Rainbow IQ 320.25 install, reviews, and pics

[plac]

Now i need to locate someone with a vag. :biggrin:



Also, I had thought I completely got rid of my engine whine & I haven't. It's not nearly as bad, but I can still hear it at higher RPM's.

I'm going to try to seperate the ground locations for the amp & cleansweep this weekend, see if that does it. Wiring that ground location to the neg. terminal of the battery helped a lot, but it's still there.

Any suggestions on a good spot to ground the clean sweep? What about to the ground wire in the stock HU? I'll leave the amp grounded where it's at.

Need pics of your setup. Are your passive boxes inside the doors? Is the clean sweep mounted on any other electronic device? Its not always ground causing whine.

You can do a simple test one piece at a time. Take a 20 foot wire and bolt it to battery. then substitute ground for each piece and see if your whine stops.

 

[Monkeykungfu]

if you come to bay area, cali ill vag you for free.

I'm on my way, be there in about 20 hours. :thumbsup:

(j/k)

Need pics of your setup. Are your passive boxes inside the doors? Is the clean sweep mounted on any other electronic device? Its not always ground causing whine.

You can do a simple test one piece at a time. Take a 20 foot wire and bolt it to battery. then substitute ground for each piece and see if your whine stops.

I'm guessing by passive boxes, you mean the crossovers that came with the Rainbows? Yes, they are mounted in the doors. I don't believe they are they cause as I had them & the Rainbow drivers installed for a bit, powered only by the stock HU, & I had no engine whine.

Also, I installed the PDX-5 amp installed under my driver's seat previously with only the 10" sub powered by it until last weekend. The amp's ground location is about 2.5" in front of it, directly under the hood latch, connected to the chassis with a self tapping screw & some washers. I used a 4 gauge wire for the ground & I dremeled the paint off of that location. I didn't hear any engine whine from the sub after this, but not sure if a sub would put out much of a whine, if there was any, considering the amp is set to < 70 hz for the sub.

Last weekend I installed the cleansweep under dash on the passenger's side. I got the idea to replace the foam under there with a thin piece of MDF from another thread here. That's really a great location for a small amp or something like a cleansweep. Anyhow, the cleanseep is mounted to a piece of wood & it's ground is currently ran to the same location as the amp's location on the driver's side.

The engine noise was much worse at first, then after I ran a 16 gauge wire directly from my ground location on the chassis to the neg. terminal on the battery, the engine noise greatly reduced, but it's still there.

I'm going to try the "long piece of wire" method you described probably tomorrow & see if I have any luck. I'm thinking I need to seperate the amp & the cleansweep's ground locations. I've read something about making a "loop" that may be the issue. I'll try to get some pics later if I can't figure it out & I need more help.

Thanks for the input. :thumbsup:

 

[plac]

It pretty much sounds like the problem is the CleanSweep. Dont suppose you had your blower motor on while you drive? That mount is close to that huge electrical motor under the dash. You might as well try a direct wire from clean sweep to battery ground and test for whine. Or, just put a RCA filter inline in your setup if all else fails. I have a couple of them which i have utilized when i just couldnt find the issue. They work.

 

[Monkeykungfu]

It pretty much sounds like the problem is the CleanSweep. Dont suppose you had your blower motor on while you drive? That mount is close to that huge electrical motor under the dash. You might as well try a direct wire from clean sweep to battery ground and test for whine. Or, just put a RCA filter inline in your setup if all else fails. I have a couple of them which i have utilized when i just couldnt find the issue. They work.

I'll try turning the A/C off & see if that has an affect. If that or the wire directly to the battery from the cleansweep doesn't work, I'll look into the RCA filter. I didn't even know such a thing existed until now. Hopefully one of those will solve the engine whine, which will in turn solve my whine. :biggrin:

Thanks for your help Plac!

 

[plac]

these are the ones i have:

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-KSII1Snuzfn/p_127SNI1/PAC-SNI-1.html

but dont buy from crutchfield

 

[richardnau]

Has anybody tried these speakers using the OEM amplifier installed under the front seat. That is: the OEM amp has electronic crossovers (amp described here), and ten output channels (four for rear speakers and six for front).

I'd like to know how well it works to drop these drivers straight onto that amp without using the Rainbow crossovers.

Anyone?

 

[A41.8QTM]

That link provides all the pin assignments for each speaker so you should be able to map the pins to the appropriate wire colors inside the doors and figure out what goes where if necessary. What you'll need to determine is the impedence of the factory speakers. If they aren't similar to the individual Rainbow drivers the amp could have problems. If they happen to be the same then you should be able to simply swap out all the speakers and see how it sounds. SOmething else you'd like to know is the power rating of each channel and the specific crossover point and slopes. The crossovers that are supplied with the Rainbows are designed to optimize the capabilities of each driver. Something different may work fine.

 

[CoccoBill]

Bump.

Just bought a 5dr mkv R32 and after some consideration ordered the IQ 320.25 set for it. Front doors will be deadened, will be running the set passive for now. Let's see how it goes.

 

[CoccoBill]

Everything installed. Except not. Goddamn set came with 4x midrange xovers, the ones for tweeter/woofer missing. Excellent, will have to wait till next week for them to arrive.

Well in any case, other than that all set. No drama to mention regarding install, 4 packs of Silent Coat went to the front doors and that's about it. Decided to go semiactive after all, so the mids and the woofers are hooked up, tweeters aren't. So the hpf/lpf of the tweeters and mids will be done with the included xovers, midbass with the amp and sub with the headunit.

Headunit a Kenwood DNX5240BT, amp Helix Blue Five (4x60W+250W), sub Rainbow Hammer 10" in a sealed box. Also installed a Kenwood rear cam.