6G Celicas Forums

if you want to be safe, it's probably a good idea to use wire as fat as you can reasonably afford. when i was gathering pieces for my audio system, i got a good deal on 4awg cable from this place. you can pick up some 4 or 2awg for a pretty decent price per foot. my 4awg that i got from them is really flexible for how fat it is--i can easily tie it in a knot, so i'm sure if u were to get 2awg or even 0awg, it wouldn't be too hard to work with.

also, if you have a welder's supply shop anywhere nearby, you may be able to pick up some welder's cable from them or something. additionally, some ppl like to use lamp cable...but for me it's easiest to just order cable from the internet and have someone ship it to my door, rather than going around and actually looking for stuff -_-;

peace

what i used to do with my crx (after my starter died and before the weekend came, when i was able to go get a new starter) was have a friend bang on the starter with a stick and rubber mallet while i sat in the car and turned the key. worked like a charm for a couple of days. problem was, i couldn't go anywhere by myself. hah.

good luck fixing your problem

peace

gee, good thing you guys [bitter, 95celtgt] caught this...could potentially lead to a disaster! lol. thanks a bunch, i'll make sure to tinker around with things or have someone give a look at it.

peace

Yeah, my ac still works. before, when the belt had the tear, it'd squeal for a bit when i first started it and then would stop after it got warmed up. same thing once i changed it and before i retensioned it. now, that thing seems to squeal whenever the heck it wants. it'll do it on warm-up again...but also like if i turn it off while on the freeway and decide to turn it back on again there it is again! it doesn't care. sometimes, i'll just be driving with it on and it'll give a little squeal, just as a reminder that it's not happy or something.

a lot of that seems to be road grime, but some of it (the splatter that made it's way onto the underportion of my hood) is always kind of fresh and wet and seems to be localized around the pulley. are there any seals around that area that could've gone bad?

pure_dx i've never had a car where the accessory belt (or any belt, really) squeaked as a rule. it's usually a sign of either a tensioner that needs attention or a belt that needs replacing. might be go time to just give a peek at your belt to make sure it's not fraying or sporting a tear. if it looks fine, go ahead and start the ac and see how much wobble you have in the belt as its spinning. if it looks like it's too much, u may just need to retension it.

thanks for the advice, guys.

peace

Okay, so i just recently changed my accessory belt b/c it had a small tear in it...ended up actually breaking the tensioner bolt so i had to get that replaced and stuff. so, anyway, the acc belt starts squealing like a banshee again and i'm wondering why, since it's brand new (i re-tensioned it after the first couple drives with the new belt, although it's all by feel since i don't have one of those guages the big book says to use).

anyway, i popped open the hood and i think i discovered why it's squealing--i've got oil splatter marks right in the area around where the belts/sproket is/are and a nice littel band of black on the underneath part of my hood. now, this looks like it's pretty bad, but what could have sprung a leak in this area? i'm not very familiar with toyota motors, as i've owned hondas all my life. perhaps it's just a minor gasket (what's in this area? starter? something else?). maybe i'll be able to get a pic or two up later...but does this problem sound familar to anyone?

thx in advance

edit: i realized it'd probably be helpful if i specified what type of engine this is--it's a 99gt liftback, autotragic, 2.2L

edit:
oil spray underneath hood
dirty communist oil invading my engine bay
oil splatter on pulley/sprocket thing

ooh, that's a nice sub--it's sure to get good and loud for you. if you wire it down to 1-ohm (as you'll learn how to do from the instructions that kicker is likely to send along with the sub, or from various audio websites' tutorial pages), you'll be drawing over a kilowatt of power from the directed amp--that l5 is rated for 750 (although i'm certain it can take more than that)....just make sure you don't crank your gains. if you want to be safe, set them a little lower than you would otherwise. no sense frying your nice new sub with over 350 more watts than it is rated to handle

peace

i tend to differ from silver in my opinion, which is why i recommended the directed--to me, as far as the subwoofer application goes, it is almost always the best idea to go with a monoblock amplifier (primarily for cost reasons). people differ on this, mostly because they feel class a/b amplification is "better" than class d power...to me, for subbass, it doesn't matter...

peace

well, with the subs angled inwards as they are, each driver will be reflecting off the rear window and right back at the other sub...probably won't hurt too much as there are tons of issues like this in cars, anyway. who knows. if it sounds good and it looks good (which it does) then no problem

peace

...hope you have a plan to hide those, or else you just have a big "steal me" sign in your rear window...

i like the design, though. looks like you'll have some cancellation issues, but it does look pretty

peace

okay, so i'm guessing that you already have this sub/enclosure combo...i'm not really a fan of audiobahn products (nor the rf stage 1 stuff, coincidentally) but since you already have the equipment, may as well put it to use.

here is an absolutely killer deal for a GREAT amp-- a refurb directed 1500d for just over $150 that'll put out 800watts at 2-ohms, which will be your final impendence, unless i'm mistaken.

i believe that your box has two 4-ohm drivers and also has two speaker termials. although it's a mono amp, the 1500d should have two sets of inputs which it bridges internally (my directed amp did, as do most large mono amps these days) so wiring should be a breeze. plus, if you ever choose to upgrade your subs you'll be able to get a little over 1200watts at 1-ohm!

i'm not sure how comfortable you are buying refurb stuff but, if i were in the market for a sub amp, i'd jump all over that in a second.

peace

i think it's funny how, up until about a year ago, this was the "tornado horsepower generator!" and, now that fuel prices have gone up, they've changed their tune.

caveat emptor

peace

silvan,

very good points however, i believe i touched on this very briefly (perhaps too briefly) with my assertion that, depending on just how many inches away you place the woofer from the loading panel, you'll get different results. in any case, it is my standpoint that the average listener has a certain frequency range which they'd like to amplify and they would take this into account when planning/setting up their system. my home theater environment, for example, is not optimal, which means i do have deadspots (nodes, by your terminology) in a coupleof places within a certain frequency range. i simply adjusted it such that i had the freqs that i wanted in the places that i want. in an automobile, response will be totally screwed up since it is, essentially, one of the worst environments for hi-fidelity reproduction of sound

very few listeners will have as discerning an ear (nor will they have the testing equipment) as you do...and they'll probably keep listening in happy ignorance or something like it. i know i do

as far as the EBP, i like how you made sure to include qts in your "categorization" since ebp is, by itself, a flawed system--one that aims to compare BL and Mms but actaully only compares their product of mms and cms. nice work there

peace

oh, and lake--if you do in fact have two 8 ohm drivers wired in parallel for a 4ohm final bridged load...that's pretty much as good as you can get. only option here is switching equipment (sealed for ported; amp for another amp; subs for another sub; etc)

if you were gonna copy and paste, why not also copy and paste the make and model # of your subs??

it all kinda depends on your budget...what price range are you looking to stay within?

peace

while you are correct in your assertion that sounds below a certain frequency are omnidirectional (you can't tell which direction they're coming from), that doesn't mean that the sound waves don't exist--in fact these sound waves function like any other wave and they tend to bounce off of stuff. sometimes, when they bounce off stuff, their strength is amplified.

take your home theater example--sure, if you wanted you could stick your sub in the middle of the living room...but if you stick it against a wall, it appears to sound louder...stick it in a corner, and it's louder still. you won't be able to localize the sound (if your sub is playing nothing but sub-bass, anyway), but you will be able to discern a noticeable volume difference.


afroman, as far as his subs, i don't recall the w3005 ever being produced in a dual-coil configuration. it is possible, however, that they are single 8-ohm each? hopefully the shop told him
peace

first off, cool that you're doing your part to help the katrina victims. now, on to the audio

for starters, i don't really know how your shop would have that amp wired. your subs are 4ohm subs and if they bridged your amp, they would've only had two options--wire your subs down to 2 ohms (which your amp isn't rated to handle in bridged mode) or wire them in 8ohms, which would give you half of that 460watt rating, so only 230 for BOTH of your subs, not each.

what i suspect they did is simply run the amp in stereo operation. can you tell by looking at it? there should be two sets of + and - terminals on your amp. are both the - and both the + terminals in use? or just one of each. if it's the former then it's in bridged mode. if it's the latter, it's in stereo mode. either way, you're either getting 115w to each (if it's bridged) or 150w to each (if it's in stereo).

tough call here, buddy. do you like how your setup souds and just want it to be louder? or do you simply want it to be loud and you're willing to sacrifice some of the musicality? if you're willing to sacrifice some musicality, you may want to consider a ported enclosure for those speakers, though i'm not certain that i remember what type of enclosure those drivers were designed for. also keep in mind that ported enclosures are substantially larger than sealed ones. you could just throw more power at it, but you wouldn't be able to do anything with your current amp. and, even then, it's no guarantee that you'll like how your speakers sound with the extra power.

i guess it all depends on what you want out of your system but, as it is right now, your hands are kind of tied with your equipment...i guess it's up to you

peace

lake,

i don't mean to sound like a jerk or anything but i have two suppositions about your gear.

firstly, i know for a fact that your "800 watt" kenwood amp is not putting out 800 watts. not because kenwood is a bad company, and not even because they're lying, but because that's the "max" rating--a rating of practically zero consequence. what you want to look for is the "rms" or "continuous" rating.

secondly, your "700 watt" subs cannot handle 700 watts of continuous power for the above reason. what brand/model number are your subs and amp?

are you concerned with having your subs sound louder? if they're in a sealed enclosure now, an option may be to throw them in a ported enclosure (this saves you some cash since you won't be buying a new amp or speakers) and at least you can try it out. if it doesnt work out then, big deal, you "wasted" about 15-20 dollars in materials. if it does, great, because you saved a couple of hundred.

i'd hate to see you spend more money on a bigger amp and realize that it's your subs or enclosure that's the culprit. likewise, it'd be pretty junk if you went out and got new subs only to figure out that your amp wasn't giving your old subs enough juice.

peace

people say that it will be louder if you face it towards the rear for several reasons.

the main argument is the "compound loading" effect. essentially, this means that the soundwave will reflect off the back panel, bounce back and add constructive interference with a new, original wave emanating from the speaker--this effect, the theory goes, makes the sub sound louder. what frequency the gain is experienced at depends on how far away from the rear you place the sub. people often make "loading panels" and attatch them to the front of their sealed enclosures to replicate this effect.

basically, it's like putting your home theater subwoofer in the corner (aka 'corner loading') so that it gives the driver more surfaces to have soundwaves bounce off of (hopefully in the direction of the listener) and sound louder.

in reality, however, the automotive environment is so imperfect that it's really a matter of application. to put it simply: it depends. try it out facign the front. then turn it around and see if you notice a difference. if so, go with whatever sounds better. if not, place it in whatever way it'll be most convenient.

peace

...and from the way that you describe your drivers "2 700watt subs", it probably won't make a huge difference, anyway. but, just out of curiosity, what are you running?

snad,

i don't believe jl's retarded 3ohm scheme has carried over to the w6v2...that's reserved for the w7...

peace

your original post says you've got a "10w6v2-4"....i assume you meant "d4" as there are no single coil w6v2s...wire the coils in parallel to something like this and you'll definitely have a higher quality powersource...just be careful with the gains. if you add another w6, you can drop the total impendence to 1ohm and suck 1500w

peace

contrary to popular belief, screws don't actually do anything as far as actually holding the box is concerned--their main purpose is to hold the panels together while the glue dries. that having been said, i can't really see too many screws as being detrimental, although it could conceivably cause integrity issues within the individual panels--try take a panel of mdf...then put a screw in the side....then repeat several times in the same area and see what happens. a lot of times, if you don't have predrilled holes and use the wrong type of screw, you get splitting. don't think that happened here, but it is possible.

peace

ps. nice sub...and, i'm with you--you can do a lot better than power acoustik. even for cheap, you can find at least a hifonics or something

thanks, everybody--info was very useful. and thank you lagos, that's what i was looking for. the HELM manual is, i suppose, the equivalent to your BGB--what the service techs use at dealerships/authorized repair facilities, expensive as heck at $80, but can be had for free if you know where to look and have acrobat reader

thanks a bunch

it won't turn over? when you turn the key, does it simply click? if yes, try to get a buddy to turn the key for you and, when s/he does, bang on the starter with like a rubber mallet and a rod or something; if it starts to turn over, then the starter is your problem. if this method does get your car to turn, you may have to adjust your crank pulley in order to get it to actually start--that was the process for my crx, anyway.

peace

hey guys,

so, my 99 gt lb (auto) is squealing on startup (never lasts for more than 2 or 3 seconds) and also whenever i turn on the a/c (this squeals for a good 45 seconds to a minute...until it gets going) and i'm wondering what the proper procedure is for adjusting the tensioner. in the honda world, most people go by the HELM workshop manual rather than chiltons or haynes and, though i can't say that my search has been exhaustive, i'm not finding a comparable manual for our celicas.

if someone could inform me as to the preferred shop manual amongst toy owners, or else just fill me in on the procedure, that'd be awesome.

thanks a bunch

just as an aside, since somebody brought up alpines and i'm not sure how aware people in the celica community are about sizing issues:

the car that i reference when i look into my garage and say to myself "that's my car" is a 90 crx. hondas, as you may know, use 6.5" speakers, but not really. in fact, they use 6" speakers, which is a sizing term lost on most manufacturers (phoenix gold still gets it right). specifically, 6" speakers are 16cm/160mm and should be listed as such. there are also 6 3/4" speakers, like the alpines in the above picture. while alpine doesn't acknowledge this fact openly, there is a tacit understanding that they're speakers are not what many people would consider a 6.5" speaker (look, for instance at the product number--170a--and notice that there is nary a 6 in there). these speakers in fact measure 16.5cm/165mm and are rounded up to 17cm, hence alpine's product numbering.

not that a lot of this matters to us in this venue because, as has been discussed, we have quite odd-sized speakers in our celicas. but now you know...and you know what flint, duke and crazylegs used to say: knowing is half the battle

peace

isn't it adjustable?...