It took a long time- but I had fun doing it. The car came apart pretty easily- it wasn't all to much different than an American car. I see why these are more expensive than a comparable American car. They are put together soo much better. Everything is solid and insulated to the max.
Audio equipment is as follows:
Factory Becker headunit
Rockford Fosgate 3sixty.2 processor, EQ, and electronic xover (controled via bluetooth on my laptop)
JBL GTi-Single 12" sub, 7" mid, 1-1/8" tweet, and 5.25" coax in the rear doors for a little rear fill
Arc Audio FD1200.1 on the sub
A/D/S P840 on the mids and highs
Elemental Designs deadener
Other mods:
H&R 1.8" springs
Koni adjustable shocks
clear front marker lights
CL grille
flat hood emblem
It's 99% done. I still need to clean up a couple things in the trunk. There's a little glue overspray on the carpet edge of the false floor (white stuff you can see around the Arc amp) as well as add some carpet or black paint to the edge of the false floor around where the A/D/S/ amp is mounted (You can see the the wood showing in the area I am talking about).
After getting the Sonotube enclosure built- I really didn't like the way everything was looking in the trunk- so I changed plans and just built a regular enclosure. I screwed up there though. I centered the woofer on the front baffle. I should have raised the woofer 2" on the baffle to account for the fact that the false floor is 2" tall. It still looks fine though- most people probably wouldn't even notice it though.
So far I love the sound- everything I read about the GTi line was correct. The tuning is very close to being done also. I will most likely leave it as it is for another couple months until the speakers have a little more time to burn in. I think everything turned out looking quite good. My goal was good/clean sound and I didn't want to mod the vehicle in any way which couldn't be reversed. I even sourced plastic harness from Becker (the place that makes Mercedes HU's) and had them imported. That way I didn't have to cut anything on the factory harness. I just left those wires lay behind the dash and made all new harness' for myself. Although the pictures don't show it too well- the carpet I used is a 99.9% dead on match with the factory trunk carpet. Both the color and the matt is as close as can be.
The windows will be tinted in a couple weeks. The wheels have been nothing but a pain in the rear. I ordered a set of wheels that I was told by the manufacturer told me would clear the calipers- my car has the sport package wich includes larger 4 piston calipers. Turns out they were wrong- the spokes rub the calipers. It's been nothing short of a nightmare getting that straightened out. So- for the time being it's still on the stockers.
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