[ArclitGold]

That stereo is a really neat looking kit! Where is it from?


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[DSchmale]

That stereo is a really neat looking kit! Where is it from?


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eBay! It’s a 10.1” tablet running Android 10 that mounts in a single din slot. Gives me a tablet with rca outputs for my DSP/amplifier. I bought a Bluetooth OBD dongle so I can set up a gauge cluster on it too. The beetle has no coolant gauge and a matching gauge, sending unit, adapters, etc. would’ve cost about what this tablet kit did: $135! It could be a massive fail but I’m not asking it to do any more than a standard android tablet would and they are cheap these days.

I’ll let you know how it works out when I get it all wired up.

 

[DSchmale]

Found some subwoofers from an old infinite baffle project that never got off the ground. Anyone ever seen a pair of fifteens in a beetle before? Well, you ‘bout to! I get to keep my trunk too

Secrets of the audio underground will be revealed! (Ok, not really secrets but I’d be shocked if many people had seen, never mind heard such an installation before). Mercifully these - the greatest budget infinite baffle subwoofers ever made - will be hidden from view... ‘Cause they ugly.

 

[ArclitGold]

Awesome!! This project is awesome. Waiting with bated breath for this sub install!


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[DSchmale]

Awesome!! This project is awesome. Waiting with bated breath for this sub install!


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Need to raise the floor 2” but they’ll fit

 

[DSchmale]

Working GLI brake swap and turbo install this week. Stripped the caliper brackets. Let them soak in some “Evaporust” over the weekend. I wish I had before pictures! The brackets were awfully New England rusted before. Much of the finish was gone. They soaked for two days and just pulled out of the solution rust free; no scrubbing and no pitting! Any brake dust had turned into gooey boogers that wiped right off too. A few minutes with a wire brush and they look brand new!

Remarkably, in areas where no rust had gotten underneath, the existing paint remained intact as well. You can see where one bracket had some corrosion above the fluid line, but even that is 10x better. The capillary action and thin layer of solution was enough to knock that rust down to just “discoloration”. Anyway, highly recommend the stuff. Time to strip and sand the caliper bodies!

 

[ArclitGold]

Wow. Night and day


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[DSchmale]

GLI brake swap is coming along nicely. After what feels like forever, I finally got the calipers prepped “good enough”. Many imperfections showing through but they’ll be tucked so tight in those beetle wheels, they probably won’t show. Again, I wish I had better before pictures. They turned out pretty damn good (no, forgive me, I didn’t tape off the dust boot or piston)

Tires came in for the beetle wheels. Nice ones too All season tires because I’ll actually drive the beetle places, but about as nice as you can find in a 16. Also, my neighbors probably hate me.

And lastly, playing with the intake from the Jetta. I don’t think it’s worth doing. Won really add any power, just lots of noise so I’m probably just plumbing a cold air duct to the factory air box with a K&N. Looks pretty though.

K04 turbo install this weekend, if all goes to plan. Picking up some free mk4 Gti seats to play with possibly reusing the bases to allow the GLI seats to fold.

Still waiting to hear back from a tuner about my ecu. APR won’t remove the immobilizer anymore so I went elsewhere. I’d like to have this drivetrain swap-ready if I pull it for the 3.6 in the future.

Get her running and driving, move onto the stereo, then swapping in the 02M from the GLI. All the things.

 

[DSchmale]

Just test fitting today. Finish hasn’t cured enough for me to feel comfortable getting brake fluid on the calipers yet. Fit like they were made for the Beetle 16s. Hashtag subtlety.

The GLi rear rotors make the factory rotors look almost dangerously inadequate by comparison. I mean, the fronts are dope but whoa.

Fronts:

 

[DSchmale]

Just test fitting. This is the final configuration though. Go big or go home. Both will run in a “restricted-infinite” baffle configuration (probably 1/3 of total sd in vent). Grabbing some more mdf, making baffle cuts and cutting up the spare tire well this weekend. Trunk floor will be elevated 1.5” and everything will be carpeted. Woofers recessed 3/4” with sturdy grills, often concealed/protected under the factory trunk cover. I’ll pull it for shows. Plan is for it to be invisible and grocery friendly with the cover on.

 

[ArclitGold]

Looking good


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[DSchmale]

Operation “GLI seats in a beetle” got some reinforcements yesterday. Picked up a free pair of nasty mk4 Gti seats. The idea is to transfer the GLi foams to the Gti bases so I can fold the seats forward for passengers (kids). The beetle seats would be cool as hell to use for this purpose but the bases appear narrower, and they’re in really nice condition - like, it would truly be a shame to cannibalize them when someone out there would love them.

even though I just plan on using the bases, the Gti foams will probably find their way onto the Jetta frames and back into the Jetta. Besides, I couldn’t let these dope covers go out all nasty like this. They cleaned up well.

Before:

Before/After:

The lower bolsters were so caked with sheit that they were hard and smooth. Straight nasty. With some loving, they returned to a nice, clean textured fabric.

K04-001 install will commence later this morning if the rain lets up, and I hope to start the subwoofer build in earnest this week - grills, cloth and carpet came in today

 

[DSchmale]

Turbo install started out well and quickly kicked my ass. Need to pull the kombi valve and coolant neck anyway but there’s something hitting on the driver’s side beneath those that I want to put my eyes on. It’s keeping me from rotating the turbo like 1/8” to line it up. Pretty certain it’s the oil feed line which I’m thinking I bent coming out - I should’ve replaced it anyway so I ordered a new one and will tackle deleting the vacuum hose this week. Get back to the turbo next weekend.

On the bright side, I now get to play with my subwoofer enclosure, guilt free.

Turbo porn. Picture doesn’t really do justice to how much larger the new unit is.

 

[DSchmale]

Betta recognize.

Building the baffle today but it started raining on me :-/ They fit though!!!

 

[ArclitGold]

Wow keep it coming!!


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[ArclitGold]

What software are you running for the k04?


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[DSchmale]

What software are you running for the k04?


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None yet! Canned tune from a shop in Indiana. APR won’t remove immo anymore and I want to be able to use this swap if I go in on the 3.6 FSI. A few other shops took forever to get back to me, but these guys were very responsive. I’ll let you know if the engine explodes shortly. Need to install tt225 injectors before I run it.

 

[DSchmale]

Just speaker business for a while. I need a break from the mechanicals to get my mojo back. Hoping to get the turbo wrapped up this weekend but there’s so much going on in my life outside of this project that I need to make time for.

Laminated the baffle sections into a cohesive 1.5” baffle and reinforced it today. Coated the bottom side with a 2:1 mix of primer and wood glue in an effort to seal the mdf from moisture. It shouldn’t ever see water but will have to contend with dew and such.

Bottom of the baffle as it sits now, drying in the sun.

 

[DSchmale]

Building things. You know those really nice tower speakers your friend with the in their living room? Yeah, I’m putting them in my dash. Four 6” midbass drivers and two 4” full-range/wideband drivers in ported enclosures tuned to <50Hz, high pass at 40Hz.

 

[ArclitGold]

Holy moly. This keeps getting better


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