Does anyone know how the empeg deals with a really stiffened suspension? I've got an 88 Jetta that's about as stiff as a board. If you try to push on it from the side you'll maybe get an inch of play out of it.

Also, my car produces a lot of heat where the empeg will be going. What can I do to protect the empeg? Heat shielding?, adding fans?

If anyone has any insight into this It would be greatly appreciated, since I'm a bit wary of having it installed because I can't just replace it, or get it fixed under warranty if there's a problem.

Thanks
-B

Does anyone know how the empeg deals with a really stiffened suspension?

FAQ Entry. Whether or not your particular car situation will exceed the G tolerances of the player is rather subjective and will change from road to road. I know that a G number isn't really helpful and doesn't answer your question, but we can't ride in your car to get a "feel" for how rough your car rides, so it's about the best we can do.

I will say two things, though:

1) The Rio Car is going to be better about this than any other MP3 player you can buy for the car, so you've at least got the right one for the job. Whether or not it's enough, I don't think anyone can answer that.

2) If it's constantly getting rough treatment, you should regularly pop the lid and make sure the rubber mounts have not popped out of the tray rails. This has been known to happen (even on Mk2 units although more rarely than Mk1 units).

Also, my car produces a lot of heat where the empeg will be going. What can I do to protect the empeg?

FAQ Entry.

I'm pretty sure it would get hotter than 60 degrees celcius. The cds that come out of my cd player are pretty close to that right now. I'm also worried about the fact that heat is known to make mother-boards brittle/. This could be a problem with the stiffened suspension.

I'll have a chat with my mechanic and car audio guy and see what they reccommend for heat and vibrations.

Thanks

Well, I will say that I had my empeg in my 88 GTI (same dashboard as the 88 Jetta, heck pretty much the same platform overall) for a long time and it was fine.

I did lose a hard drive, but I don't think the car mount caused it, I think it's because I set the player on top of my home stereo amplifier inside a closed stereo cabinet. It got really hot there, much hotter than it ever did in the dash.

I remember CDs coming out of my CD player quite hot, too, but I wouldn't worry too much about it. Install the player normally and see how it does for a while. Don't panic about installing cooling systems unless you absolutely have to.

And i've got mine in a Polo '00/'01, just below the center vents. It can get quite warm with the heater turned up, ~50C, and I've triggered the temperature alarm in hijack once - set at 55C. Doesn't really seem to bother the unit though. The Polo has been lowered 40mm and sits on 45-profile tires, so it's quite stiff - never had a problem with the MkIIa (the MkI connector would sometimes, specially if a little dirty, not give perfect contact [ie bounce and scratch] when going over potholes and railway crossings)

/Michael

CD head units get VERY hot - I've often wondered what the heat tolerance of a CD is, while burning my fingers on one that my Alpine just ejected. That's no longer a problem, though, as my some darling children now have that head unit (shame they had to smash a quarterlight to get to it, I mean what kind of loser would have difficulty opening the door of a Fiesta??)

Rob

my some darling children

That's a way of writing "punks" (not the music genre ones) I haven't seen before

The JVC 4x40W tape+tuner unit I had for a while really cooked the tapes too - can't be very good for magnetic media...

/Michael

Don't forget you have an amp stuffed into mst cd head units i had an alpine that could cook up quite nicely even got a high temp cut once. the empeg doesn't get anywhere as near as hot.

The little gold contacts on the back of the face off were too hot to touch at times.

With regard to the heat you might like to have a look at some previous posts about this subject. You'll find one here:
Here.

Get your suspension fixed before you put it in, how are you going to get any girls to ride in a car that rides like a wagon? The empeg itself will be ok though, if it's getting too hot it'll start locking up. If you start bottoming out your suspension, a lot of other things will break before the Empeg.

Don't forget you have an amp stuffed into mst cd head units i had an alpine that could cook up quite nicely even got a high temp cut once

Absolutely, that's why I mentioned the 4x40W of my JVC. Modern headunits are probably worse, as they all seem to be in the power race... Accidentally grabbed the heatsink (mounted along the left side of the unit) once when remowing it from the dash without letting it cool - ouch!

/Michael

I really like the stiff suspension, and I don't reallly want to get rid of it. Since I do some auto crossing and things like that with it I like to keep it in "racing" condition.

As for getting girls, I've already got one, but I'll consider loosening the suspension if she dumps me : )

Shouldn't be a problem; my Miata is turbo'ed and lowered about .75", with Tokiko adjustables set to hard-ish (2, I think?) plus stiffened anti-roll bars. Rides very hard (going over speed-bumps almost makes you fly out of your seat) but no problems with the empeg.

Hugo

I haven't had any problems in the year and a half I've had the empeg in my '00 S4 with 235/40 avs sports. Your suspension is probably stiffer but I don't think you'll encounter any problems.

Install it and enjoy.

wouldn't about the worst thing that could happen be that the hdd dies early. which isn't that big of a deal as long as you keep a back up of you music so you don't have to re-rip.

Does anyone know how the empeg deals with a really stiffened suspension?

It is highly unlikely that your stiffened suspension could exceed the shock tolerances of the empeg. There are other pieces that will fall off your car before those hard drives get into trouble.

The hard drives are rated at 150 G impact while spun up, 400 G impact when not turning -- and they are spun up under normal usage only about 5% of the time.

That's the hard drives themselves. The hard drives are mounted in very clever little rubber shock absorbers inside the player. Just guessing here, but I'd guess it would take a 300 G impact on the player to give 150 G impact to the drives themselves.

There is usually a little bit of play in the way the empeg sled is mounted to the dash; and the dash will flex a little bit under impact as well, giving you yet another layer of protection for the player.

Even if you replaced all your shock absorbers with steel rods (so you had no suspension at all) there would still be considerable shock absorption from the tires themselves.

I truly believe that the player can absorb more punishment in your stiff Jetta than you can.

In the summer time I have my player installed in my bicycle where the only suspension is the flex of tires and front fork. (The empeg sits in a foam rubber cradle). That is probably more punishing than anything you could do with your car.

tanstaafl.

I was just kidding about the suspension I have encountered heat related lockups in the summer, a little bit of outside air directed at the player cured that situation. I don't know if a fan on the sled would have helped, I doubt blowing around hot air would lower the temperature. Locktite everything in the player you can, the small screws will vibrate loose over time.

Alan

There is usually a little bit of play in the way the empeg sled is mounted to the dash; and the dash will flex a little bit under impact as well, giving you yet another layer of protection for the player.

Back in the days of in-dash CD players without electronic shock protection (remember those?), I found that this didn't work the way you'd expect it to.

If you had a CD player that wasn't solidly mounted to the dash, in other words, if it had a bit of "play", this would actually increase the chance that the player would skip. In order to help keep the player from skipping, you needed to mount it as solidly as possible to the dash, with absolutely no "play".

This allowed the player's internal shock absorbing mechanism to work properly, without the additional secondary sub-vibrations caused by the player's casing bouncing and rebounding a second time within its frame. Also, the vibrations produced by a loose stereo mount are at a much higher frequency than those created by the car's motions.

I would assume that the empeg is in a similar boat: You should mount it as solidly as possible in order for its shock absorbing tray to work properly.

I dunno the Miata tokico's are the same, but on mine setting 5 is the stiffest and it isn't really that stuff. 1 feels like a luxury boat.

I know a guy that has thousand pound springs and AGX shocks at the stiffest setting. You can jump up and down on on the shock tower and the car might as well be granite.

Calvin

I know a guy that has thousand pound springs and AGX shocks at the stiffest setting. You can jump up and down on on the shock tower and the car might as well be granite.

And he's probably convinced that he has a great-handling car.

Reminds me of a 3-series BMW I saw on a freeway somewhere in the midwest. He had it so tricked out... extra wide wheels, tires that looked like they were about 30-series, ultra-stiff suspension, heavily tinted windows, gold-plated trim, lowered probably two or three inches. He was driving that car as fast as he could make it go -- and Dodge Neons, mini-vans, and at least one Taurus Station Wagon passed him like he was a chicane in the middle of the road. Which he pretty much was.

He had that car so bound up that every bump and expansion strip he hit sent it darting half a lane on one direction or another. Maybe on a perfectly smooth autocross course the car would be a real screamer. But as a usable, drivable car it was worthless. In any real-world situation an absolutely stock 3-series driven by the proverbial little old lady would have blown him away.

There is much more to handling than ultimate lateral-G loadings on a skid pad and lack of body-roll in a left-right-left transition!

tanstaafl.

I may have got my 1-5 the wrong way round. It's one click stiffer than the middle setting - but as the miata is tucked up in a garage, I couldn't check if that was setting "2" or "4"

Hugo

Unless your Jetta can generate more G force onroad than my
install can, OFFROAD... I think you're going to be OK.
I cracked my windshield on a HUGE 25ft jump and the
mk2a never missed a beat.

As to heat, fans or thermal transfer via the casing might help,
but the secret in a later A2/A3/A4 jetta is to ventilate the dash
itself. Use a PC case fan and cut SMALL slits in the bottom
of it. Works good to keep those CDs from melting.

heh

Time for some fun in the snow

Ed
-Mk2a 10g @ Subaru WRX Rally car