Mobile electronics is something to be enjoyed, not just put on a pedestal for admiration at shows. The problem is that when you build up your vehicle to be more elaborate-with painted finishes that scratch easily, fiberglass that can crack under too much traffic and thousands of dollars of electronics that a thief can get away with in just a few minutes-it's harder to enjoy a modified car on a daily basis. Fortunately, Joseph Wu doesn't have that problem.
The young owner of this '00 Nissan Maxima does show his vehicle a lot now with the Illmatic car club in SoCal, but before that he used the system every day. "I love to watch TV in the car and eat at the same time," he reveals, a stark contrast to those who wouldn't let the smell and possible stains that come with a bag of your favorite greasy take-out anywhere near their customized rides. "I prefer to eat while driving over sitting in a restaurant," Wu continues.
Modifying the Maxima began because Wu "wanted to make a difference and build something different," and a Maxima isn't the most popular car to modify. He turned to Sam Lee of Audio Excellence for the transformation, a shop that has had numerous wins at car shows over the past few years. From the beginning the Maxima was "more about being a show vehicle, so we wanted to give it a show look," he explains. That means he would take the opportunity to showcase every piece of gear, including a show car necessity-video.
The Boob Tube
Given Wu's TV-watching-whilst-hamburger-munching proclivities, the Maxima is not short on easily viewable monitors. When Wu is sitting in the driver seat, he can enjoy the 7-inch screen of the Pioneer AVX-P7000CD HU with an AVM-8000R brain. Lee ISO-mounted the receiver in place and framed it with a carbon-fiber faceplate. Wu can either watch DVDs or pull video from the secondary input, a Game Boy hidden in the glove box. Other options in the vehicle include the 7-inch monitors in the visors and the additional 5-inchers in the dash.
While outside the vehicle at shows, Wu and everyone else can watch the monitors embedded in the trunk lid, without worrying about dripping chili or melted cheese on the new seats. "Most of our vehicles have a trunk lid," Lee says. An AcceleVision monitor hangs within a fiberglass frame. Also visible from the rear are the two 15-inch monitors within the trunk and the single 15-inch monitor on the rear deck. The eye candy competes with the reverberating bass in the trunk below.
Boom Time
Flanking a Polk Audio C400.4 amplifier mounted on a metal frame in the center floor of the trunk, two subs sit at the sides. These Polk Audio MM2124 woofers make use of two separate fiberglass enclosures, which were then wrapped in suede. "Every piece is fiberglass and sueded," Lee says, as they wanted to keep the weight to a minimum. To that same end, less of heavy MDF was used in the substructures. The two sealed boxes were designed with the woofers in mind for "tight SQ bass," Wu says. He wanted the bass to match the music, rather than overpower it. To make sure rattling wouldn't overpower both the bass and the music, Lee tore apart the trunk to install plenty of RAAMat damping material.
The Show Theme
A ride like this requires more than a single amp, but with the pair of 15-inch LCDs in the trunk, there wouldn't be room to display the additional two Polk Audio C500.1's. Lee solved the situation by mounting the amps in the cabin floor. "We lifted [the amplifiers] about 1.5" off the floorboard, with Plexiglas on top of it," he says of the amp mounts. The amps themselves are bolted down and framed with fiberglass pieces that mount to the floor. What about ventilation? Lee didn't neglect that, routing the lower A/C vents to blast through the floor compartments and go back out.