FEATURES
Sound Design
By Eddie Habeck III
Posted on Jan 3, 2006

Don’t even say it - I’ll say it for you. “What the hell??!? Another Civic?” There, got that off my chest. If I get that out of the way right off the bat, we can focus on other important issues at hand, like this Civic Si that belongs to Wayne McKenzie of Clinton MA. Yes, McKenzie owns a Civic, but let me sell you on why it’s featured here.

This isn’t your typical magazine Civic — by typical Mag Civic I’m talking over-the-top everything — paint, crazy molded wide body, 20’s, blah, blah, blah... Seen it and heard it all before. Everything has been done to these cars short of windshields that let you can see through people’s clothes and washer nozzles that squirt Olde English. Lets get back to basics, please.

McKenzie’s not trying to own the show circuit with his ride. He’s an SQ competitor at heart, and built his car, foremost, to compete for sound quality. He also uses it to rep his shop, Advance Audio Designs in Sharon, Massachusetts. McKenzie is no stranger to the car sound world — he started out as a judge for IASCA and in now an SQ judge for S.L.A.P. shows around the Northeast. He even judged my car a few times - ironically, I never won anything at those shows. (I’m playing — I beat the guy whose head unit wasn’t working).

This Civic is a breath of fresh air in the over-polluted Honda population. Nothing is done too much on it, nothing is done too little, and it has just the right amount of upgrades in every category. It’s cool enough to win some awards and practical enough to drive around with his wife Tracy and their daughter Allison out back in her baby seat. I’m not going to venture out and label it a ‘family car,’ but it can handle the duties of one if needed.

The exterior of Wayne’s ride is all about subtle pleasures — no massive wings, body kits, or several dozen stickers here — just a molded Greddy front lip, grill inserts from Grill Crafts, and everything repainted with House Of Kolor Kandy Blue.

“I liked how the paint has a silver flake to it and I also like how it changes colors,” notes McKenzie. “The factory blue had really no depth to it and that’s what I liked about the House of Kolor paint.”

The vehicle is lowered with H&R coilovers and stiffened up with front and rear sway bars from Suspension Techniques, along with a strut tower brace from Greddy. It touches down with 215/35ZR18 Toyo Proxies squeezing the Racing Hart Type CR rims. A basic to-the-point setup. Note to other Honda owners: your car doesn’t need to do back flips in the pike position with a stick landing to have a hot suspension.

Pop the hood, and it’s still all-good — the B16a is gettin’ jiggy with a Vortech supercharger with aftercooler. A few dress up items lurk here and there, and it’s all so fresh and so clean. Headers and exhaust from DC Sports round out the performance. Power is brought down through an ACT clutch and 8lb flywheel.

The interior is the perfect blend of heavy modification and hidden treasures. The key concept here was the use of suede — and lots of it at that - with suede Milano seats up front with the rear seats wrapped to match. Advanced Audio Design also wrapped the headliner, visors, and sunshades in the rich material.

The head unit’s remote was molded into the center console. Doors were all reconstructed to hold the car’s mids, and even more suede was incorporated to make it all match.

Let’s bring it back to the origin of how this car started — of course, the system. An Alpine head unit molded into the dash sends the music to three Zapco amps mounted flush in the trunk and painted to match the car. A Zapco C2K 2.5 powers the kicks, a C2K 3.0 feeds the mid-bass, and a C2K 6.0 pushes the subs. Sound is tuned with the use of an Alpine EQ. MB Quart QTD 25 tweeters are custom-fit into the A-Pillars and MB Quart QSD 213’s are mounted in the kick panels.

“I really didn’t want to lose any leg room, so I made sure that I built the kicks as far out of the way as possible without sacrificing any sound quality,” states McKenzie.

Mid bass comes from Dynaudio MW160’s in the door panels. An MB Quart PWE302 out in the trunk supplies the system’s low end.
Wiring is all from Ixos and it all starts from an Optima yellow top battery under the hood.

“Every piece of the audio product can being quickly accessible and serviceable if needed,” adds McKenzie. “That’s very important in building a SQ car.”

So far, McKenzie’s car has competed at dozens of events around the east coast, mainly SQ Events, with a few import shows such as HIN mixed in.
“I’m pretty happy with the whole car because I did it all myself. except for the actual paint job,” he notes. “I even took the car and the engine compartment apart for the paint job. I just wanted to oversee the whole project. I’m a pretty picky person, so I wanted to do as much as I could by myself.”

Of course, all of this couldn’t have been possible without the support of some key players who McKenzie gives thanks to: His wife Tracy and daughter Allison for their love and support “because we all know that these projects do take a lot of time;” Jeff Smith, Larry Tobey, Keith Doney, Mike Galligan, Bob Rugani at Zapco, Brian Casagrande at Ixos, Ken, Buck, Pat, Leo, Muff, Anthony, Brian at Autobahnd “roadblock” invisible car bra, Select Products, MB Quart, and Alpine.

So there you have it — another Civic with another theme, on some other level. What goes into making a car like this?

“I have about 650 hours into the whole project,” states McKenzie. “Ninety percent of the work is the car audio install. A lot of time went into the thought process.”

Funny how he did such a good job and that his hard work shows so well, but it’s also so stealth and hidden. Magazine worthy, indeed.  <<