Category: Automotive

I woke up at 9AM today morning so I could start work on the installation of my Alpine sound system in the Wrangler. First thing I did was pass by Sultan Center and pick up a cutter and extra batteries for my MagLite. From 10 in the morning until 5 in the evening I was working on the installation non stop without lunch just 2 small bottles of water and gum. I got a lot of surprises, most of the stuff I was expecting to be difficult turned out easy and what I was expecting to be easy turned out to be difficult. My fingers are killing me now and I have a ton of tiny scratches all over my hands from all the work I did under the dashboard trying to get all the cables neatly through.

I am not done yet, I still have around an hour of work work which I will do tomorrow. I still need to fasten the amp and the sub to the car, I already drilled the holes just need to screw them in. I also need to fine tune the sound, currently I got a lot of highs and a lot of lows with no midrange. Also the front speakers are slightly louder then the rear so I can still tell which direction the sound is coming from but thats also an easy fix. I think I did a pretty good job of the install, there were a few moments where I thought I was fucked but those quickly got worked out. Only thing I need to improve on is my soldering technique.

The final item in my car sound system build finally arrived, the Infinity BassLink II. I am not a big fan of Infinity and would rather not have used them in my build but I didn’t have any other option. I was looking for a powered subwoofer that would not take up that much trunk space yet still give me hard pounding bass. The BassLink II has a 10″ subwoofer and 10″ passive radiator inside and is powered by an internal 250watt RMS amp so it should pound fairly well. I will finally start installing everything this Friday and it should take me all day probably since I will be doing the installation myself.

Here are my previous posts on my sound system install if anyone is interested:
My new car stereo
Do it yourself car sound system
Nearly There

A friend of mine emailed me these two photos of what looks to be new Audi police cars for the local enforcement. My speeding fines were probably a down payment.

Update: Here is the picture of the Dodge Charger which was sent in by Khalid. Also I just found out these are test cars and the deal with the government still hasn’t been signed.

They must have upgraded the car-cams that park on the Gulf Road every morning because they now flash. Paid for by my speeding fines.

Today me and some friends including Stallion headed to Abdally with our 4×4’s to do some offroading. It took us over an hour of driving but when we finally got there it was worth the trip. I took a lot of pictures which you can check out by clicking on continue below (yes thats a Camry stuck in the sand). I also have a video of me doing a hill climb in my Wrangler which I uploaded onto YouTube. You can watch that by clicking [Here]

Someone posted a link to Q8showroom.com in the forum the other day and since then I have been seeing their web banners everywhere. The site is still not up but it looks like its going to be competing head to head with Q8car.com. I like Q8car but their website interface is a disaster and all these flashing banners on the main page are bound to give me epilepsy one day.

I called up the phone number on the Q8 Showroom website to ask when they were planning to launch and they told me within 2 to 3 weeks (they weren’t sure). If it was me I would have only started advertising once the site was actually up because I don’t think anyone wants to keep checking their site to see if its up yet or not. [Link]

I’ve had the car for a day now and so far its been surprising. Before I picked up the car I thought the thing I would like the most in the car would be the interior. I had checked the CTS website and I was really looking forward to the “Ambient Interior Lighting”. A lot of cars have it but the CTS has a unique version that uses LED’s that go along the dash from one end to the other. But, I quickly found out the version of the car I was reviewing didn’t have the ambient lighting, I don’t know if its not available as an option in Kuwait or if it just wasn’t an option in my car but I wasn’t able to experience it.

With one of the things I was looking forward to not available I had to find something else to take my interest and I quickly found it as soon as I hit the 5th Ring Road. The CTS has over 300hp and as soon as I slammed on the gas the engine let out a brutal grunt and took off. At high RPM’s the engine gets really loud and aggressive which is surprising because the car gives a civilized impression. Another thing that surprised me was the “Driver Shift Control” which allows me to manually change gears. Unlike most of the ones I have tried before the Cadillac’s transmission was pretty fast and responsive. I’ve been recently trying to cut down on my speeding and the CTS wasn’t helping.

Everything isn’t perfect and I do have my problems with the car. For one thing I found the audio and navigation system sluggish. Firstly the car I am driving only has the European map installed. I don’t know if a local map isn’t offered yet but without one the navigation system is useless. Going from menu to menu and raising and lowering the volume is also a hit and miss affair. Sometimes the system doesn’t respond to my commands or responds after a few seconds delay. After experiencing this issue a number of times I am convinced its a software issue and the system problem needs an update or a reboot. Another thing that I didn’t like was the location of the fire extinguisher, its located in the middle of the passenger side foot area. Nat didn’t know if she should put her feet on top of the extinguisher or stretch them out over it but it was really annoying and uncomfortable.

Those were the only negatives I could find in the car although I would also have liked a reverse cam since its become like a standard but other then that the car is fully loaded. There is a USB socket where you can plug in the iPod and the navigation system turns into a TV although I couldn’t catch any channels but thats a good thing since KTV sucks. The sunroof is amazing because the whole roof is a large glass panel which really brightens up the interior.

I have the car till tomorrow evening so I will still be driving it some more. The price of the car if anyone is interested is KD13,000 with the all wheel drive version costing slightly more.

I was never too sure about the exact numbers but I just found this on the KNPC website:

Ultra (Green): 98 Octane, 90 fils/Ltr
Super (Gold): 95 Octane, 65 fils/Ltr
Premium (Red): 91 Octane, 60 fils/Ltr

[Source]

update: The reason I wanted to know how much octane is in what type of gas is because the manual for my bike recommends 98 octane while the manual for the Wrangler recommends 87 octane.

My car speakers and multi-amp wiring harness arrived today. I now have everything I need to start the installation except for the RCA and speaker cables. I will get those from Mr System in Shuwaikh sometime this week. Yesterday I passed by Ace Hardware to get some pollyfill which everyone online advises to use to fill in the enclosure behind the speaker. Surprisingly they didn’t have any which is weird because they have everything. If you haven’t been to Ace Hardware recently you should because they’ve rearranged sections, canceled some unimportant ones and added new ones with more useful stuff. I really love the place. So after Ace I passed by Barakat in Salmiya which is a sewing store, I ended up finding pollyfill there which is basically pillow stuffing. 250grams for 750fils.

I also got a call from Cadillac today, I am going to be test driving the new 2008 CTS over the weekend. I checked out some pictures of the car online and it looks pretty interesting so I am looking forward to it. [Cadillac CTS]

I woke up today morning at 8:30 with a phone call from Stallion. He was on his way to come pick me up so we could go to the junkyard. I needed a seat riser for my Wrangler but not any seat riser, it had to be off a pre-2000 model because the one I had was one of the new ones which allows my driver seat to tilt forward. The pre-2000 models didn’t have that option and so had more empty space under the seat which would allow me to install my car’s amplifier in that space.

I was expecting the junkyard to be just one large unorganized place but it turned out to be this huge area made up of little small junkyards that were split up by car make or type. We drove around looking for junkyards that had Wrangler parts but there weren’t many. We found around 6 to 8 places that had Jeep vehicles but only 3 had Wranglers. After driving around from place to place we found what I was looking for BUT the guy would refuse to sell the seat risers without the actual seat.

Stallion using his great haggling skills tried to convince the guy to sell us the seat riser by itself but instead of convincing the guy to sell us the riser he nearly initiated a riot and the guy ended up refusing to sell us anything. I was sure we were going to get attacked by the Afghani workers there, I don’t know what happened because it all happened fast but it was a really short conversation that ended with Stallion and the Afghani worker shouting at each other and us walking out quickly.

We finally gave up on finding the seat riser without the seat so we took off back home. On our way we passed by Dunkin Donuts in Al-Rai since I had been craving Dunkin Donuts for a week now. It had be a long time since I had Dunkin and I had forgotten how good their donuts were. I took a lot of pictures of the junk yards which you can find by clicking continue below. It was a pretty productive morning.

I am not a big fan of classic cars or old cars in general but there are five I would love to have in my garage one day.

1- Lancia Delta Integrale

2- BMW M3 E30

3- VW Golf GTI MKII

4- Ford Escort Cosworth

5- Datsun Skyline GTR (1971)

Thanks Stafa

As I mentioned before I am currently upgrading the sound system in my Wrangler. I already received and installed the head unit which I have to say is incredible. I installed the Alpine iDA-X001 which is made for the iPod and its extremely practical and easy to use. I am really glad I went for it, absolutely no regrets and would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a new head unit.

For the speakers and amp I was planning on going with JL Audio but I wasn’t able to find a combination that fit my budget. Also the JL Audio amps are pretty big and I wanted something I could fit under the drivers seat. In the end I decided to go with Boston Acoustics SX55 for the front and rear with an Alpine MRP-F250 amp under my drivers seat. I already ordered these items and I should be getting them next week.

For the subwoofer I decided to go with an Infinity BassLink II. I use the trunk of the Wrangler for my dog every time I take him out so I don’t have room for a large sub enclosure neither do I have room to install an amp. I decided to go with the BassLink II since as you can see in the picture above, it won’t take up much room in the trunk and it has a built in 250watt RMS amp which makes it all very compact. I could get my dog in and out of the Wrangler without even having to remove the sub which is really practical.

All thats left now is the installation which I have decided to do myself. I already have a step by step guide with pictures on what I need to do and so far the only hard part seems to be the removal of the drivers seat so I could install the amp under it. The reason I want to do the installation myself is because I want to learn how to do it plus the fact that it should be fun. I will be sure to post pictures of the installation once I am done.

The reason I am asking is because two days ago he posted a video on YouTube of his car arriving to Kuwait… its a Bugatti Veyron!
[Video Part 1] [Video Part 2]

Can anyone here recommend a good car sound system place. I am looking for a place that has either JL Audio, Bazooka or Rockford Fosgate. I passed by the places in front of Al Raya and they have neither.