01 Explorer (2) AT Strato 18s in a 4th

[slammedincouch]

Lookin good bro! Don't know if I missed it hut is that the warhorse in the explorer!? I like how its comin along!

Thanks! And nah the horse is still in the back of the maliboom and only wired to 6ohms. Even at 6ohms, it does some serious work in there:

Explorer has the ZX2500 in it (somehow I keep ending up with Kicker amps). Might have been able to fit the horse in the explorer, but it'd be a tight fit and I'd have to snag a different sub or a second HDD to wire it up correctly .

oooohhh ok! Yeah I love the maliboom! Damn only at 6ohms and it gets down like that that's sick! The zx2500 is a nice amp to tho!! I like how you did the 2500 in the explorer too, im debating taking out the floor and building a new floor and false floor but im still undecided on what amp im upgrading to so not sure how Imma lay out everything in my explorer yet! I love explorer builds!!

My suggestion is to always leave room for expansion! That 2500 is nearly impossible to get out of there without spending a solid 20+ minutes removing panels haha. Wish I would have made the false floor in sketchup so if you needed a layout to play around with you'd have all the dimensions for it, but shouldn't be too much of a hassle to grab them if you need them.

I can't wait to get started on the suspension though! Thinking about selling the M3 8s I'm never going to use to get a 3" body lift going on her. My sensa track shocks arrive tomorrow and hopefully that's followed by my other 2 tires

[slammedincouch]

Tires?

Check

Sensa Track Load Adjusting Shocks?

Check

Onward to my buddy's shop for mounting, torching the spare tire off, installing the new shocks, twist of the torsion bar, and last but not least an alignment. Hopeully will have it back tomorrow! Super excited and thinking about a 2" BL now...

[slammedincouch]

Sitting nice and pretty now! I'll try and get a video up this week if I remember/find some time/weather isn't too meh

f

Loving it so far though. Rides smooth and I feel a little higher up. Also test drove the 2015 F150s today (reason why my post is so delayed). Pretty nice vehicle, but the body sits kind of low and they gave up some height in the bed. Other than that, it was a nice vehicle. Might consider buying one in a year or two. Future build log? Possibly!

[slammedincouch]

I know a few of you were asking for videos...well I found a few of the previous setups on my phone/computer. Unfortunately a bunch of them just majorly suck lol. Super short and they don't really show much flex or anything (as most of the build was about sound quality and staging), but I'll throw them up as I upload them. Also I held the phone wrong in most of them, so I might need to rotate some of them in FCP.

In the meantime, here's one I forgot I uploaded of the active front stage last winter. Before the fine tuning and the sub (Lvl 5 + M1c was in at this point) turned off:

[slammedincouch]

Quick one I snagged real quick on my way back from getting coffee. Not the loudest song and 3/4 volume, still haz some flex. Little shot of the maliboom in the driveway too

Really need to get that hatch deadened like the old one lol

[slammedincouch]

Sooo...getting kind of tired of the hatch rattle I hear whenever I begin to turn it up...had some time to lay down some deadener, but there's no stopping the locking mech and the glass. Possible new build starting if I sell the current enclosure this week

[slammedincouch]

Just a quick no pictures update. should have the new box design in by next week, so hopefully I'll be kicking off from there. Going to have to work super fast to beat the cold weather, but luckily the garage is cleaned out. Probably going to have the explorer smelling like fiberglass and bondo for a few weeks after as well haha. But yeah. Might have a few small updates here and there with other stuff I'm doing in preparation of the next build. Stay tuned!

[kryptonite]

ugh that rattle is what i'm least looking forward to with mine lol

[slammedincouch]

ugh that rattle is what i'm least looking forward to with mine lol

It's literally the worst haha. I'm hoping you're luckier than I am with it, though this is my second tailgate and it seems to be all the same *sigh*. One more week of it before it's finally gone!

[slammedincouch]

Small update with some pictures:

So I've been super bored and wanted to work on the explorer/do something to get it ready for the next build. While I'm waiting for the box design, I decided to install something that I've had since I bought the headunit

Backup Cam.

As usual, things have to be complicated with the explorer. Blame Ford and my luck. Spent a solid 4 hours earlier in the week trying to get the z120 to switch to the backup camera when I put that bish in reverse with no luck (yes I tapped into the reverse taillight harness and so on). Something is up with the head unit, because the only way to get the backup camera screen to show is to switch the polarity settings, which makes the backup camera screen impossible to get off of unless you do a hard reset. Probably blew the pico fuse when I did it, as I hae a slight alt whine back, but whatever. Very slight.

So at that point I said forget it, this won't work and I would like to see what it's like to see out of the back whenever I feel like it, not just for backing up.

Went to amazon and bought this cheapy eChina "5" inch tft monitor. Forgot to take pics of the monitor, because let's face it, I'm terrible at remembering to take pictures sometimes. The 5 is in quotes because the screen is actually 4.3 ish inches with the case being 5 inches. That's fine though because it will fit into where i decided to put it.

Had to make a housing for the monitor to sit in:

Foiled up

Glassed on

Snap chatted the rest of the pics so fail there. Basically rechopped the piece of the center console that I put the meters in, hot glued things back to it, using some cardboard for the new voltmeter housings. From there, I ran out of glue sticks (only had one to start with) and couldn't find fleece to wrap the console. So, I found some funky duct tape lying around and used that. Resined over it for this:

Would I advise using duct tape over fleece? For anything else unless you're using mat on top of it, heck no. Duct tape is easier to put on obviously, but throwing resin over it like I did still made it super flexible. Not really an issue with the center console/I don't plan on switching this up anytime soon, but do it at your own risk I guess.

Welp, running out of weekend time, so I decided to just leave it like it is. I like the funky look of this thing:

Everything installed in the center console. Yes the screen somehow managed to shift a tad to the right. Whatevs not my show car so cosmetics don't need to be top notch. Just needs to match the worn condition of the explorer.

Backup camera: Threw it here because I don't want to drill into the tailgate. Originally was going to install it under the bumper, but there wasn't enough time int he weekend to do so. I have this plastic cover for the trailer hitch, and because I don't ever hook anything up to the explorer, it's the perfect place. Just need to remember to not step on it when I'm working in the cargo area soon...Anyways, I bought a 3" bolt that's attached to the mount on the bottom of the camera. Why a bolt? Because mounting tape was 12 bucks at lowes. I'm good. $1.24 for the bolt and nut 4 pack.

Mind the rust, I will eventually replace this bumper:

Ran the wires through the car for the camera aka my least favorite job because i always kill my fingers.

And back to the front and the cluster of wires that I'm too lazy to clean up. Spaghetti.

And we're live

Camera mount is a little bent, need to adjust.

And with the lights on

So that's that. Trying to think of anything else I can do while I'm waiting for my designs to be finished up. Apparently there's a polar vortex coming through this week, so if that's the case I won't even be able to get wood. Boo. Will update when design comes in :cool: