2008 Suburban with SR6500's Front and Rear

Chwnn255

Here's recent install on my 2008 Suburban... Thought it might be helpful to some newbies to see a complete install.

Here's the list:

- 2 sets of SR 6500's
- DEI 2200 watt Digital 5 channel
- Rockford RCA's & 4 AWG Amp kit
- PAC controls for steering wheel, Onstar, etc.
- FatMat (1 layer inside door behind speakers and 1 layer behind panels)
- Lots and Lots of noodling to get it to look Factory (especially those tweets)
- 3 trips back inside to track down an alternator whine

Chwnn255

More on the 08 Burb... Sorry my "significant other" had plans for me for lunch so I didn't get a chance to finish (it's a good thing she's HOT!) ... here it is.

Pictures explained from 1st post above:

1st Row
Picture 1 = Driver's Door with FatMat 18" x 18" sheet inside behind speaker
Picture 2 = Full coverage over Driver's Door
Picture 3 = Closeup of SR 6500 in Driver's Door
Picture 4 = Closeup of 18" x 18" FatMat inside front Passenger's Door
Picture 5 = Custom Redneck engineering of Driver's side A Pillar tweeter mount. Had to cut out plastic stems which held the factory Bose tweeter and use the foam which comes with the SR 6500's, Gorilla glue and the SR 6500 Tweeter mounting ring. It was an incredibly tight fit with no more than 1mm to spare at most. Works beautifully and looks comepletely factory once installed.
2nd Row
Picture 1 = Passenger Rear Door completed with SR 6500 mounted coax
Picture 2 = DEI Amp with it's full Aluminum Heat sink cover off... pretty much installed
Picture 3 = Back panel where Amp was mounted provided PLENTY of room for all four Polk Crossovers
Picture 4 = Wiring running down Driver's side back to the Amp. This ended up being a HUGE mistake because we used this side (battery side) to run the Rockford 4 gauge wire for the Amp Kit. Didn't know when you run RCA's on top of your power wire you'll get some noise. Moved the RCA's to run down the middle of the car to seperate the power and speaker wires AND bought the latest PAC control for my vehicle... don't know which one was THE biggest help. All I know is the alternator noise went away and these SR 6500's simply sing! They are MAGNIFICENT feat of engineering!
Picture 5 = Passenger's side speaker run.
3rd Row
Picture 1 = Back panel completly removed. I feel for you Honda, Mazda, VW, BMW guys who don't have the luxury of LOTS of space to run and hide wires, crossovers, mounting braces, etc.
Picture 2 = Rear Driver's side wiring harness for window, locks, etc. We took the time to run our 14 guage speaker wire THROUGH (each connector had an 'open' spot that barely fit the speaker wire) these very tight plastic gromets and rubber sheathing. Pain in the ROYAL arse but worth it for the Factory look I wanted.
Picture 3 = Driver's side A pillar and rear D pillar covers after customization. See anything but factory? Nope! Just the way I wanted it. This took nearly 6 hours of cutting and mounting and gluing and fiddling yo get right.
Picture 4 = Factory Bose Tweeter. I had to cut nearly 3/8" out from all the way around to fit the SR 6500 tweeters in here and still keep the Factory covers.
Picture 5 = Organized Chaos for 3 nights.

I have a total of 87 man Hours in this install. Of which probably 12-15 was spent on tweeking and details AFTER the install was completed.

Here are some after shots:

Chwnn255

Pictures for post above... apparently I suck at posting with pics! Sorry guys.

MacLeod

Looks good dude. Nice and stealthy with very little room used up. Nice.

exalted512

Did you put anything on the other side of that panel that you mounted the amp to? If not, you might want to think about putting wood where you screw into. Eventually, the screws in the plastic will start to back out and/or strip out.

Looks good though!
-Cody

Chwnn255

MacLeod wrote: »

Looks good dude. Nice and stealthy with very little room used up. Nice.

Thanks MacLeod! That's high praise from you. I've been reading posts on here for over a year and really appreciate the compliment. I wanted to go with a Stealthbox but I lose ALL my storage in the console for my particular car and with all that room in the back panel still available I figure for $500-600 bucks surely I can find a shop willing to fabricate a custom box for me. Then I'll put a 13TW5 JL Audio Shallow mount 600w sub in that bad boy and have the mids freed up to REALLY sing!
Btw... Do you think I should wire the tweets out of phase in my setup? I know you advocate it... is that a 100% of the time thing when the mids and tweets are seperated and the tweets are high up or does it really depend upon each setup?

Chwnn255

MacLeod wrote: »

Looks good dude. Nice and stealthy with very little room used up. Nice.

exalted512 wrote: »

Did you put anything on the other side of that panel that you mounted the amp to? If not, you might want to think about putting wood where you screw into. Eventually, the screws in the plastic will start to back out and/or strip out.

Looks good though!
-Cody

Wow! Compliments from BOTH ...MacLeod AND Cody in the same day! I'm just like a proud papa!
Yes... I did put a pc of plywood behind the panel to support the almost 30lb amp. I know this amp is just an "ok" amp but it really has done a stand up job especially since I decided to hold off on the Kenwood DNX8120 head unit. I have the gains set on 50-60% so the Factory head unit only needs 25% volume to blow me up.
BUT... now most of the hard work is really done (I even went to the trouble to pre-wire for a Stealthbox in the console "just in case" I decide to go that way) so when I upgrade to a McIntosh or Zapco or Tru amp and decide on the head unit eventually... I'll just spend my time installing and not on wiring or custom fitting.

Chwnn255

Installed an Alpine 9887 head unit the day I bought my shiny Black 2004.5 Dodge Ram 3500 Cummins HO (High Output) Diesel. It's a second vehicle for me so I'm just waiting for some lightly used SR6500's to pop up on eBay or Craigslist to install into this little gem. The SLT has a 7 speaker factory setup 1 in each door... tweets in each A pillar and a 3-4" speaker location for a Center channel already setup in the center of the dash. Ooouuuuch! Getting a factory look here could be painful... dare I say it??... possible dash removal? Jeez I hope not!

Plans are for:

• 2 sets SR 6500's plus 1 for the center channel
• Polk PA1100.5 Amp
• Polk SR104 Sub
• Imprinted by Alpine
• Dynamat the ENTIRE interior... TWICE... cuz it's a Cummins and they be LOUD! Besides the carpet needs to be freshin'd up ...so might as well.
• 2 Red Top Optimas
• Stinger Wires and Amp kit

Any suggestions for the Dynamat portion? I've read all sorts of things to do to quiet up a truck... would be grateful for some advice.

Also where do I put the frickin' amp and sub? Anyone else have a truck they're trying to keep factory looking?

mrmusicman

Nice truck,I have a 07 4x4 quad cab and love it.Sorry I don't have pics handy right now,but I have my amps under the front seats and 2- 10" subs in a custom sealed box that fits under the rear seats. I'll try to get some pics of the subs tommorow.

jiaan13

I've only seen someone put tweeters in the stock location in that car once before.... that looks AWESOME. Good work man!

Chwnn255

mrmusicman wrote: »

Nice truck,I have a 07 4x4 quad cab and love it.Sorry I don't have pics handy right now,but I have my amps under the front seats and 2- 10" subs in a custom sealed box that fits under the rear seats. I'll try to get some pics of the subs tommorow.

That would be terrific. Is it an MTX plastic enclosure? Post your truck pics and I'll check them out.

Chwnn255

jiaan13 wrote: »

I've only seen someone put tweeters in the stock location in that car once before.... that looks AWESOME. Good work man!

Gracias! It was such a pain in the arse but ultimately worth it. I take clients out to dinner a lot as well as around to projects so it was important to me that my ride looks classy and not all "jacked up". It was fun to see the results turn out so well!

exalted512

If you're looking for something premade to go under the back seat of that truck, I would look at ProBox.
-Cody

JoshParsons84

Really nice setup man. Are you an installer? Or did you just install YOUR stereo. Either way man it really shows when somebody takes their time and does it right. How about pics of the "significant other" LMAO j/k dude!

Chwnn255

JoshParsons84 wrote: »

Really nice setup man. Are you an installer? Or did you just install YOUR stereo. Either way man it really shows when somebody takes their time and does it right. How about pics of the "significant other" LMAO j/k dude!

Thank you! I enjoyed my first real attempt at a "pro level" install. It was frustrating at times... made me sit and think through things at times... even made me wonder why I decided to go this route at times... but after it was all put together and polished back up it's a nice feeling to sit there and listen.

WOW! It just hit me! This is EXACTLY like trying to woo a woman! It takes a long time searching to find the right stuff... once you find what you've been looking for you have to negotiate your butt off... when "the big day" finally arrives the task ahead seems a bit daunting... once you get into it you start doubting whether it was a good idea... coming close to the end there's "that moment" when a wonderful warm feeling washes over you and you're convinced you did the right thing... unfortunately that moment can be fleeting when the following thought flits through your fertile brain and it hits you! I just spent HOW MUCH??? ...and WHERE THE &%$+! did all my freakin' money go???!!!! All you can do is sit there and listen ...and the worse part.....? After a few months something else comes along that makes you wish you'd waited a while 'cause THAT'S what I WANT NOW!

We're doomed fellas... doomed I tell you!

But on a good note... at least our gear has a volume/mute button. Haven't found that particular feature on my gal yet. Anyone have any idea where it is?

As for my HOT gal... here she is boys! Eat your hearts out! LOL!

dirthog

I like the install man. The only thing I would suggest is replacing the SR mounting bracket with MDF and put non-harding clay between the MDF and the metal door where you mount it. This will had weight and be more rigid.

Are you trying to pawn off your women, were does the bidding start? JK

Chwnn255

Forgive my ignorance but why would I use MDF over the metal the door itself provides and the FatMat? Follow my logic and tell me where I'm off a bit. If rigidity is the goal isn't metal with a layer of 3/16" deadner better than Medium density fiber board with clay? I'd sorta get fabricating a full MDF enclosure or even better a fiberglass enclosure but help me understand the basics of what I'd be getting for the effort. Is it a night and day improvement or just a few small percentages of improvement? Wouldn't I get MORE improvement going to say... An Alpine Head unit w/ Imprint tweaks and a better sub? Also I've been wondering if leaving the plastic molded door panel speaker dome in place (basically not cutting it out) is negatively affecting my image and whether cutting out the plastic and mounting these speakers forward so that they mount flush or are at least not covered by my factory door panel panels would "open" them up even more? I could easily figure out a way to take the aluminum grills provided w/ the SR6500's and attach them to the door to cover the hole I'd cut out.
There's a space between the face of the speaker and the door panel and it's gotta be messin' up my image a bit... By bouncing sound all over the inside of that door! Thoughts guys?

dirthog

If you pull on the plastic ring provided by Polk I'm guessing it will have some flex. It also doesn't weigh much.

If you made a ring out of MDF, I would suggest make it bigger than Polks, and pulled on it it won't move. The speaker will be solidly screwed to the MDF. The clay will add weight and create a seal between the metal and MDF. Just any clay won't work, it has to be non-hardening.

The biggest improvement I made was when I made the MDF ring and sealed all the holes in the doors. This separates the front wave from the back wave to prevent cancellation issues. Imaging and mid bass are what improved most and it was a night and day difference.

I was using the plastic Polk ring when I switched from my Pioneer 9800 to the Pioneer 880 and yes it made a difference. Plus it added a lot of flexibility tuning wise but it didn't make as much of a difference as the MDF and sealing the door holes.

I actually stacked MDF layers to bring it closer to the door card.

dirthog

black magic

Great install. Now all you need is a sub

dirthog

Hey chwnn I hope you don't feel like I'm jacking your thread with those pics. I wanted to show you what I was talking about. I should have asked first before I posted them.

1hawaii50

Very nice install...would you mind telling me where the factory amp is on that vehicle? Is it behind the kickpanel passenger side, or is it under the center console?

Moley

Could you tell me how you got the door panels off please. I want to replace the speakers on my suburban, but i must be missing one of the bolts to get the panel off.

arun1963

Chwnn255 wrote: »

Thank you! I enjoyed my first real attempt at a "pro level" install. It was frustrating at times... made me sit and think through things at times... even made me wonder why I decided to go this route at times... but after it was all put together and polished back up it's a nice feeling to sit there and listen.

WOW! It just hit me! This is EXACTLY like trying to woo a woman! It takes a long time searching to find the right stuff... once you find what you've been looking for you have to negotiate your butt off... when "the big day" finally arrives the task ahead seems a bit daunting... once you get into it you start doubting whether it was a good idea... coming close to the end there's "that moment" when a wonderful warm feeling washes over you and you're convinced you did the right thing... unfortunately that moment can be fleeting when the following thought flits through your fertile brain and it hits you! I just spent HOW MUCH??? ...and WHERE THE &%$+! did all my freakin' money go???!!!! All you can do is sit there and listen ...and the worse part.....? After a few months something else comes along that makes you wish you'd waited a while 'cause THAT'S what I WANT NOW!

We're doomed fellas... doomed I tell you!

But on a good note... at least our gear has a volume/mute button. Haven't found that particular feature on my gal yet. Anyone have any idea where it is?

Lmao. Hey Vin, cmon admit it, you posted this under a pseudonym.