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Full Audio Install

DucatiRob

Well-known member
Joined
22 Jul 2015
Messages
2,236
Have been meaning to post this up for a long time! I finished this in March this year :eek:

I started out wanting to swap out just the head unit, one of the first mods I'd considered a couple of years ago, but other mods became more pressing, the Bose system is not too bad for occasional music but is way out of date now and the SatNav is woeful. I decided early on that I would not go down the optical interface route as it's expensive for what it does and the Bose system only supports 2 ohm speakers that limits choice somewhat!

Have always been into my music and spent a small fortune over the years on home hifi and fancied doing a custom install for a while. The problem with car audio is, unlike hifi, you can't really go to a specialist and put together a bunch of components to try out in a controlled environment.Instead you have to rely on reviews and forums etc. but the basic principles are the same. Also, the environment inside the car is compromised, speaker placement can never be optimised and, holding components rigidly is almost impossible! The key is good quality components, sized correctly, powerful amp for control and carefully installed speakers.

After lots of research I went for:

1 - Pioneer AVIC F88DAB head unit, really wanted to go Alpine but they don't have a unit similarly specified and these days Pioneer at least match Alpine for SQ.

2 - Alpine PDX-V9 5 Channel Amp – Lovely compact Class D amp with plenty enough power, 1600 watts in total!

3 - Focal PFS 65 F3 – 3 Way component speakers to replace the door drivers and tweeters in the dash - top quality and a great price

1 - Rainbow DL4.2 – 2 Way component speakers, wasn't going to bother with the rears but these are nice cheap good quality drivers for some rear fill if needed.

I wanted a head unit that did everything, Apple Car Play, Android Auto, built in Sat Nav, CD player, front and rear camera support, DAB etc.. I think the Pioneer has now been superseded with a WiFi enabled unit.

Head Unit
256336a.jpg


Alpine Amp
g500-PDXV9-o-angle.jpg


Focal 3-Way
g091-PS165-F3-F.jpg


Rainbow Rear Speakers
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The first thing I wanted to do was cut out as much of the road noise as I could and deaden the panels where the speakers would be fitted. I used a combination of 2mm Silent Coat and 6mm neoprene foam, about 2 sq.m of each in total applied to the back of the the rear interior panels, door cards, wheel arches inside and out, door frame and the inside of the rear body panels. The noise reduction is noticeable, not huge, but I was very satisfied. Best of all, I can still hear the engine and exhaust the same as before :thumb:

Unfortunately I can't find pics of the sound deadening fitted! Pic below shows the rear interior panel removed and lack of standard sound deadening materials!

IMG-1043.jpg


A good cheap mod worth doing on its own:
https://www.deadening.co.uk

5b36a8f1b4ffb.jpg
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Removing all the Bose drivers it's not hard to see where they compromise on quality, pretty weedy units with tiny magnets, even the 8" bass units in the doors are mostly plastic.

Rear speaker unit next to Rainbow units:
IMG-1002.jpg


IMG-1005.jpg


Front door mid/bass units next to Focal drivers:

IMG-1040.jpg


Tiny magnet on Bose speaker:
IMG-1036.jpg


Fitting the new drivers front and rear is fairly straightforward if you are handy with a router or a jigsaw. The Bose drivers in the door are supposedly an 8" base unit and a 4" mid driver, both of these are very low quality items and fitted with plastic mounting frames. The new 6.5" Focal bass driver needs to be mounted on a 25mm thick MDF adapter ring that can be bolted to the steel door shell. The Focal midrange units also need an MDF adapter to be made to fit into the door card location, again not difficult.

Rear speaker and front mid unit 12mm MDF mounting roughed out:
IMG-1020.jpg


IMG-1017.jpg


IMG-1025.jpg


IMG-1028.jpg


Rear drivers fitted in rear panel:
IMG-1031.jpg


25mm MDF mounting adapters:
IMG-1032.jpg


Fitted to door frame:
IMG-1273.jpg


IMG-1274.jpg


Dash tweeters just pop out easily:
IMG-1130.jpg


Fitting the new Focal tweeters into the dash was a doddle, once the plastic grille is removed the old ones can be pried out easily and the Focal units almost drop straight in, feeding the cables down through the dash was pretty easy too!
IMG-1168.jpg


All the wiring is relatively straightforward, speaker cables run nicely under the carpet or through the sills, quite a few cables to run from from to back though, coax 3 x double, amp control wire, sub control cable, camera cable etc. I used a 2 swg power cable from the battery to the amp. This was routed from the front into the cabin through the large grommet behind the battery, under the dash and into the sill cavity to the rear!

I was undecided about the subwoofer for a long time, it is hard to find any decent sub drivers smaller than 8 inches which would make fitting anything into the Bose unit impossible, in the end I decided to make my own!

I bought 2 x Rockford Fosgate P2D2 8" subwoofers, nice and beefy :D

g5751-P2-D28-o-profile.jpg


I set about building an enclosure to accommodate the two sub drivers as well as the Pioneer amp and the Focal crossover units, quite chunky items themselves. Not enough space for the the Rainbow crossover units so these would need to be mounted behind the rear panels.

The shape of the sub enclosure evolved somewhat from that which I originally intended, although it is about the same footprint it needed to be an inch or so taller than the Bose unit.

Made from 12mm MDF to keep weight down but well braced!
IMG-1083.jpg


IMG-1095.jpg


I had intended to cover the box in carpet to match the interior, the problem here being availability of carpet anything like the Porsche shade and texture. I found something similar on eBay but it proved impossible to mould around the sub box!

I eventually gave up on carpet and tried Alcantara, not cheap as you have to but a minimum amount, plenty cheaper alternatives around but I plan to have some other interior bits covered including steering wheel etc. so went for the real thing!

Box covered in 3mm neoprene first:
IMG-1098.jpg


IMG-1112.jpg


IMG-1116.jpg


Finished in Alcantara:
IMG-1137.jpg


Mesh cover over amp housing:
IMG-1131.jpg


Amp and crossovers fitted:
IMG-1142.jpg


IMG-1140.jpg


Wiring in car not so easy.. a lot of cables!
IMG-1178.jpg


IMG-1231.jpg



Installing the head unit was fiddly, the PCM only has a couple of connectors and the aerial connections, the new head unit has a multitude of cables, USB's, HDMI, cameras, coax signal cables + sub, DAB, signal wires etc. A challenge to squeeze everything in behind the unit:

IMG-1233.jpg


I wanted the OEM Porsche facia and luckily Phil ad one to sell :thumb: I think they are really for the Jap market where they don't fit a head unit at all but a storage unit! It needed some trimming on the inside to make it fit around the Pioneer unit but got there in the end!

IMG-1260.jpg


All back together and working!

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Overall I'm really happy with the results :D sound quality is excellent, the Focal units really stand out, really solid and tight, with loads of depth and sparkling high frequencies. The Rockford subs make a huge difference, deep and fast bass with a huge amount of slam without being boxy or overpowering.

The Pioneer head unit is everything I wanted, really good built in Sat Nav, have used it in Europe a couple of times and has been great. Loads of tweaking that can be done to the sound, display and features.

Have converted all my CD's and albums onto USBs in FLAC format which took a while, mp3s just sound tinny. CD and DCD player work really well, like the way the whole unit swings up to load :D

If anyone is thinking of doing something similar, it's a big job, but for me it was worth the effort!
 
:thumbs: :worship:
 
Great write-up mate. It sounded (and looked) great in the flesh too at Dinslaken.

And cheers for the heads up on the sound deadening... I *might* just need to add a little to the Cayman when it gets back after its heart transplant. I'm sure it didn't help I told the builder it had to be louder than Phil's!! :floor:

My backup plan is driver and passenger headsets... Let me know if you can recommend some with good sound quality and a decent microphone :floor:

Top work :thumb:
 
Great write up. I need to do something on my 996 C4 to improve the sound deadening without adding much weight whilst it is apart.

MC
 
DrJimBone said:
Great write-up mate. It sounded (and looked) great in the flesh too at Dinslaken.

And cheers for the heads up on the sound deadening... I *might* just need to add a little to the Cayman when it gets back after its heart transplant. I'm sure it didn't help I told the builder it had to be louder than Phil's!! :floor:

My backup plan is driver and passenger headsets... Let me know if you can recommend some with good sound quality and a decent microphone :floor:

Top work :thumb:

:floor:

:thumb: Look forward to seeing the Cayman after it's transplant!
 
Rob, I thought it looked and sounded totally amazing in Dinslaken mate . The best audio upgrade I have seen in a 997 by far . :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:
 
Only question is what are you going to charge forum members to do something similar? :floor: :floor:
 
Phil 997 said:
Rob, I thought it looked and sounded totally amazing in Dinslaken mate . The best audio upgrade I have seen in a 997 by far . :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

Cheers Phil :thumb:
 
DrJimBone said:
Only question is what are you going to charge forum members to do something similar? :floor: :floor:

I don't think many would have the patience to wait for show long it took me :yawn:
 
That is very impressive, thank you ever so much for sharing. Your attention to detail is exquisite and the choice of equipment is excellent. A stealth install for the most part and reversible by the looks of it. I used to compete in sound offs in the 90's and this would have rated very high up there back then with the judges. Very impressive indeed.
 
msaif996 said:
That is very impressive, thank you ever so much for sharing. Your attention to detail is exquisite and the choice of equipment is excellent. A stealth install for the most part and reversible by the looks of it. I used to compete in sound offs in the 90's and this would have rated very high up there back then with the judges. Very impressive indeed.

Many thanks, yes definitely reversible, when I eventually sell the car I will remove it all and put back to standard, fairly easy as I have left all the standard speaker wiring in place.
 
Enjoyed reading this post you have definitely got some skills mate, top install.
 
What an excellent post and install, well done and many thanks for sharing.

This is something I've been planning on doing starting probably around Xmas. Initially my thinking was to add a Pioneer Avic unit, though keep swaying between this and a iPad mini install using the GT delete fascia. The Pioneer Avics are great though and yours installed looks perfect! nice, neat & tidy.

Amp wise, again you're a man after my own heart. The Alpine PDX amps are cracking, great size, clean power and literally no floor noise. On this one though it's a tough call between the PDX-V and the new Alpine PDP-8000. Whilst the PDP doesn't quite have the power output of the V, the integrated processor, optical input and WiFi make it quite a unique starting point, especially on a staged approach working nicely with a Gen 2's non Bose PCM3 with a view to either leaving the PCM3 installed, going down the Pioneer Avic route as you have or shooting for an IPad mini install. Decisions decisions.

Love the sub as well. Weight would be slight concern but you have clearly considered this as you mention keeping the design small and thickness down. I pondered over a Bose unit based purely on weight, upgrading the drive units as others have done, but I'm not sure if it's worth the effort and the route you have taken will be vastly superior I'm sure.

I think I'll be bouncing back and forth with your post for ideas and inspiration over the coming months. Great timing and thanks again for sharing. :worship: :worship:
 
deMort said:
Now that is a work of art .. :worship:

Thanks Dermot :thumb: To be honest, the sub box turned out better than I hoped, doesn't look out of place and the Alcantara is a great match for the carpet!
 

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