Actually I cut it straight from the logo I used for the wings, but that might not have been an "official" logo. Any idea what font MINI uses?

 

Woah, that's far out.

 

http://new.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/forum/case/180800/

I'm not sure if this is correct either...but its heavier than yours. Which it ws looks to be off, at least in the picture you posted. The letters look thin, and also not evenly spaced.

 

Amazing install. Great pictures. You've inspired me. I found 2 fonts that look to be MINI fonts. Scroll down to the bottom of the link and you will see a fonts.zip file.

 

Yep, I still use it. I put the heavier grocery bags on either sides of the sub grill, no problems, and will put lightweight ones on the grill if I have to. The only thing is that the level of the enclosure is just slightly higher than the rear threshold, so if something falls out of a bag it inevitably rolls out of the rear when I open the hatch.

I'm actually more nervous about scratching or snagging the vinyl, but no problems so far.

When the rear seats are folded down it's still pretty flat going from the enclosure to the back seatbacks. It's fine for luggage or larger flat items.

Cheers,
Tom

 

Thanks for the link! I'll definitely check it out. Fortunately the grill is not too expensive and redoing won't be difficult if I decide to make it perfect.


Cheers,
Tom

 

If you redo it the grill...i think a chrome vinyl would look sweet...and add the outer circle to it to capture the font better. I was going to photoshop it for you ..but i'm sick

 

Awesome install, couple of questions?
1. How much quieter is the car while just driving now that the doors and rear is dynamatted? rattles, and squeaks still present over harsh roads? Road noise level with run flats?
2. what kind of time and cost did you have for just the dynamat?

I ask because I am fed up with the noise in the car and just want to quiet it down and be able to have a quiet drive when I want to relax.

Thanks
-Peter

 

Hi Peter,

Sorry for taking so long to respond, but I've been swamped with work.

The car is definitely a lot quieter from outside noises after the Dynamat. In fact, I often crack a window a bit so I can better hear the traffic noises around me!

If you are already having rattles and squeaks, depending on where they are coming from, you will likely still have those. Are they interior sounds or coming from outside (say suspension noise)?

Road noise is reduced, but getting rid of the run flats will do more to eliminate that than Dynamat. I've heard that removing the inner wheel wells and lining the fender wells with Dynamat will help, but I have not done that. I also did not Dynamat the floor or ceiling of the passenger compartment, but I have to imagine that that would add a significant reduction in noise intrusion. Just remember that even if you cover every metal piece with sound deadening, you still have a lot of glass that will let sounds in.

Cost is probably 2/3 labor and 1/3 materials. It took my installer about 3-4 hours for each door and I'm guessing a day and a half for the rear, including disassembly and re-assembly.

I hope that helps!

Cheers,
Tom

 

That sounds about right. I did the same two weekends ago. Matted the wheel wheels from the outside, the inside, doors, passenger compartment, and the rear. Only thing I did not do was the roof. I still have runflats and I would guess there is a reduction of about 35% in noise. For me personally, I feel that the matting does drown out the noise of the engine, which I feel differently now driving the car. Nothing like a nice Borla exhaust can't cure

If I was to rethink my project, I would have hold off on the matting first, and see how much of a difference getting regular tires would change the noise. I am afraid if I am to get rid of the runflats, that there will be little to no noise, which is not what I want

 

Just waiting on delivery!!

 

It's ok, Dw about it. But thanks for getting back to me.
this will help in making decisions, because I do a 50/50 mix of city and highway driving I get a ton of different road surfaces I encounter and they have been really starting to annoy me. I'm hoping to cut out a lot of the road noise coming from the ground by (if I go through) doing pretty much what you did and then some. I would try and do the front seats and carpet and the wheel wells on the outside.

Also with that much deadening im sure there will be a significant drop in vibrations that cause rattles and noises.

I do understand that there is plenty of glass in the car but even if I did the whole thing I'm sure it would be a huge reduction in noise.

I'm not sure if I would want to drop the run flats though, Bostons pretty notorious and I would hate to get stuck with a flat So I'm trying to reduce the noise every other way possible.
I don't know if I could do the roof though, first I have a sunroof, and second I talked with a mech at the dealer and they said the headliner isn't that easy to remove.

It does sound like an all weekend project. So I would definitely need to plan ahead.

I've found the dynamatt extreme on ebay for $135 which sounds like a good deal to me, How much did you end up using, do you think that 70sqft would be enough for everything?
(link)
http://cgi.ebay.com/Dynamat-Extreme-...item4a9a3c9bc0

Lastly, in order to save money, I would likely be doing this myself or with some friends, For someone who's never teared apart a car before how would you rate this job on a 1-10 scale, 1 easy 10 hard.

Thanks for the help so far, This will likely be my spring/summer project and first of anything for my MINI

-Peter

 

I would think that two bulk packs should be plenty.

That's actually a hard question to answer. If you've never done interior trim work on a MINI, then you will have a steep learning curve and it will likely be quite frustrating. Prepare in advance by having a variety of the plastic trim clips that MINI uses on hand.

If you've done some of this before and know the sequence of panels that have to be removed and how and where they are attached, then it will go quickly.

In laying the sound deadener, not only do you peel and stick it to the metal, you then have to use a wooden roller (like a wallpaper seam roller) to fully adhere it to the surface and to remove any air bubbles.

I hope that helps.

Tom

 

Great documentation of your project, Tom. Thanks for sharing!
I'm feeling inspired ...
Peace,
Mike

 

I wanted to let you all know that I needed to update the software on my car and ran into the one of the problems about upgrading the stereo.

As has been discussed in other threads the software update process first looks to make sure all of the car's control units are in place and responding. One of those control units resides in the factory amp.

Fortunately when we installed the system we did not cut off the big plug that attaches the factory amp, we just clipped the front two speaker inputs and the turn on wire.

I retained the factory amp after the install and was able to re-attach it using the factory plug. I re-tapped the turn on wire to turn on the factory amp.

Although it wasn't pretty with the amp hanging out of the rear area, i was able to take the car in and get the software update done, and the dealer didn't have any issues with it.

What was interesting was that while both the factory amp and the upgraded equipment were both connected, the factory amp powered the rear speakers which had not been connected with the new setup. I could then use the factory stereo's fader to "turn on" the rear speakers if i wanted. It added some spaciousness to the sound, but the front stage imaging disappeared. Since I really didn't have room to leave the factory amp in place, I unplugged it, sealed off the extra turn-on wire I installed, and stored it away until the next necessary update.

Cheers,

Tom

 

Interesting. You have the HiFI system. But for those of us who have the base stereo and want to upgrade, do we have a separate amp that the factory software update must see, or are our speakers just powered from the head unit only?

If the base stereo only uses head unit power, then I'm assuming that we can just go from head unit outputs into the input of the after market amp correct?

Otherwise, if there is indeed a separate amp on the base stereo system, then I would have to leave that amp connected to the head unit. I could then either choose to just add a sub after doing the front/rear channel reverse, or I could rewire the system so that the factory amp runs the rear speakers and the aftermarket syste runs the front speakers.

Which is correct?

 

I don't have the base stereo, but it's my understanding that the speakers are powered directly from the factory headunit. Therefore i would assume that your car would not include the HiFi control unit included in the HiFi amplifier.

That's my understanding.

I hope that helps.

Cheers, Tom

 

The base stereo doe not have an extra amp and the speakers are driven from the head unit. No extra amp is needed for the computer upgrading. The VIN number tells the computer doing the upgrading what module it needs to see.

But the amp must be capable of taking high (speaker) level inputs. If it can only take low (line) level inputs then you can blow the input circuits.

No extra amp on the base system so no need to worry about it.

Best bet is to do the channel swap and then either add an aftermarket amp for all for channels ( and sub woofer if you want) or just add a powered subwoofer

 

I would like to add that if you want to quiet this car down (road noise, primarily) to add some sort of filler/stuffing into the rear panel areas where the tail lights reside. If you look at this area, the only thing separating the outside from the cabin is the plastic taillights. If you fill the area behind the wheel wells and block that area with something like felt, it really quiets down the roadnoise that can enter the cabin. I installed dynamat and the car was still noisy, so I tried doing this and it helped a lot!

 

Sorry to dig up an old thread...

I'm working on an install in my Mini at the moment, and I currently have the HiFi amp. I'm looking to run new high level speaker wires from the back of the factory head unit to an Audison Bit One processor, and take the turn on feed from a spur off the HiFi amp.
If I was to leave the HiFi amp connected with all the wires except the high level inputs, I assume this would be ok for any potential future software updates as pins 18 and 19 would still be in place (K_CAN_L and K_CAN_H) - see here for details (post 2): https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...r-diagram.html

Thanks! (sorry again for digging up an old topic! )

 

Your plan sounds like a valid one and I don't see any issues with leaving the amp connected as you describe it.

Good luck with the installation!

Cheers,
Tom

 

Tom..

nice install. one of the cleanest install i have ever seen.

 

Tom,

I have a question for you. Do you think mini add eq to the sound system? Thinking about an dsp to flatten out the signal. I hear a lot of manufacture does that so their crappy speaker at least decent. Not sure if mini does it

 

I actually built a sub box similar to the one the OP has. But I didn't want to settle for a low profile sub, because irrespective of what make you get they all have significantly reduced low end extension (you have to have a deep cone to move the volumes of air required for that). Or put another way, given I have been spoiled by the low end capabilities of a high end Velodyne sub in my home system, I didn't want to compromise any more than absolutely necessary in what I was putting into my MINI.

So I designed a cabinet that employs some of the tool kit well space to accommodate the depth of a normal size subwoofer basket and magnet assembly, in my case a a 10" JL 10WØv3-4, which requires a mounting depth of almost five inches.

I also didn't use the rest of the enclosure space for amps like the OP here did, instead fitting a 325 RMS watt sub amp in the factory depression under the passenger seat (I am supplementing a factory HK system, so I only had to find space for one amp). That allowed me to design the cabinet to just handle providing the recommended sealed enclosure volume of .65 cf, which limited its total width it to 26 inches. That resulted in leaving open storage space going down to the original boot floor level on both sides. I use one to store the tire tools, jack and wheel lock adapters (in a re-purposed travel toiletry bag) and the other for miscellaneous items like umbrellas. The top of my cabinet rests slightly below the level of the rear boot threshold.

 

I'm bumping up this thread after searching for wiring up amps and aftermarket head units for those interested.
This shows me all that's entailed on the install with step by step instructions and pictures...
This definetly a great install and write up....
Now my search continues for the Double din radio wiring install....