It all started on Wednesday.
After spending some good amount of time of my life driving/being driven in a Qualis, my old Qualis was sacrificed for some new assignment in one of our construction sites. We were missing it for some time now. The emptiness it caused just couldn't be filled by an Innova.
So, it was decided to look for a good used Qualis. My search ended this Wednesday when I found this beauty by one of the brokers in my area. The vehicle was quiet old (2002 model) but very well maintained and felt great. The good thing was that the vehicle was completely stock (except a Pioneer cassette player and dual cone speakers), with full genuine service history and done ONLY 63k kms (that too genuine as we clarified from Toyota A.S.S).
Anyway, the matter is ICE here.
I thought for sometime on how to ICE this huge thingy. Our old Qualis had a Pioneer HU and JBL speakers. It still does duty in it without any trouble. Unlike the Alto, This car won't be exclusive to my use alone. It will be used by my sisters' and parents' commutes too. That means, There won't be much of Icing, whatever is done should be very stealth and should be done before I take this vehicle home for the first time (so the ICING can be blamed on the earlier owner

). Also means, most of the time there will less music in the car and it will be more of vocals like Quran recitation, religious hymns, songs etc...
Thought about getting a component pair in the front and a 6X9 in the back and leave it there. Fixed the moolah to 20k including the HU.
Went to Zu Zu man. He asked me to leave the 6X9 out and use 6.5" comps for the rear too. We did it in a LandCruiser and it sounded great. So, decided that. The budget barrier was yet to be broken.
The vehicle was taken in for the install yesterday. Suddenly, the unfortunate news was leaked. No 6.5" Hertz component on stock (Sardars! Are you reading?). In my budget, it was DSK 165 which was the chosen one but now, no stock! After some head scratching, we decided to put in the DSK130 ie. 5.25 inchers. There'll be an overall loss of midbass but for this car it mattered less.
The car was stripped. Door pads came out, the speakers were lined up, spacers were made and everything was ready to go in.
I had decided on Pioneer 5950ib HU for this car. A nice HU with 3 pre-outs and some good features like iPod control etc...
We decided to do some damping to all the doors. Comps were going to be in 4 doors. So, the Fonomat was put into the job. Some good amount of mats spent. And the doors were sounding great. The door pads were also damped as necessary.
The rear speakers went in first. The woofers sit very close to the seats and tweeters were kept a bit forward. No flush mounting for tweeters. It went in the supplied pods.
Then the front speakers went in. A custom spacer was designed by Zuhemi. It also had a long edge where the tweeter pods were fitted. That also went in smooth.
Everything was connected and soon the system was powered on. After some tuning ups here and there, the sound started pouring out. And MAN!!! it was sounding very good.
Now, the trouble started!! (That was very much great and welcome!!!)
More of that and pics coming up soon. A few surprises are on store here. So, keep tuned!
