DIY Exile build in my new LSV... (first time)

[IXFE]

I spent a few hours this morning in the boat taking apart the bow, the kick panels under the helm, and running cable from under the dash to under the glove box.

Here's what I found when I took the carpetes panels down under the helm. They come off by just removing 6 screws. What a mess! All sorts of dust, wire and tape scraps, etc. I'll be cleaning this area out before buttoning it back up.

Notice no heater core... feels spacious. Hope it's enough for the ported sub enclosure.

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Edited May 11, 2014 by IXFE

[IXFE]

Next I got into the bow...

Here it is w/out the cushions

Here it is after removing the carpeted panel (four screws)..

Here it is after removing the carpeted kick panel (two more screws)...

You can either run cables in front of the tank (Malibu does it this way... the sub wires cross this way) or all the way around the tank, in which case you dont even have to remove the kick panel.

I stared at it for a few minutes and decided to run my cables around the tank the long way. They are plenty long enough at 20' each and there just seemed to be more room that way.

Edited May 12, 2014 by IXFE

[IXFE]

Here are a few pics showing the space around the bow tank. I now see what folks are referring to when they describe hiding lead up here.

Immediately in front of "fire wall" on the driver side (soon wires will be coming thru here)...

Tip of the bow. I think that hose must be air vent...

My hand to give you some perspective to the room along the sides of the tank...

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[Fman]

Working on the boat on mothers days!!!??? Man, your wife must really like that boat!!!!!

[IXFE]

Now the wires. We'll start under the glove box. RCA cables for cabin, sub, and tower. Also switch, power, and ground for the ZLD (labeled with blue tape and sharpie)

Here's the driver side again (before my wires). Notice the sub wires from the factory...

Here are the cables passing by the bow tank just in front of the windshield on the driver side. From here they go through an opening in the "fire wall"

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[IXFE]

Here are the cables coming into the helm area. I cable tied them (white ties are mine) to another cluster of factory cables going up the side wall to keep thimgs neat and tidy. My home made cluster terminates right where I intend to mount the new ZLD (right under the MTC on the right side).

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[IXFE]

Working on the boat on mothers days!!!??? Man, your wife must really like that boat!!!!!

Nah... I worked on it for a few hours this morning while everybody was just laying around. Just took me a bit to get the pics posted.

[Fman]

Lol, no worries, I just had to jab you on it... I'm digging your photos. I never knew you could remove that center walkway divider to gain access to the back of the tank area. I already learned something new..

Edited May 12, 2014 by Fman

[shawndoggy]

ha, well I WAS in the boat all day up to my elbows in LEDs.....

Dave let's see a pic of your hands! have you cut your fingers up yet?

[tjklein]

IXFE,

Working on building a box right now for my 23LSV with no heater. It's for a Xi12 Exile woofer. The box volume is 2.2cuft, before accounting for the 4" port and woofer displacement. Let me know if this helps you. (the box size and if you need dimensions) I'm making it out 13ply baltic birch and it will be vented/ported.

This one is about 1/2 done. Needs coating, holes cut, wiring, and the fancy stuff.

Edited May 12, 2014 by tjklein

[Fman]

Ok, if you don't mind, school me on the "ported box". What exactly do you gain vs a ported or non ported box? Assuming the ported box will project a deeper bass?

[wakebrdr94]

I thought this article was interesting when researching ported vs sealed.

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-nzfRpgMG59z/learn/sealed-or-ported-subwoofer-enclosures.html

[IXFE]

ha, well I WAS in the boat all day up to my elbows in LEDs.....

Dave let's see a pic of your hands! have you cut your fingers up yet?

So far so good... a couple of scratches from hidden screw tips, but nothing major.

Although, I did notice when I came in from my morning session today that my forearms felt like had dozens of invisible fiberglass slivers in them. Lesson learned... I'll be wearing long sleeve t-shirts from now on!

The biggest issue for me is the fact that I'm doing all this with the tower down since it's in the garage and I can't raise it cuz it's right underneath the garage door opener. I've bumped my head on the dang thing at least 10 times. I might have to rock a helmet!

Edited May 12, 2014 by IXFE

[IXFE]

IXFE,

Working on building a box right now for my 23LSV with no heater. It's for a Xi12 Exile woofer. The box volume is 2.2cuft, before accounting for the 4" port and woofer displacement. Let me know if this helps you. (the box size and if you need dimensions) I'm making it out 13ply baltic birch and it will be vented/ported.

This one is about 1/2 done. Needs coating, holes cut, wiring, and the fancy stuff.

TJ... I'm way interested in how you're doing this. This is exactly what I need (same woofer, same helm space), only I don't have faith I could figure it out given all the unknowns. I was going to just pay a pro for this portion. But I'd give it a shot if I was riding somebody's coat tails.

I'm certain I can build a box like that if I had the recipe. Also, proper attacment to the floor of boat is key from what I hear. And I'd like to re-use my factory carpeted kick panel for an OEM look (like the pic below of the same sub in my old VLX). Of course, I don't know how to do any of this.

Any chance I could convince you to do a write-up or a separate thread with pics and all the dimensions, materials, steps, etc.?

Thanks!

Edited May 12, 2014 by IXFE

[IXFE]

Okay, now a few question about factory speaker wires...

Those of you who've recently swapped in new speakers and/or sub, are you using the factory Malibu speaker wiring? Any reason not to? I thought I read in another thread something about serial vs. parallel wiring? What does this mean?

Another question for just about anybody with an opinion on this subject...

Since I'm not using a factory head unit, I need a way to power on the system somehow. I'm thinking a switch somewhere. What would you use and where would you mount it? I'm thinking a basic rocker switch. Should I mount it in a hidden spot (e.g. under the helm somewhere or in the driver side cubby)? Or somewhere visible (e.g. next to the fuse panel to the right of the drivers seat)? What about a push button on the dash that matches the round start button? Any other ideas?

[Nitrousbird]

I'm shocked you guys use crimp connectors. If you want it to last in a marine environment and you want a better connection in the long run, solder is the way to fly IMHO.

Odd...Malibu used them when building my boat in 2001 - seem to be holding up just fine.

[Fman]

I thought this article was interesting when researching ported vs sealed.

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-nzfRpgMG59z/learn/sealed-or-ported-subwoofer-enclosures.html

That was a great read... Some good info in that, thanks for sharing.

[tjklein]

Okay, now a few question about factory speaker wires...

Those of you who've recently swapped in new speakers and/or sub, are you using the factory Malibu speaker wiring? Any reason not to? I thought I read in another thread something about serial vs. parallel wiring? What does this mean?

Another question for just about anybody with an opinion on this subject...

Since I'm not using a factory head unit, I need a way to power on the system somehow. I'm thinking a switch somewhere. What would you use and where would you mount it? I'm thinking a basic rocker switch. Should I mount it in a hidden spot (e.g. under the helm somewhere or in the driver side cubby)? Or somewhere visible (e.g. next to the fuse panel to the right of the drivers seat)? What about a push button on the dash that matches the round start button? Any other ideas?

1. I talked to Brian at Exile and a local installer that does a lot of boats and they both said to use the existing stuff as long as I was running that ohm load (2 ohms), which I am and you will be too. Now for my XM9s I ran 12ga wire, but those will be seeing 300 watts each and it was a longer wire run. (drivers side so I could fit all the wires for 6 speakers) If you were running Rev10s with 300-400 watts each I would think about upgrading. There's info on the web about how much power is lost and over the current lengths it's not much.

2. I am running just a ZLD and iPhone setup just like you as well. For now I just have a simple rocker switch under the dash attached to the ZLD. Once I flip it on it powers up everything. Make sure to wire the ZLD back to the same spot as the amps. In the next month or so I'm going to put in a more elaborate switch setup but for now it works perfect and there is ZERO noise. :-) A big concern after my last boat.

FYI - You can find those push buttons on eBay (ship from China - long wait) and Amazon. Just make sure you get the right one. There are different types. I'm going to go with some nice rocker switches to match my Jabsco pump switches.

Hope that helps some.

I'll put together a thread tonight on the Exile sub box, but if you want to maintain the factory panel and position you'll have to go with a sealed box. A ported one won't fit....at least not without some crazy design.

Trevor

Edited May 12, 2014 by tjklein

[IXFE]

Thinking I'll just mount a rocker switch... is this what I need?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Waterproof-Red-LED-Rocker-Switch-with-Light-ON-OFF-BOAT-Marine-/271380848466?pt=Boat_Parts_Accessories_Gear&hash=item3f2f8f1f52&vxp=mtr

[shawndoggy]

yes. Get the "mo betta" version here: http://otrattw.com/proddetail.php?prod=VVPZC2G-100

[tjklein]

Shawndoggy beat me too it. That's the switch I'm using. ^^^^^^^^^^^

[IXFE]

I want to give another shout out to a very helpful crew member... "lerch" helped me out BIG time tonight by finding the amp rack mount blocks. Turns out Malibu did indeed mount them to the hull before laying down the carpet. lerch did what I didn't think to do... went back to my build thread and found these pics (look closely, cuz I didn't notice despite staring at all these pics for hours)...

[IXFE]

It's been a few days since my last update. As I mentioned in my last post, BuCrew user "lerch" reached out to me with a bunch of super helpful info. Among other things, he answered my question about the dimensions of the factory amp rack and even made a diagram for me (pic below).

I decided to go with the factory dimensions for my rack mainly because I figured if it's good enough for Malibu, it's good enough for me! I figure, if Malibu had included the rack in my boat, I would have reused it for my install. So why not just recreate my own?

I also took Shawn and Bobby's advice and mocked up a cardboard template to make sure it fits through the opening and lines up with the mounting points.

.

Edited May 15, 2014 by IXFE

[IXFE]

One thing I thought was kind of cool... when I unpacked the amps, I noticed there was some sort of certification inside that shows each one was tested (presumably at the factory) for actual power output vs. the published specs.

[IXFE]

Finally, I got the new amp rack wrapped in carpet last night and started to mess around with a layout. After trying many different configurations, I've settled on this one. Aesthetically, I like the way the amps are horizontal. Functionally I like that I have an obvious spot for another XM30.2 (immediately below the first one) in case I decide to bi amp the tower later.

The little orange flags you see poking through the board are are there to mark the small holes I drilled (they are hard to find with the carpet there). These holes line up to the mount blocks Malibu installed under the observers seat.

The amps and fuse blocks are not screwed down yet. Before I do that I wanted to get some opinions on this layout for the Crew! What do you think?

Edited May 15, 2014 by IXFE