C-pillar wall thoughts.

[funky]

Question: Why chip board?

It was recommended by a guy in my area who uses it in his builds. His accura (daily driver) does 156's with a pair of 15's and his Jeep does 65's with a pair of 18's. His logic is that Advantech flooring is the only OSHA approved 3/4" material for 24" studs so it must be solid, and it's much more weather resistant than MDF. The question was brought up in another thread and apart from hearsay nobody really made a compelling argument against it.

Of all the people telling me to use something else, nobody had actually ever experimented with this. Long story short, I've seen a couple very impressive builds using this material, it's available locally, and inexpensive.

The only real difference is density. Particle board or chip board has less density that regular ply and of course mdf. As long as it is thick enough and braced it will work fine for a build. I see that you are going to fiberglass it and that will make it more dense and help with resonance I see no problem here.

[Leo1103]

sanford FL?

Sanford, Maine lol

I'll be getting a few videos of this in 2 weeks

[Awhitewookie]

God I love that amp!

[hispls]

sanford FL?

Sanford, Maine. Florida is a fucking reptile house in the summer, I'll be down there from Thanksgiving til mid February though so you may well see me at a Florida show this winter.

In other news, after much driving and searching I finally found a source for some carpet to finish things off (special thanks to M&C Audio in Portsmouth, NH). Mike at M&C was a real trooper about helping me figure out what color to go with and special order it for me. I felt like a broad picking out curtains or something. In my quest for carpet, I did find a nice little craft store that sold large wool felt pieces by the pound so I picked up a nice bundle of that for any epoxy/glass projects that may come up in the future.

So next Monday I pick up the carpet and can begin to clean things up cosmetically. I have an idea how to seal off the back even better and still keep it so that I can remove everything with just a sawzall if needed.... we'll see how that pans out I also plan to do some testing with the port this week as well. I'm quite confident I'm happy with the tuning as/is but some more testing is in order to confirm, then once I'm 100% certain that'll be made permanent and cleaned up a bit.

[hispls]

So I wanted to seal off the sides a bit better but don't want to do anything permanent to the panels or glass in case I need to get it out (like to move it up to behind the front seats?)

I cut up a trash back and taped it up to make like a pouch to fill with spray foam. Foam is stuck to the trim piece and the side of the box but not to the vehicle. A piece of pipe insulation foam crammed in tight should seal up the top nicely.

Also I had some leftover carbon fiber weave so I put that on the back and bottom (to show through the port)... more strength won't hurt either. And I added a layer of 3/4 to the port with some 45's to lower tuning slightly and add more flare and rigidity to the port walls. Used some well thickened eopxy to secure the pieces together.

Got the amp boards covered as well then some wicked thunderstorms rolled in so I'm probably done for the day. Minotaurs going in tomorrow.

\

[hispls]

Well, I got all the Minotaurs in for the big show up here last weekend and managed a 151.9 @ 44hz. I am going to clean up the back and amp racks a bit more and I need to smooth the port out a bit.

These amps play great. They're far easier on the electrical than the Crown and run cool. I was beating pretty hard and never put one into protect. They're each fused at 60A and I didn't open a fuse all day either burping or playing music.

I expect some work on the port can give me a little more gain. I know I really need more box volume and port area, so I think next year this will get tore down and I'll bring it up to behind the front seats... assuming I don't need the back seats for passengers again next summer.

[Polar-bass]

Hey Buddy. I like the box and port design, and I love the look of those amps. How much power are they supplying you with? You did the same number as my C-pillar wall! Defenitely recommend that you smoothen out that port with some bondo or something, should really help with the airflow.

How about some Videos of this Thing in Action?

[hispls]

Hey Buddy. I like the box and port design, and I love the look of those amps. How much power are they supplying you with? You did the same number as my C-pillar wall! Defenitely recommend that you smoothen out that port with some bondo or something, should really help with the airflow.

How about some Videos of this Thing in Action?

Thanks! Honestly when I built these subs I though I'd be able to bring the wall up to behind the front seats then learned I'd have company for about a month this summer so I'd need the back seat. if I could go back in time, I'd have built them up as 12's and left myself room for more port and better positioning of things. As it sits, the build has pretty well exceeded my expectations.

The Minotaurs theoretically will make 1200W into 2 ohm. As I said, I have yet to open a 60A fuse and I haven't got the coils smelly yet so I think there's some more on the table for me here. Hopefully at the next show I can find someone competent to help me take some voltage and current measurements a the amps and see what I'm really doing.

Way ahead of you on the port thing. I put the inserts in quick and dirty just to see if I liked the tuning and if it left enough port area to avoid turbulence and not lose a ton of output. Tuning worked out great, so yesterday I did some bondo and sanding to smooth them out a bit. I'll probably lay up some carbon fiber in them to get them really smooth at some point as well since I have a bunch of epoxy left. and carbon is pretty cheap if you're not picky about the style/color.

Not much to be seen in videos. The cones move very little with the stiff suspension and small box, doors are well deadened and the roof has about 5 cans of spray foam between the metal and the headliner so that doesn't move much. I saw plenty of people with cameras at the last show so perhaps some will surface on youtube. I'll certainly add links if they do.

Also cut some pieces to fill the sides in the back section and floated the outer amp rack a bit cleaner.

Everything is really dusty up front from sanding. Belt sander makes short work of bondo but is awfully messy.

I had originally intended to carpet the baffle, but opted against it because I suspect it'll lose on the meter. I'm thinking for the effort of making it look clean as it sits I may just take the hit and carpet it, or perhaps throw some vinyl on it which should cover up the rough look.

For the record, front stage consists of Zed Leviathan (the first gen that I bought on pre-order) driving Exodus 6.5's, Anarchy 6.5's, and SEAS Lotus tweets 3 way active crossed over at the amp. Leviathan is under the back seats and has NEVER gone into thermal protect or opened a 60A fuse. Plenty up front for my tastes. Oh, and there's Zed Ra up front that I use for a pre-amp.

Let me take the time to thank Stephen Mantz for all his help and support and actually making the effort to keep pushing new technology into an industry where the status quo seems to be just making the same 15 year old class D design cheaper and putting different brand names on the heatsinks. Few businesses in any industry could boast his level of customer service or personal attention I've got dealing with him over the years.

I'll continue to update with pictures as I do more.

[hispls]

smoothen out that port with some bondo or something, should really help with the airflow.

Initial testing gets me 152.4 now after some bondo, sanding, and paint on the port. A half a dB gain for a half a day's work in laying it up, sanding, painting, then cleaning up all the dust.

Everything I've done so far has been done with the idea in mind that I can un-do it if it doesn't work out, so it's do something, test, then make it permanent and clean if I like it. The port in general isn't totally done the way I'd like it, but initially it was totally removable and I modified it a few times.

Also got the back windows blacked out this week so that things don't scream "STEAL ME" when I'm out and about. I live pretty well in the country, on a private road, and we are all very well armed up here so someone would be suicidal to try anything out here, but I do travel a bit and would rather not push my luck.

[hispls]

Did a 152.6 today legal sealed at the dash. 152.4 is where I limit out before opening 60A fuses... as I get more bold I'll bump everything to 80A fusing and see if I can sneak in a couple more tenths.