I've been posting this in the Skylines Australia forum as a bit of a how-to for fellow G37 owners wanting to achieve the same result as me ... power, quality and reliability. It's not the be all, end all, as I'm sure others would have different ideas which would be just as effective in achieving the result. This is just what I feel suits me best. I did not want to sacrifice the spare tyre. The initial design was just going to be an amp board sitting on top of the trunk floor but still removable and hot-pluggable.
After a trial fit of that idea, I figured there had to be a better way and it wasn't until I started dismantling the trunk interior that I saw how much space was left in the area where a Bose-equipped vehicle would have its amps. Since my sports premium package didn't have the Bose system, it is going to be a little more painful to wire up as I don't have a decently sized garage to work in but at least the M6 floor studs were still in place. And from there, I had a revelation ... see if there was an amp as small as the JBL MS-8 that could provide the power I was after and fit them both in that corner.
I painted the picture in my head and this is what I brought to reality. The JBL (bottom) plate is bolted down using Nyloc nuts. I've added foam padding to the feet so as not to cause undue damage to the trunk floor paint. The large holes in the plates allow for the appropriately sized socket to pass through for driving the nuts. Dome nuts are used wherever exposed threads are likely to be so as to protect any cabling that may otherwise come into contact.
The key here is about neatness, reliability and above all else, serviceability in the event that any of these units fail and need to be removed. The plate edges are covered with adhesive heatshrink grommet strips, one grommet for the rca cabling feeding the amp from the MS-8 and a gland for holding the 4GA power cabling at the amp. A little heat was applied to soften the insulation on the cabling in order to set it at the 90 degree angle and thereby minimise the stress when wired into the amp.
Power distribution will hopefully be somewhere on that side as well but I'm figuring out the ideal mounting point for the block. I've been really busy with my day job and all CAD'ed out with our current major project so this has been a bit difficult to find time to work on.
One cable missing there is the 8-core Klotz speaker cable I'm waiting to arrive. I'm a big fan of multicore cables from a neatness point of view as well as reliability, given the additional outer sheathing as opposed to pulling along bundles of ordinary speaker wire. This cable will lie across the top of the amp plate (unlike the other cables), get tied down where the two small drill holes are to the right of the gland and then make their way to the right hand corner of the trunk where I need to plan to fit the 4 crossovers for the Boston Acoustic SPZ60 (front) and ProSeries 6.5 (rear). It's going to be a bit of a squeeze there though as I need to work around the scissor jack too. It's going to be interesting work!
There's an additional rca lead currently hanging which is the subwoofer out lead. This will go into a Harting industrial connector which will carry the power, remote and audio signals going to a removable subwoofer box that will hopefully be comprised of my faithful Soundstream Exact 12" driven by my equally faithful Sony XM-1002HX (bridged). I'm hoping I can get the perfect angle for the sub to sit comfortably in the trunk without any compromise to the sound. That will be the next challenge after I address the crossovers and the power distribution.
Anyway, more updates to come as time permits me to continue working!
After a trial fit of that idea, I figured there had to be a better way and it wasn't until I started dismantling the trunk interior that I saw how much space was left in the area where a Bose-equipped vehicle would have its amps. Since my sports premium package didn't have the Bose system, it is going to be a little more painful to wire up as I don't have a decently sized garage to work in but at least the M6 floor studs were still in place. And from there, I had a revelation ... see if there was an amp as small as the JBL MS-8 that could provide the power I was after and fit them both in that corner.
I painted the picture in my head and this is what I brought to reality. The JBL (bottom) plate is bolted down using Nyloc nuts. I've added foam padding to the feet so as not to cause undue damage to the trunk floor paint. The large holes in the plates allow for the appropriately sized socket to pass through for driving the nuts. Dome nuts are used wherever exposed threads are likely to be so as to protect any cabling that may otherwise come into contact.
The key here is about neatness, reliability and above all else, serviceability in the event that any of these units fail and need to be removed. The plate edges are covered with adhesive heatshrink grommet strips, one grommet for the rca cabling feeding the amp from the MS-8 and a gland for holding the 4GA power cabling at the amp. A little heat was applied to soften the insulation on the cabling in order to set it at the 90 degree angle and thereby minimise the stress when wired into the amp.
Power distribution will hopefully be somewhere on that side as well but I'm figuring out the ideal mounting point for the block. I've been really busy with my day job and all CAD'ed out with our current major project so this has been a bit difficult to find time to work on.
One cable missing there is the 8-core Klotz speaker cable I'm waiting to arrive. I'm a big fan of multicore cables from a neatness point of view as well as reliability, given the additional outer sheathing as opposed to pulling along bundles of ordinary speaker wire. This cable will lie across the top of the amp plate (unlike the other cables), get tied down where the two small drill holes are to the right of the gland and then make their way to the right hand corner of the trunk where I need to plan to fit the 4 crossovers for the Boston Acoustic SPZ60 (front) and ProSeries 6.5 (rear). It's going to be a bit of a squeeze there though as I need to work around the scissor jack too. It's going to be interesting work!
There's an additional rca lead currently hanging which is the subwoofer out lead. This will go into a Harting industrial connector which will carry the power, remote and audio signals going to a removable subwoofer box that will hopefully be comprised of my faithful Soundstream Exact 12" driven by my equally faithful Sony XM-1002HX (bridged). I'm hoping I can get the perfect angle for the sub to sit comfortably in the trunk without any compromise to the sound. That will be the next challenge after I address the crossovers and the power distribution.
Anyway, more updates to come as time permits me to continue working!