DC LVL 6 2010 Mustang GT *TL Scores pg.73*

[MarioB]

Ah damn i thought you had the pic. Rusty had to send you a teaser pic himself.

[OrionStang]

Ah damn i thought you had the pic. Rusty had to send you a teaser pic himself.

lol. Yeah I was a little sad to not have build pics of it. But i'd rather have Rob building it than snapping photos.

[FieroGrande]

Well sounds like ur not going to have an issue with traction for ur car with the added weight.

[Ray]

Nice.

[corona_jeff]

I would open it up on the spot when fedex drops it off. When mine came u told the driver i wasnt signing for it until i opened it. They really beat the box to hell when it arrived

[appi]

nice work

[armykyle1]

Looking good, are you going to put helpers or bag in the rear to get rid of the sag? Or drop the front

Are you going to be competing? I know down here they can be sticklers about modifying trunks, but it all looks within the trunk,

[OrionStang]

Well sounds like ur not going to have an issue with traction for ur car with the added weight.

It definitely helps. I've had fun the last couple weeks with the back of the car stripped, though.

Nice.

Yessir!

I would open it up on the spot when fedex drops it off. When mine came u told the driver i wasnt signing for it until i opened it. They really beat the box to hell when it arrived

I think i'll take that advice. Don't want to open it later to find it damaged.

nice work

Thank you.

Looking good, are you going to put helpers or bag in the rear to get rid of the sag? Or drop the front

Are you going to be competing? I know down here they can be sticklers about modifying trunks, but it all looks within the trunk,

Once everything is in, i'll drop the front. Nothing in the back, no need. I will be competing this year in dbDrag SS 1-2 class. Anything behind the b-pillar can be modified.

[KlrStng]

I just finished reading your build thread and I wanted to comment on a few things. I just signed up for the forum, this is my first post. I was directed to this website by my girlfriends son, who I helped this past summer with his system, and he recently posted about it here. I was a pro installer for about 9 years back in the 90's, and although I don't do much these days, I try to help out with a system every now and then. I am no longer up to speed on the products out there, I am "old school" where companies like Soundstream, MB Quart, Orion, PPI, Phoenix Gold, and Rockford Fosgate were the best of the best. So much has changed since then, but the basics are still the same.

I particularly wanted to comment on your thread because for the last few years, up until 2010, I was a mustang owner and dumped a PILE of money into my car. I had a 2006 GT convertible quite modified. I didn't pay too close of attention to the timeline on this thread, but it seems to me that your idea of a supercharger sort of faded away. I understand, when you consider the cost. A professionally installed Kenne Bell will easily run $9k all in, more with supporting mods. I had a Kenne Bell 2.6l polished supercharger in mine, installed it myself, and had a blast with it. I had sort of an inside connection and was able to get the supercharger kit for manufacturers cost from Jim Bell himself. Saved a pile of money, and when I got divorced and had to sell the car, I was able to pull the supercharger and sell it for what I had into it. I ran the basic 8.5 psi stage 1 kit and made 440 hp to the rear wheels. If I had kept it, I would have added the stage 2 throttle body, gone to a 10psi pulley, and done a custom tune that should have netted me about 30 more hp, safely and on pump gas. KB claims 501rwhp on the stage 1 kit, but it is totally unrealistic and most people hit between 430 and 450 rwhp with that kit. That equates to around 520-540 bhp. Not bad for a 4.6 litre motor. If you decide to do a supercharger, definitely go with new upper and lower control arms, LCA relocation brackets, an adjustable panhard, and lowering springs. It makes ALL the difference in the world in both handling and traction. I added torque arrestors to the transmission to keep it aligned under power, and I never missed a shift after that.. great investment.

With the added weight from your stereo, traction shouldn't be a concern anyway, but without the relocation brackets for the LCA's, the car will squat on launch and that means less traction and you look like a hoopty when you take off... I was running 20" wheels and being a convertible, between the wheels and the extra weight of the vert and structure, I had about 400 more lbs than you have empty, and I could still run a 12.9 in the quarter at 7000 feet AD.. At sea level that would equate to about a 12.4 or 12.5 second quarter mile, WITH your stereo.. Pretty damn fast. Stick with the 3.73's, I started with 4.10's and moved down to 3.73 - much better with a supercharger, particularly a PD supercharger.

For the audio system, I don't have too much to add. I wonder why you didn't consider 3 10's? You know, you don't have to have them all in one box.. you have the room there for 3 individual 1-1.3 cube boxes pretty easily, and strap them together once in.. 50% more cone volume over your 2 10's means 1.5 db, plus going to the bigger amp meant another 1-1.5 db.. that would have kicked you over the 140 mark. I do question going back down to a single 12. Rear firing like your first setup should be louder as you were loading the port and woofer against the back of the car. Yeah, you added a lot of rattling and probably lost a little energy to the body panels, but you probably gained 2db from the load, which would explain the same numbers from the single 12 to the 2 10's.. you increased power by 50% and cone volume by what, about 30%? So about 2 db is all you could expect in gain anyway, and you lost that by not loading the woofers and port against a solid surface. Have you thought about downfiring? I know you have size restrictions, but I bet it could be done, and probably gain you a little output.

That being said, if it were me, going for the most output, I would have moved to a 3 10" setup, individual boxes, and downfire them all. If you closed off the sides and back of the risers and only left the front of the box open toward the front of the car, you can easily seal it off from the trunk, still have the woofers loaded against a surface, increase you cone volume 50 - 80 % over your previous systems, and with the increase in power from your first 12, have a measurable 4-6 db gain. Seems a great way to go. Just my opinion though.

Looks like you just found an outlet for baltic birch.. I was going to recommend a cabinet shop or lumber supply store. Baltic Birch is only made in 5x5 sheets. It's a russian thing.. Tough to come by a better plywood though, but to be honest, I worry that the light material will have a bit of a "ring" to it.. I always found that with plywoods, so I always stuck to MDF, and always added some dacron for damping inside the box. Dacron fill is so much better than poly as it won't clump up and will retain an even density. Kills a lot of resonant reflections in the box when you have parallel sides too, as well as makes the box seem a little bigger to the woofer yet doesn't decrease power handling. Usually will drop your tuned frequency by a small amount as well. As to the tuned frequency, I would not go below 34hz personally.. 30 is a little low, especially if you want to see some better numbers.

The other alternative was mentioned here - 4th order box.. remember, every time you jump an order, you gain approximately 3 db at your tuned frequency. Of course you lose roughly 25% of your power handling, but when cone volume is your restriction, a 4th order bandpass box would be like jumping from 2 10s to 4 10s. Your idea to put the box further back and tunnel it in to the cabin will likely give it some gain, similar to a 4th order box, but the real gain comes from loading the woofers, so don't expect more than a db from it - plus your tuning might change a little.

I never got a chance to do the system I wanted to in my stang, and to be honest, I was hesitant because it was already a 4000 lb car and I didn't want to add too much more to it (I liked going really fast, and lighting up the tires in 3rd gear at 65 mph). It was a noticeable change just adding a 200 lb passenger. I probably would have gone conservative and targeted sound quality over decibles, particularly as I get older.. my hearing is damaged enough from my years in car audio.. too many hours spent listening to 145+db systems, and too many run-ins with 150+. These days I like crisp highs, midbass that hurts your chest, and just enough sub to make you feel like there is some power there. I prefer the flash of the install over the raw power, and the last system I did was a fiberglass enclosure, something I did to "scratch that itch" since I never got a chance to do it in the mustang.

Anyway, I applaud your efforts with this challenging car. Good luck in getting the most out of so little cone volume. It is frustrating as the diminishing returns get so tough to realize. My last big personal system when I got out of the business was 4 10s in the bed of a little 94 toyota pickup loaded into a central tunnel that was ported into the small cab, running off a Soundstream Class A 10.2.. only about 1800 watts at .25 ohms, but that was before class d amps, haha.. It acted a bit like at 4th order enclosure that was tuned at about 30 hz, even though it was a sealed setup that should have been tuned at 42 hz. The result was 144db at 30 hz in the last contest I did (147 with windows cracked). Not bad for "old school". It sucks that it would take 4 more 10s or another 1800 watts of power to go from 144 to 147.. So little gain for so much money.

If you need any advice on the performance side, feel free to ask, I am pretty intimately familiar with the 4.6 and the S197 chassis. I doubt I would have much to offer on the stereo side, it seems you have that well under control. Good Luck

Dave

[OrionStang]

Wow. I think thats the longest post I actually read all the way. Thanks for taking interest.

Cost is not the delay on boosting my car. I keep going back and forth in my head about the warranty implications if I do it. Not worried too much about the motor, but the transmissions in these can have issues. It'll happen eventually. That being said, it is surprisingly quick from the factory. Opening up the exhaust and getting my flash tune dialed in really livened it up. The 3.73's are factory, so they're staying. Control arms, drive shaft, and clutch/flywheel will get done with the power adder, gotta wait to see how the car loads with the system in before tackling springs.

As for the system, 10's didn't do it for me. Not just on the meter, I like the sound the 12 had better. And it will be 2 12's in the future, that's all I can do without a wall. Oh and the tuning of the new box is 34, but I may raise that a little after plotting the design using bassboxpro.