First Poster with stereo questions

[grunge]

High everyone, this is my first time posting on here although I have been lurking for a couple of days.

I am considering purchasing a 2002 GT Hatchback with 56k miles and using it as my commuter and road tripper as my Nissan Titan drinks too much fuel to use it when I don't need a truck.

Anyway before I buy it I wanted to make sure it would fit my stereo needs and also wanted to look at what kind of stuff I need to purchase to outfit it.

I should preface these questions by explaining I am no newb in the car audio world so I can handle trickier things than some.

First, from what I have gathered there is only 2.3" of depth in the front drivers door for woofers. What I ask you is how much forward can I bring the driver with a spacer? I specifically would like to fit a 3" deep driver in the doors (dayton reference) and maybe later upgrade to a 3.25" deep driver. Would I run into problems making a 3/4" spacer and to get my 3" of depth?

Second, what size battery am I going to need in the engine compartment, what is the largest size I could physically fit in there? I have a spare kinetik 1800 lying around but doubt it would fit.

Third, steering wheel controls, I hate that this car doesn't have them. Does anyone know if a company that makes an aftermarket accessory that would work, similar to how the cruise control is, only has at least an Volume up and down on it? I know pioneer used to make a proprietary thing that attached to your blinkers..



My system plans are..

Head unit: Kenwood DNX7100 (ddx-7019 + kna g510)
Processor: Alpine H701 + C701
Front Tweeters: Rainbow CAL28
Front Drivers: Dayton Reference 7"
Rear fill: Diamond Audio d661
Substage:2x DIYMA 12" SQ

Amp: Either
Sundown Audio 100.4 sending 100w to the tweeters and 100w to the rear fill
Sundown Audio 100.4 sending 300w to the front drivers
Sundown Audio 1500d sending 800w to the diyma
or
Audison LRX 6.9 sending 240w to the front drivers and 60w to the rear fill
Audison LRX 2.4 sending 130w to the front tweeters
Audison LRX 1.1 sending 1000w to the diyma

Accessories
Kenwood Sirius
Kenwood TV Tuner
Kenwood Bluetooth

Any other tips or reccomendations you guys can give me on this install would be greatly appreciated.

[xxxmonoxidechil]

tough questions. not many have dug that far into there elantra's

there would be no issues with using MDF spacers for the door speakers.

i know pioneer, and kenwood and sony made little remotes that strapped onto your wheel. kinda would be like steering wheel controls.

nice choice in battery, i have two of there 2400's ;). that 1800 might fit if you had an intake on the car, then you could just fab up a bigger battery holder, and be good to go. plus have the benefit of extra power from the intake :)

[Vampyrate]

the largest i have ever seen in an elantra, either in the hatch or under hood was an optima yellow top

[cclngthr]

The Kinetik 1800 unit should fit the Elantra.

[Ugzz]

the largest i have ever seen in an elantra, either in the hatch or under hood was an optima yellow top

the yellows and red car sizes still have the same footprint as a standard battery. now they sell truck and boat batteries that are larger that you would ahve to fab a bracket for.. those stinger high output batts are the same way.. only other beefy standard footprint ive seen is i think rockford.. im almost positive it was rockford anyway, but i could be wrong.. it looked just like a yellowtop, same basic design, but was suposed to be even stronger then a yellowtop. course it was like 300$ also.. :P

[Codenomics]

wow, never heard of someone buying a car based on how much stereo they can put in it! You doing this for competition?
You put too much stuff in there and it is going to drink as much gas as your truck lol.

[Ugzz]

High everyone, this is my first time posting on here although I have been lurking for a couple of days.

Glad to see you made an account and glad to have you on the forum


Anyway before I buy it I wanted to make sure it would fit my stereo needs and also wanted to look at what kind of stuff I need to purchase to outfit it.


lol my kinda person, thinking about audio BEFORE the car itself.. lol (but after looking at the audio eq you chose i can see why.. sounds like a competition vehicle from those brand names..

As far as spacers go there are quite a few people on here with spacers on their front comps. Just as you noticed the doors are not that deep. So youll have to make spacers... a quick search on component and spacer shows a few threads of people that have spacers in sized of 1/2 and 1/2 so you can at least go that far if not more..

As for batts i would stick with a standard footprint and get a yellowtop or something similar, even with 2500+ watts it will hold up. 2loud has an audiobahn mono pushin 2400rms and doesnt have any issues at all (that im aware of)

As far as steering wheel mountable i would go sony, but then you have to go sony hu.. and sonly hus are poop unless you go big. the sonys dont get feature heavy until you hit around 300$+ if you want to go under that limit youll have to take another route.. but as far as usability the reviews point to sonys steering wheel mount as one of the best as far as usability and learning curve.. (at least from audio magaznie reviews etc)

As far as your system goes.. Holy freaking ****!

i mean fayton, rainbow and diyma are all prestigeish.. like i dont see them in most installs unless you got mad $$ to burn or are competing.. that is one wicked list..
as far as amps ive never heard of sundown audio or audison so i cant really comment

also it looks like you plan on powering the tweeters seperate from the door drivers. why is that? rainbow makes some amazing sets (so i hear) that have a driver and a tweeter, i would just get the set becasue they are already matched in quality and that way you can just amp the door driver and connect the tweeter to the x-over.. unless you plan on bi-amping the set and having an outboard x-over or something.. but that just sounds overly complex imo..
also i just plain dont like kenwood head units.. even the more $ ones just dont do it for me, i think the interface in clunky and i dont like the button placment on most of them.. but thats just me, as far as specs go as long as you spend the $ you can get good output..

another note, you may need to do some screwing around to get 7" drivers mounted in the 6.5 spot. it depends on how the manufacturer did it, infinity had those +1 desins that didnt take up much extra space so little moding was needed, not sure if the driver your talking about is similar or not..

as far as everything else it should just be a simple drop it or a matter of figuring out the legistics of placement..
good luck and let us know what you end up doing!

[Munky]

If your battery wont fit, you can always relocate it to the trunk (http://www.elantraxd.com/DIY/battery.php).

Glad to see someone who knows a thing or two off the bat, welcome to the site!