Bought 2nd hand car, has TERRIBLE ICE setup! Oh the horrors.

[KaKiLang]

Thanks bro! Well my seat is a typical hex wrench. I actually went to buy a socket screw from Homefix but it's so damn tight I couldn't undo it and the two screws on the rear is in such a narrow place I can't even turn it!

 

Mine civic was just four nuts, two front, two back and slide out, gotta watch out those safety belts warnings wires under the two front seats when removing them, dont just yank it off. You can oso grease up your locks and power windows since you are at it.

 

One thing about outside wiremen even those at sim lim tower cpk, once you not watching, anything that dont fit they will just power drill/or power screw it in, that I dont like, I prefer to be need and safe. Either they broke some clips or short cut your screws and nuts when you found out it would be few years later.

Edited February 3, 2012 by KaKiLang

[Detach8]

Mine civic was just four nuts, two front, two back and slide out, gotta watch out those safety belts warnings wires under the two front seats when removing them, dont just yank it off. You can oso grease up your locks and power windows since you are at it.

 

One thing about outside wiremen even those at sim lim tower cpk, once you not watching, anything that dont fit they will just power drill/or power screw it in, that I dont like, I prefer to be need and safe.

 

Same here - 4 nuts, but one is too tight, and 2 are almost unreachable with a wrench. Needs something more upright...

 

Yah! That's exactly how they mounted my midbass component speakers I believe. It's just a few self-tapping screws (like those for woodwork use) and screwed in here and there. There's a lot of holes on my door panel.

[Cephas]

Same here - 4 nuts, but one is too tight, and 2 are almost unreachable with a wrench. Needs something more upright...

 

Yah! That's exactly how they mounted my midbass component speakers I believe. It's just a few self-tapping screws (like those for woodwork use) and screwed in here and there. There's a lot of holes on my door panel.

 

is the mid-woofer over-sized for your stock door-speaker compartment? That can the reason why they use make-shift securing method...just to secure the woofer without considering workmanship...

[Detach8]

Yeah it seems oversized...

[KaKiLang]

Same here - 4 nuts, but one is too tight, and 2 are almost unreachable with a wrench. Needs something more upright...

 

Yah! That's exactly how they mounted my midbass component speakers I believe. It's just a few self-tapping screws (like those for woodwork use) and screwed in here and there. There's a lot of holes on my door panel.

 

[laugh] same same, damm fedup. Car was one month old and they did that. :angry:

 

The screws were not even straight in, slanted and I got eight rusted holes for one speaker.

 

 

Edited February 3, 2012 by KaKiLang

[KaKiLang]

Bro make sure dont save on the wirings and must be of the same lenght, sound will be more evenly distributed. The pic you posted those connectors you soldered should be water proven, cos our doors rain waters does seeps in and the speakers will not sound. I even link my ipod to my equaliser with diy cables. EQ controll from ipod. My head was an old stock model no usb or ipod port. Very happy with my effort burned. You can oso try to buy some sound prooffings or deadener to sound proof the doors.

 

My back woofer/speakers, I cant even locate the holes they drill, simply use 3m tapes to stick on cos the speaks are heavy enough to stay put.

Edited February 3, 2012 by KaKiLang

[Tarquin]

ah...wanted to do this....fellow mazda 2 owner to bro...albeit 2010 version...

 

your running on stock hu right? always wanted to upgrade the stock speakers myself with component ones but not sure how to open the front door panels...by the way how did you connect the cross overs to the hu...

 

electronics engineer here too...but time limitation...

[Detach8]

Oh the newer 2008 Mazda2 door panels are more complicated to remove I think, but it is well documented around the Internet.

 

I did not build this thing out, I just took over the car with all the crap installed...

 

I have not gotten to the back of my HU yet. I believe what they did was to cut the existing speaker output from the HU and hook them up to the amp. There might be something in between to reduce the output level, am not so sure what it is or what it should be called.

 

The problem with tapping output from HU speaker output is that the frequency response might not be flat and usually people will put that through some sort of DSP/EQ to neutralize the signal before sending it to an amp. There's no such thing in my car.

[Lan]

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[Chogokin]

Oh the newer 2008 Mazda2 door panels are more complicated to remove I think, but it is well documented around the Internet.

 

I did not build this thing out, I just took over the car with all the crap installed...

 

I have not gotten to the back of my HU yet. I believe what they did was to cut the existing speaker output from the HU and hook them up to the amp. There might be something in between to reduce the output level, am not so sure what it is or what it should be called.

 

The problem with tapping output from HU speaker output is that the frequency response might not be flat and usually people will put that through some sort of DSP/EQ to neutralize the signal before sending it to an amp. There's no such thing in my car.

 

Bro perhaps can go to www.demioclub.com/forum they have a grp of ice kakis there. Maybe they can give u advice from there.

 

 

[Good-Carbuyer]

Hi guys. I'm new here. Have never ventured into ICE all my car ownership life because I personally like things "original" and "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

 

But anyway, I just bought a 2nd hand Mazdz2. The ex-owner had an ICE installed from I don't know where... (suspect JB - brand of speakers "Soundstream") which I thought sounded absolutely horrible, worse than my stock ICE in a BMW which was already bad enough... and he claimed he spent nearly $2,000 on them!

 

1. PROBLEMS

 

When I got the car the RIGHT tweeter had NO sound, or was weak and cracking. And at volume "2", the ICE was already quite loud! So basically, 0 = off, 1=on, 2=loud, 3=damn bloody loud, 4=inhumanely loud. So the first thing I did was to look under the seats at the amp...

 

2. AMP AND WIRING HORROR

 

What a terrible job!!! The amps were not secured and there wasn't much slack in the wiring (which is bad for the wires). The amp was also in the way of the rear passenger's legroom. As I fiddled with the fader and balance, I found out that the amps had left/right and front/back wired wrongly. From here, I'm already thinking to myself - what else was wired wrongly? Maybe +/- also reverse, who knows?!

 

3. AMP GAIN + LPF HORROR

 

There were two amps. One Sony amp for the components, and another (I forgot the brand) amp for the sub. I found out the component amp had gains turned up to the MAX which resulted in a buzzing noise from the working left tweeter. I fixed the gain and swapped a few incorrectly wired cables. The I found out the sub amp LPF was turned OFF which resulted in horrible hums from the sub. I turned it ON, tweaked the LPF frequencies, set the gain (which was at MAX also?!). I sat down and "enjoyed" some music for the next 1 day.

 

After tweaking the gains, LPF, it was much more bearable but I must say the tweeter suck! It's too loud (vs. the components) that I had the high frequencies right in my face and it was very uncomfortable to listen to. Wife also didn't like the "spider" emblem on the tweeter. So I started venturing into removing the tweeter...

 

4. TWEETER CABLING HORROR

 

So I removed the scuff plate and some interior panels to reveal the hidden tweeter wiring and this is where I started to see some of the UGLY cabling job. The tweeters had nice high quality cables soldered to them, but right under the dash it was twisted together with cheap cables that seemed like stock cables that the car came with and then black-taped all over making the cable all yucky and sticky. I cut the cables, removed the tweeters...

 

 

Me digging for tweeter cabling...

 

*** INTERMISSION ***

 

P.S. Although I have a seemingly simple 2-way hi-fi at home, I am no car ICE expert. But I must say I am a computer engineer, and I totally HATE terrible cabling jobs and this 2nd hand car has opened up my eyes to one of the worst cabling jobs I've witnessed in a car...

Do not worry, many more years to learn. Stay calm and carry on.

[Detach8]

So far I've fixed the speakers on the two front doors which is the easiest at this point. I found out that the stock Mazda2 speakers are 6.5", so were the aft mkt speakers that were mounted on spacers. Granted they don't fit exactly I just got 6 rubber washers used for pipes from Home-Fix, threw out the crappy spacers and mounted the speakers directly on the door panel.

 

There's a space between the speaker and the panel separated by the washers now, but the speakers are not pressing against the door panel anymore.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Detach8

[Cephas]

So far I've fixed the speakers two front doors which is the easiest at this point. I found out that the stock Mazda2 speakers are 6.5", so were the aft mkt speakers that were mounted on spacers. Granted they don't fit exactly I just got 6 rubber washers used for pipes from Home-Fix, threw out the crappy spacers and mounted the speakers directly on the door panel.

 

There's a space between the speaker and the panel separated by the washers now, but the speakers are not pressing against the door panel anymore.

 

There are good mid-woofers in various sizes....buy those which can fix nicely on your stock speaker compartment...

[Detach8]

There are good mid-woofers in various sizes....buy those which can fix nicely on your stock speaker compartment...

 

Well, stock is 6.5". The aftermarket ones also 6.5". Somehow it's just a little bit bigger, but what the heck, it still fits with a small gap. It sits nicely now.

[Detach8]

So today I finally got some time while the sun's still shining to work on the HU. I undid two screws hidden behind the A/C knobs and the HU popped right off.

 

 

And here's the location of a hidden screw on the right side of the HU. The previous HU installer did NOT put this screw back, so I was fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on how you see it.)

 

Anyway, just to show Mazda2 owners, here's the third hidden screw you need to undo...

 

 

Here's another photo showing the location of the hidden screw (the metal bracket with a hole) on the right...

 

 

And no surprise at all, I exposed a bunch of horrible wiring job...

 

 

After spending about 1.5 hours I managed to figure out which wires were for front/rear left/right and got the wires reattached.

 

Here's a picture of the reattached cables connected to the RCA Line Level Attenuator. I set the gains on the attenuator to max since I would be adjusting gains on the amps instead.

 

 

However I left the rest of the cabling (aux power, steering controls, etc.) alone as it was too messy and wouldn't fit behind the HU when reinstalled.

 

Now both sides (L/R) are perfectly in balance and my fader is no longer reversed! I went back to my amps, adjusted the gains and balance the volume between front/rear/sub. Now it sounds damn good. I popped a Michael Bubl

Edited February 8, 2012 by Detach8

[Detach8]

Although I did figure out the left/right front/rear wiring, I was not able to determine the polarity. (I couldn't get behind with the HU connected to test with a multimeter.)

 

I managed to find this site so I took a screenshot in case the site goes away for the Mazda2 bros.

 

 

I will go back and sort this out on my ride another day.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Detach8

[Detach8]

Once I have time I will probably make a trip to SLS (or buy from eBay) connectors like these which look slimmer...

 

[Detach8]

So after all the wiring job I found out that the right rear speaker has no sound a few days later. I've had ENOUGH and decided to revert to stock.

 

 

I pulled out the HU and unclipped the connector. Here's just to show what a mess the wiring has become...

 

 

 

The cause of the lack of sound from the right rear speakers - one of the wires broke while trying to push the HU back in. There's actually not much space left behind the HU for the thick cabling that the ICE installer used and I guess that put some strain on the cables when I reinstalled..

 

 

I undid all the cabling and left them out in the footwell. Note - I also DISCONNECTED the main power from the battery. Please do not do this unless you have disconnected the battery.

 

 

 

I removed the cover on the connector front and then pulled the pins out and brought them home.

 

 

 

Here's a crimp set I bought from Home-Fix for less than $20.

 

 

 

Then I went to Daiso and got these connectors (they come in a set with both male and female, in pic is only female). $2/box - I got 2 boxes.

 

 

 

Here's pics of the completed crimp job.

 

 

 

Here's pics of the entire crimp job completely done and connected.

 

 

 

Now I have balanced sound both front/rear and left/right. It lacks the punch from the sub but it's better than an unbalanced soundstage and random problems plus two amps in the way of the rear passenger legroom.

Edited February 20, 2012 by Detach8