I am finally done with this build! Should have been done with it yesterday but my girl recently dislocated her buttcheek, I mean fractured her tailbone, so when I went to go to bed Friday night she was knocked out laying across the bed. I didn't want to disturb her since it'* so hard for her to get comfortable so I left her be and slept on the couch.....when I woke up Saturday my back was killing me and didn't get any better as the day went on so I just relaxed. I was able to sleep in the bed last night and woke up this morning feeling good so after taking a shower I went out and got busy!

First thing to do was install the passive xovers for my components, get them all wired up and ready to go. Done!

Don't trip on the wiring, just temporary until I decide on an amp rack design

Then I had to get the box in and wired up. Done!


Lastly, get the deck installed. Done!


I wrapped it up exactly at 3:30, when the Super Bowl was starting, so I listened to a song or two and then went it to watch the game.

At halftime I went back out there to do some tuning when a demon reared it'* ugly head....my mids/highs amp went into protect 3 times (I didn't realize that'* what was going on until the 3rd time). So as I was making adjustments on the deck to tweak the sound, the mids/highs went out. WTF? Just for ***** and giggles I turned the deck off then back on and they came right back on, interesting. So I continued making adjustments and it happened again. Now i'm getting pissed. This time I wanted to watch the amp to see if it was indeed going into protect so I turned the deck off/on and got it playing again and while it was playing I kept an eye on my amp to see if it went into protect....sure did. Fawk!!!!!

So the first thing I do is check my connections on the amp, i'm sure they're right/tight but i'm doing it anyway, while i'm doing so I notice my amp is ultra hot! I touch my sub amp and it feels like it would first thing in the morning. At this point i'm stumped. The only thing that'* changed, wiring wise, with this setup vs. the old is the addition of passive xovers to the mix. Other than that, everything is the same and I had absolutely no issues with my amp the first time around. So I come in the house and am stewing, can't even enjoy the game now, wondering if I have something on the xovers set wrong. Sure enough that'* what it was! On my xovers there are a series of switches that control how the xover does it'* thing, one of them controls how the speakers are powered. Setting it to "Bi-amp" is for when you're running each speaker off it'* own channel (4ch), "Parallel" is for when you're using a 2ch amp and are running a mid and tweet both off one channel. I had them set to parallel. Whoops. But after fixing that, all is well!

looks great! glad you got that little bug figured out..i look forward to a video

Thanks. Speaking of bugs.....I went out there after the Super Bowl was over to do some more listening/tuning and I'd be lying if I said I was impressed. Far from it! The bass was there, but it was WAY less than I expected and I had to turn the sub level to max in order to get it to bump. I played with all the settings/phase/time alignment/eq/everything and I got it to sound ok but still far below what I expected out of it. What could the problem be? Bad box? Something with the new deck? SS filter set too high?

So I go to check the SS filter and it was turned all the way down....I turned it up slightly, to roughly 25Hz. Checked the bass boost, it was turned all the way down, left it as is. The xover was turned all the way up, which is fine cause I'm using the HPF on my deck to control the bass frequencies the sub gets, then I get to the gain. When I first installed this amp I had my son get in the trunk and turn the gain **** until the dmm read what it was supposed to. I never double checked it. Fast forward to today, at first I wasn't going to mess with the gain since I didn't have my tone disc or dmm with me but I decided I'd eyeball it (note where it was at currently so I could put it back in the same spot)...I just wanted to see where the gain was set at. When I moved it I decided to turn it down to 0, at least I tried.....it was already at 0!! Well, maybe 0.3, but close enough. So you guys know that gorilla flex video I did? That was with my gain on 0.3! I turned my gain up halfway and holy shitballs, my substage came to life with a vengance!

I can't really say how it sounds when cranked up cause I didn't crank it, was in my garage, but it was an absolute night and day difference from how it sounded earlier today when I got it all hooked up. I think i'm gonna hurt some feelings out on the streets tomorrow! I've never been so anxious to get up and drive to work on a Monday morning, but I can't wait!

I'll get a vid up sometime this week

LOL... ive had a similar mishap before, happens to the best of us, that box looks good sitting in that trunk. Make sure u break it in first.. we did an install in my buddies S10 and he couldnt wait and just cranked it and blew both of his 10L7'* in less than an hour.

I still can't believe my gain was that low. I've been thinking and thinking if/when I ever messed with the gain and I can't think of a single time I ever did. I'm gonna take it easy on the drive to work, but coming home, no holds barred! I know I can't crank it full tilt but i'm definitely gonna give it'* suspension a work out. Syncing my iPod with all my Bass/SQ songs as we speak

Finally got a video up of my current setup, just ignore my horrible video taking/editing skills lol. I think it does pretty damn good for a single 12.

[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=PRU1iiAMkNA[/YT]

Nice.. just cant really get a good idea threw a video camera

Tinted up the Monte today....no pics yet cause it was dark out by the time he finished.....but I did 20% on the back 3 and 30% on the front 2. I'll post up some pics tomorrow once I get it out in the daylight.

I love the look, looks darker in these pics than it really is though.

Now that is looking really nice.