1990 Ford Sierra GLX

My 1990 Ford Sierra GLX Wagon came to New Zealands shores with 35km on the clock. Built in Belguim, it differs from the reasonably common Australian built Sierra, and has all the cool european 'standard' toys; fog lights (front & rear), headlight wipers, front windscreen wire de-mister, sunroof, roof-rack...

It was to be my fathers company vehicle until 1995 when he moved onto his next car and passed the Sierra to Mum. In September 1998 I took it off Mum with the intention of creating something 'different' on road. I already had a small amount of car audio gear, from my previous vehicle, this was installed in the Sierra the weekend I recieved it.

The Sierra, originally 'Burgandy Red', was repainted in late 2000 in a deeper Burgandy Red with Gold pearl. Powering the car (engine-wise) was a 2.0L DOHC Twin Carb, completely stock. At the time I had numerous ideas regarding the powerplant, including the Cosworth conversion.

1999 Build

Early 1999, I decided to get serious with the audio in the Sierra. At the time I had a pretty basic street system which included a Panasonic tape deck controlling an 8 disc shuttle, a Panasonic EQ/DSP unit and a Power Accoustik 1400w (Yeah right!) amp pushing two 10" Coustic subs in bandpass enclosures.

I was pretty keen to compete in 'Sound Offs' and after some investigation found that the current setup wouldn't provide the goods. I finally decided to replace the subs with 12" Alpine ZRs and purchased some low level Alpine components. Another Power Accoustik amp was used to power the components.

As with all serious car audio systems the sub enclosure had to be mechanically attached to the vehicle, which meant no sub box floating around in the boot. It was decided to create a false floor in the boot and mount the subs in the floor to use the tyre well as an enclosure. Simple mirror sail pods were also built to contain the tweeters for the components.

I also managed to purchase and install a Panasonic 6" screen, with TV tuner, to replace the unused tape deck. This unit was pretty cool, except for its 0.5V line out.

While still in this build, the wagon was given a bit of DYO action down at Champion dragway, with all the audio gear in it. Suprisingly it managed 16.8 down the quarter, not bad for a 2.0L carbed whale.

2000 Build

After a few competitions with my Panasonic/Power Accoustik/Alpine system, we decided that some system components needed upgrading. We faced the age old case of "Cleaner signal, greater control and higher response", and now had to go product hunting.

Alpine was chosen as the sole brand in the Sierra's install. An Alpine multimedia head unit replaced the Panasonic unit. The Alpine screen is the same size as the old Panasonic, but in the 'movie screen' dimension format, and accepts numerous types of AV input including TV, DVD, VCD and in-car navigation (which isn't available in NZ yet). The whole system is just about controlled by this unit. The Panasonic shuttle was replaced with a 6 disc Alpine model, which featured digital-optical output, ie: immune to electrical noise. This unit was mounted in a redundant storage area infront of the front seat passenger.

As with any serious sound quality competition vehicle, a equaliser (or a sound processor) is a must for fine tuning. I managed to pick up Alpine's PXA-H510, which features a reasonable EQ with time correction. Dolby Digital and Dolby Pro Logic Decoding is also on-board, including a center channel output. Speaker wise, DDDrive components replaced previous seasons low level Alpine components. The tweeters from the old component set were retained to work with the DDDrive components, they were used to control the height of the sound stage on demand.

Out back recieved slight modifications to make room for the processor and the two (slightly larger) Alpine amps. The larger of the two amps ran the subs, one per channel. While the smaller four channel amp ran the DDDrives on the forward channels and the retained tweeters on the rear channels. A smaller amp it located under the rear seat to control the center channel speaker, a 3" 2-way which is mounted within the dash in is own sealed enclosure.

2002 Build

Later 2001 I had placed an order for some very tasty Alpine speakers, and it arrived in the first week of January: four Type-R 12" subs and a set of F#1 Status 3-way components. At the time, this set of F#1 components was one of the few that were in the country, being the envy of many competitors. The Wagon then came off the road for 5 months for a near complete rebuild of the audio system.

The front door panels were rebuilt to accomodate the new components and their sexy crossover units. The previous tweeter panels were refabricated to hold the larger F#1 Status tweeter unit, and the lower half of the door panel were built up to contain the mid and mid-bass units. The 5.5" unit sits in a small sealed enclosure while the 6.5" uses the entire door area. The glovebox was also replaced with a panel containing a Playstation 2 and Alpine 6 disc VCD shuttle.

The whole rear end was stripped to make way for the new sub enclosure, which again was going to be mechanically attached to the vehicle. The box was shaped into a curve with dual enclosures, and due to its size had to be put into the car through the side windows. A second battery was deemed necessary due to the additional power requirements with the new build. The box was then vinyled and a perspex slab was placed over the battery/amp area.

This install won at the 2002 Finals, but I wasn't going to stop there. Alpine released a new stand-alone 9" LCD unit with three video inputs, I just had to have two of them. They were placed in the front seat headrests, and linked up to the Playstation 2 and VCD shuttle.

Just before the 4 & Rotary Nationals I decided that the vinyl was looking a tad outdated, plus Alpines new line-up of amps had just been released. I now needed to fit four amps into the boot, so it was strip down time for the wagon again! This time a completely solid install was contructed in the boot, using wood, glass and filler to get everything mirror smooth.

The install was completed a few hours before the Show'n'Shine. At this point the sub amp was running at 4ohm, as we hadn't figured out how to run it at 1ohm without overloading. This was resovled shortly after, the amp remote control unit has a couple of extra features which allows for smooth running at 1ohm.

2003 Build

The boot was resprayed twice, with the final spray being a plain burgandy red flowing into a heavy dose of gold pearl.

Another enhancement, which I've wanted to do for a few years now, has finally been completed. The Cosworth conversion saw all the Cosworth running gear transferred from my Cossie into the wagon. I have yet to detail the engine bay.

The new Cosworth font end also recieved a fresh splash of the burgandy red and gold pearl theme.

2004 Build

Early 2004 I managed to get first look into the new Alpine product line-up, and ordered a heap of new gear. First on the priority list was amplification, after previously being limited to 550wrms in Sound Quality competition, I decided on a pair of Alpine MRD-M1000's. The new seasons head unit and sound processor (32 band eq per channel anyone? ;)) were also installed.

While the wagon was stripped down the whole interior was retrimed in a very sexy black and burgandy colour scheme. It set off the audio install and rest of the wagon better than expected. Suspension was also upgraded, with my Bilstein shocks modified to coil-over setup, enabling the wagon to be dropped down for show duties.

It returned from Autosalon Final Battle with three trophies in this build. Now the expectation has been set for the wagon to return in the 05 season, I do have a few plans hatching away and I'll make every effort to get south of the Bombay's.

The weekend after Autosalon Final Battle, the wagon was 'featured' on Motorway Patrol, the clip can be downloaded here.

2005 Build

This year was a very calm year for development of the wagon, mainly due to being based overseas for all but 3 months. I decided to get a small tidy up underway, which involved stripping out and reinforcing most of the boot installation.

A new panel was added to help with the flow of the install in the boot. Also, my front door speakers were replaced after many years of (ab)use, the new Type-X's sound great.

Competition Results

Show and Shine/Event series:

Best Wagon - 4&Rotary Nationals, Auckland - 28-29 Jan 2006
Best Audio Visual - 4&Rotary Nationals, Auckland - 28-29 Jan 2006
Best Custom Audio - 4&Rotary Nationals, Auckland - 28-29 Jan 2006
Best Interior - Autosalon Final Battle, Auckland - 26-27 Nov 2005
Best Install - Autosalon Final Battle, Auckland - 26-27 Nov 2005
This Car Cranked All Show - Autosalon Final Battle, Auckland - 26-27 Nov 2005
Top Judged Interior - Autosalon Final Battle, Auckland - 27-28 Nov 2004
Top Judged Sound System - Autosalon Final Battle, Auckland - 27-28 Nov 2004
Fearsome Ford - Autosalon Final Battle, Auckland - 27-28 Nov 2004
Cinema on Wheels - Autosalon, Auckland - 17-18 May 2003
Hottest Sound System/Ice - Hot Import Nights, Auckland - 1 Feb 2003