The car thread 2.

[Colin]

There's a madly tuned Supra local to me with a Veilside bodykit, time has not been kind to it style wise.

Replaced the grille on the Vantage with a super sexy satin black one today, I really liked the way it looked when I saw one fitted on another owners car.





Makes a big difference to the front end in the flesh as the silver it was before was badly water stained and I just couldn't get it to polish up. Had the bonnet vents resprayed black this week as well, just to make them stand out a bit more.

[nakamura]

Looking lovely!

Veilside has never been good looking. The MR2 kit is a travesty.

[Brad]

Looks ace with the black grill.

[Brad]

Love that vr46 described the brz as practical and boring lol.

[charlesr]

Looking good Colin.

[charlesr]

Does anyone have any experience with car hifi retrofitting? I'd like to get an amp fitted and maybe a stealth sub for the boot. I have upgrade speakers, in the doors, but they are just being driven off the headunit and after driving Lucy's car for a while (with it's ?3k install), everything now sounds totally pants in mine.

I'm assuming it's going to be just like home hifi and I'll need to spec decent interconnects and stuff, but it's a DC system so maybe there's some stuff on the power side I need to know about?

[speedlolita]

Can't get excited about the R8. But a 1000bhp Supra for half the price would be on the list.

Can a Supra even put 1000 bhp to use though?

As I approach my driving test I've been looking at 1.6 Civic from around 2004 or so. Saw a few tasty looking ones in town today. Boring, but my first car so hugely exciting! Gotta take my test seriously, hoping that I don't have to retake.

[charlesr]

Yeah, there were plenty of Midnight Club Supras around in the day. (200+ straight line road legal)

All Civics are good cars.

[Colin]

Can't go wrong with Honda's, I've lost count of how many S2000's, Type-R's and CR-X's I've had.

[Jamie]

New Alfa coming out soon, a replacement for the 159 at last. Apparently rear wheel drive, and a Maserati built V6 is going to be available for it. The Alfa lineup has been a bit lacking for the last few years, they have 9 new models lined up for between now and 2020. It's only a mockup but I think this looks great.

[Colin]

Oooof! That is one good looking car. Shades of the GT coupe (which I've always loved) in it. Alfa do make beautiful cars when they're on their game, surprised I've never had one.

[charlesr]

I'm not convinced. Looks great at the front but if you cover that bit, it's another boring Audi-a-like down the side.

[VR46]

Charles is spot on, is so obvious now he's said that. And annoying as I'll think that whenever I see one now.

[CMcK]

Does anyone have any experience with car hifi retrofitting? I'd like to get an amp fitted and maybe a stealth sub for the boot. I have upgrade speakers, in the doors, but they are just being driven off the headunit and after driving Lucy's car for a while (with it's ?3k install), everything now sounds totally pants in mine.

I'm assuming it's going to be just like home hifi and I'll need to spec decent interconnects and stuff, but it's a DC system so maybe there's some stuff on the power side I need to know about?

Car hi-fi is pretty straight forward. Running at 12v means quite high current draw so wiring tends to be relatively thick compared to the domestic equivalent. Best to keep your speaker cables and supply to an external amp away from the battery wires but a noise suppressor can be fitted if there is interference. And you'll need a fuse for your amplifier power supply preferably quite near the battery.
If you are retaining a factory head unit chances are it won't have a pre-out so you'll need an amp that takes a high level input. Other stuff like low and high pass filter settings will be covered in the amplifier manual and depend on what speakers you have.

Newer Class D amps tend to be a bit more efficient than Class A/B amps so draw a bit less current. You can do a tidy installation hiding an amplifier under a front seat. I have bits and bobs ordered for my wee vRS as it is well overdue an upgrade. I was surprised just how inexpensive car hi-fi is these days.
I have ordered a four channel amp for under the seat - http://www.alpine.co.uk/p/Products/v...ers32/mrv-f300
Front speakers - http://www.alpine.co.uk/p/Products/c...rs39/sxe-1350s
Rear speakers - http://www.alpine.co.uk/p/Products/c...rs39/sxe-1725s

I demoed the speakers on a cheap headunit and they already sounded a lot better than the OE stuff in the car. I'm really quite looking forward to getting it all in the car.

[charlesr]

Great info! How are you securing it under the seat?

I have an aftermarket head unit, but am going to swap it out for one that has input and plays FLAC (Kenwood, JVC and Pioneer seem now do these)