The Shitbox build - 151db+ on one DC Lvl 5 18" @36hz!!!

[the_garynator]

Time to post my audio build. I was out of the car audio game for a long time, but last year I started playing around with an SSA DCON 10" for my winter beater and realized I had forgotten how much fun it was. I then ended up playing around with my old RF Punch HX2 8" and soon after purchased a DD 1508. I told myself that I was going to stick with a single 8" so that I wouldn't end up sinking a ton of money into it. Well that didn't last long as I wanted more and an 8" was too much of a compromize, you either get loud or good frequency response. I was thinking about upgrading to a 2508 but found a great deal on a DC Audio Level 5 15" locally. That's where I'm going to start this build thread. Bear with me, there are a lot of pictures to post so I will be doing it over the next few days.

I also consider this a budget build as my main hobby is cars. I'm building an RB26 swapped S13 right now, so most of my money goes there. Here's my build thread for it: http://www.stevemead...y-hobbyproject/

Here is a teaser pic of the current status of the build at this time. I have a lot of pictures to post before I get to this point, so hopefully this tides you over

18" Level 5 M1

Building my box for the 15. 4.5ft3 with 3 4" aero ports, tuned to 33hz:

Installing

hooked up to an oldschool Earthquake 40UHC Gold cheater amp (scored 2 of these from a local pawn shop for a good deal)

my tweeters are Earthquake Screamers. 1.5" dome tweeters with replacable voice coils. These things get LOUD. frequency response: 1000hz to 24KHz

Ordered 8x 8" woofers from partsexpress for midbass, paid $40 shipped for all 8 (free shipping)

Got 2 5" midranges for the doors

Building the boxes for the 8s

8s installed:

Modifying the box, my ports were too close to the back of the box (like 2"), spaced them out and it made a HUGE difference:

Ordered 50 more feet of Knu CCA 0ga:

Got my AP30001D in the mail (yeah yeah, it's crap, but remember, budget build)

installed:

installing my mids:

[the_garynator]

Mounting the crossovers under the glovebox

Added a Deep Cycle from Fleet Farm (yeah yeah, it's crap, but remember, budget build)

More Box mods - recessed baffle:

Clipped the sub and killed a coil...so recone time (side note...i have since purchased a DD1 and I love it!). My 15" recone with TFS dustcap:

Picked up an AP1504 for my tweeters/mids and an AP3002 for my 8s:

Started working on a bracket to mount my second alternator. It's a 125amp from a Nissan Quest:

Amps all laid out

Installing the amps:

More alternator work:

Reconing the sub:

Soldering the leads:

Installed:

Front battery took a crap, picked up a walmart deep cycle for the front (yeah yeah, it's crap, but remember, budget build):

[the_garynator]

Decided to try out a Urethane varnish on MDF...turned out looking fantastic but was a huge pain to do:

Got my hands on a Term Lab (driver's door open, car on, at the dash...43hz):

repositioned the woofers...made a good amount of difference as 4 were no longer firing at each other

Fixing holes...did this at night...didn't need to look pretty as this thing is a heap, but it worked:

My friend and I also found that the rear quarter panels were leaking air bad so we great stuffed them.

also tuned the box a bit higher and made a number of other changes and ended up hitting a 150.5 (driver's door open, car on, at the dash...43hz). By this time the sub had 2 dead coils due to clipping again (still hadn't gotten my hands on a dd1...live and learn right?)

Tons more to come later, so stay tuned.

[the_garynator]

Sealing up the rocker panels. Had to do it from the inside as the holes on the outside were too huge lol.

Sealed up a hole around the antenna

More Great Stuff lol

Back together and sealed up

For some reason we decided to revamp the whole system before going to one of the local competitions. We removed the back seat and a ton of other stuff. We started at like 8pm Friday night and didn't finish until 10am or so on Saturday morning.

Cut out the useless strut bracing (does nothing for rigidity since it's such thin metal and just spot welded, not to mention that it doesn't even connect). Sorry no before pictures, but we did this to allow the box to slide forward more.

Removed the sound deadening to find any holes underneith

Patched a few holes in the passenger floor board

mounting the amps

New spare tire well cover

Getting close

This is where we were when we left for the event. I rode in the passenger seat while my friend drove and I literally hooked up the subwoofer and remote wires while we were on the highway.

Got first place though in Real SPL even after the sub sat in the sun all day and had about .25ohm of additional impedance on top of box rise... was only doing around 2400w clamped at something like 2.73ohms after rise and low voltage due to other issues. Still broke a 150, don't remember exact numbers though. Sub was still only running on 2 coils too:

[Wicks]

Congrats on the win!

Nice job hitting the 50. Hoping I can get there....

Love the two towers of 8's in the back, looks loud!

[the_garynator]

Congrats on the win!

Nice job hitting the 50. Hoping I can get there....

Love the two towers of 8's in the back, looks loud!

Thanks man, it's pretty decent...I've got something big in the works next month...details will come later once I get all of the pictures posted. hint: has to do with 160lbs of subs

I'm hoping to hit a 150 sealed at the dash with the 18 as well as pull off a decent hair trick, I was pretty close with the 15, but the 15 had A LOT of time into the box...luckilly I've learned a lot, so hopefully that makes it a lot faster with the new box.

[Watch the bass]

In the post 3 or 4 above, you said if i can get my hands on a DD 1", maby you find someone near http://www.stevemeadedesigns.com/board/topic/137758-smd-audio-tools-map/

[the_garynator]

In the post 3 or 4 above, you said if i can get my hands on a DD 1", maby you find someone near http://www.stevemead...udio-tools-map/

Thanks, cool link, but I actually own a DD1 now. I didn't have one back when those pictures were taken, that's what I was referring to.

[the_garynator]

Time for some more

Got the 8's back in

One of the things we kept having to seal. The hatch has mucho rust around where the spoiler bolts to it. It's all of the way through mostly. We first tried great stuffing it, but it still leaked. Then we duct taped it, but water was still getting inside. Then I siliconed around the spoiler mounts (used A LOT) and switched the tape to Awesome tape (aluminum hvac tape). As you can see in the picture, single layers weren't enough to keep the pressure in, it kept blowing through (later we found that it blew out the silicone around the center mount for the spoiler. after sealing it up with more hvac tape, we applied more silicone...it's now sealed and sturdy). Also notice the weather stripping we added from walmart around the whole hatch...the hatch still flexes a ton, but at least it stays sealed.

Was driving around and noticed something didn't sound right...after a couple days I went to pull the ports out to swap and found one was detached. My friend and I had an argument about this a few days earlier, i said we needed 2-3 or more layers of tape and he said 1 would be fine, guess which section we decided to try one layer on? lol.

So the 5" mids took a crap (guess that's what you get for $5/each). All i had laying around was a pair of kicker 6x9s. I ghetto rigged them in the doors just to get some more mids...bass is cut to them so the horrible mount job doesn't really make a difference other than looking terrible.

This was the weekend from hell...started on a friday night and iirc, didn't finish till Sunday night.

I had no chop saw, so I built a PVC port cutter out of a cheap harbor freight miter box and some random stuff I had laying around. Works rather well tbh.

Finished port

things got out of hand when I decided to cut down the box and fiberglass resin it. Was cutting it down to make it 3.75ft3 instead of 4.5 and mount external ports.

Inside of the new port baffle:

glassing. Also added a curve to the bottom rear of the box to help direct airflow:

da sanded it down, ran out of time so I just focused on making the port and sub baffles look good since that was pretty much all you could see.

got her installed. tuning frequency = 36hz

Swapping for 43hz ports before another local car show that had a non-sanctioned sound competition. I ended up getting a top 50 trophy for both of my cars (The ChukiMonster (autox car) and The Shitbox) AND I won the sound competition. Hit a 152.7 outlaw in the kick on an audio control (which was actually fairly close to what I hit on my term, maybe about 1-1.5db higher or so, although, I'm thinking the port swap may have hurt me, but never ended up testing for a direct comparison). Anyway, I beat second place by almost 3 db. Second place had a wall with 2 18" subs (still unsure of the brand, they had phase plugs, no idea) in a Ranger. Had a picture of the trophies but I must not have uploaded it to photobucket.

And here's a clue to what I have planned for next month, picked up a second level 5 15

Looks pretty massive next to my g/f

Large Equipment

She likes the big ones hahaha

Getting close to being caught up...one or two more picture posts to go.

[elflako17]

nicee bro.. now when will the 240sx get some work done hahaha