[Kenpachi]

Finally finished ICE stage one for my i20 last week. It took months of planning, collecting and sourcing equipment to reach this stage.

The stock hyundai system was no good, so it made sense to completely remove it. In most i20 jobs people have retained their HU and used a line out converter. That didn't make sense for me since my i20 didn't have USB or Bluetooth functionality (2009 Magna).

Starting with the head unit. I wanted a budget double din unit with with sound quality, USB, BT and TA. Only one HU came in this category - JVC kw - 900BT.
Once decided I set about to source it, problem is that this HU is no longer available in India. according to the many ice dealers I interacted with, demand for this HU was very poor, hence the distribution stopped. Luckily I had someone coming down from the states and asked them to bring this with them.
JVC KW 900 BT



Front Stage -
I was looking at components in the 12-15K range. shortlisted the Morel Tempo and Rainbow Dreamlines. Made a few calls and found out that Morel doesn't have a distributor in India anymore, so went ahead and got the dreamlines. This was infact the first piece to arrive in the ICE assembly puzzle.

6.5" paper midbass


20mm Silk tweeter

Passive Crossover

[Kenpachi]

Amplifier -
I needed an amp that could power the dreamlines and a sub in bridged mode. Called up BBW, they didn't have the DD C5C. Then I looked at the Infinity Kappa 4, matched my requirements, had great reviews, ended up getting it. Here are pics of the amp -


Small footprint for such a powerful amp, ideal for underseat installs.


Next came in the wiring kits and RCAs. Picked up Focal's 4 gauge wiring kit. Sadly it turned out to be CCA instead OFC. For RCAs, I picked up a 2 channel monster 300 series RCA. However, this is still stuck in the states and I had to make do with Earthquake RCA for the sub.Will use the focal RCA for the sub and monster for front components.
Havells 2.5 mm OFC wire were used for speakers and sub. The crossover to tweeter and midbass connections were done using the focal speaker wires that came with the kit




Subwoofer
Now comes the biggest challenge, I don't have much boot space to play with since I have a CNG tank. There is a small gap between the seat and the tank where we decided to place the sub. Had to design a custom wedge box. I was low funds and couldn't buy a new one. So decided to borrow a kenwood 10 inch sub from my friend and use it till I get a new one.
We decided to make a ported box to get more bass from a 10 inch sub.

[Kenpachi]

Installation
The installation was a DIY effort with occasional help by a local mechanic. Me and another friend of mine (a fellow BHPian) started on saturday morning by stripping the door panels and dashboard.
We changed the earlier plan and decided to place the amp under the passenger seat.

Removing the stock speakers was difficult and had to take it to a mechanic. The speakers have rivets instead of screws, wonder why Hyundai did that.
Here are WIP pics -

Before


Dash Kit and Head Unit Prep


Stock Head Unit being removed




5m RCA's had to be folded and kept inside the dashboard since we changed the plan and decided to install the amp under the seat






Rainbow Midbass mounted on 6.5" MDF spacers


60 amp AGU fuse


Holes were made in the sail panel to mount the tweeters, the gaps were filled with body fill and sanded to smoothen out the edges, then spray painted with 3 coats and left to dry.


Subwoofer Box -
The box specifications to given to a local subwoofer box maker. He runs a backend shop and supplies MDF trays, sub boxes to all the retail shops in Navi Mumbai. Mr Khan is a very knowledgeable man and knows a lot about sub box designs. We gave him the box specs and left to install other equipment. we had given internal sizes, whereas they considered it as external sizes (including ply thickness). The resultant box was too small for ported application and wasn't giving the desired output.
The current ported volume without the vent was around .43 Cubic Feet.
So we decided to change it to a sealed box. We added a wooden plank to cover the port, filled it with polyfill and wrapped it in vinyl. The quality of vinyl used makes the box feel very premium. Much better than carpet. The sealed volume reached .6 Cubic feet which was the right volume for the sub.




A bass gain is used to control the sub volume level - http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_...y-Scosche.html
An empty switch next to the rheostat illumination control was modified and cut to fit the bass knob.

[Kenpachi]

Final Install Pics

The pictures were taken at night so pardon the quality.


Bass control knob stealth install


The sail panel needs one more round of body fill and sanding to look perfect


Underseat amp


Backfiring Sub


Hardly any space between the sub and the CNG tank


Initial Impressions
The first time we fired the setup, the tweeters were a bit harsh, so the tweeters attenuation was set at the lowest level. After a a week of run in they have become much softer. I'm running them at the mid level now.

There are some rattling sounds coming from the left door. part because of loose fitting and part due to lack of damping. I was low on budget so couldn't do damping. Will be doing it next week.

Things left to do

Proper Tuning -
I don't have pro ears, but I keep changing settings according to what I like.
I think that the gains and other amp settings that have been set are correct. Will probably get it checked and confirmed with a good installer. Basic TA settings have been configured, still needs refining. SUB HPF set at 70Hz at 12 DB octave and front stage LPF at 70Hz at 12 DB octave. are settings correct?

Get a new sub - I'm inclined towards getting the Infinity Kappa 120.9. My only worry is that I might not be able to fit it in the limited space that I have. Is there any under Sub around the 8K mark that will pound hard and fast? I mainly listen to DnB, so I want something that will be good with it.

Rear Fills - People sitting behind complain about the bass being a bit over powering, hence the decision to get rear fills. I want something that will match the sound signature of the rainbows, sound good when powered directly via the head unit. But, at the same time, I'm planning to get a mono sometime in the future, so something that will not fry when receiving 125 RMS from the kappas. Do suggest what to do for this

Damping - Will be going ahead with noisekill, around 30 sq feet for it to damp the front doors and boot.

Change the RCAs

That is all I have planned for you. Would love to get input from you guys

[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the ICE Section. Thanks for sharing!

[Kenpachi]

Bought the Infinity Kappa 120.9. Size wise it is quite big. Will have to make a custom design to fit this in. I have made two rough renders. What do you guys think about the two options -

[Burn_out]

Congrats on your ICE upgrade.
The front sound stage should be sounding really good. Not sure on the Sub configuration though. As you mentioned, there are some noted issues with the overpowering bass at the rear. This could be due to the lack of space for all that energy to dissipate, and it would an uncomfortable experience for the rear passengers.
Upgrading to a bigger Sub might not solve that issue. But, it’s your ICE and your priorities should be on getting the overall sound experience to be fuller and richer. The rear passengers can wait.

Is it safe to place such a powerful Sub so close to a LPG tank?

[Kenpachi]

Originally Posted by Burn_out

Congrats on your ICE upgrade.
The front sound stage should be sounding really good. Not sure on the Sub configuration though. As you mentioned, there are some noted issues with the overpowering bass at the rear. This could be due to the lack of space for all that energy to dissipate, and it would an uncomfortable experience for the rear passengers.
Upgrading to a bigger Sub might not solve that issue. But, it’s your ICE and your priorities should be on getting the overall sound experience to be fuller and richer. The rear passengers can wait.

Is it safe to place such a powerful Sub so close to a LPG tank?

Thanks. The front stage sounds very good, it has improved drastically after I finished damping the front doors. The overpowering bass was felt by passengers present in the rear seat due to lack of rear fills.

A bigger sub doesn't necessarily mean louder (except 15-18 inch SPL subs). I picked up the kappa 120.9 as it plays hard, fast and yet blends in with the front stage (I feel it does, ears aren't trained).

Installed it a couple of hours ago, and it sounds great

[HimuraKenshin]

Originally Posted by Burn_out

Congrats on your ICE upgrade.
Is it safe to place such a powerful Sub so close to a LPG tank?

There is no danger in placing the subwoofer close to the tank.
The CNG tank is the strongest thing in the car

I was the other guy behind this install, and the new infinity sub sounds much better, probably dues to the correct enclosure, and also because the infinity sub goes down all the way upto 20hz, the kenwood goes only upto about 35
nice punchy bass
just need to TA the whole thing so that the sub stage moves forward..

[Burn_out]

Originally Posted by HimuraKenshin

There is no danger in placing the subwoofer close to the tank.
The CNG tank is the strongest thing in the car

I was the other guy behind this install

That's a relief. You can't be too careful with fuel.

And congrats again on the install. Sounds awesome. ;-)

[Kenpachi]

A series of upgrades went in the car over the past few weeks. The sub was upgraded to an Infinity Kappa 120.9 in a 1 cu ft sealed box, Front doors and bootlid was damped using noisekill. Last week I damped the door panels using some heatlon.

Most of the damping work was done post midnight, so pardon the low light pics

















Sub box perfectly fits between the tank and the rear seat






used a Camlin artist roller to fix the sheets properly. A very good VFM alternative to dyna-roller and other similar products






Used double sided tape to stick heatlon on the door panels


Redid the damping of the doors. Removed the mdf rings and damped that area


Next upgrade will be interconencts. I'm getting the sad alternator whine and cell phone signal sound when I keep my phone on the passenger seat. Hoping that a RCA ugrade will sort that

[HimuraKenshin]

Originally Posted by Kenpachi

Next upgrade will be interconencts. I'm getting the sad alternator whine and cell phone signal sound when I keep my phone on the passenger seat. Hoping that a RCA ugrade will sort that

Alternator whine and cell phone interference are 2 different things completely.
Cell phone interference is picked up from the head unit itself and hence can on be avoided completely.
But the Alternator whine can be because of a ground loop as well. Do check that before you get new interconnects.

[Kenpachi]

Finally got rid of the alternator whine. made custom RCAs using sommer cable and Rean(Neutrik) and Amphenol Connectors. Here are pics of the install -














Techflex was used for the tricone wires as they are single wires. Heat shrink tubing was used at the split ends of the cables.

In the same price range, I found the the Amphenol connectors to be much better in build quality and ease of soldering.
While AB testing the two cables, I found the bass to be much prominent with the sinus control cables as compared to the Tricones.
Is it because the sinus controls are 22AWG and tricones are 24 AWG?
The principle of thicker gauge cable for speaker wires does hold true for speaker cables, does it hold true for low level pre amp signal?

[HimuraKenshin]

In theory, there wont be any difference in SQ with a 22AWG and 24AWG shielded co-axial cable cable.
Your amp is located under the seat, so the run is not that long.