is I just killed my entire hatch. This is my daily driver and I could no longer put ANYTHING in the back of the car. I didn't want a gallon of milk sliding around on top of my amps lol (you get the point).

 

[Farfromovin]

Here is where phase 2 begins, the real fun! I also must add that without my friend Cody's help, I couldn't have done all the woodwork that is about to be showcased. Thanks!
Up until this point, I've used one box of Dynamat Extreme on the front doors and the rear seat area. I really only did the rear seat for two reasons: 1)To help keep the wires in place and 2) To remove any extra noise from the in tank lift pump as I could. I figured out why not. (I still hear the lift pump lol). The middle of last week I took the hatch panels out and the rear door cards out to dynamat those areas:

After getting that done you have a hatch that looks something like this:

The end goal here is to have the amps and crossovers firmly mounted in a nice rack and to make a custom fiberglass enclosure for the sub woofer. I wanted to retain my spare tire but was willing to sacrifice some room to make these accomodations. So, I decided that since the floor had to come up a little for the amps anyway, I should do some sort of enclosure that fits INSIDE the spare rim itself. Time to remove the old amp rack and start fiberglassing!

First layer:

After the second layer we were able to remove it from the car and it held it's shape well at this point but was kinda floppy:

I start to lose count but this is after 3 or 4:

While that's drying we moved onto the new amp rack:

It's 1/2" Birch ply for warpage resistivity. Those are small firring strips along the edges as this rack has a small false floor of it's own for the wiring to run underneath and out the back panel instead of being "routed" underneath like the phase 1 rack was. Much better design (Cody's idea!). Just a note here, every piece of wood that touches another piece was liquid nailed, pre drilled, counter-sunk wood screws with wood putty. Copious amounts of extra work, but that's how you get a better end product I suppose. Here it is wrapped in the 3M Di-Noc carbon look material with the amps layed out:

Note the small black plastic push-in grommets in every hole:

 

[Farfromovin]

Rack components wired back in the car:

It fits snug up against the two little sides that come down on the edge of the hatch floor behind the rear seat backs.
Alright, while the rack was being finalized, lots happened to the sub enclosure and I missed a couple pic opportunities but I think you'll catch on here:

That's the trimmed out fiberglass bottom, with the small MDF top that is glassed to the bottom piece. There is probably 7-10 layers of a combination of chop and woven fiberglass everywhere in that box and a ridiculous amount of resin. I went through a little over a gallon There were some air bubbles as this was my first shot using the stinky stuff, but man is it tough. I told the build partner Cody I was going to stand on the box and do a jump test before it went in my car. Never ended up doing it, too tired, but I'm very confident this box will pass the Gorilla test It's around this timeframe that we started calling the enclosure the toilet box lol:

And a test fit in the car with the rack in place. That's important as everything is built off the rack here:

Time to carpet the toilet, Cody has the honors here:

 

[Farfromovin]

Look ma, no seams:

Now on to the "lid of the false floor". Had to build a pass through so the sub could fire through the floor so cut out a hole above it and bonded some expanded metal to it (countersunk of course)

Cut out a viewing window for the amp rack section and fastened T-nuts in place around it to bolt up some plexi from underneath:

More carpeting:

Piano hinge lined up and everything in place in the hatch:

 

[Farfromovin]

Everything cleaned up, seats and interior panels re-installed and a small panel made to cover the plexi:

Whew, it's all in and I have my hatch back now! I do have plans of edge lit plexi with a custom logo sandblasted into it. Probably do some ambient LED lighting inside the rack itself as well to show off that Di-Noc material. Lastly, I'm going to make a couple panels that go on the actual trunk floor next to the spare tire to hold some emergency tools like the widow maker, lug wrench, etc...

 

[dieselpower04]

Damn dude you is totally baller! Awesome work!!

 

[silverbox]

That is beautiful. I imagine it sounds great as well.

 

[NHgranite]

Well done sir!

Have you tuned the amps yet? How is the sound staging?

 

[Zedbra]

beautiful job. you cant go wrong with JL Audio, though i have also had great success with JBL amps, subs, and component kits

 

[Farfromovin]

Well done sir!

Have you tuned the amps yet? How is the sound staging?

Well, I simply set the gains per JL's directions. Then I turned down the gains on the tweet channels just a bit. Overall I'll be strict and say it sounds good, but is far from amazing. I'm not good at audio tuning, never really done it before. I suppose I could take it to a shop and have them adjust it flat with a RTA?

The doors got a real kick to them now. These 6.75" drivers in there really beat!

 

[CPMatt]

As we previously discussed, it looks great. I wish I lived close enough to get a listen.

Isn't that amp/sub combo pretty close to (or over) the max recommended rms?

-Matt

 

[Farfromovin]

As we previously discussed, it looks great. I wish I lived close enough to get a listen.

Isn't that amp/sub combo pretty close to (or over) the max recommended rms?

-Matt

All the speakers have about twice rms lol. I originally just wanted an HD900/5 for the system but got a smokin' deal on my HD600/4. From there I pretty much had to get the mono amp as well. So yes, the sub tries to leave the box at times ;-)

 

[Sc0]

Wow, awesome build... I have a rear false floor/amp/sub mount that is sort of in the works, also spent a day and a half on it and still didn't install the rear speakers. That woodworking and odd VW shaped hatch area was a PITA! (I have to order some Raamat and dtake everything apart again.)

False floors and amp racks look easy... from the pics but not when you try and make one.

 

[Farfromovin]

Wow, awesome build... I have a rear false floor/amp/sub mount that is sort of in the works, also spent a day and a half on it and still didn't install the rear speakers. That woodworking and odd VW shaped hatch area was a PITA! (I have to order some Raamat and dtake everything apart again.)

False floors and amp racks look easy... from the pics but not when you try and make one.

Yeah, that floor is nowhere close to square. I tried doing a template off of my OE carpet, but even that is off because as you come up in height, all 4 walls change dimensions lol.

 

[shizzler]

Wow. That is some great documentation of a lot of hard work, planning, and of course, $$.

Good stuff.

 

[tuscTDI]

so did you apply the dynamat to the plastic interior door panel or just to the steel one?

 

[Farfromovin]

so did you apply the dynamat to the plastic interior door panel or just to the steel one?

Everything! The door card (plastic), inner metal panel, and the door itself behind that removable panel.

 

[silverbox]

Phil, If you haven't sealed between the plastic door card and the speaker, you might want to try that. I just did that to my polk audio install, using the OE rubber gaskets, (needed 2 extra ones to make up for the larger diameter). This made a very big improvement in SQ, with none of the mid base resonating inside the door cavity!
Also I'm hearing less road noise, but I bet this is not as big a deal for you with all that dynamat.

 

[Farfromovin]

I saw you did that! I was going to make some improved "extended" MDF rings that bring the speaker all the way out to the grill. Same effect I think.

 

[silverbox]

Just make sure you have a seal between the speakers and the plastic door card so all the sound energy is going out the grills and not partially resonating inside the doors. When I did this the image improved and the component system became much more cohesive, Highs mids and even the sub sound much more as one.

 

[mech644]

FYI-
Closed cell foam backer rod may be a good material to seal speakers to the door cards. It starts at .25" diameter and goes up from there, I've even seen 2". Commercial glass shops usually have it in stock.

 

[Farfromovin]

If I can get my router back, I'm going to try to make some better spacers tomorrow. Today I made a new plexiglass cover panel. It's made out of 1/4" MDF and so is the logo. After it was glued in place, I covered the top and edges in fiberglass resin for some water resistance to warpage. The rest of the floor is hardwood, and untreated MDF is supposedly bad with water. Even though there is gear in the trunk floor, I still plan on using it for muddy mtb tires, ice crusted ski boots, etc...

Maybe it doesn't show up super well in the photo, but the logo turned out real great IMO. It's very noticeable and the edges are nice and sharp. A nice touch I think.

--edit-- I also switched over to t-nuts and Allen bolts to mount the woofer in the box instead of wood screws. I did that because I'm going to experiment with different amounts of polyfill in the box and will need to remove it a handful of times.

 

[oldpoopie]

Actually, its pretty easy to get a perfect template.... Take some wood 2x4 or whatnot and just stack it on the floor to the height you want. Then take some cardboard cut to length of each wall of the trunk area. Press each piece into its respective wall area, then tape them all together. Lift the template out as one piece and transfer the shape to your MDF.

That said, pretty sweet install Phil. I remember when I had the time to devote to things like that!

 

[TDikook]

WOW, that is all I have to SAY!!! well, I have a lot to say, and ALL in praise!! What an excellent job!! can't wait to see it first hand!! that is a lot of Love and hard work there!!

 

[AARodriguez Corp.]

very very nice work.

Just curious, any idea how much weight this has added to the vehicle?

 

[Farfromovin]

I would guess I added 150-200lbs worth of wood/speakers/amps/wire/dynamat... Not the thing to do for performance OR economy, but it's so much nicer to drive now with some great music!

 

[mtltdi]

That looks amazing Phil. I made a fiberglass enclosure for my Image Dynamics IDQ10 (since it works well with a small volume) back a few years ago. Still sounds great and I only lost a few inches of height. Your install is much more elegant however.

 

[Farfromovin]

Mmmm, Image Dynamics. Sadly, I've never ran any of their gear but I've always been an admirer. You got some real audio bliss tucked away under that false floor of yours! Looks like you have WAY too much power there! Perfect.

 

[CopaMundial]

I call BS.
I find it hard to believe that this entire project was accomplished with just a single 12-pack.