Jamie laid out the initial installation by first treating the interior with Dynamat products for a more controlled environment. The foundation was laid with Rockford Fosgate's Connecting Punch "Triple Gamma" line of speaker cable, interconnect, and power wire. Special attention was paid to the power supply; therefore a 180-amp Ohio Generator alternator and Optima red top battery were assigned the duty of powering the entire rig. Dual 1-farad capacitors stiffen the blow while dual runs of 4-gauge power and ground ensure clean delivery of the juice. To protect the car and its contents from disaster, three 80-amp fuses were planted in the rear quarter panel, ready to self-destruct in case of meltdown.
Jeff wanted the interior to be free of over-engineered monstrosities while avoiding a stock appearance. The Pioneer DEX P9 source unit was placed in the original location and flush-mounted to a custom lexan trim panel. Black lexan was a good choice - it flawlessly matches the factory A/C control panel below the source unit.
To improve the ergonomics of the source unit control, a PAC steering wheel control kit was installed. The PAC kit is sweet because he can set-up the controls to his liking. Jeff set it for common functions like track, volume, and mute, but he also added controls to effortlessly switch between EQ and crossover settings, making the transition between SQ and SPL a simple task.
The vehicle was originally equipped with a Rockford Symmetry unit but this soon became outdated and was replaced for something a little more sophisticated. Greg Schwartz, an independent installer in the area, installed a Pioneer DEQ-P9 to handle all signal processing. Independent left and right 31-band equalizers meant the desired listening spot (that's on the driver's side) could be hit without getting too elaborate with speaker placement. With built-in electronic crossovers and time delay, the battle against a less-than-perfect automotive environment became less bloody.
Time delay helps correct for unequal distance of speakers - something inevitable in a car - but making intelligent use of the kickpanel location can as well, by giving the sound wave plenty of room to develop. Handmade kickpanels were fabricated of MDF, fiberglass, and body filler. Hours of shaping went into making a perfect fit so the MB Quart QSD 213, 5.25-inch component set could rest solidly in its permanent location. Grilles were made of steel mesh and covered with a matching, acoustically-transparent fabric to protect the speakers, should they be used as a footrest.
The kickpanel speakers are powered by a single Rockford 500.2 two-channel amplifier, one that delivers frequencies higher than 200Hz. A passive high-pass on the tweeter filters out low frequencies.
Schwartz was brought in to get a little more out of the front end. It was lacking punch, you see, with low frequencies isolated to the rear. Without building out the doors to the extreme, eight-inch Dynaudio drivers were massaged in with custom, sealed enclosures. A healthy treatment of Dynamat Extreme keeps the doors from falling apart.
Making sure that there was plenty of power for the eights, a single Rockford Fosgate 500.2 was supplied to drive them to euphoric states with a band-pass crossover allowing 50-250Hz to pass.
Needless to say, the front stage of this Grand Prix is rock solid. The addition of a robust sub-system, however, would bring it alive. Now that there was a reinforced front-end, the team felt that it could handle a strong sub-end.