The Car is a 1993 Vauxhall Astra 1.4 LS "Hi Torq".
Modifications to the vehicle consist of 14" alloy wheels,fog lights, de-locked door handles,elctric sunroof,electric windows & electric aerial all being added to beef up the standard spec.
The Car is a 1993 Vauxhall Astra 1.4 LS "Hi Torq".
Modifications to the vehicle consist of 14" alloy wheels,fog lights,
de-locked door handles,elctric sunroof,electric windows & electric aerial all being added to beef up the standard spec.
The boot contains the amps & amp rack,DSP brain,sub & box,
cross-overs,system battery & power distibution.
The dash contains a Pioneer KEH-M9500 RDS head-unit With matching Pioneer CDX-M30 changer in glovebox,
Pioneer DEQ 9500 DSP display & custom Temperature display in ashtray.
Doorbuilds contain Pioneer 4" mids,with Pioneer 6's & tweeters replacing standard speakers.
Glovebox contains multi-changer & custom LED bargraph voltmeter.
Now for the nasty bit,a picture of yours truly.....poser or what?
Nigel's stereo, you see, is rather special. The exact specifications would take several editions of CarSport to highlight in detail, but suffice to say that the humble Vauxhall Astra has, in Nigel's hand, been turned into a tidy showcase for fine ICE products by Pioneer, Rockford and JBL amongst others.
A guided tour of the Astra reveals the detail to which ICE enthusiasts must be willing to go in order to create the total package'. The installation of three speakers in each front door (6"woofers where the original speakers were situated, 4"midrange in custom mounts and 1"tweeters in the mirror panels) meant that the doors had to be stiffened - a process that was successfully carried out,as Nigel's tap along the side illustrates. And believe me,those doors do need to be stiffened.
A demonstration of the bass by Outhere Brothers' Boom Boom left yours truly feebly trying to keep his glasses from shaking themselves off his ears. And the sound? 'Compact' may be an accurate description of the Astra, but the massive bass, coupled with the extensive Digital Signal Processor, certainly gives a big car sound to the system.
Of course, all of this power does not come without extensive alterations to the car's electrics. A second battery provides power to the amps, whilst a heavy-duty relay charges it up only when the engine is running. Four 60-Amp fuses protect it all.
Nigel's move into In Car Entertainment began several years ago, when he felt he could take his In House HiFi no further. A service engineer by trade, he started off with a humble Pioneer tape deck but soon moved up to a six-disc multi-changer and head unit when a friend noticed one going at the right price. "It's just built up progressively from that over the last four years or so. I've had it in various cars", says Nigel. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this range of kit did not appear overnight."Last year I bought a new head unit to replace the basic one I had,and the year before I bought the DSP unit. It gets added onto bit by bit", he says.
Early forays into the world of sound-offs (such as the Cartonics sound-off featured in last month's issue) did not produce results."It was all Pioneer amps last year", Nigel recalls,"I had it in Dublin for the novice class Ireland finals. I'd entered on· the spur of the moment, and only started preparation about a month before the event. I didn't do very well, but I saw what the rest were up to and got my eyes opened" he jokes."I decided then to do a good build for this year, and this time I started back before Easter".
Preparatiorn, it seems, is a key watchword in ICE circles, and Nigel's efforts have been rewarded this year, with two second places in his class at the ICEMAN event in Bangor, and the Ireland finals in Dublin.
The groundwork begins with the choice of vehicle. Nigel rates the Vauxhall Astra as a good car for ICE modifications since "all those little bits and pieces you will need are cheap and easy to get hold of".
The Astra has undoubtedly benefited from this characteristic, since it boasts what must be one of the ultimate Q dashboards of all time. The glove compartment has been modified into a storage bay for the six-disc multi-changer, whilst Vauxhall's highly-rated dashboard clock and stereo control panel has made way for a DSP unit. Even the ash tray has been displaced by a temperature gauge that monitors the heat of the boot-mounted amps and turns on a fan should they get too warm.
In addition, Nigel has modified the locks, installed a sunroof and added electric windows to the specification. Despite all of these modifications, the car still looks 'standard', something that Nigel is keen to maintain. Future improvements planned may include a modified dashboard with speakers, possibly a second sub-bass speaker, "although that would mean having to strip it all out and rebuild it entirely!"
Any tributes? Mark and Brian at Cartronics. I took the car down before Dublin, and they took an afternoon to help me set it up. That helped to make the difference between second and third place.
Of course, it's all too easy to dismiss Nigel and like-minded ICE fanatics as slightly eccentric (he admits that he has probably spent this money for "the look you get when you turn it up!" ), but at the end of the day they're having the last laugh.
"Insurance is too much these days to drive GTEs and GSIs and so forth", says Nigel. "If you do too much to the car, like body kits or anything like that, when you come to sell it you've lost your money. With this you can take it out and put it into your next one." Some sound economic practice, one might say, behind a quite remarkable motor car.
TECH SPEC
Pioneer KEH-M9500 RDS head unit.
Pioneer CDX M50 Compact Disc 6-disc multi-changer.
Pioneer DEQ-7500 Digital Signal Processor.
Pioneer GM-3400 Amplifier (4x80 Watts).
Rockford Punch 200ix Sub-bass Amplifier (2x100 Watts).
Rockford Punch Classic 12" sub-bass speaker.
JBL TC-5O rear speakers.
Pioneer 6" woofer,4" mid-range and 1" tweeter in each front door.
Custom hand made Vivanco cables with gold phonos.
MB quart competition cross overs.
Clifford Alarm system.
Many thanks to Mark,Brian,Gary and Nicola at Cartronics for all their help.
The folks at CarSport,without whom the car would never have been featured.
The IASCA Ireland Judges for all their advice and encouragement when I was only starting.
And finally,everyone who helped me along the way with this install.
The car has been extensively modified since this article was written.
I will try to bring you some photo's of the current install in the near future.
I am currently planning yet another,'different',install this winter,I look forward to bringing it to you as it develops.
Click here to e-mail me.