Project BMW X5: Step 5 – Alpine Audio/Video/Navigation

So, after pulling out of European Auto Sports in Santa Ana (Step 4), I have to say that I was pumped. The headlights and steering wheel added so much, literally giving the car an instant facelift.

I headed straight up the 22 fwy to the 405 and exited at Western… I Made a quick right and then a left on Gramercy and talked my way through the gate at Alpine Electronics Of America.

For any car stereo geek like me, this is a very big deal. In my impressionable youth, there was a famous car stereo shop called Speaker Works. I think it’s still on Main Street in Orange now. Their reasons for using Alpine were simple. Alpine makes products that perform better.

Will Smith, with his hit “Summer Time,” sang “Let the Alpine blast.” It was around that time when wealthy Lambo-driving stereophiles and urban kids suddenly had one thing in common… Alpine was the brand of choice. And, although this may sound ridiculous to you if you’re 25 or younger, but massive and well-engineered sound systems were a HUGE trend from the mid 80s to mid 90s. Walls of woofers, truck beds lined with 18″ subs… You didn’t just listen, you felt the music. I’m not talking about a Camry with a sub box in the trunk rattling the license plate frame. I’m talking 130db+ jet engine loud systems that got you noise tickets from cops all over SoCal.

The bottom line, all these years later, is that Alpine has never let me down.

Click more to see the pics and follow the progress!

About ten years ago I ran into Steve Brown, then just an install guru at Alpine.

Thank God Steve and I got along great because he’s now a big-whig at the Company. And, although Alpine has brought in new installers into their R&D department, Steve still busts out the tools and wrenches on my cars and I’m very grateful. Steve and his crew have built some of the most amazing cars on Earth. Alpine is famous for show-stopping creations a few of which you’ll see two at the bottom of this story.

After pulling the X5 out of the trailer, Steve drove it into the install bay and proudly displayed all of the products that he intended to put in the car. Holy sh*t!  Now I knew he was playing for keeps.

Let’s start with the head unit. The INA-W900 is the top dog  featuring regular AM/FM radio, CD, DVD, Mp3, iPod, navigation, Bluetooth, HD Radio, Sirius and even a kitchen sink. It serves as the central nervous system.

Steve plopped two amps onto the table. He said they’re the newest digital amps producing very low heat and ridiculously high output. OK, I’m in!

He went with the PDX-M6 with mono output to power the sub and a PDX-F4 to power the for the mids and highs in the doors.

Derek from Alpine’s R&D/Marketing department quickly jumped in and when to work on the dash removing the factory head unit.

It was at this point that the X5 had very little room behind the stereo. Shoving in a dual-DIN size stereo would prove to be a little challenging.

Above, you’re seeing only about half of the wires needed to power all the modules that we used. You see, like many high-end audio systems, all the components are daisy chained together. HD Radio, Sirius and the PXA-H100 IMPRINT audio processor were all going to use up precious space.

After making some headway with the head unit, Derek removed the door panels and the stock speakers. And, although the car’s previous owner had BMW’s “upgraded” sound package, the speakers paled in comparison to the new Alpine two-way component system.

This is the mark of a true audio professional. Soldering every wire terminal. There ain’t no way a wire is going to jiggle loose.

The new two-way component separates (SPX-17Pro) system fit perfectly into the stock location.

On a side note, I need to give props to Joe Delio and his team at Wetworks Garage, who did an amazing job applying Dynamat to nearly every surface.. the door’s inside skin, outer skin… Imagine sheets of tar paper like you’d use on the roof of your house but with an thin aluminum backing. Although it probably added about 75 lbs to the car, the doors no longer sounded like tin cans. If you knock on the outside of the car now, you just get a dead thud. This process greatly increases a speaker’s performance and drops the car’s interior noise. Seriously, it’s like night and day. I couldn’t recommend Dynamat more highly. I only wish they were paying me for this endorsement. Doh!

Steve was busy in the back pulling out the spare tire, cutting off unneeded steel braces and ripping out the stock CD changer and factory amp.

The ironic part here is that the factory amp and CD changer were made by Alpine. Yes, most owners of Honda and BMW cars don’t even know that their stock car stereos are made by Alpine. That’s actually Alpine’s bread and butter. Without making stock systems for tens of thousands of cars, they wouldn’t have any “fun money” to create the really bad-ass stuff.

Below, steve measures the spare tire space to calculate the perfect size sub-woofer box. Yup, it’s a little ballsy but the spare is going in the trash in favor of 12″ of bass heaven.

Within minutes Steve lays out the pattern for a ported bass enclosure. He draws it out on 3/4″ MDF (medium density fiberboard) and starts cutting.

Gluing the pieces together to make sure it’s super strong.

Nailing the pieces to make it über-strong.

Creating a “port” for the audio to travel out of. No, the sound won’t entirely come from the face of the woofer.

The way this box is designed, a tuned port is carefully designed to carry sound from the back of the woofer and direct it out of the box. The port actually works like a slide whistle. Make it the right length and the perfect harmonics are produced.

There were two small air ducts that we decided to seal up near the back corner of the car. We didn’t want sound escaping so Steve used some 1/4″ plastic, sanded it and glued the covers in place.

Moving the factory wiring harness so the woofer box wouldn’t crush anything.

XX snakes the wires from the dash, under the center console, under the back seats and into the spare tire area so that steve can connect them to the amps.

Here it is! The famed SWR-1223D 12″ subwoofer. This little guy is going to jiggle our innards.

Flash forward a few hours and we’ve got ourselves one helluva sub enclosure.

The amps are neatly mounted on top of the box while the woofer is on the right facing straight up. Remember that port I was talking about? Well, it’s that rectangle stretching down to the left. The port fires sound into the left side of the trunk area which I coated with several sheets of Dynamat. The bass fires against the back corner of the car turning the trunk area into one giant speaker. This is when I can appreciate math and acoustics.

Steve surprised me with a back-up camera. And, not only a camera, but Alpine’s is actually integrated into the license plate frame.

He grabbed a piece of ABS plastic and carved out a backing plate to make the assembly more study. BMW chose to mount the plate with only two small screws so we beefed up the mounting system.

We put on the faceplate that Joe had painted and fired up the system.

I don’t think I’ve shown you the latest incarnation of the interior since Joe painted the burlwood with a high-gloss black.  The Alpine unit looked like it came as a stock part of the car. And much more importantly, it sounded simply amazing. Now I can listen to Kevin & Bean in perfect clarity. On second thought, I’m not sure I want to listen that closely to Bean’s deviated septum.

I promised a few photos of Steve Brown/Alpine’s work. Below is a BMW Mini.

Here’s your run-of-the-mill BMW Mini S… Or not! Everything, and I mean everything on Steve’s cars are motor-actuated. The attention to detail is above and beyond the call of duty.

How ’bout a Mercedes R Series. Yeah, this thing started out as an SUV.

How ’bout a BMW 6 Series convertible?

And, to promote Alpine’s brand new line of Marine products, Steve jumped at the chance to make one seriously insane boat, seen below at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. And, not to rub it in, but I actually spent a weekend in this boat in Havasu last summer. One word… Wicked.

If you missed Step 4 – Headlights And Steering Wheel, click here.

SOURCES

Alpine Electronics Of America
19145 Gramercy Place
Torrance, CA 90501-1162
www.alpine-usa.com
(310) 326-8000

European Auto Source
1305 E. St. Gertrude Place., Unit B
Santa Ana, CA 92705
www.europeanautosource.com
866.669.0705

Automotive Express
2420 E 28th St #8
Signal Hill, CA 90755
www.autoexp.com

Eibach Springs, Inc.
264 Mariah Circle
Corona, CA 92879
800-507-2338
Eibach.com

Wet Works Garage
779 West 16th Street
Costa Mesa, CA 92627
(949) 646-1867
wetworksgarage.com