PhoS

I just put the finishing touches on my HHRs system. (rear components and tuning!) It has been a work in progress I thought i'd share what I did on here to maybe provide some insight for HHR newbies who want to upgrade. Disclaimer: I am an amateur myself i'm sure there are better ways to do some of this stuff this is what ended up working for me I am very happy Finished it turned out plenty loud and very clear. Maybe in the future if I got nuts i'll get some bigger amps, dual subs, and a truckload of dynamat but for now I am very content. This is plenty for some serious hearing damage when cranked.

I started like anyone else replacing my stock door speakers. I used MBQuart discus 6.5s running off of the stock deck. It sounded ok but very underpowered and the stock sub just didn't do it for me. Here's what I ended up doing:

Deck: JVC KD-Bt1 - I went with this deck because it has bluetooth phone support , USB , MP3 , a decent screen, and its not really that expensive. The bluetooth on this deck works flawlessly , the menus were complex at first but I got the hang of it after a few weeks. While it could have better control of the sound in some ways I don't think there is a better bang for the buck. It's hooked into the stock crazyness with a metra box.



I put the bluetooth mic here.


I ran the USB cable up into the storage box so I could hook a harddrive up. Gotta have my Mp3s I cannot stand to listen to the radio EVER.


For the speakers , I replaced the 2way MBQuarts with Infinity 6020CS components. I placed the front tweeters in the doors (10 inches from the woofers) and the rears in the middle pillar. I left the stock pillar tweeters in place with adjustable limiters on them for sound stage adjustment.

Front placement.


Rear Placement. It was a pain to run wire these things into the crossovers in the doors following the stock harness but they just didnt cut it placed on the doors like the front.


For bass purposes I disabled the stock sub and got a kicker CVT12 (the slim one) but decided the sealed box didn't suit the open interior of the HHR so I gave it to my friend and got a CVR12 / Kicker ported box combo.
(yea I wrecked the carpet I had an engine, mtb bikes, etc back there )


Powering it all I have two kicker amps. The sub is powered by the Kicker 350.2 bridged for 450w and the cabin speakers are powered by a Kicker 350.4 This all stuffed in the back under the lid with a 2 Farad cap to help out a bit. All the fuses etc are down with the battery.

djmoose

How is the stock alternator holding up? Are you getting any dimming? Did you run it at all without the cap? Any difference? Did you upgrade the Big 3?

I'm curious because that's close to what I'm going to do, minus the rear stage.

Install looks great!

PhoS

Voltages are good while driving but if I sit at idle and slam it for 10 minutes it will start to dim slightly. I'm still running the stock puny battery. I have a spare optima im gonna slap in and I was defiantly looking to get a rewound alternator in the future.(other stuff I want to do that will require it non audio related) I ran the first sub I had alone without the cap and it defiantly dimmed more. I did the rear stage because I am going to do LCD headrests at some point but for music the tweeters stay off.

Not sure what you're talking about here?

azian_aztec

Big 3 means to upgrade the wiring from your Pos Batt terminal to Alt, Neg Batt terminal to chassis, and chassis to engine. Use something like 8 or 4 gauge wiring and be sure to wrap it with wire loom.

I've done the big 3 upgrade on my old car and was getting 14.4 to 13 volts while idling. No dimming whatsoever, even at high volume. I had a stock alt, optima red top, and a 1.2 farad cap. I was running a Kicker 4 channel amp rated at 120 x 4 and an MTX 81000d.

PhoS

Ah yes, new lines were run while it was apart. I initially had some whine with the gain turned up but after upgrading the ground it was gone.

djmoose

Thanks for the info and the rear componets will be great for screens in the headrests!

Digital_Rapture

To PhoS... How do u like ur CVR 12? I had one at 1st. Loved the sound but craved more. So I upgraded 2 a dual 12" box. It's running on a ZX 400.1. I had it metered and it hit 137.6. I removed the polyfill and noticed a considerable difference so I'll have 2 have it metered again. As for my stocks, I have the pioneer option and I'm using a Execlon Dnx 8120. That has a built in crossover so I filtered out all the bass from the pioneers. Im only hitting my 12's @ 25% though. thinking about going 2 a zx1000.e w/exrtra battery.... not sure yet though...

PhoS

I am pretty pleased with the CVR , it would say its one of the best bang for your buck subs. Sound quality wise its not as good as the Xtant sub that I have in my mr2 but quite acceptable considering how hard the thing hits.

If I ever go duals I will do two 10's , yea you are going to want a bigger amp for 2 of these.

djmoose

phos...I'm mounting my amps in the same fashion...and a few people are asking if I think there is going to be a heating problem. How warm are your amps getting?

JonyyB

looks good!