Hey guys,
Let me first quickly introduce myself. I've been lurking these forums for quite a while now. I'm one of the administrators and owners of i-club.com (which some of you I think are familiar with). And I'm friends with trevorp so I've know about the empeg for a loooong time now.

Until the recent price drop I just couldn't afford a system for the car, but with this price drop I had to get one, so I splurged and picked up a 60gb unit.

After about 3 weeks of picking components (amp, speakers, subs) I've finally started the install. I'll post some pics as soon as I get some time and some good light. But I think I found an excellent solution to the mounting problem on most of the Subarus.

INSTALLATION:

Since trevorp is a close friend of mine, he coaxed me to mount the empeg like Tony's (and others), by mounting the cage with screws, so I went out and purchased some #3 machine screw hardware. We placed the Subaru radio brackets over the cage and drilled the holes, mounted it, and it looks great. I'm actually surprised how well it worked. I was afraid the screws we're going to get in the way of the empeg when sliding it in and out, but they cleared just fine. I'll get pics of that first. The reason I did this instead of try to mount the unit with some romex (as in the forester install) is b/c I didn't want to keep the stock CD player below, or above, the empeg, so I lost the needed support for that installation. For now I'll be installing a subaru dash pocket instead. Shortly though I will end up with some more gauges (oil temp, pressure, something else) in the second DIN slot.

I need the gauges to monitor my aftermarket turbo setup on the car. Which is also the reason I haven't had any money to spend on a sound system for the car. All my money has gone into make the car fast. I've succeded in that department turning a 2.5 liter normally aspirated engine from 165hp/167ft.lbs into a 320hp/330ft.lbs turbo engine in an AWD car (she's pretty quick for a little turbo four banger). I figure it's about time to round out the cars performance with an equally impressive sound setup.

I'll keep you posted with pics, instructions and dimensions as soon as I get them.

Keep up the good work on the site Tony.

-Nick
http://www.i-club.com/
(attached is a pic of my car)

Nick, glad to have you! I'm a member of i-club.com - great site!

Here are some pictures of my WRX install: http://barbaza.com/gallery/wrx/index.html

The Subaru pocket wouldn't fit under my empeg, so I just have a filler piece of plastic now... I am thinking of adding gauges or a turbotimer there...

I should update the pics too cuz now I have a "smoked" lens that matches the green dash quite well.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that there are tons of Subaru bootup logos at the empeg Logo site.

Hey Brad,
Oddly enough trevorp is the one who made that i-club.com logo for me! Just didn't have an empeg till now to use it with.

I don't have the pocket yet, it's arriving sometime later this week. I'll let you know if I get it to fit or not. The exteriour of the RS mount is much different than the WRX anyway.

I actually didn't cut all the way through the dash bezel so I could pull the empeg all the way out either. I only nibbled away at what I needed to to let the empeg poke through but I'll have to pull the bezel to get it out. However with a 60GB unit I don't think I'll have to pull it that often. And even if I do the dash takes approximatly 3 minutes to take off.

-Nick

hey hey there, it's Aphex from the i-club (I mainly only lurk in the AFI forum) congrats on the install, I'm waiting to put mine in, maybe this weekend or next. I, like you, was going to mount it with the screws. I've got everything prepped and ready to drop in the car, just a matter of wiring the amp and speakers that I'm not looking forward to. even painted the inside of the sled black so it won't be as noticable when the player is removed (I don't have the luxury of a garage right now)

I made all the 2.5RS and 2.5RS-T logo's on the riocar site. you're very lucky to have such a turbo setup, due to student funds I am only at a ludespeed stage 1 turbo kit (which is very very nice for student funds )

get some pics up of that install.

and much like you, I've wanted the empeg since before the mark 1 was even shipping, but was never able to afford one until the price slash from rio. now I just need to graduate so I can really contribute to the empeg open source cause.

eli

UPDATE:

Well the complete install will be taking place tonight. So the pics will be soon to follow.

I'll be installing the following tonight:

Dash: empeg (obviously) already installed
Front Door: (2) Infinity Kappa Perfect 6.1 Component Speakers
Rear Deck: nothing yet... using stocks
Rear Seat Side Steath Enclosures*: (2) JLAudio 8W3-D4 Subwoofers
Trunk: (1) Profile Clarus CL440 MultiChannel Amp, (1) Profile Clarus CL400 2-Channel Amp

* Stealth Enclosures from http://www.subee-sound.com

My only fear is that the profile amps won't be that great. I know they aren't competition level amps, but that's not what I was looking for. I just wanted good clean sound at reasonable levels. I'll leave my judgement until I hear it.

I'll post the pics just as soon as the car is done. It'll be nice to get my rear seats back in the car.

-Nick

Those stealth enclosures always seemed so expensive to me... I just went with an Infinity Basslink. I did component speakers (Infinity Ref) on my front doors... I'm not sure how similar our doors are, but check the link in my sig for photos.

I always thought that the side enclosures were a really good idea, but $225 for something that could be done by yourself with a little patience is waaay too much. very cool though.

I'd bother with doing it myself, but I'm more of a 24 15"s loaded in the back of a van kind of guy, ha ha ha ha, too bad right now I sold off my 1 15" to buy an extra 30gig HD. so I'm without for now, and would be happy with two 8's

keep us informed nick, sounds cool, and it'll help give me motivation to get out and install mine.

eli

The side enclosures are a bit pricey, but if you saw the mounts you wouldn't think so. They are top notch. I expected something to arrive that I could easily fabricate with a few hours in the shop. I was wrong. They are very well built and exact in every dimension. Needless to say it takes quite a bit to really impress me when it comes to something manufacturered by hand, but this does without a doubt.

UPDATE:
So we started the rest of the install last night, but as all things go it took alot longer than expected. We did however manage to get the 4GA power wire run through the firewall and connected at the battery side, wired up and installed the subs, and mounted the amps. Tonight we attack the remainder of the install, the components, and wiring. Hopefully well get far enough to take some good pics of it.

Sorry for the delay on the pics, but trust me... if I can manage a little less sweating, I could muster a lot more picture taking! Damn Florida heat... winter my butt!

-Nick

well you could do the install in Kansas where it's 70 one week, then 20 and icy the next week. never know what to expect. lucky for me I'll be doing the job in my dad's work, which is heated/air conditioned whatever the case calls for, came in very handy when my turbo went south (twice) and had to work on it.

good luck on the install.
eli

any new word nick? I'm excited to see some install shots.

Sorry guys... been pretty busy lately. The install is going well except for the detour we hit when trying to install the Infinity fronts. I had to order a special mount from Crutchfield so that will be here tomorrow. Other than that everything went quite well.

I took some quick snapshots tonight to show what I've done so far. It's a mess because I see no good reason to put the entire car back together until I finish the install and get the Infinitiys installed.

Here's the link to all the pics:
http://216.242.153.40/images/empeg_install/

Here's a pic of the empeg in the Impreza Dash:


Here's a pic of the inside of the sled (notice the screws that are holding it to the stock mounts):


Here's a pic of the amps in the trunk:


Here is the stealth (not so much right now) subeesound subwoofer mounts. These are mounted to the right and left sides of the car in the back seat:


Here's is the panel that will cover stealth mounts. Notice the black center (it's actually a grill), which replaces the stock fabric (that needs to be cut out to make room for this):


That's all for now. I'll post more pics when I get them. But the system sounds pretty damn good so far just using the subs and the stock speakers.

-Nick

The pics look great! Boy, the Empeg mates up wonderfully with that bezel -- one of the more "looks like it came with the car" matchups that I've seen.

Thanks Jim,
I went at the inside edges of the trim with a dremel. I think it came out pretty nice. This does however mean that the empeg sits behind the trim ring so I have to remove it in order to slide the unit out. Fortunately on the Subaru this takes all of 5 seconds.

Why don't I worry about removing the Empeg each time I leave the car. Well I'm really careful about where I park it, it spends all night in a locked garage, and there's pleanty of other more expensive things in the car I'd worry about loosing before I'd worry about the Empeg.

Here's a better close up of the empeg and the trim ring:


Now if I could only find a way to interface my empeg with my TEC-II Fuel/Spark control computer. It drives my entire cars fuel and spark delivery, and how I was able to get twice the HP out of a nearly stock car with a turbo strapped onto it.

The TEC-II just has a serial interface that you upload maps to to alter the cars settings. It would be pretty sweet to be able to trick the kernal into sending the maps across whenever I wanted to change the cars performance. Perhaps say fuel efficient and race. And of course the ultimate would be when the voice regonition starts working. I think then I would officially be driving KITT!

-Nick

The faster the music, the faster your car would go! It looks like you may have done a conversion to Indiglo type dash illumination? If so, I bet the blue face of the empeg will look great. But if you are still running green interior lights, check out DarkStorm's smoked lens for the RioCar/empegs. I have one, and love it! It nearly matches my interior!

Subbies unite!

Great car BTW!

Nick, why did you have to get an adapter for the front speakers to work? what size and depth were they?

SE_Sport_Driver, not sure how you thought he had indiglo guages since we can't see the dash perhaps you are referring to the white faced guages in the center guage pod, those look like the autometer phantom guages, >='99 RS' came with white face guages. I wish I could see a smoked lens in person, to see how much better it would match stock than the empeg green. heck I haven't even seen the green in a car yet

I hope to do my install this weekend, I'll be sure to get all the pictures and post em up, this is gonna take a while for me.

I like the way you mounted the amps, but aren't the bolts going to be poking your passengers in their backs? (I personally would mount spikes on them that way nobody would ride back there )

I have the stock pocket underneath the radio, so once I get mine installed you'll be able to see how it looks.

eli

I would hope that the owner of the i-club would have indiglo gauges! I guessed it because of the gauge clusterwith white faces. I had considered making my wrx indiglo to match my blue empeg, but decided on the smoked. $25 dollors seems so much more reasonable.

If you'd like, I could take some pics of the interior (to show how the smoked looks) and post them tomorrow.... It does look a lot better (and brighter) than the green.

In reply to:

---

I had considered making my wrx indiglo

---

whatever floats your boat I suppose most people get the phantom autometer guages because 1) they are cheap, and 2)they match the stock white faced guages, unfortunately they do not light up the same as our stock guages (the light coming through the numbers) but instead light up from the back then reflected onto the front of the guage, I'm not a fan of it, but heck, like I said, they're cheap.

yeah that'd be cool to see some pics of the smoke lens, I've got a friend with a silver WRX wagon that has the smoked lens but he's too lazy to take pics (ha ha ha, actually he's just waiting till he gets his install fully complete)

I've got nothing to offer from the empeg install (still pending) but http://thetwin314.mine.nu/pics/turbo/ but here's my pics from my turbo install (forgot the camera during the actual install doh) I wish that the S-AFC had a green face on it, or I could swap it out, oh well, should look cool with it and the empeg down there.

eli

Nope... no indiglo. I actually considered it once. But I like the look of the stock gauges too much to change it.

-Nick

We'll this is a long story... so I ordered the mounts from crutchfield to mate the Infinity Perfect6.1 in the front doors of the Subaru. Unfortunatly, as I found out late last night, the depth in the door depth in the sedan and coupe is different. So when I put the new mount in it was hitting the door on the bottom. Wasn't happy about that at all!!!

So... we ended up cutting off part of the stock speaker mount and used some spacers to bring it out far enough to clear the window in the back, and still not hit the door on the front. It's a tight fit, but it dosen't touch anything. There is a foam baffle around the speaker now and that does touch the bottom of the window a little, but it's just foam and barely touches.

We quickly threw the car back together last night so I have my back seat again and the side panels went back over the stealth sub enclosures. I'll have to still take up the seats one last time so I can fix the wiring, as it's still sorta just hanging all over the place, but 12:30am is not the correct time to try to be neat and make stuff like wires look pretty.

Anyway, I'll post more pics as I get them. On the upside, the Infinitys sound great. They don't carry much in the low frequencies as the low cutoff is 70Hz, but they have some of the best sound reproduction of any speaker I've ever heard. Just messing with it on the way to work this morning I heard stuff in songs I never even new was there. Fortunatly the JLs are making up for the low end with a vengance.

Gonna work on balancing the sytem levels tonight. So hopefully I'll be all done by this weekend.

Later... I'll keep you posted as I get more stuff done.

-Nick

Watch to make sure that your cuts/modifications do not cause water to come into the car through the door. Modern cars are a "wet door design" and the barrier on the inside of the door, just under the upholstery, is the crucial one.

Thanks for the tip Tony.

Fortunatly the Subaru does have a plastic liner stuck in place on the inside of the door mechanicals. The baffle I put on the speaker is some sort of foam rubber and forms a tight seal to the door. That was the key though. Without that there would be an open airway on the speaker surround to the outer part of the door and the electronics.

I'll definitly have to say that the front door speakers were certainly the worst part of this install. It was more than a trial to get these in the front doors. But that's definitly my fault because I got speakers that were just a little to large. Fortunatly I had the right parts to get it to fit in the end.

-Nick