Head Honcho

Thirty-three-year old Steven Head remembers when he was in high school and audio systems were all about bass. Run DMC, LL Cool J, and the Beastie Boys were the craze at the time and if you didn't have the bump, you were nobody. Well, who in the world wants to be a bumpless nobody? Certainly not Head, so he outfitted his vehicle with a couple of Pyle Driver 15s and the rest, as they say, is history.

Head has learned quite a bit since his old school days. The days of impressing friends with a booming system are gone. After attending a few sound-offs, Head realized that what he wanted was to build a competition car of his own. With this vehicle, I wanted to try and obtain the best possible sound ever reproduced in a car, states Head. This meant that he would have to dig down deep inside and put his years of experience to the test. "Creativity and a little insanity are also part of what you see here," chuckles Head.

Today, you can find Head in the competition lanes of an IASCA or USACi event. He spends his time at these events with his 1994 Honda Civic EX. The installation in Head's car is extremely unique. For instance, with most vehicles, the premise of the installation is to build the system around the car. Head's idea was to build the car around the system. That meant that the interior needed a complete overhaul.

Computer Age
Running the system is a Sony CDX-C90 detachable face head unit. The faceplate is no longer part of the main chassis as it now sits in a different location than the CD mechanism. In order to accomplish this, Head used computer ribbon cable to facilitate the relocation of the face to the center console lid. Faceplate brackets were ordered directly from the Sony parts department to allow the unit to utilize its detachable feature. The main transport is mounted in a custom rear section of the backseat. This was done for two reasons, the first to minimize signal cable length (to the processor) and the second to maximize security.

The signal from the head unit then flows to a Sony XDP-4000X processor. The unit has been sunk into a color-matched fiberglass pod (which matches the exterior color) in the rear side panel. A nine-pin serial cable was custom made and concealed by a molded fiberglass bridge over the processor face. The serial cable interfaces with a portable PC mounted under the passenger front seat. Sony's Digital Sound Center DSP software runs in Windows and precisely sets gains, four-way digital crossover, and 10 bands of parametric equalization. To ensure the highest level of signal is being passed through, Kimber Kable Toslink and Stinger Dream Series RCAs are used between the amplifiers and the Sony processor.

The PC is an Intelliworx VoiceTablet Touch screen running Windows 98 with a Pentium III processor and 100MRAM. A fixed LCD and touch mouse aid the tuning process while sitting in the listening positions.

No Place like Home
Speaker placement in the Civic may seem rather unorthodox, but this is part of the design that Head wanted to employ. The midrange and midbass drivers, Focal Xpert 5KX and 7KX respectively, are stacked similarly to home theater tower speakers up in the front dash. Before the speakers found their home in the dash, one month of listening tests were conducted in order to determine the best placement of the speakers. The entire dash was created using layers of fiberglass and is completely symmetrical on both sides. Focal Audiom TLR tweeters were molded into the A-pillars to complete the tower-like setup and precisely angled for proper dispersion. The entire front stage was dampened with Cascade B-1, Dynamat Extreme, Gravitex undercoating, and modeling clay, rendering the system vibration free. Acoustic panels, polyfill, and other treatments handle reflections in the car. With the tower setup, there was no need for a center channel or rear fill. Thankfully, the climate controls (including A/C) and parking brake (activated with a linear actuator) are still fully functional.

Two separate subwoofer systems are used in the Civic. One system is used for sound quality and the other is used for SPL. The first system consists of two 10" Oz Audio subwoofers installed in the kick panels with aperiodic membranes. Each woofer has about 0.4 cubic feet of space. The structural integrity of the vehicle was not compromised, as no cutting was performed on the vehicle's chassis. The second system consists of four Oz Audio 12" free air drivers. They are mounted in a fiberglass baffle and use the entire trunk as an enclosure. They are visible through the pass-through from the passenger compartment into the trunk. In the middle of the baffle is enough room for the Oz Audio logo to be displayed. The subwoofers were manufactured to Head's specifications with the front subs wound with single-layer, 8-ohm voice coils while the rear subs now boast chrome baskets.

In order to run the two subwoofer systems, Head manufactured a custom relay bank to switch between sound quality mode and SPL mode. Two of the four amplifiers, Rockford Fosgate 200X2's (both bridged), power the 10" subwoofers in sound quality mode. Switching over to the "old skool" mode (SPL) through the relay bank, the 200X2's each power a pair of the 12" subwoofers in the trunk.

Video sources are made possible with a Sony XT-40V tuner and the VoiceTablet computer. The Sony tuner supplies radio graphics and TV tuner signals to the Sony 6" monitor while the VoiceTablet feeds DVD video to the 8.4" Sharp monitor. Both monitors are located in the center of the dash with the larger screen above the smaller screen. Above the monitors is the factory gauge cluster.

Got Stung!
Two more amplifiers are used in the system for a total of four. A pair of Rockford Fosgate 100X2's feeds the Focal speakers (one for the midbass drivers and the other for the mids and tweets). The amplifiers are set up in a modular fashion and housed in a fiberglass amplifier rack along with Stinger 50-amp fuses in line. Each amplifier has its own Stinger 50-amp Accuvolt transformer and Stinger 1-farad capacitor. The capacitors rest below the amplifiers while the transformers are installed in the trunk walls. The Accuvolts help keep the amps at 14.4 volts even when the engine is off.

More power is added to the Civic in the form of a charging system and batteries. A Phoenix Gold AN124 140-amp alternator with a 1/2-farad capacitor for noise filtration replaces the stock unit. Three additional batteries were added to ensure that enough juice is running throughout the system. The first battery is a Stinger SDB 800 in the factory location. The remaining two are Stinger SDB 1000's, sunk into the trunk floor. Steel pans were fabricated to hold the batteries in place on either side of the trunk. Each battery has its own, dedicated 150-amp circuit breakers that sit in molded fiberglass on either side of the rear bumper. Even the trunk lid was not forgotten. Head uses this area to promote all the manufacturers used in his vehicle as well as to show off his system diagram.

More Stinger accessories reside in the rear seat area. Fuse blocks for all sources and accessories are easily accessed here.

Solid Dampening
Head took the time to make sure that there was no resonance in the vehicle. Starting with the undercarriage, Head treated it with Ziebart undercoating. With the vehicle torn apart, all interior metal surfaces received Dynamat Super. This included the floor, firewall, trunk lid, and trunk floor. Even the trunk was sealed off from the interior using materials such as expanding foam, modeling clay, and concrete.

As far as the wiring goes, Head made sure to follow the strict guidelines set down in the IASCA rulebook. Since sound quality was of the highest priority, all signal cables were kept under six feet. A Crystal Line "Silencer" noise gate system keeps unwanted hiss out of the musical programs. The Crystal Line piece and a Sony CDX-T65 CD Changer are nestled in the rear side panel and are surrounded by color-matched fiberglass.

Show Queen
The Civic doesn't see much time on the road. Head has another Civic (1995) that does all the daily driving. The Civic you see here is a true show vehicle and spends most of its time either in the judging lanes or in Head's garage. Every now and then, he will feel the urge to drive it around town or display the vehicle for his shop. The vehicle competes in the IASCA Pro Ultimate 301-600 and USACi Expert 1-600 SQ. In recent years, Head has had much success in finding his way up to the podium. Recently he won "The Most Famous Soundoff," the Spring Break Nationals in Daytona Beach, Fla., this past March.

With the system somewhat complete (because they never seem to be finished), it was time to work on some performance and aesthetics. New performance goodies included an AEM cold air intake and cam gears, headers, exhaust, ACT clutch/flywheel combo, B&M Fuel Pressure regulator, and Magnacore wires with Bosch plugs. Aesthetically, a Wings West and Honda Sport rear wing give the Civic a more aggressive appearance. The lights have all been replaced with products from APC. Rounding out the exterior are Ground Control Coilovers: 18" Konig Tantrums wrapped in Yokohama Paradas.

The installation took approximately 18 months to complete at a cost of about $ 15,000. The labor was completely free as Head did most of the work himself - most being the key word as Head would like to acknowledge those who provided a helping hand. They are: Robert Hillgaertner, Jason Syner, his father Jim Head, Mike Ramirez, and Joe Moriera. It's amazing to think that the installation was done after work hours in Head's garage. Talk about catching the bug.