Wayne Watkins 2003 Acura RSX

Arguably, multimedia systems have continued to be one of the hottest trends in the mobile electronics industry. A glance through any of our recent issues offers sufficient evidence of this popular movement. Wayne Watkins, however, chose a much different path when building his own demo/competition vehicle, a 2003 Acura RSX. Over the course of two years, he has created a truly remarkable competition audio system to compete in both IASCA and USACI 601+ classes. That's right, an audio system-no video sources or monitors anywhere.

A Little Preppy
To route JL Audio power/speaker cables and interconnects throughout the vehicle, Watkins gutted the RSX to the bare bones. The factory battery was replaced with two Optima Yellow Tops mounted in custom aluminum battery trays under the hood. All power cables were run in the factory frame rails under the rocker panels; the RCAs, down the center of the vehicle along the center console; and the speaker cables, down the roof through the A-pillars into the dash, doors and kick panels. Before reassembling the vehicle, every accessible inch of sheet metal was covered in Dynamat Extreme, consuming three bulk packs of the sound deadening material.

Go To The Source
Up front, the factory double-DIN radio location now holds an Eclipse CD8053 source unit trimmed with a custom smoked acrylic panel that houses the RSX's custom gain controls, status LEDs and switch for the linear actuator in the sub enclosure (more on this later). No additional processors were required as the Eclipse features built-in crossovers, time alignment and equalization. For additional convenience, an Eclipse 5083 CD changer is tucked behind the rear seat.

For a powerful yet accurate front stage, Watkins created a 3-way system utilizing the doors, kick panels and dash for driver placement. Focal 165K2P 6 1/2" drivers were installed in custom fiberglass inserts on the door panels. Watkins also built custom kick panels to house the 4" midrange driver from the Focal 100KP component set. The tweeter was flushed into the factory dash location. Both the door and kick panels feature color-matched silver trim panels with yellow accents and custom-made clear acrylic speaker grilles to protect the drivers.