started the stereo

ttocs

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Just as I got the stock trans off the car that wicked cold streak hit and made it no fun to be in the garage on the floor with cold steel. To fill the time I started on the subwoofer enclosure because I have the gear and have had a design in my head for a while. With that being said this will probably be a long build as now that its warmed but I am going to get back on the T56 swap but hopefully after that I can return here.

The goal is to build a box for 2 Morel Ultimo 12" subs that will have 4.15 cubic feet of airspace and will still fit through the opening of the trunk that is small and odd shaped. I also have a rear strut tower brace to build around that will make things interesting. Because of the size I am going to have to build the enclosure in 3 pieces that will be bolted together in the car.

The first part of the enclosure to build is the part that will take up the spare tire well that I will refer to as E1 from now on. I made what is called a kerf board that is just a piece of baltic birch plywood that I make repeated cuts every inch that allows it to bend. I could have just fiberglassed the entire bottom but I need to be able to attach the next part of the enclosure to the top of this one so I needed a smooth/flat top that will not flex to ensure that the the joint will seal perfectly.
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I used a quick layer of fiberglass to lock the kerf in place and then made a top that fits nice and tight.
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now never being able to leave good enough alone, I had a piece of 1" cast acrylic that was left over so I decided to make a small infinity mirror display that will look down into the box. I also made an aluminum trim ring that I will polish and the a piece to mount it to with 1/4-20 hardware and foam to seal it all up.
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After that was all mounted in the top, I fiberglassed the bottom of it to maximize how much space it had and built it up to be strong enough. I am waiting on some staples to finish it up tomorrow and then I will be able to attach the top. The next part that was important was that I need to make a hole as big as possible that will go from E1, to the next part of the enclosure I will call E2. Along with that, it needs to be able to seal perfectly between the two and if I need to take it out later I want to have that option. To do all this I started off by figure out the size of the hole I was able to make and then I machined 2 piece of 3/4" HDPE that will work both as an alignment tool to make sure they are in the right place but also to increase the surface area of the sealing area to maximize the seal. One of the nice features of HDPE(plastic cutting board material) is that not much will bond to it so a thin layer of RTV will make a seal but I can still get it apart later.
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I made a rubber gasket that goes between the two.
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I also machined a pocket that the gasket seats into(.03" deep) and installed threaded inserts to use more 1/4-20 hardware to hold E1 and E2 together.
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here the gasket is installed and I also added another touch to the infinity mirror.
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At this point I cut the sides and top for E2 and put the frame of E2 together and put it in car to check my fit(you can see 2 of the bolts holding it together). E2 stops right before the strut tower brace and at that point it will mount to the 3rd part of the enclosure, E3. I wanted to make sure that the calculations I made while trying to remember trig from 25 yrs ago were right so I cut the side of E3 out of some cardboard on the cnc to see if it would fit and matched up with the back seat angle and would make for a nice seal to E2. It will.
rSJcIgA.jpg

More to come please feel free to ask any questions.
 
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ttocs

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I got all the rest of the pieces cut out on the cnc and now I need to go hit my neighbor up(hopefully this weekend) so I can make the 24 degree cuts on the end by the back seat. I am not sure why I am so surprised that the trig I needed to do to find the angle on the seat worked but I am and the angle finder there in the front shows it. I used that originally to find the angle of the seat and then took the measurements from it to figure out the angle.
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The pieces of 1/2" that go around the sides will have a piece of the same 1/8" rubber gasket material that I used to seal E1 to E2 under them to make a nice seal around the outside once the 1/4 - 20 fasteners are tightened down. You can see more of the fasteners that will bolt E2 and E3 together across the back of this shot.
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Here I started on the display side of E2. There will be a piece of 3/4" acrylic that goes across it that the sub will mount to. This sub facing the trunk will be mounted with the magnet inside of the box and then the other sub will be mounted inverted on the other side so the magnet will stick out where the back seat use to be. I hope the acrylic gets here sunday to continue with it.
 

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ttocs

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fuck all that....
I bought a JBL party box 300, toss it in the back seat, bluetooth my phone or hardwire my head unit to it.... problem solved....
its not ghetto bass but it sounds way better than the garbage mach 460 with the top down..... we use them on SXS in the woods and sounds like a roving dancefloor...
Amazon.com: JBL PartyBox 300 - High Power Portable Wireless Bluetooth Party Speaker: Electronics
if ya hate it now just wait till it really gets serious :) This is only the beginning.
 

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I had ghetto bass in my 87 but it was also a hatch so it was much easier to get at and hit ya hard..
I also had it in my shelby which was also a hatch and had T-tops as well. they were both a hoot
 

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So you're doing a push/pull setup? I think they called that compound loading (or isobaric maybe) back in the day. I had two M&M Poly (the follow-up to the famous Godfather) 12s set up that like and they absolutely pounded with just an Orion 275gx pushing them. As far as overall output, I've never had anything that moved that much air. Pretty wild stuff back in the early 90s.
 
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So you're doing a push/pull setup? I think they called that compound loading (or isobaric maybe) back in the day. I had two M&M Poly (the follow-up to the famous Godfather) 12s set up that like and they absolutely pounded with just an Orion 275gx pushing them. As far as overall output, I've never had anything that moved that much air. Pretty wild stuff back in the early 90s.
While one woofer will be facing the front of the car and inverted, and one will face the back of the car and be mounted standard style its just two woofers in a fancy sealed box. Now if I just hook up both woofers correctly because one is backwards that will mean that they will cancel each other out since for every inch one moves forward the other will move the exact same amount backwards. To fix this I will simply wire one of the woofers with reverse polarity and then its just a fancy sealed box. What your probably thinking of is more like a 4th order push/pull enclosure or a bandpass style.
 

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OK I see now. Yeah that box I had they were mounted to each other, one inside and one outside. Craziest thing I had ever seen. CarTronics in Nashville set me up with it.
 
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OK I see now. Yeah that box I had they were mounted to each other, one inside and one outside. Craziest thing I had ever seen. CarTronics in Nashville set me up with it.
at least you took their word there was a 2nd woofer in that big old box huh? Bandpass boxes can put out some amazing sound in the freqs that they are designed to do. I am only going to play these up to 60 hz and then the 9" woofers up front will be playing from 55-150. The morel 12s are supposed to be VERY accurate for low bass and I have heard them described as "transparent sounding" which sounds interesting. I hope with the large box to extend the low end that it will make for a nice blend of sound.
 

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LOL. It was a big ass box.

That should sound amazing - what are you going to use for processing?
 
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The acrylic window will look cool(once I finish the INSIDE of the box now) but unless it has a perfect seal it will not sound good. The best way to do that is with a one piece gasket around the edge so I dragged out my drag knife attachment for the cnc for the 2nd time ever and made one out of 1/8" rubber.
s8bQGoK.jpg

So now I am finishing the inside of the box, designing the window design for the other side and the show that will go on in between them to make it worth looking into the box.
 
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when I found my 2nd sub(Morel ultimo's are not available at local walmart) the guy that had them had the ability to make copies of the stickers on the back of the magnets. I had him make a few to replace one on the sub I already had and have an couple extra for something cool and this fits the bill. I cut the 1" acrylic scrap piece I had so that I can put the stickers on both sides.
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I have some other small scrap pieces left over from the window so I am putting them to work. When lit up from the bottom these should make people want to look through the window into the box.
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When I cut the other window I will have the other two pieces. Hopefully tomorrow I can hook up with a table saw to cut the 24 degree ends I need to finish E3.
 
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ug2NFmU.jpg

I spent some time looking at this pic and I hated how I had to make that hump to hide the strut tower brace and how that will be on display through the plexi window. I decided to make something out of it so I made a pocket in the piece of wood facing the window so I could inlay a piece of aluminum. The idea was to be able to use it as a mirror to see the other side of the sub and then since I had some space I thought I would embellish it a little bit.
I was going to fill those logos with paint but I think I like the contrast of the polished area vs the machined enough that I will leave it. If I feel like getting crazy I might cut the letters out of .1" thick acrylic to inlay in the logos. IT would stand up just above the aluminum but still allow for the machined area to shine through for another small detail.
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The holes above the logos will be for some 1/4" stainless tubing I have left over from the air ride install. I am going to run them up and then through two of these pieces and then over to the other woofer where the wires will come out to attach to the speaker. Again since I could not hide the wires I decided to make it something to look at....
i9WkLGc.jpg
 
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I finally was able to trim the ends and get everything together. Here you can see the trim panel in place. I do not want to put the show pieces in the top of it until they are ready to be mounted to keep from scratching them but I am dying to see them in place.
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This pic shows the clamps I made to go around the outside to hold the gasket to seal the two enclosures together.
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its getting closer and I don't thing it doesn't look too bad. I am almost ready to install the leds and fire the show up.
gKRHq2E.jpg
 
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love it as it just keeps getting better. This was the first time I took the protective plastic off of the plexi. Tomorrow the light show starts.
DZTTrZt.jpg
 
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I got the first stage(of 4) of the lighting installed and I could not resist powering it up. The camera rally doesn't catch everything, but it will do for now.
 
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I got the last led strand installed and I had to finally do a test fit with the speakers for the first time.
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I have been putting all these small pieces together in my head this whole time I never really imagined them all together and it being this busy
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but I wanted to make layers to look through to see the pieces behind it and I think I got that.
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First I love how the speaker wire for the regular mounted sub comes out of the PG/morel mirror inside of the polished pipe and runs right up next to the plexi at the same angle. From there it goes up, through some of other plexi pieces in the middle to hold it and finally back to a boomerang shaped piece I made just to hold the ends of the pipe from vibrating. I have to say I surprised myself a bit there as I am new to hose/pipe bending but I was able to match them up nearly perfectly and the brace on the end is only a 1/4" away from the speaker. I am not how ever looking forward to actually wiring that speaker up as I am pretty sure I will need to do it once the speaker is installed by reaching through the other side of the box... I also love how with both speakers facing the same direction it almost give an illusion that there is a mirror in there somehow. I like the look during the day but love the light show at night.
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Hell its almost time to put it in the car and start finishing it up. All the edges of the plexi will be covered, not sure how I will make that look yet as I have not thought about it yet. I think its time to start thinking.
 

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