2008 Nautique 230 stereo install

So Ive started back working for myself again and this is the first project back into it. It is a 2008 Nautique 230 that came with all the typical stock Nautique stuff:

Clarion Headunit, Clarion 4 ch amp, Clarion 2 ch amp, Polk 10" MOMO in the fart enclosure, 6 Polk Momo 6.5s, Titan IIs with momo 6x9s, and two batteries.

Not going super crazy on this project just using some product that was pulled out of a Barracuda Networks Demo vehivle, and another amp pulled from a previous boat. The customer really likes everything that is in the boat and wants it to remain factory looking, but wants alot more from the system. No bling, no tower box, no paint, he did supply me with some really nice equipment though, so my hopes are hi that it will turn out just the way he wanted it. He supplied me with 2 ARC 10s but I opted to do some 12s just to head him in the right direction.

So here is the list of the product going in the boat:

Arc Audio DXE Crossover/equalizer(BADASS!!)
Arc Audio 2500xxk(running tower speakers)
(2) Arc Audio 2100xxk(one to each sub bridged)
Arc Audio FOOSE 4100(runs the six interiors)
(2) Arc Audio ARC 12s(both in the passenger compartment)

So the install will consist of all new wiring to all speakers in boat, tower, ect. 1/0 power cabling, extra battery, amp rack, sub box, false panels, sub vent in walk through, tower lights, and a thorough cleaning of the delta funk from one summer.

I started with taking the boat apart last week and getting everything cleaned up and while everything was apart i ran all my new speaker wiring and 1/0 power cabling. Today I started putting things back together and snapped a few pictures of what is done so far, not much but a start, tomorrow and the next day will be the fun part with starting of the amp rack and sub boxes.







The owner wanted to add some RCAs to the back also




On to the tower wiring and lights and speaker pods, I also added sound dampening to the cans to help them out







And finally one of the exterior of the boat(sorry horrible pictures but I was standing in a cramped warehouse)

Looks good buddy!

Nice to see you back in action on your own! Looks great as always. You are Mr. Clean! I have a friend who picked up a brand new V215 and has been asking about my system, i'll send him your way. Also need to get a few things swapped out on mine.

Agree with Coop Clay, good to see you back in the mix for yourself. Looks clean so far as usual. Have a buddy looking for a small set up in his Tahoe. You ok with slumming down to car audio? Same number (4960)?

What up clay trying to get a hold of you...Call me, same number....

Yo thanks guys, yea Ill slum down to car audio Benny!!! New number (8467) same first three numbers buddy. Yo coop let me know what you need done.

Alright well Wednesday and Thursday were kind of shot because of on and off rain so I just finished up on a few little things and rethought about the whole amp rack and sub box. Everything is going to be really tight in the observers compartment, so I just wanted to make sure everything was going to work out the way it should, wide enough for two 12s and enough air space, and still have storage in there(a big concern for the owner) Well after a few changes everything is going to work out. I ended up having to mount the sirius, ipod controller and the FOOSE amp on the back wall to make for enough width. I dont typically like to hide amplifiers but becuase it is different then the other three I dont mind, night night amplifier. Everything you see on the back wall will be covered by the sub box once it goes in. So on with the project. Today I made my amp rack, installed the amplifers, made Rcas, installed the DXE control center, and wired everything up. Monday will be false walls and box building. Here are some more pictures from today.

Amp rack






RCAs







Mounted DXE



Here is the Controller/EQ for the DXE, this will also be mounted in the observers compartment(owners request) they want me to set it, and leave it. It will be accessible and mounted on the amp cover.



And finally all wired up

So I wanted to get all the amps fired up and tuned today before I started building the sub box. Everything turned on but the DXE has taken a crap over the last 2 years that it has been sitting around. So I pulled it out today and sent it back. It would work but was sending out some funny noises and distortion to the speakers. I will hopefully get it back by Thursday. Tomorrow I will build the sub box.

Yo Clay, looks good homie , that amp board is pretty sweet. Glad to see you back at it, you need to come down and fix a couple of things on my system when you can, then you might as well stay for the weekend so bring Ashley with you.

Alright Ceasar we can do. Lets party up with Mama Tracy!!!! Tell her to get her bikini on!!

slick stuff

looks good. any thoughts on air flow? I have a ppi 4125 and a zapco 1000.4 mounted in the same location, with a sub box, and if I crank it, I have to move one of the seat cushions in the bow to get air flow, or things go into protect.

DJ I have a feeling something else is wrong and not air flow. Those are two highly efficient amps that usually do very well for themselves. Now this is saying that they get the power that they need, alot of battery power and/or good charging methods. I dont have any idea what you have in your boat so dont take this the wrong way, but I can say that I have never seen a PPI 4125 go into protect, and very rarely a zapco 1000.4.

So to answer your question as far as air flow, I am allittle worried about these amps just because they run pretty hot, but there will be a vent in the walk through to vent the sub bass out, Im hoping this will help with some air flow. Only time will tell, I figure dont fix it if it aint broke. We will see. Thanks for the concern

Clay call me up I need to ask you a favor.

clay,

hmm..i deduced it was heat just cause it was getting hot in the comartment and getting air flow seemed to fix it, but your right it could be something else.

im running 0 guage, both power and ground from the observers compartment back to one of the batteries behind the engine compartment. from there its all stock (alt and harness..etc). I was worried about running the ground that far even if its 0 guage. think that could be an issue? and if so, how do you fix it? its not like I can ground any closer.

doh double post

(Message edited by dizzyj on April 14, 2009)

Looks Great Clay doggie!
Keep it up!

Nice tower enclosures what are they ?

Kona they are the Titan II speaker enclosures, they are what nautique offers from the factory.


Dj 0 quage is sufficient enough for those two amps. O quage will carry that load of +-15-20 ft. It hard to say what else is going on there, I could be wrong about the air flow. Maybe get two barrel style fans and try those out, usually they provide enough air movement to keep things happy in amplifiers.

Nice job so far my homie.Get after that install. Clay When you are finished you and I have some work 2 do on Harrold's 210. That's right Tag Team back again. Let's do it to it! And yea a Nacie trip with CAR is on the book's. Caesar you have any water in your lake? Get ahold of Big Heavy tell him we are comming 2 town and bring the Mountain Lion.

P.S I know you know this but, Make sure the EQ is on the left side that's the "rite side"

G we'll (the whole crew) be at Naci for Memorial Weekend, we could have our own Naci Bash.....

checked it, correct it, lets begin. haha!

I went down for the Easter weekend , not a whole bunch of water but enough to get us to the party so we can rock it.

Harold make sure you come down on this trip we need to get all of the W-7's together this year.

Hey Ceasar. I dont think I can make it. I have a 1.5 month baby girl at home. Making some custom ear muffs for her. Thanks for the invite tho!

Caesar-what's up? Is the water level at Naci that bad? We are planning on going for Memorial Day weekend too. I don't have a W7, but will an L7 suffice?

Kinda slow last couple of days, I built the sub boxes on Tuesday, brought them home and worked on them yesterday and today. Last night I went to resin the boxes and it was allittle cold in the garage, but I went ahead with it anyways, thinking that it would be warm enough in there. I ended up having to put the boxes outside this morning when the sun came out, because the boxes were still tacky. I let them dry, flipped them over and resined the other side, and got them all carpeted ready for subs. Here are some pics from last night and today.

My helper Riley:

Ummmm shouldn't the boxes have the same cubic volume

nice boxes. much better than the monster square box I have shoved in my obeservers compartment

Gunnar thanks but that was takin into consideration. Both boxes are 1.05 cubic ft. If you look at the box on the left it has many compounding angles. Look at the top of the box you will see it is wider, then the bottom, same from front to back. It is done this way to follow the contour of the hull of the boat.

Thanks DJ!

Alright here are some updated pictures for the boat. On Friday I forgot my camera at home and didnt get any pictures of the subwoofers going in but i will take the pictures before the panels go on. I built the false panels and vinyled them. Not too much to explain, I will let the pictures do the talking. The sub panel and walkthrough vent have perforated sheetmetal on them.

Sub Panel:








Amp Panelwow thought I took more pics of this one!)



Walkthrough Vent:

looks pimp clay. great job

Did you redo the amp panel? Or just modify it? Either are the lightening holes in there for just that reason, making it lighter?

Huh ! ^^^^^^

J. Brenner- Im going to do my best to explain this to you. The boat started with a place to mount amplifiers. The board is underneath the factory carpet(seen in pic 4 from the very top). This mounting location wasnt tall enough for what I needed and isnt completely flat(it has like a half moon shape to it). I made the amp rack with black carpet to mount the amps to and run all my wiring. After that was done I made a false panel which does nothing but hide everything behind itself. When the panel goes on, the only thing shown is the amplifiers. This panel is what i just vinyled, and is called the amp panel.

J. Brenner- If you can imagine these two panels inside the boat it gives u a better idea of what the end result will look like.

man that work looks great!!

Ha! I forgot about the amp panel! I completely see what your talking about there. But still on the amp rack there are rather large cutouts behind the amps instead of say small grommeted holes to run wires through. I was just wondering if that was done to make the amp rack itself lighter (i.e. less MDF material) or make wire management easier, or I guess to get heat issues?

(Message edited by bjeremi on April 22, 2009)

Big D - thanks alot!

J. Brenner- yes you are correct it was to help out with cooling. The XXX2500 has a fan on the bottom side that would be blowing air right back onto itself, so I just wanted to help it out allittle bit.

Looks great! Can't wait to see it finished

hey clay? what does that eq actually do? what does it do better then the reg eq. im just wondering because it may be something i might add next. thanks man

(Message edited by ponte_06_x2 on April 22, 2009)

Jerry- This is the first time I have used this EQ and didnt get to play with it much. I had to send it back because it was used in a previous install and got wet somehow. I talked to Brad at Arc and he is still looking into it. I will let you know how it all works out. I can tell you now that I dont think it will benefit over the XEQ. The reason being is there is 5 outputs: high-pass, x2, x3, sub, and center. The high pass crossover will do highpass and fullrange, the x2 and x3 will do high, full, and bandpass. The problem I see is that the highpass crossovers dont go low enough for us boat users. The high-pass and x2 output will only drop to 187 hz, and the x3 will drop to 115 hz. The only way to make this thing more beneficial to your system is to run it fully active with no crossovers between your amps and speakers. Dont get me wrong though, there are some benefits over the XEQ. The DXE has another input, has full adjustability of your gains, and you can still adjust your sub frequency level from the drivers seat. I think if the highpass filters would drop lower it would be a great unit. I talked to Brad about doing this and he said the designer would have to reconfigure the unit, test it and it probly wouldnt be cheap. Im not the best person to ask about this unit, but this is what i have found so far.

jerry /

I have installed a few of those units and come to the same conclusion as clay . The ability to cross speakers low enough to help align with the subs at a distance is greatly hampered by the restrictions in the x -over menu.

very nice unit just not ideal for infinite environment applications

clay-very nice work!

Thanks Ryan, I called you twice on Monday and got nothing but rings!!! Whats up with that? You must being working real hard on that Mastercraft!!

yea,sorry


This one?

http://www.wakeworld.com/MB/Discus/messages/3183/3183.html?1240545300