At the start of this year I sold my previous car (a VE SS) because I wasn't using it and was losing too much money on it sitting in the driveway. I still needed a car from time to time, but as I ride an R1 everywhere it didn't need to be awesome. Having always loved the EF/EL XR's I picked up a nice stock EF XR6 with 136,000km's for $5k. Single owner for 14 year's, needed a little TLC, but mechanically it is in pretty good nick.


Unfortunately it failed the first rego application as there was a small hole in the exhaust, but this was just an excuse to get something better. So a 2.5" locally made cat back system was fitted and passed. I don't like really loud systems and the Falcons are prone to droning, but this system is great. After that we had to remove the front end and get the dreaded A/C condensor replaced.


We do a fair bit of driving at night so investing in something better than the frankly shocking stock lighting on the XR's is a must. These bad boys (HID's) are rated at 50W 6000k that I picked up off fleabay. They have been on for a few month's now and haven't had any drama's with the units or local constabulary. In the last pic I left the stock filament light in so you can see the difference between it and the new upgraded HID's.





Here's a couple of pics of them at night.



After that I gave the old girl a good polish. I unfortunately never got around to shooting the whole car, but suffice to say the hard work paid off.


With a few nightshifts whiled away on Fordmods, I decided to order some extractors. It seems they are a good mod for the Inline 6 so I bit the bullet and got some from DKNE.

With most of the mechanical stuff squared away, the real reason I bought this car is so that it can have an awesome sound system in it. The EF's have nice big wide dashes, with plenty of room in the doors and kicks. So with that in mind I present the following as a lot of hard work in not a lot of time! This system is SQ primarily, but don't let that fool you into thinking it can't play loud.

Components
The sub is custom Fi Audio jobbie from the US. No idea what its rated to, but it handles the power its fed from the JL monoblock just fine. I had to recone it after 2 failed attempts from the original manufacturer. This sub uses XBL2 tech so remains extremely linear even with big (+-34mm) excursion.



The amps are from JL Audio's 'Slash' series. These are Class AB SQ amps, and have recieved many awards around the world for their excellent sonic abilities. Moderate outputs of 4 x 75Wrms and 1 x 500Wrms belie just how good these things are.


The Head Unit is a 'borrowed' Alpine CDA-9887. These are good SQ head units, although hopefully I will be upgrading this unit soon. It allows fully active crossovers, Parametric EQ, and time alignment for each channel.


Drivers that are being used for the front stage are Peerless SLS8's for the midbass, and Tang Band W4-1337 for the rest. The tangs are a truly awesome driver and play exceptionally well from 200Hz-20Khz. With a single driver playing across this much range, means that there are no crossover artifacts or distortion, and no steering or delay issues from having drivers mounted apart (ala splits). The tangs are the silver drivers and the Peeless are the larger drivers. (Scanspeak manufacture the other drivers pictured which aren't used).

Installation

I went to a fair bit of trouble beefing up the standard electrical system, knowing full well it was going to struggle with what I was going to demand from it.

I started by upgrading the standard battery terminals to something that will handle the cable size I was going to use. They use a modified 'Projecta' terminal with custom copper busbars and stainless steel fittings.


Here you can see the standard cables, and the cable size I was upgrading to - 70mm^2.


I routed new earths from the 2 main chassis rails and the alternator ground.



I ran new starter motor, bus, and audio system positive's.


I tidied up the Head Unit wiring and installed the Alpine Head Unit. Neat wiring here can save huge headaches later, trying to solve issues with induced noise and alternator whine.



The Car was gutted so that sound deadener could be applied in certain area's and to facilitate easier laying in of the cables.



It also afforded an easy way to clean all of the interior - with a high pressure cleaner! 14 years of dust and dirt was quickly rinsed away in seconds and everything looked new again.


I sound deadened the boot lid, and filled the frames with expanding foam. This stuff is great, but has to be used carefully, otherwise it will push out the boot skin. I also placed it in areas around the wheel arches and the like, so as to remove as many resonances from loose panels as possible. My boot is very solid with little to no rattles at full noise.



From here on, the glass work is unfinished as it is still a work in progress.

From here on, the glass work is unfinished as it is still a work in progress.

Amp Rack
So I started to get serious about the amp mounting rack. I wanted it to integrate nicely with the rubber strip around the boot so it necessitated some fancy glass work.








Sub
And then the sub box, opposite the amp rack. The sub needs at least 60L although I wanted a bit bigger for a more suitable response in my car.











Kickpanels
These are temporary, I am going to redo them with more testing in mind. I have determined that they will work down here, but I want to experiment more with the angles. The mids that are installed in the last pic were mounted on some test pods. They don't work very well without sealed enclosures.





Midbass
Midbass is the most overlooked part of car audio IMHO. People seem to think that they can have a 12" sub pounding out tunes heard from several blocks away but then expect their little 6" midbass to have that 'upfront' sound one octave up. It just won't happen (unless you have utopia BE's) or you get serious with your midbass. In my case, I opted for the previously mentioned Peerless SLS8. These are pretty much an 8" Subwoofer, but happen to play up to 500Hz very nicely. Note that the midbass are off axis, when speakers are playing below their 'beaming' frequency output is omnidirectional - like it is being emitted from a sphere. These speakers are mounted in fully sealed enclosures, not unlike the speakers in your loungeroom for more controlled output at lower frequencies.









So as you can see, I'm well on my road to in car audio nirvana. I will try and update the thread as often as I can, or you can follow it in more detail over at the MEA forums. I hope it has been somewhat informative, and that some you may realise that 90% of the SQ is derived from the quality of your install and not how much money you can throw at speakers. The front end described here cost me less than $300 but would compete with cars that have speakers in the $1000's...

This system is going to be insane!! Obviously a huuuuge amount if effort going too. You can come over to Perth and knock something up for my BF Ute if you like
Good work, this may be the first thread i subscribe to!!

Im gonna be watching this build very closely, a lot of work is gonna go into this, lots of fibreglassing, looks great so far.

The woofers in the door look bloody huge

MATE!!!!! this would be the most i have ever seen some one beef up there sound system in there ef. great job!!!!!!! i know ill be reading this forum a fair bit! cant wait to see the finished product.

Its an excellent read. The process of building enclosures etc is something I have really wnted to get into and try but really had no idea where to start.
Im thinking Im learning a bit so far just by reading this thread.

im definatly not a car audio nut, i just got a freind to choose some alpine stuff for me and i wired it in.

but i love the amount of effort and creativity that is going into this build, its looking like its going to turn out like proray but your work is looking like alot more quality.

keep up the good work.

p.s. hows using the throttle with the kick panels???

edit: omg 3000th post! woo

This is an amazing read and i to will also be watching this closely. Iam not in to big audio systems but after reading and seeing how well all your custom speaker boxes turned out i think youv really inspired me to give it a crack on my ride. Very impressed mate! Also your wiring job looks very professional. Good luck with it mate. Regards Jared.

PS: When its done youll have to make a demo vid of the sound system and put it on youtube or something. I know the video wont do it justice but it would be really awesome to get an idea how it sounds and turned out.

are you a sparky by any chance?haha i read 70mm2, then i saw the red, white and blue cables running to the amps.
nice work anyway!

Thanks for the replies guys, its good to go back to the start and look at how much I've done. I should mention that every single part of this has been DIY, I live in Port Hedland and we don't have workshops that can even help out on the trickier parts. Cheer's for the encouragement guys, its good to know that people still appreciate good car audio and tidy EF's these days. Obviously there's 6 month's of updates there, I will continue to update the thread as I do more, although a fair bit slower that what I have done already.

And yes I am a sparky...

Haven't done much with the audio build with this lately as I have had some head unit problems (had to send it away) and the mechanical side of things needs some focus.

Over the last few weeks I have been collecting some gear together for a few little mods. With the full 2.5" system all done, I have decided to do the cam and do the head gasket and stuff while I'm in there. So I've picked up a new Permaseal HG, Permaseal Head Bolts and other stuff like gaskets and whatnot. I will do the changeout in a few weeks, I've got a dremel is there any point trying my hand at a little porting while I have the head off? I don't want to be taking the valves or anything out, unless it is recommended that I do that.

The suspension side of things is terrible on this car so I decided to do something about it. After lots of research I decided to pick up some KYB 'Blacks' which actually turned out to be waaay cheaper than I was going to spend on shocks. So today I installed them, here's some pics of the journey:

Standard ford shocks, 15 years old now...


Nice new KYB's in the springs. I went down to my local mechanic and he lent me the spring compressors, which was nice of him. Certainly made life a lot easier!


Go KYB!


All installed.


While I was in there I noticed that the ball joint(?) seals looked a bit knackered. If I get the superpro bush kit are the replacements part of the kit? Do I need to order new ball joints?


What colour were the original sway bar rubbers? It looks like these have been replaced already in this car. I noticed while doing the rear shocks that they sway bar rubbers were green?

Thats a awsome buy dude and the car looks pretty neat and love the steerio setup as well

How are the quality of the DKNE extractors???

Also when u drive ur car next let us all know how these KYB shocks ride and if ur height has altered since new shocks installed???

As far as your balljoint rubber issue goes I hate to say it but your up for new joints. The rubbers dont come in a bush kit. The joints are not expensive just a PITA to fit.
Question about your sub enclosure. Once you put the masking tape on the body and glassed it did you just pull it all away from the body and the tape came away or did you have something on to help it release?

Cheer's Mate!

The extractors are good, I'm more than happy with them. They gave a noticeable increase in power that I wasn't really thinking was going to be there. I find a lot of claims about "extra 25kw with our new performance muffler" s**t a bit boring and optimistic. Quality wise, as in the welds and stuff, is good. It could be better like on stainless but for the price you can't go wrong.

The KYB's are excellent. I think it will take time for them to settle a little. Its an XR6 so I think they come a little lower than the standard car. Ride compliance is slightly firmer than the old (very tired) shocks. The car points a lot better, and is much more settled under hard braking. Handling on the limit is better, I held a nice slide on our local highway roundabout (noone around ) from entry to exit and it was very easy. I'm not sure if I need to do the bushes now, there is lots more control from the suspension, and all for less than $300 and an afternoon.

Where did u notice the power difference in rpm???

Probably from 2500-4500rpm. Perhaps its not a huge power difference but an increase in torque around the engines optimum VE revs. The biggest difference was the smoothing of the motor's vibs at higher revs. Definately sounds and feels less 'hoary' than before.

Ok, so I'm having a bit of a go and am trying to do this cam upgrade. Unfortunately, some f**k mechanic (probably DIY backyarder like me ) as done the tensioner retainer up with a rattle gun of sorts and now I can't get it out. As you can see, it was done up waaay too tight and the little seal has been squeezed out the side.



I've snapped one set of needlenose pliers (my best ones too!), bent the f**k out of my Sanvik circlips pliers, and another set of needlenose pliers. I have managed to rotate it around about 90 degrees with a hammer and screwdriver but its still not loose enought to undo yet, and its f**k the tensioner retainer's little holes. Nothing short of a proper C spanner is gonna undo this prick, do I really need to undo it to get the cam out?

No it doesn't have to come out. And by the looks of it, it is not leaking from the seal, which is good. As long as you have released the tensioner with the allen key, then you are good to go.

Cheers
BenJ