Dennisrh
True Classic
So I got a 1986 Bertone X to replace my 1985 that was rear ended in February. The car I bought was in pretty good shape, but needed an AC for me to use here in Texas where it is often over 100 Degrees.
I had the car shipped from Washington State to Texas and unfortunately the shippers damaged the floor pans during the trip. The floor pans would have to be reshaped and repainted.
Then there was the radio, or lack of radio. I had a decent system in my 1985 X and decided I would upgrade when installing my system in the new X.
One of the very few things I do not like about X 1/9s is that they are very loud inside while driving. I had looked into sound insulation in the past, but always figured it was too big of a job to do since it would require me to completely disassemble my interior. However, since reshaping the floorboards was going to require removing the carpet, I decided, this is the time to do it.
So my first projects were set: Install AC, Repair Floor, Sound Insulation, and Install Stereo System.
AC SYSTEM
After completely removing my interior including the dash I was happy to find that even though my 1986 X did not have a stock A/C, it had all the wiring for one. I removed the components from my 1985 X which had a semi-custom A/C system built for it only 1 year before it was rear ended. Removing the A/C components and reinstalling them in new X was not an easy job. I decided to have all of the original lines rebuilt since I figured the lines were 28 years old and they were now out of the car, I might as well replace them. Having them rebuilt was less than $200 and well worth it for the peace of mind.
Next I installed the custom condenser and dryer. The dryer is a universal dyer you can purchase just about anywhere. I had the lines made with the proper fitments and now if I ever have to change the dryer out, I just get any universal and it will bolt right in.
I installed an original AC/Heater unit under my dash that had been refurbished a year ago. New aluminum pipes for the heater core were made and the evaporator was sealed a little better to promote better cooling of the air as it passed through it. All of the electrical fitments were already connected to the wiring harness. It was a simple plug and play. I did have to change my dash though since the original dash did not have the A/C ducts to the side vents. I considered removing the A/C ducts from my old dash and switching them over to the new dash since the new dash was in better shape, but my old dash only has 1 crack in it and I figure I can switch back to the good dash at any time. Better to save time and effort and just deal with the single crack. Wiring the A/C and installing the A/C lines was very time consuming, but not terribly difficult. Once I got the A/C done in the front of the car and then the interior, I moved to the engine bay. I removed the alternator and water pump and switched to the A/C version with the alternator near the top of the motor instead of near the bottom. My water pump was fairly new so I just changed the gaskets and everything fit just right. Well Except the fact that I only had one pulley on my crank and the A/C version requires 2 belts. My fix for this was to install the A/C condenser and route the AC belt exactly the same way the belts were run when the Alternator was where the A/C compressor is now. This worked pretty well once I found the right size belt (went through about 4 different sizes before I found the right one). Then came the water pump to Alternator belt. Here I had another problem. The belt to the water pump from the crank was routed on the inner pulley of the water pump. This is the same pulley you’re supposed to use to go from the water pump to the alternator. My fix was to put a spacer on the alternator pulley and align its pulley with the outer water pump pulley. It took a bit of fiddling, but I was able to align the two pulleys and use the stock size belt between them. I have put a couple thousand miles on the car and so far I have not had any problems with this set up. Hopefully it will continue to work properly.
I hooked everything up and headed to my mechanics shop to have the system charged and tested. The system worked fairly well except that the temperature sensors in the front trunk were not properly turning the cooling fans on and off and turning the compressor off if the pressure got too high in the system. The fix for this was to replace the temperature sensors with a trinary pressure switch. The Trinary pressure switch turns the cooling fans on and turns the compressor off if the pressure is too low or too high. I used a universal trinary switch that I got from antique air and screwed it into the side of my universal dryer. Yet another great reason to use the universal dryer over the stock. I spliced wire connectors to match the X’s wiring harness and plugged the trinary switch in. The switch works great for the fans, but I am not sure that it is working properly cycling the compressor as the pressure doesn’t seem to get high enough for the switch to turn the compressor off. I will probably look into this next summer when the A/C is needed again. A lot of hard work and time went into getting this A/C system up and running, but after about a month I finished it up and it is working better than I thought it ever could. On days were it is less than 90 degrees, I have to shut the AC off after a while because it will actually get too cold. A problem I never in a million years would have thought I would have in an X 1/9.
Floor Repair
Not much to say, took it to the body shop they reshaped and resprayed including clear coat. Here is a before and after pic. Don't have a great after pic, but you can see how shiny the floor is after they painted them.
This pic is also the first pic in the sound insulation installation.
Sound Insulation
I spent several weeks researching the best sound insulation material for car interiors. I searched literally hundreds of websites and read every comparison and review I could find. I read forums for Hondas, Jeeps, mustangs, classic cars, new cars, Japanese cars, European cars, pretty much anything I could find dealing with sound insulation. What I found was an overwhelming trend pointing me to SoundDeadenerShowdown.com. Dynamat, Fatmat, Lizard Skin and most of the other well know sound insulations have a 2 or 3 layer sytem. I looked into what each layer comprised of and found that the system offered by Sound Deadener Showdown (SDS) was comparable and cost quite a bit less. So that’s what I went with. I purchased a bundle of stuff in the amounts measured out for a Honda Del Sol figuring that the Del Sol’s interior dimensions are probably close to the dimensions of an X 1/9.
The first step after stripping the interior out was to wipe down and clean all of the areas to be insulated. Then I measured the total area of the panels I was going to insulate and cut the CLD tiles to the right size and shape to cover 25% of the total area. The CLD tiles dampen vibration and work the same way as dynamat, only you don't need 100% coverage. The CLD tiles are pretty easy to work with, but once you stick the on, they are hard to remove. So measure, cut and test fit carefully before finally pressing the tiles onto the car. The previous pic and the next pic is of the Tiles being placed in various areas of the car.
The next step is to cut the Mass Loaded Vinyl (MLV) and Closed Cell Foam (CCF) to the right size and shape to get as close to 100% coverage as you can. This is a work of art more than anything. You need to measure, cut, test fit, measure some more, cut some more, test fit again, etc. Ideally you want to make a bubble inside the car where all outisde sounds are kept out. A time consuming process, but not terribly hard to do. Here are some pics showing the installation of the MLV and CCF.
On the cutting room floor.
I insulated the floor, dash, front firewall, doors, and rear firewall. I also installed some additional heat shielding in the floorboards and spare tire compartment. This may seem like overkill, and maybe it is, but I was really trying to see how much of a difference sound insulation would make. All of the sound insulation I installed is fully removable and even the CLD tiles can be removed with just a bit of effort and will leave no trace that they were ever there, so if I ever want to go back to stock, it would just take a little bit of work to remove it all again. However, now that all is done I would never go back to stock in a daily driver. The difference is night and day. With the roof on the car is very quite even at 85 mph. With the roof off you can still notice quite a difference in the amount of noise you hear from the engine compartment or the road. A couple times while at idle sitting at a red light I thought that my car had turned off, because I could not hear the engine at all, I had to push the gas pedal a little and rev the engine just to make sure. I believe I added a total of about 60 lbs. to the car with the insulation material. If this were a race car I would be worried, but this is my daily driver, so the extra weight will be tolerated.
Stereo System
Kenwood KDC-755HD Head unit (Blue Tooth, HD Radio, Satellite Radio)
2x 6.5" Infinity Kappa 63.9i
2x 4x6 infinity Kappa 462.9 Plate speakers
1x 8" kicker subwoofer
JVC KS-AX3205D 1000 Watt 5 channel Amp
Kenwood head unit
Basically I loked for a quality head unit with all the bells and whistles. The kenwood unit has bluetooth calling, blue tooth music streaming, HD radio tuner built in, XM satellite radio compatible and pandora, iheart radio and Aha internet radio controls built in. I can get in my car and the radio automatically will sync to my I-Phone and play my palylists or I can hit a button and stream music through my phone on Pandora, Iheart, or Aha internet radio without ever touching my phone. I ussually do use the usb cable though because the sound quality is better. The stereo also comes with a microphone that I installed on the bottom of my insturument cluster that you can use for handsfree calling. Everything that a brand new car can do as far as syncing with your phone, this radio can do.
So I went with the Infinity Kappa Series because I feel they have the best sound reproduction and can run at a higher RMS then some speakers. The Infinity Kappas are not the loudest speakers I could have gotten, just the best sounding for a reasonable price. The 6.5" speakers installed in the doors and the 4x6 plate slipped into the stock speaker holes behind the driver and passenger’s headrest. The 8" Kicker subwoofer is a direct transplant from my 1985. When I purchased my 85 X it had a custom box already built into the spare tire compartment. I removed the spare tire bracket and turned the spare tire around. The custom box then fit perfectly in to the inside of the spare tire rim. I used some left over insulation to hold the spare tire in place since it is no longer bolted to the car. The 8" subwoofer was blown, so I replaced it. That was about 4 years ago. I will probably replace the Kicker speaker sometime and go with a 2 ohm version that will be able to handle the 300 watts that my JVC amp can pump out.
The previous owner had already made 5" holes in the door for speakers so I didn’t really feel to bad opening the holes up another inch to fit the 6.5" speakers. I rewired the doors with 12 gauge wire which seemed to be the thickest wire you could fit without having to modify the rubber rails going through the doors. I used the same 12 gauge wire to wire the rear deck speakers and the bass box as well. With the entire interior out it was not hard to run all new speaker wire through the X's chassis.
The doors are fairly well insulated with the sound insulation I installed, so they provide some back pressure for the 6.5s, but not as much as I would like. I may work on making a sealed speaker box inside the door at a later time.
For the Head unit I ran all new power, switched power, ground cables and 6 RCA cables through the front firewall to the amp. The Amp and head unit get a direct ground from the same place on the chassis to prevent any loop interference or engine noise. Likewise the amp and head unit share a dedicated positive that has a fuse rated specifically for the head unit and amp. The switched power comes from the X's radio harness and runs to the head unit. The positive, ground and switched power run from the head unit to the amp in a heavy shielded wire pack. The heavy shielding is supposed to prevent any of the positive or ground noise from leaking into the RCA cables feeding the amp. I also used heavy shielded Monster RCA cables just for good measure. All this shielding seems to have worked well as I have no engine noise or interference in my sound system.
The sound insulation compliments the stereo immensely. By eliminating outside noise and creating a bubble of sound inside the car, the stereo sounds clear and rich even at lower volumes. The Bass is fuller and deeper as well. My system is not that much different from what I had in my previous X, but it sounds way better because of the better acoustics in the car now.
You can see some of my new interior in the sound system pics.
Restomod Part II - leather Interior http://xwebforums.com/forum/index.php?threads/23070/
Restomod Part III - Exterior and Suspension http://xwebforums.com/forum/index.php?threads/23538/
I had the car shipped from Washington State to Texas and unfortunately the shippers damaged the floor pans during the trip. The floor pans would have to be reshaped and repainted.
Then there was the radio, or lack of radio. I had a decent system in my 1985 X and decided I would upgrade when installing my system in the new X.
One of the very few things I do not like about X 1/9s is that they are very loud inside while driving. I had looked into sound insulation in the past, but always figured it was too big of a job to do since it would require me to completely disassemble my interior. However, since reshaping the floorboards was going to require removing the carpet, I decided, this is the time to do it.
So my first projects were set: Install AC, Repair Floor, Sound Insulation, and Install Stereo System.
AC SYSTEM
After completely removing my interior including the dash I was happy to find that even though my 1986 X did not have a stock A/C, it had all the wiring for one. I removed the components from my 1985 X which had a semi-custom A/C system built for it only 1 year before it was rear ended. Removing the A/C components and reinstalling them in new X was not an easy job. I decided to have all of the original lines rebuilt since I figured the lines were 28 years old and they were now out of the car, I might as well replace them. Having them rebuilt was less than $200 and well worth it for the peace of mind.
Next I installed the custom condenser and dryer. The dryer is a universal dyer you can purchase just about anywhere. I had the lines made with the proper fitments and now if I ever have to change the dryer out, I just get any universal and it will bolt right in.
I installed an original AC/Heater unit under my dash that had been refurbished a year ago. New aluminum pipes for the heater core were made and the evaporator was sealed a little better to promote better cooling of the air as it passed through it. All of the electrical fitments were already connected to the wiring harness. It was a simple plug and play. I did have to change my dash though since the original dash did not have the A/C ducts to the side vents. I considered removing the A/C ducts from my old dash and switching them over to the new dash since the new dash was in better shape, but my old dash only has 1 crack in it and I figure I can switch back to the good dash at any time. Better to save time and effort and just deal with the single crack. Wiring the A/C and installing the A/C lines was very time consuming, but not terribly difficult. Once I got the A/C done in the front of the car and then the interior, I moved to the engine bay. I removed the alternator and water pump and switched to the A/C version with the alternator near the top of the motor instead of near the bottom. My water pump was fairly new so I just changed the gaskets and everything fit just right. Well Except the fact that I only had one pulley on my crank and the A/C version requires 2 belts. My fix for this was to install the A/C condenser and route the AC belt exactly the same way the belts were run when the Alternator was where the A/C compressor is now. This worked pretty well once I found the right size belt (went through about 4 different sizes before I found the right one). Then came the water pump to Alternator belt. Here I had another problem. The belt to the water pump from the crank was routed on the inner pulley of the water pump. This is the same pulley you’re supposed to use to go from the water pump to the alternator. My fix was to put a spacer on the alternator pulley and align its pulley with the outer water pump pulley. It took a bit of fiddling, but I was able to align the two pulleys and use the stock size belt between them. I have put a couple thousand miles on the car and so far I have not had any problems with this set up. Hopefully it will continue to work properly.
I hooked everything up and headed to my mechanics shop to have the system charged and tested. The system worked fairly well except that the temperature sensors in the front trunk were not properly turning the cooling fans on and off and turning the compressor off if the pressure got too high in the system. The fix for this was to replace the temperature sensors with a trinary pressure switch. The Trinary pressure switch turns the cooling fans on and turns the compressor off if the pressure is too low or too high. I used a universal trinary switch that I got from antique air and screwed it into the side of my universal dryer. Yet another great reason to use the universal dryer over the stock. I spliced wire connectors to match the X’s wiring harness and plugged the trinary switch in. The switch works great for the fans, but I am not sure that it is working properly cycling the compressor as the pressure doesn’t seem to get high enough for the switch to turn the compressor off. I will probably look into this next summer when the A/C is needed again. A lot of hard work and time went into getting this A/C system up and running, but after about a month I finished it up and it is working better than I thought it ever could. On days were it is less than 90 degrees, I have to shut the AC off after a while because it will actually get too cold. A problem I never in a million years would have thought I would have in an X 1/9.
Floor Repair
Not much to say, took it to the body shop they reshaped and resprayed including clear coat. Here is a before and after pic. Don't have a great after pic, but you can see how shiny the floor is after they painted them.
This pic is also the first pic in the sound insulation installation.
Sound Insulation
I spent several weeks researching the best sound insulation material for car interiors. I searched literally hundreds of websites and read every comparison and review I could find. I read forums for Hondas, Jeeps, mustangs, classic cars, new cars, Japanese cars, European cars, pretty much anything I could find dealing with sound insulation. What I found was an overwhelming trend pointing me to SoundDeadenerShowdown.com. Dynamat, Fatmat, Lizard Skin and most of the other well know sound insulations have a 2 or 3 layer sytem. I looked into what each layer comprised of and found that the system offered by Sound Deadener Showdown (SDS) was comparable and cost quite a bit less. So that’s what I went with. I purchased a bundle of stuff in the amounts measured out for a Honda Del Sol figuring that the Del Sol’s interior dimensions are probably close to the dimensions of an X 1/9.
The first step after stripping the interior out was to wipe down and clean all of the areas to be insulated. Then I measured the total area of the panels I was going to insulate and cut the CLD tiles to the right size and shape to cover 25% of the total area. The CLD tiles dampen vibration and work the same way as dynamat, only you don't need 100% coverage. The CLD tiles are pretty easy to work with, but once you stick the on, they are hard to remove. So measure, cut and test fit carefully before finally pressing the tiles onto the car. The previous pic and the next pic is of the Tiles being placed in various areas of the car.
The next step is to cut the Mass Loaded Vinyl (MLV) and Closed Cell Foam (CCF) to the right size and shape to get as close to 100% coverage as you can. This is a work of art more than anything. You need to measure, cut, test fit, measure some more, cut some more, test fit again, etc. Ideally you want to make a bubble inside the car where all outisde sounds are kept out. A time consuming process, but not terribly hard to do. Here are some pics showing the installation of the MLV and CCF.
On the cutting room floor.
I insulated the floor, dash, front firewall, doors, and rear firewall. I also installed some additional heat shielding in the floorboards and spare tire compartment. This may seem like overkill, and maybe it is, but I was really trying to see how much of a difference sound insulation would make. All of the sound insulation I installed is fully removable and even the CLD tiles can be removed with just a bit of effort and will leave no trace that they were ever there, so if I ever want to go back to stock, it would just take a little bit of work to remove it all again. However, now that all is done I would never go back to stock in a daily driver. The difference is night and day. With the roof on the car is very quite even at 85 mph. With the roof off you can still notice quite a difference in the amount of noise you hear from the engine compartment or the road. A couple times while at idle sitting at a red light I thought that my car had turned off, because I could not hear the engine at all, I had to push the gas pedal a little and rev the engine just to make sure. I believe I added a total of about 60 lbs. to the car with the insulation material. If this were a race car I would be worried, but this is my daily driver, so the extra weight will be tolerated.
Stereo System
Kenwood KDC-755HD Head unit (Blue Tooth, HD Radio, Satellite Radio)
2x 6.5" Infinity Kappa 63.9i
2x 4x6 infinity Kappa 462.9 Plate speakers
1x 8" kicker subwoofer
JVC KS-AX3205D 1000 Watt 5 channel Amp
Kenwood head unit
Basically I loked for a quality head unit with all the bells and whistles. The kenwood unit has bluetooth calling, blue tooth music streaming, HD radio tuner built in, XM satellite radio compatible and pandora, iheart radio and Aha internet radio controls built in. I can get in my car and the radio automatically will sync to my I-Phone and play my palylists or I can hit a button and stream music through my phone on Pandora, Iheart, or Aha internet radio without ever touching my phone. I ussually do use the usb cable though because the sound quality is better. The stereo also comes with a microphone that I installed on the bottom of my insturument cluster that you can use for handsfree calling. Everything that a brand new car can do as far as syncing with your phone, this radio can do.
So I went with the Infinity Kappa Series because I feel they have the best sound reproduction and can run at a higher RMS then some speakers. The Infinity Kappas are not the loudest speakers I could have gotten, just the best sounding for a reasonable price. The 6.5" speakers installed in the doors and the 4x6 plate slipped into the stock speaker holes behind the driver and passenger’s headrest. The 8" Kicker subwoofer is a direct transplant from my 1985. When I purchased my 85 X it had a custom box already built into the spare tire compartment. I removed the spare tire bracket and turned the spare tire around. The custom box then fit perfectly in to the inside of the spare tire rim. I used some left over insulation to hold the spare tire in place since it is no longer bolted to the car. The 8" subwoofer was blown, so I replaced it. That was about 4 years ago. I will probably replace the Kicker speaker sometime and go with a 2 ohm version that will be able to handle the 300 watts that my JVC amp can pump out.
The previous owner had already made 5" holes in the door for speakers so I didn’t really feel to bad opening the holes up another inch to fit the 6.5" speakers. I rewired the doors with 12 gauge wire which seemed to be the thickest wire you could fit without having to modify the rubber rails going through the doors. I used the same 12 gauge wire to wire the rear deck speakers and the bass box as well. With the entire interior out it was not hard to run all new speaker wire through the X's chassis.
The doors are fairly well insulated with the sound insulation I installed, so they provide some back pressure for the 6.5s, but not as much as I would like. I may work on making a sealed speaker box inside the door at a later time.
For the Head unit I ran all new power, switched power, ground cables and 6 RCA cables through the front firewall to the amp. The Amp and head unit get a direct ground from the same place on the chassis to prevent any loop interference or engine noise. Likewise the amp and head unit share a dedicated positive that has a fuse rated specifically for the head unit and amp. The switched power comes from the X's radio harness and runs to the head unit. The positive, ground and switched power run from the head unit to the amp in a heavy shielded wire pack. The heavy shielding is supposed to prevent any of the positive or ground noise from leaking into the RCA cables feeding the amp. I also used heavy shielded Monster RCA cables just for good measure. All this shielding seems to have worked well as I have no engine noise or interference in my sound system.
The sound insulation compliments the stereo immensely. By eliminating outside noise and creating a bubble of sound inside the car, the stereo sounds clear and rich even at lower volumes. The Bass is fuller and deeper as well. My system is not that much different from what I had in my previous X, but it sounds way better because of the better acoustics in the car now.
You can see some of my new interior in the sound system pics.
Restomod Part II - leather Interior http://xwebforums.com/forum/index.php?threads/23070/
Restomod Part III - Exterior and Suspension http://xwebforums.com/forum/index.php?threads/23538/
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