Loud & Low 8th Gen Civic - UBL #3 - The Final Chapter - Up to date

[scooter99]

Now that those are setting up, I'm back to the buss bars and battery racks.

Used some 3 in One oil for lube.

1/4-20 tap in the drill.

Set the speed on low. I had put the clutch on 3, but that didn't work out. It ended up being way to low.

And then went to work. It took me 20 minutes to do all 4 bars. It took me 20 minutes per hole by hand the night before. I'll post a video on this later.

Then I fired up the grinder and the wire wheel and brushed them up a bit. Brushed on the right, non on the left.

Then I got to making some hold downs for the front. These will hold the batteries from sliding out. And also some brackets to attach to the car up on the top behind the hold downs.

Brackets for the bottom.

[scooter99]

Drilled out a couple holes for the brackets and some threaded inserts.

Only one fit. The other one was a couple layers of metal and was too thick for the insert. But even with one it's pretty solid.

Screwed the rack in place up top.

Then on the bottom.

Then I added the spacer in the back to hold up the rear of the bottom battery.

Added a couple of inserts for the bottom hold down.

And did the same for the driver side. Now it's time to put the batteries in and buss bars on.

Driver side batteries in and hold downs on.

And buss bars on.

[scooter99]

Passenger side done.

Overall passenger side view.

Overall driver side view. Next up is the cabling.

So that was my weekend. Very productive. Lots more to do though. More to come this week.

[scooter99]

So here's how my weekend started. Friday night I got home and put a tarp up so I could work in the monsoon that was about to hit us. Literally rained all weekend. But I had to get work done.

Also this was my list of things that needed to be done before next weekend. Lots of work to do.

I didin't get nearly as much done as I wanted to this weekend. My wife came down sick, so I had to do family stuff to make up for her being down, as well as this. So I couldn't be 100% devoted to this like I wanted too. I was also slowed down today (sunday) because I woke up feeling terrible. Plus other issues. So it was not as productive of a weekend as I'd have liked.

Last week I think I ended up with the battery racks being mounted up, and pretty much done except wiring. I had also did the doors I think. I'm doing about 4 different projects at once right now, so it's a little jumbled around. I'm trying to keep it all straight. So let's start with the doors. not much was done on therm. But we'll start with last week and move into the weekend.

So after it was was left overnight to dry on the front side, the next step was a little reinforcement on the back side. These are pics of what the panels look like before the glass was added. Lots of gaps etc.

Added a couple of layers of glass in the tweeter area, and the upper part.

And poured some resin in on the bottom parts and the ends.

[scooter99]

Also Thursday afternoon, I got started on the trunk lid amp and processor rack.

Pulled off the trunk lid trim panel to get it ready for the amp and processor rack.

This was an old trunk lid that I was going to use, then sold it, and UPS screwed it up. I just never got rid of it. Glad I didn't because it's going to help me now.

Taped it off so the trim panel wouldn't stick to the lid.

Got some measurements taken.

And then cut some 1/2" birch. Wanted this to be as light as possible.

Using tape I made some cut lines and then used the air saw to cut my areas out.

[scooter99]

Had to go a little more as you can see. But that's ok.

Then put the board in place and CA glued it to the panel.

Sits pretty flush with the panel.

Then i cut some chop mat to get ready to glass.

People have asked me how I got the resin black. US Composites sells a pigment that you just simply mix in with your resin. Turns it whatever color the pigment is. So I started layering the glass.

[scooter99]

Thursday night it was time to sand and get ready for filling.

Rage extreme. NEver used this, but I'm in love with Rage Gold so I figured why not.

Got both panels done

But only sanded one. Came out well. Have some spots to fill in still and sand a bit better. Also still trying to figure out how I want to finish them. I'm thinking vinyl now. But it's going to depend on time and money.

I forgot about Wednesday night. Wednesday night I decided to get the subs addressed.

Time to extend the sub cables. I wanted to take the old 8ga off and re-solder some new SHCA longer cable on, but apparently soldering the tinsel leads are a bitch. So, I came up with a different way. Or at least I thought I did.

These are some copper crimp caps. You can get them from home depot.

Two cables stripped long enough to fit two caps on.

And I crimped them with my lineman's pliers.

A little heat shrink and they're good to go.

Did a test measurement to make sure they were good.

[scooter99]

Another one just to show again.

Heat shrink

Done.

Now we have long enough leads. It't not what I wanted to do, but it'll work ok when the techflex is on it.

Both subs done.

Next I got my little assistant and got ready to load the subs. She's going to load, I'm going to screw them in. LOL

The resting place. Some foam tape to seal them up.

One.

and both. LOOK AT THAT ASS!!!! WOOOO!

The fronts are pretty sexy too!!

[scooter99]

Saturday.

Brought the bench vise inside the shop, because it was raining and supposed to rain all weekend. So I'll be soldering amp cables in here.

Got the SHCA 1/0 ga out. 4ga in the back, but that's for something else.

Got my tool chest of SHCA terminals and shrink out too.

First thing I had to do, was move this bundle of cables. Why was I needing to do that? Well I was actually going to put the fuse holders there, but they ended up being too bulky. May still be a possible spot after everything is DD1'd and tuned, but for now, it just wasn't going to work.

SO there's a cavity along the back wall and I decided that would be a great place to put this harness. I got some old roamex out to fish with.

Ran a piece of rope through it.

Then used that to pull the harness through.

Nice and tucked away.

[scooter99]

So this is the spot I decided on for my fuse holders. I was going to use these two here for each 3500, and then put the other one somewhere else, for the 4 channel amps, but I apparently have lost or misplaced my dual inputs for the second amp. So I'm going to have to go with single runs for now, and maybe go to duals later on.

Let's make some cables. Starting with the ground run.

Soldered on some terminals, put some techflex on and some SHCA Orange shrink. BAM!

Next is the positive side.

One amp pos and ground done.

Time for the second one.

Both amps pos and grounds are ready.