Conversion 1
It is never easy being the first to tackle something. This new Model S presented a ton of challenges for integrating into the electrical system. Given our history with Tesla, the client felt at ease to trust us with his brand new car. Tesla has made this system completely different than we have seen in any car to date. Without going into full detail into how we accomplished it, we will give you our standard build log write up. For the front stage we utilized the Focal Utopia 8″ midbass woofers, 3 -1/2″ midrange, and TBM tweeters. The front doors were fully sound treated with Hushmat, Soundshield and finished off with Blackhole Tiles. Custom speaker housings were fabricated to adapt our 8″ woofer into the factory location and set at the same angle. The backs of the door panels were also fully treated in Soundshield acoustic foam treatment. The OEM A-Pillars were modified to accept our tweeter and midrange speakers. Alcantara suede was sourced to refinish the pillar for an OEM finish. The rear speakers were left OEM, while fully treating the doors with Soundshield acoustic foam. Lastly, the interior was removed and the floor was treated with Soundshield. For amplifiers, we chose Mosconi Pro. We used a Mosconi Pro 4/10 to power the front midrange and tweeter, Mosconi Pro 2/10 to the front 8” midbass, Mosconi Pico2 to power the rears and a single Mosconi Pro 1/10 to power a single Utopia 10” subwoofer. The subwoofer was integrated into the factory subwoofer enclosure. This was remolded with plastic and fused into the factory enclosure. The enclosure was then treated with Hushmat followed by Soundshield. This enclosure was bolted back into the factory spot behind the rear quarter panel. The brains of the audio system consists of a Helix DSP Ultra.
We installed our Director create in a custom mount into the headliner. This was finished off with matching Alcantara suede to blend into the headliner. Our factory Tesla signal ran through preset 1. Preset number two features a tune for our HEC-BT streaming. Preset 3 gives us an analog input from our Astell & Kern SP2000 Hi-Res DAP. Part of the integration into the OEM electrical system consisted of adding a Lithium Ion battery to supplement the power being used by the amplifiers. This factory system runs off 15.5v and Tesla has done away with a standard 12v battery under the hood. An aluminum battery rack was created and bolted under the rear left storage panel. We added a secondary circuit breaker in this location so we could isolate the system from the cars electrical system if need be. An amp rack was created in the rear storage compartment to hold all of our equipment. Multiple layers of acrylic and matching Alcantara and grill cloth was used to give an OEM appearance. The lighting runs off a XK glow controller to give various combinations of RGB lighting. This lighting automatically kicks on when the trunk lid is open. Parts of the acrylic amp cover were grated to allow air to move out of the amp rack. Both side panels are attached with magnets, allowing these inserts to be removed to gain access to all system fusing and additional components. To protect the client from using his hard earned money to pay money hungry officers, we outfitted the vehicle with an Escort Max Ci 360. We outfitted the front end with four shifters which all sit behind custom IR acrylic pods The display integrated into the DSP controller mount. A modular stealth black housing was made to integrate the Escort display under the MCU. All in all, a very successful integration of high end components in a high end car. A rolling studio that any audiophile would fall in love with.
