Boise Car Audio Stereo Installation, Diesel and Gas Performance, Bluetooth, iPod and Navigation all in one spot - Trax Customs

Widebody M3 - Final Push

8/1/2015

So...originally on this build, I quoted the customer about 1 month to do all the work.....i pretty much nailed it on the 'time' it'd take...but to think that I'd be able to knock all this out in 1 solid month was reDONKulous. All said and done, I was roughly into this full build for 225 hours....so right under 1 month......BUUUUUT, I had the vehicle for 9 months straight...since, well, this is my side business and I have other clients as well.

So, that being said, I cannot express how much of a badass Duskin was to let me keep this build for so long....i know he can appreciate the attention to detail that was put into this...even though it took 8 months longer than expected :-S

The last month before FormFest 2015 (car show I help put on) was a huge push to finish this car up...and we did it!

So here is the breakdown:

Relocated all gauges to lower center console.
Fabricate iPhone mount in existing radio location.
LED Accents everywhere (Door Handles, Lower Kick Panels, Amp Rack, Rear Top Lights, Rear Trunk).
Fabricate (twice) Amp Rack/Sub Cover Panel
Fabricate Rear Tank Cover
Send Roll Cage off to get Chrome'd
Fix Sunroof
Upholster ALL the things in Suede

Custom Projector Headlights
  FX-R Bi-Xenon Projector
  Fake Projector in High Beam
  Amber Demon Eye in Fake Projector
Umnitza Dual Halo Kit
  Matte Black Paint
  Morimoto HID Kit

Sent the car to Throttle Works for Turbo Work and final mechanical issues.

From here, i was in such a pinch to finish it up as well as get ready for FormFest that I didn't take any good pics of the finished interior.
It came together fantastically.
There will be more properly shot photos to come of the interior and final look.
All badass pics below (not my crappy progress pics) are credited towards the owner, Duskin!

Widebody M3 - Sub Box and Amp Rack

6/14/2015

Now it's time for the meat-n-potatoes of this build....the audio system.

So, with the Racing Seats and Roll Cage...the rear seat is useless and in-accessible....might as well fill it with audio equipment! My kind of use of space!
Did some initial layouts and after getting the go-ahead from the owner, I started throwing down some fiberglass.....about 1" to be exact.
After that was done, I made a simple copied shape out of 3/4" MDF and this would make a subwoofer box as well as the amp rack mount. The box holds itself into the cars bottom since it was molded there...but it's also held in by some large nutserts/bolts (she's not movin' mate)

After some carpeting and sub-extension rings, I moved on to the amp rack....I wanted this to be completely detachable in case things needed to come out and be revised....so a steel rack was fabricated and nutserted into place on the sub box.
The amp rack holds the Arc Audio 600 watt Subwoofer Amp, Arc Audio 350 watt 4 channel amp, Arc Audio Front Crossovers as well as the Audio Control Processor (which receives signal from the iPhone iStreamer).

After the audio was taken care up, I decided to put the Accuair Air Solenoid in between the woofers to spruce things up a bit.....so I fabricated up a mount for this to be nutserted to the box as well.

The speakers (all Arc Audio Arc Series) were mounted into the OEM locations...so nothing special about them......besides how sexy that carbon looks!

No Rear Seat No Problem - 240sx Full System

7/9/2014

A Very patient client of mine (understanding that I was very busy) waited his turn to get his ride worked on.
He already had the JL Woofers and Amps...but needed speakers and a deck....oh and a place to PUT everything.
After a few revisions in our ideas, we settled on a fake rear seat setup...since it wasn't going to be used anyways.

I first made a custom fiberglass bottom to over the rear-dif area....then built the box up from there, giving me a flat surface to gauge how the amp rack was going to work.
Then I made an amp rack to cover the rear area and house the two JL amps; mono and 4 channel.
The rear speakers were easy and mounted to OEM locations. The fronts, however, were small 4x6 units and would not cut it...so I made an adapter plate and permanently made them 5.25" speakers....which I installed some Arc Audio XDI components up front which made a HUGE difference. The tweeters had to be custom modified as well...because the only spot they'd fit was on an irregular surface. So I drilled a hole, temp mounted the tweeter cup and then molded it into the door panel so it looked like it was made for the car.

The headunit was Pioneer's digital media deck which had plenty of features like Bluetooth and USB inputs and was perfect for the car and what the owner wanted.
I covered all the custom made panels in the rear with black carpet and made some small panels to make all the wires disappear.
This car BUMPED! Even for a convertible once the top was down.....overall a cool sounding autoX car :)

Ford F250 - Arc Audio Upgrade

5/30/2014

Client brought in his Ford F250 for an audio upgrade....here is what all went in:

JVC KW-V30BT Touchscreen Bluetooth DVD Player
Arc Audio KS9006 5 Channel Amplifier
Arc Audio Arc602 6.5" Coaxial Speakers Front
Arc Audio Arc602 6.5" Coaxial Speakers Rear
Arc Audio Arc10 10" Subwoofers
Dual Custom Sealed Subwoofer Box behind rear seat

This was a tight fit for EVERYTHING! The amp is a very large amp and the subs needed some room to breathe...but the client wanted as much storage room as possible....So I BARELY fit this behemoth amp under the center seat up front and the subs BARELY fit in the rear.
Even though I simply replaced the OEM speakers with coaxials....this full Arc Audio system sounded VERY nice and matched perfectly with the dual 10s in the rear.....the 5 channel amp had MORE than enough power to boost everything to acceptable levels!

DD Audio's New Redline Series and BC Series

5/20/2014

Had a good buddy from High School call me up wanting some custom sound for this truck.....only problem was that he lives in North Dakota.....issues solved when we had our 10 yr class reunion coming up....so we made a plan....here is what was installed:

Clarion NZ503 Flip-Out Touchscreen Navigation Bluetooth Headunit
Clarion CC510 Backup Camera
Clarion iPhone Lighting cable adapter
Digital Designs SS5 5 Channel Amp 125x4 and 850x1
Digital Designs 10" 610 Series Redline Subwoofers
Digital Designs 6.5" BC Series Audiophile Components Speakers
Digital Designs 6.5" Coaxial Speakers
Custom Built Dual 10" Downfiring Sub Box
BUNCH of Sound Deadening
Dual battery install
Big 3 Wiring Upgrade

This system sounded VERY good, nice low end thump with these new Redline subwoofers and the BC components had a VERY distinct sound to them, even with the horrible OEM locations in the Chevy.

Toyota Tacoma - 3rd Audio Revision

5/15/2014

So, a past client brought his truck back in for the 3rd time....not because anything went wrong, but because he wasn't quite satisfied with the initial output from his old subwoofer system.

Phase 1 included fully amplifying his aftermarket Alpine door speakers and adding a custom Digital Designs single 8" DD308 woofer in an OEM-style custom built box. That provided much better boom....but not enough. The goal with that built was to retain the OEM look.

Phase 2 included removing the first custom box and building a better one with dual DD308 woofers.....and still attempting to retain as much OEM storage as possible.

Phase 3 was a complete rebuild. This is where I originally want to be the first time, but i'm glad he finally came around to this. Fully rebuilt custom woofer box to hold two 10" Arc Audio XDi subwoofers powered by the Arc Audio KSMini 500 watt amp.
This provided a TON more bass.

Surprise DD Audio Install

9/1/2013

Buddy of mine wanted to surprise his wife by installing some bump in her ride.
Didn't want to lose too much cargo space, so a small ported Digital Designs 8" 508 woofer was perfect for the job. That, coupled with a DD C2c 2 channel amp, and the low-end was rounded out nicely.
These mini woofer/box combos fill in the lack of bass that almost all OEM systems have, and their small footprints make them ideal for lack of cargo room.

RAV4 + Round 2 of Audio = Happy Client

9/1/2013

Had a repeat customer bring his RAV4 back in this weekend.
First round we did a Digital Media Deck with backup camera and new JL Components up front and coaxials in the rear.
The sound was....MEH.....and the deck was a pretty horrid attempt at a digital media player...but it worked....for a bit.

Round 2, customer wanted better sound, and fully amplified was the only way to go.
We nuked the deck and went with a basic deck that gave him front access to the USB and Aux inputs. This did away with the backup camera screen, so we added and over-head screen to see when in reverse.
We amplified the already good speakers with a Kenwood 4 channel amp and pumped up the bass with a JL Audio 500 watt mono amp powering a ported 8" JL woofer.
All in all, the customer was happy, the highs were high and the lows were low.....a good install on labor day weekend!

Quick BMW Subwoofer Install

6/22/2013

Added this nice little bass package to a buddies' wife's BMW 325i.

300 watt Rockford Fosgate mono amplifier on dual 10" Pioneer subwoofers in a ported box.

Wasn't too much of a pain since everything was in the trunk that I needed.

Axis Boat.....it has begun!

5/8/2013

My buddy Chingy brought me his sub box he made to fit in the 'OEM' location where a sub would go in his 'slightly' new Axis wake board boat.
He made it to perfectly fit the Arc Audio Flatline 12, 12" woofer. It's a high output SQ subwoofer...so it only needs 1.0 Cu. Ft. of sealed goodness. I didn't get a before pic, but it was a standard birch box with a SHAT-TON of screws in it.....my job? Make it look puuurdy.

I 100% sealed the box inside with each and every corner/joint receiving about a 1/4" of resin 45's. Then the entire internal and external surfaces were resin'd to be waterproof and leak proof.
After that, a few good hours of body work were put into the face plate to make it smooth and ready to go. A 3" hole was cut out for a heater vent. Everything got 5 coats of DupliColor Bedliner with the subwoofer grill getting a nice gloss coat of White to match the boat a bit better.

I installed some gnarly 1/2" Steel bolts for speaker terminals so that it's easier to install and the box stays sealed.

The rest of the project will include the following Audio Components provided by Trax Customs:
Arc Audio KS1200.1 Mono Block Subwoofer Amplifier
Arc Audio KS300.4 4 Channel Amplifier (Tower Speakers)
Arc Audio KS300.4 4 Channel Amplifier (In-Boat Speakers)
Arc Audio Flatline 12 - 12" Subwoofer
Arc Audio KS605 6.5" Coaxial Speakers throughout (6-8 total)
WetSounds Revolution 10 Series Wake Board Tower Speakers (X2) 400 watts RMS each
WetSounds 3-Zone Equalizer for full control over this beast and Mic talk-back to riders

Ford F250 Super Duty and Arc Audio

4/23/2013

Past Client brought his Ford in for an audio upgrade....wanted some extra bump in his truck.
Had an Arc Audio 10" woofer with a 350 watt amp that was calling his name.
Amp tucked away nicely behind the rear passenger seat and made the sub box with millimeters to spare. This sub is fairly deep, and normally you'd only mount a shallow mount in these trucks...but I didn't want to go that route....so I made it fit.

System sounds good, nice and tight bass. Truck came with an auxiliary switch panel, and we tied the amp turn-on to the 4th switch; so the owner can turn the sub on/off whenever he needs to.

Tacoma comes back for more box

3/23/2013

This is a project I did last year and the customer didn't want to lose any storage space.....so i built a small box to house the dual 8" Digital Designs subwoofers...knowing that they wanted more.

The used amp i installed fried on him after a bolt came loose inside the chassis and did some damage.....so with the upgraded Arc Audio KSMini 500.1 amp, we gained some storage there and customer wanted more of a box built.....so a little amp cover and custom built box later.....system is much more complete!

Toyota Tacoma Premium System Install

2/10/2013

Just wrapped up this install....solid, solid install!

Customer and I have planned this one out for a while and it was finally time to complete the project.
The customer did all the sound deadening...and MAN, what a difference it makes. He did the roof, floor and all doors with up to 3 layers of recommended sound deadening products.

Once it got to me, here is what I put in:
Alpine IVE-W535HD Multimedia Headunit with Bluetooth, iPhone, Backup Camera and more
Arc Audio KS 300.4 4 Channel Amp (Mounted to Rhino-lined Amp Rack)
Arc Audio KS 300.2 2 Channel Amp (Mounted to Rhino-lined Amp Rack)
Hybrid Audio Technology 6.5" Clarus Component Speakers (Front)
Hybrid Audio Technology 6.5" Imagine Coaxial/Component Speakers (Rear)
Arc Audio 10D4 10" Subwoofer in a custom made rhino-lined subwoofer box

I used 0ga power wiring throughout, then split into 4 ga for the amps.
The customer had all the speaker brackets, boxes and amp rack made from a reputable 'Toyota' owner in California...and the results speak for themselves....the fit and finish of all the parts we perfect...spot on.

This was a good project, where the customer actually helped install some of the initial products; so now he knows exactly how everything is ran so down the road, he'll know whatever he needs to when it comes to service.

This was a fun project and it turned out great...I'm never let down with the output of Hybrid speakers paired up with Arc amps...
Looked forward to doing future work on this truck (lighting, etc).

Toyota Tacoma, 8 hours, Good Sound Upgrade

12/9/2012

This one had a crazy deadline. One Day, a BUNCH of work, and all before client leaves on a trip.

Customer already had Alpine Type R's installed throughout the cars stock speaker locations.
He had to retain the stock JBL system though, to keep his OEM woofer in the rear.

Well, he picked up a Pioneer 4 Channel Amp as well as a Kenwood Mono Amp.
Goal was to get all the amps installed and mounted, as well as build a custom OEM-style box to fit in the stock location; all while housing (2) two 8" Digital Designs 308 woofers.

After the amps were wired up, I got started on the box...and with only minutes to spare, finished the install by closing time! Alot done for one day, but it sounded good and was worth the extra effort.
The woofers are getting about 250-ish watts rms a piece. They are more efficient in a ported box, but for the space we had, a sealed enclosure was all they were going to get.
Right now, the amp is turned down for break-in purposes, but in a few weeks we can turn it up a bit and let them hit.
Turned down as they are, they provided some pretty low notes, and the mid-bass was much better than the stock JBL system.

Subaru Outback - Full Custom System Install

11/26/2012

Client contacted me looking for a full install of his Infinity Kappa system he purchased, as well as a custom molded fiberglass box to house the 10" Kappa sub.

Here is what I put in:

Pioneer AVH-P8400BH Multimedia Bluetooth Headunit
Pioneer USB to iPhone/iPod Patch Cord
Pioneer CB-SB10 - Satellite Radio Module
Sirius Connect Module
Infinity Kappa Five - 5 channel amp
Infinity Kappa 60.9cs - 6.5" Component Speakers
Infinity Kappa 62.9i - 6.5" Coaxial Speakers
Infinity Kappa 100.9w - 10" Subwoofer (Selectable Ohm Rating)
Backup Camera
Kicker Amp Wiring Kit

Molded the box to fit within a certain specified area in the rear boot area.
Black carpet to match the existing interior

Mobile Boat Clean-up

11/4/2012

Sold a set of my Memphis Marine Tower Speakers to a customer locally, and he had some 'wiring issues' he wanted me to look at.

It was a typical scenario of someone buying a boat that had WAY too many hands work on it previously.

After I cleared out all the existing wiring (which reduced the total boat weight by at least 5 lbs) I made a quick amp rack and got to reducing clutter and providing the owners with more storage. Done and Done!

Ford Focus - Gnarly Sound Upgrade

9/2/2012

Had a customer bring in his 'newly' acquired Ford Focus. He purchased it for his son, for college, and now it's his again.

Time to upgrade the interior sound to something he likes.

We started off this journey with a simple suggestion of an uber deck, the Clarion NX 702, Multimedia DVD player with Navigation, HD Radio, USB, iPod, Bluetooth and much more.
We then added sound deadening to the entire sides of the vehicle to cut down on road noise, keep unwanted heat out, and improve the sound quality of the interior; all done with Stinger's Road Kill brand.

The front sound stage received our Hybrid Audio's Stage 4 Clarus Component Speakers. A 6.5" midbass monster, a 20mm soft-dome tweeter and their competition grade crossovers.
The rear sound stage received our Hybrid Audio's Stage 1 Mirus Coaxial Speakers. These things, rested in their newly sealed and deadened side panels produced the much needed mid-bass this system was designed to produce. That and Hybrid's soft-dome 20mm tweeters front the sound stage up higher in the rear too.

There were no noticeable rattles in this thing that received over 40 sq.ft. of deadening, which is a good thing, as our Arc Audio Mini 4 channel amp pushed these badass speakers with 75 watts of pure RMS power. I placed the amp under the passenger seat with plenty of wire exposed, so that in a few short weeks/months, we can add another mini amp (mono block) for a subwoofer....then this system will be complete.

For now, this is simply the best sounding Ford Focus in the valley, and I'll put my word on that. This is what is to be expected when you know exactly what you want and there are products to fulfill these needs.
Pure headunit with good output, strong amp, quality speakers and reduced interior noise.....that's the recipe for success.

Limo System Upgrade

8/28/2012

Had a customer contact me about his newly purchase limo.
It was a used model from California that he was rebuilding to start his own business.

Replacing old headunit and ripping out non-working DVD player
Replace damaged speakers
Replace dvd screens
Add auxiliary inputs to system
Add subwoofer to system.

Basically, customer wanted to do this on the cheap, and instead of selling him a few products from my mid-level brands, I wanted to go all out and do all high-end ENTRY level products....mainly to see what they were all about. I mean, I am a dealer of them, might as well see what I'm offering my customers. Basically, once this was all said and done, the system sounded great, I wasn't blown away from the product, but I've come to the conclusion: High-End Low-Grade Products (top of the line stuff offered from my lower end companies) Equals the same as the Entry level Mid-Grade Products. So I guess it all depends on what you want....quality over quantity in this case.

System sounded great, sub carried even into the drivers compartment; I'd want this Limo if I was planning on a great night out with friends and wanted to BUMP the music......it'll definitely do that!!!

Mazda 3 DD Build

8/20/2012

Had a returning client come back with this new car.
His old car was the Saturn DD Build I did a while back......motor blew....so he got a Mazda 3.
Great little car, accepted everything without too much trouble and it sounded great.

Kenwood X996 Headunit with Bluetooth, USB, Aux input and HD Radio
DD Audio 5.25" High End Components Up Front
DD Audio 5.25" Components in the Rear
DD Audio 4 channel amp to push those
DD Audio CM600 Mono to push the two
DD Audio 12" 500 Series Subwoofers in a ported box

There wasn't any room to mount the amps out of the way without getting crazy custom, so I did a false floor and mounted the amps and box flush.
Turned out great and tuning is a breeze with this one.

Project Solsti - New Amp Rack

3/6/2011

Since the Roadster show is coming up, I thought it'd take care of some things on car so she's show ready.
My sub amp was fine, but didn't match my new 4 channel amp....so I get a new one and made a new amp rack cover....looking all better now!

Cheers

1