This is the Iron Aces mount and some pix... As I said in Part I, I like the look of the mount so I am going to make a clear plastic "shoe" for the mount so it can be seen and use a wedge shape bracket from Pro-clips to mount the iPhone so I can remove and store it when not in use.. Hope it works!

Maybe get to Part IV tonight but the wife is home and I am spinning from trying to keep this all together!!

 

FLTRX Audio Odyssey….. Pt IV - 1


The Rockford Fosgate 300x2 amp came and I was pumped but realized I needed a place to mount it. I had only had the fairing off once to install the HDPDPLUS2 iPod Interface and was thinking I could mount the amp on top of the radio and relocate the iPod interface. But since I had also purchased the Soundstream Picasso PN4.520D Nano Amp I knew I needed some other place(s) to mount them. The top of the radio did not seem do-able without some mods to the radio bracket I was not willing to do and the thought of industrial velcro was not appealing to me so I contacted H-Donut (roadglide.org) as I had seen other posts mentioning his mounts. After some pm’s I decided on 2 mounting brackets and ordered. These came in short order, as did the Picasso amp, and I set about checking clearances and planning wiring. It soon became apparent the Soundstream amp would not fit vertically like the RF (see photos) as the Soundstream was anything but “Nano!” It was a full 2-3 inches longer than the RF so I made a cardboard box slightly larger than the Soundstream and began checking clearances behind the glovebox to the front of the inner fairing. I figured I could get a piece of angle aluminum, bolt it to H-Donuts mount and attach the front of the Soundstream to it and maybe use industrial Velcro on the rear of the amp behind the glovebox.

 

FLTRX Audio Odyssey….. Pt IV - 2

Good thing I did not act on my impulse to purchase 2 inner fairing speakers and set about cutting holes for them as I don’t think I would have fit the Soundstream after that..!
I actually settled on a L-channel “frame” around the Soundstream and attached to H-Donuts mount to provide support for the entire amp and possibly more heatsink area. The clearances were tight and I am glad I had some flat domed buttonhead bolts (like the ones you would find on metal bathroom stall privacy walls) that would barely increase the wall thickness when attached. I used 1/8 inch aluminum angle stock (purchased at Home Depot) and cut it with a hacksaw and large tinsnips, then filed the rough edges as needed. H-Donuts mount extends beyond the plane of the inner fairing sidewall so I measured and cut it so an object (the amp) could extend from behind the glovebox forward past the edge of the mount where I could hyper-bend some L-bracket and make a support “strap” for the front and have it be flat and straight along the plane of the inner fairing. If this all sounds greek just check the pix as I am attempting to include lots of them!
I also used a lot of blue and red locktite, and some double nuts, to make sure I won’t have things falling apart somewhere in the Appalachian mountains!

 

The Soundstream Picasso aluminum L-channel mount being test fit and constructed. I found this part enjoyable. Engineering something from nothing! What fun!

I test fit the fairing several times to check clearances and found my lower L-beam support was riding too low and hitting the fairing. So a slight upward adjustment to the rig and all was well.

 

FLTRX Audio Odyssey….. Pt IV – 4

I set about mounting the RF amp and wiring the power and ground while I let the Picasso’s mounting plan sink in and jell so I could poke holes in it but just liked the idea more and more.
I used 4 gauge wire off the battery, through the sideframe, to beside the cycles fuses and mounted a 60 amp breaker there. (Also, ALL electrical connections got a healthy dose of dielectric grease during assembly) Then ran the 4 gauge wire up the backbone tunnel and into the fairing (it is the blue wire in the pix). The 4 gauge went to a distribution block (leftover from my car install) and split into 2 8 gauge wires to the amps.
It was about here that I learned of the possibility the Soundstream would ‘leak’ RF noise and cause interference somewhere in the FM band. I do not use FM too much so figured I would fix by re-running the cable if needed.
I mounted the RF amp on the H-donut bracket and set about running the wires. The multipin connector on the left of the HD-HK radio is part of the iPod interface hookup so I just removed the 4 pins from the connector (see your HD service manual on how to do this) which carry the rear audio and crimped on some leftover pins (from my last bike) to the speaker-level in leads for the RF. Wish I had some amp or bosch connectors but I did not and wanted to get this ball rolling so I just used shrink-wrap and was done with it. Also, most cabling ended up in automotive conduit, taped with electric tape or vulcanizing tape. (Vulcanizing tape is pretty slick! Cut to length, stretch, and a reaction happens to make the tape not only stick to itself but bond together for a tighter seal than what you can get with electric tape!)

Grounding was accomplished with short lengths of 8 gauge wire to the fairing mount bolts where the H-Donut mounts attached. I am having no problems with this setup!

The blue and red barrels are posigrip connectors. Unscrew the end, stuff the wire in and screw it up tight! Worth their weight in gold IMHO since they can be removed. Used dielectric in there too...

 

FLTRX Audio Odyssey – Pt IV – 5

The power and rear speaker wire run down the backbone. The blue power wire ended up sitting on top of the antenna cable and I was worried about that but did not want to relocate it to the other side of the tunnel as that was where my rear speaker wires ran. (I don't know why I didn't just swap the two .... just never occurred to me.) In test conducted while riding I do not seem to have any interference on our local FM stations but my weather band does not come up now??!! I like that feature and will troubleshoot it later but it may be there was just no weather to be broadcast that day?? I do not know if it is an as needed channel or 24/7.

The rear speaker wire harness was made using some leftover speaker wire from my car install and slipping two layers of shrink-wrap over it for protection. The Hawgtunes rear lids (in a future installment... I told you I got out of control!!) had full harnesses in the box but my speaker wire was a bit thicker so I went with that.

 

FLTRX Audio Odyssey – Pt IV -6

I made the rest of the Picasso framing and bolted it all together…

 

FLTRX Audio Odyssey – Pt IV -7

More pix of the support bracket.

 

FLTRX Audio Odyssey – Pt IV -8

The speaker and power terminals would be shrouded by the glove box so I attached and marked all my wires...

Then mounted the amp in the fairing and began final wiring connections...

The purple wire is amp turn-on. The grey wire is amp positive. The black-ish wire is amp ground. The red wire is amp positive to the RF amp. The blue wire is positive to battery.

In the third picture you see the little wires I am holding.... They are to high level inputs for the Soundstream amp. The red wires are ground to chassie (if needed due to noise) and the other wires are L & R, + & - for each part of amp. I was going to use them until I conferred with UltraNutZ. He convinced me I should put a Line Level Convertor on the HD HK front outs. I was concerned with splitting the High level speaker outputs so I could feed both Soundstream amp sections with the "Front" speaker level outputs from the HD HK. However, because the HD HK is a 2ohm system and what "levels" would be shown to the head unit if they were split? Don't know if this was a valid concern and he recommended the Line Level Convertor. He said although he has heard of others using the High Level outs, a better balance and separation, and possibily stable signal could be had using the convertor. So I took these off and found a convertor locally.

A side note, I remember reading somewhere that the RF amp had autosensing turn on but could not find that in the manual or did not understand what I was reading so I hooked up a purple turn on wire to the RF also. In test prior to putting the fairing back on the RF would not turn off with the ignition switch so I pulled to purple wire and all worked as expected.

 

FLTRX Audio Odyssey – Pt IV – 9

Menawhile behind the fairing…..