2004 Pontiac GTO

[GTOguy]

I need to get this box for my 12's in haha... I rode in my friend's Avalanche with essentially a blow-through with 2 10" Memphis Subs which I thought was similarly loud to my car with 1 15. I was just wowwed by it today so hopefully my box comes in soon.

[GTOguy]

Ok got my car playing on a temporary system. I'm pretty impressed with these Pioneer's for under $50 they are pretty descent. That said I am still missing the way the 15 keeps hitting hard on way lower stuff. I tried playing some decaf and was not nearly as impressed by these particular 12's. I also don't want to push these too hard right now because I have a friend who I am 95% sure is going to buy all of this off of me (amp, subs, box and my old line out converter) when I figure out/start building what I am doing next for my car. So the bass boost is turned down to half way.

Ok gonna throw some thoughts around right now:

So my thoughts on possible new set ups:

1. 1 15" DC Audio XL on a 2000 watt amp and then decide on mids and highs and stuff later and yes I will do all supporting mods necessary i.e. batteries upgraded wiring blah blah blah.

2. 2 8's either mounted on my back shelf or directly under it in between my gas tank and back shelf. I would probably run a 5 channel amp with this and upgrade all my door speakers. A couple people on ls1gto.com have done this and seem to be quite happy but I don't know what they are looking for in car audio I'd guess something "loud enough".

3. Combine the two ideas. 2 8's under my back shelf in a ported box tuned semi-high. 1 15 in a typical ported box tuned pretty low. Install a bass amp and a 5 channel. I really like the idea of this. In this case the rear shelf speakers will be removed from the shelf so air and sound can freely pass through to the interior.

I talked with my dad and he's against me doing any build until I finish my senior year of high school... So this most likely won't happen until I am out of school for the summer but I may start collecting the parts for the build now once I figure out what I want to do.

Other good news spawned from other bad news: My grandfather passed away in the spring and he was a bit of a handyman. My grandmother did not know what to do with his tools so she has been offering for me and my mother to go out to the garage and pick up whatever we want pretty much. So far I have picked up a slightly old router that still works wonderfully, a circular saw, some small wire cutters, several clamps, saw horses, and haven't even brushed the surface of what is there. So I think I will actually have the tools to figure out how to build a speaker box right. What tools otherwise should I look for if I want to build a speaker box right? I am planning on picking up an electric sander the next time I visit.

What else should I look for?

I saw a multimeter that looked pretty nice but also looked semi-old would it be worth picking up?

[bassrace]

Get the dmm.

Router

Jigsaw

Circular saw

Tablesaw

Drill

Drillbits

Allen wrenches for amps

Sockets for car bolts

Any pliers for everything

And any/all clamps

Sanders

Just to name a few things...

And I say option 3 sounds pretty sweet.

[GTOguy]

I thought I was good til I started my full build....

So the 12's were suiting my desire for bass pretty well... And one blew... I don't understand how. Each sub is rated at 250 watts RMS and 1200 watts max. My amp is rated at 400 watts RMS. The volume had not even turned up loud yet... This really annoys me but I guess I should have expected that from only a $50 sub.

How does this happen?

Hopefully Meijer will honor their insurance/warranty policy especially since it blew not even a week into having it playing.

[GTOguy]

I decided to take my trunk carpet out just to look at my space and speakers under my back shelf just will not happen. I measured it and there is a 3 inch gap in between my shelf and gas tank so that plan just won't work as I initially thought.

I still love the idea of varying sub sizes and tuning frequencies and I know it will be hard to have this work in a car like mine because I will always be fighting against the space I have available to do the install.

I measured the space on the drivers side of my trunk and it has more space because the fuel door is on the passenger side of the car. The space I have is from my wheel arch to my brake light as long as I keep the enclosure behind the trunk lid arm. I think I may have enough space to run a small sub or 2 in this location.

I was originally thinking about maybe putting a large battery in this location when I needed another battery. Instead of this location I decided to measure some space under my spare tire in my spare tire well. Then compared those measurements to some batteries' dimensions on Audiosavings.com and I think I could probably fit 2 or 3 small batteries in this area while keeping my spare tire (which I need to keep the cars my DD and I need a spare tire).

Would putting batteries here be a bad idea?

I'll post some pics of what I looked at when I get a chance to put them online.

[GTOguy]

the stock "subs" 6.75" speakers. and the area I was going to put the 8's but that will not work. I don't know how my camera distorted the view like this:

the area I am thinking about putting something small now:

spare tire where I am considering putting small battery(s)

Question?

If I pursue this what should I tune the boxes to? I've just been playing around with Torre's Box tuning calculator and just kind of want to see what numbers I should aim for.

I'm guessing fairly low on the 15 like 32 hz. Does it need to be lower? Higher?

I have no clue what to tune the 8 or whatever to. What is too high and what is too low?

[bassrace]

Techforce "Rick" is the only person I know about running diff sized subs and worked well, (not saying no one else has done it) in the frankenstein. But I prob would'nt tune that low with the 15's being it's in a trunk and you dont have any fold down seats or anything soo I would assume it would slow down the waves quite a bit. I'd tune around 34hz if it was me.

Now if the 8's would be for midbass then that's a whole nother story.....

[GTOguy]

Techforce "Rick" is the only person I know about running diff sized subs and worked well, (not saying no one else has done it) in the frankenstein. But I prob would'nt tune that low with the 15's being it's in a trunk and you dont have any fold down seats or anything soo I would assume it would slow down the waves quite a bit. I'd tune around 34hz if it was me.

Now if the 8's would be for midbass then that's a whole nother story.....

What got me into car audio stuff was watching stuff about it on youtube and I have seen several of techforce's videos of his expedition on there and was kind of wanting to try to build a miniature version of that. I would like to try to figure it out. I looked at one of the posts about "Frankenstein" on here and he said 1 box is tuned to 28 hz and the other is tuned between 32 and 34. I think I would probably tune higher on both boxes.

[bassrace]

I always personally liked that car too, and the fact it was running AQ. I would shoot him a pm hell I'm sure he'd give you some pointers.