Lon, prior to dropping the truck off, had already upgraded the alternator. The factory unit was rebuilt by Florida Battery to put out nearly 260 amps. "The Soundstream gear is conservatively rated at 4600 watts total, so current is at a premium," says Lon. It was decided to augment the system with four Optima D750S Yellow Top batteries. One of the batteries dropped into the factory location with no hassle, the other three took a little more work. Lon knew he wanted all of the batteries under the hood to preserve the truck's only remaining cargo area, the bed. To accomplish this Shawn relocated the power steering reservoir to the front of the engine compartment and freed up enough real estate to parallel the three remaining batteries on the passenger side. An aluminum battery tray was fabricated to support them. The four batteries are protected by three 500 amp Monster Cable wafer fuses, one off of the stock battery location and one on to and off of the three-battery bank. All of the batteries are connected with Monster Cable 1/0 power and ground cables and battery terminals. Power flows from the engine compartment under the truck through more 1/0 in a protective loom then enters the cab under the amp rack and hits the five capacitors. It is then split into three 4 gauge lines, to the high pass amps, and one 1/0 line to the Tarantula. The signal flow for the system is equally refined.
Digital signals start with either the DVD player in dash or CD changer in the center console then flow back on Monster Cable fiber optic lines to the hideaway brains for the 1005 and 510 inside the amp rack. The TV and radio tuners are already in the same location and kick in their signal there. Out of the 5.1 processor low pass signals at 60 Hz and down go to the Tarantula and on to the Exact12 subs. The Tarantula drives the subs with 2000 watts of power at 4 ohms mono. Front high pass signal goes to the first Rubicon1002 and is crossed over in the amp at 200 Hz and up. It is further divided by the passive crossovers from the Exact4.3 set and sent on to the kick panels. An extra passive crossover is used to filter the second tweeter; since the Exact crossovers are biamplifiable no extra load is placed on the amp. RCA signals are passed out of the first 1002 and fed into the second 1002, which is high passed at 55 Hz and up running in 2 ohm stereo to the midbass door drivers. The Rubicon604 pushes the remaining center channel and rear speakers and their passive crossovers with its own electronic crossover set at 150 Hz and up.
The truck made its debut at the Spring Break Nationals. It was displayed in the Soundstream booth and met with rave reviews. "Everyone who saw it was pretty amazed. All of the paintwork we put into the truck is stunning. The sound and video system works great and I am really enjoying having the truck back, especially now that it is just the way I wanted it," Lon says with justifiable pride. Special thanks go out to a lot of people that helped make all of this possible: Shawn Leslie, Nathan Croke, Adam Leighton, Terry Wolf, Joe Klusnick, Randy Ranleman, Dave Savage, and everyone else involved. Now life with the Tundra is truly just like a day at the beach.