Black Beauty Project Build - 06 Ford F-250 Super Duty **1/27/18 - New pics starting on page 41**

[scooter99]

So, the SDU may be on hold for a little bit. I tried to make a couple of end panels, but it didn't work out so well yesterday. They may work for now to get set up and maybe get an idea of layout, but I have to try and source some or have some made. I've been in contact with Andrew from Ampere, since he's who I bought the amp case from, and he's going to see what he can do, but for now I may be dead in the water. I may be able to do a few things to get it semi ready for the end panels, but I'm not sure how much. We'll see how things go. I have a couple of ideas, I know I'm never short on ideas, it's just a matter of if they'll work or not.

Hopefully I can have some sort of update for you all soon. I've also ordered a few things for the finish of this as well. Bought some terminal blocks, amplifier style, for power ground and remote in and multiple outs. Bought a couple of breakable boards so I can solder up the components the way I want like I discussed before like the LED's, Gain knob, etc. I believe at the moment that's all that I am waiting for. So hopefully those will be here real soon. I can't really mock up that side until I get the components put on the boards.

Sorry, I was moving there for a minute but things are seeming to stall quickly. I may have to put this project aside and jump back on the dash and get that worked on again. Lots to do on that bad boy.

Something will happen this weekend. I just don't know what.

[bsneon98]

Badass tuned in!

[scooter99]

Thanks bsneon98. Hopefully I can have a little more to work on with this soon. I'm waiting on parts and possibly some end panels. Although I think I've found another way to make it happen.

I did do some stuff this weekend, as promised. I just didn't post pictures of it.

So I am contemplating a couple of different sub enclosures. I have the 2 DC XL15's that I'm trying to off load, but at the same time I'm not in a big hurry. I don't really want to cut the cab for a blow through, I'm sure I've said that a few times on here. I just haven't been able to convince myself to do it yet. However, I know that I'm either going to have a 10" Ampere Audio sub for the center console, or I'm going to have 4 of them for the rear seat.

This weekend I was doing some stuff around the house, and my daughters came up to me and asked if I was going to build anything this weekend that they wanted to help. Naturally this made me happy, so I decided to design a sub enclosure for the 10. This will tell me how it would sound before I make my final decision on which direction to go. I also couldn't just do a standard enclosure right? I decided to mess around with some kerfing. Little bit of fail, little bit of problem solving, and a lot of learning went along with this.

That's what I did this weekend. Didn't finish it due to putting too much glue in the kerfs, and with it being cold it didn't dry real well. But it's all good, we have plenty of time. SO I'll get pictures of that progress up tonight hopefully.

ENCLOSURES!!

Ok so I've designed the 4th order blow through for the XL15's. I did it based off of an enclosure I had made by RAM Designs. I basically used the air space that the suggested, and just redid the design. Not quite done with it yet, there are a few tweaks left to work out.

However, the one I want to do mostly is the rear seat enclosure. I'll just throw this up here and see what everyone thinks. I'm not sure if I can pull it off or not. I have to learn to weld, first off, and then after that I have to figure out how to put it all together, make it work, and get the air space I need. Then figure out how to make it functional as a seat still, and be comfortable.

REAR SEAT DESIGN IDEA:

Ok so this is what the idea is. Remove the rear stock seat.

Next I want to lay down a fiberglass base on the floor and up the back wall. This will be approximately the same width as the seat itself.

Next, this is where I need to learn to weld, I want to weld up a steel frame that will go along the floor, front to back, side to side, and up the back wall. This needs to be in the spaces that the stock seat was in, so that the stock bolts can be used to attach the enclosure. There needs to be the seat angle for the seat bottom so the same feeling is there as if the stock seat were in place. Then the frame needs to be made into a cage.

The end result will be an enclosure that will house 4 Ampere Audio 10's and be ported. I will utilize fiberglass and wood along with the steel so it will be strong for the subs and more importantly the safety of riding and being functional.

The seat itself. I said before, I was removing the stock seat in step one. I have already removed the cover and padding for the stock seat. It's pretty straight forward. My hope is, and I'll have to pull the seat and try this out before I can do anything else, that I can just remove the padding, and the stock leather, and then make it a seat cushion instead of a seat with the metal integrated. So basically a seat pad that just sticks to the seat itself. Just for comfort and looks. Has no structural or safety value at all. Same with the bottom cushion. My hope is to remove the padding and the leather covers from the seat frame, and make them into the cushions for this enclosure seat. I can use heavy duty velcro to make them stick to the enclosure. Seat belts will be there as if stock.

In the end, I'd have 4 10's facing forward on the bottom of the seat with a center port, and the entire seat as an enclosure, and still have it functional and safe as a stock seat.

I say center port, because there's a hump in the center of the floor. There's no rhyme or reason for the hump, I've looked under the truck and it's a long way away from anything. Really same thing with the whole under seat floor, with exception of the two seat ends, they bolt into the frame. But essentially, I could cut the floor out under the seat, drop it down to the same floor level with the front of the seat, dropping it about 3", and welding in a new floor. But if I'm going to go through all that, why not just do the blow through right? SO I don't know 100%.

One way is easier, the 4th order blow through, while the other one is a lot more work, and would take much longer, but would be completely out of the box and much more my style.

I'd love to hear some thoughts on this. It's a long way off before i get to this, but I still would like to hear what you all think. Thanks!

[boom50cal]

Are ya sure you would need to utilize the entire seat structure as an enclosure, scott? I have a friend, that in an 06 or 07 F150, did 4 10's as the bottom seat, ported forward.

I know your building skills are a lot more advanced, so you could pull more space out of the bottom. Plus, the rear folding seat back would give you space to put your amps, I think.

[scooter99]

I don't know. I don't want the top to be hard like that. I want the cushion if I do it. I'm not sure what I'm looking at for space to be honest with you. Also, those F150's have a lot of room under them. Where as the Super Duties do not. I'm going to have to play with it and see where I can get with it. I don't want the seat jacked way up, and doing it the way I'm thinking in my head, I'm only going up about 3-4". This is where the seat back would come in for the enclosure because the thinner the bottom is, the more space I'll need out of the back.

As far as amps go, I have a couple of ideas. I have the 2 3800's which is well over what I'd need for these, but I'll have them already. If I do the rear seat thing, I'll be nixing the center console sub. I won't need it. Maybe. So my idea for amp placement is, the 3800's will go in a custom amp rack on the floor in front of the rear seat. Then I'll make a custom center console anyway for other purposes. I can either put the 2 150.4's and the SDU in there with sliding drawers that slide toward the rear seat, or I can do a custom mount on the back of those for the SDU, behind some plexi or something cool, and then do the 150.4's in the front doors when I do the door pods on those. I have options basically.

Right now, the temp enclosure I'm working with, is about 1.2 cu ft ported to 38hz. So that's what I'll need for the new enclosure. Each sub is about .19 cu ft. (total of .76 cu ft), and then each get's about 1.2 cu ft of space (4.8 cu ft) and then bracing and the port of course. I don't know what that would be but let's just say I need around 6-7 cu ft just to throw out a number.

SO it'll be interesting. I'll see what I can come up with on Sketch up in the next couple of nights and see if I can pull it off or not. I'm not holding my breath, but it would be sweet to make it happen.

[scooter99]

Ok so I did some quick numbers everyone. I'm still trying to decide which way I want to go. I'll break it down for you and let me know what you guys think.

This is for the rear seat enclosure only. 4 AA-10's (1500 RMS per) on 2 AA-3800.1's. Looking at porting with 2 6" aero ports. Part of this is for my own reference as well. That way I can come back to it tonight while I design it and see what I was talking about.

Doing some quick numbers, using the area under the seat, as well as where the seat currently sits (this would raise the seat up about 4") combined with the area behind the seat back I come up with 6.65 cu ft of space.

Sub displacement is approximately .76 cu ft (.19 per sub x 4 = .76)

6.65 - .76 = 5.89 cu ft

My desired amount of space per sub is 1.20 cu ft. Total of 4.8 cu ft (1.20 x 4 = 4.80)

5.89 - 4.8 = 1.09 cu ft

That leaves me 1.09 cu ft for enclosure frame, wood, and the ports. Not much! On the frame I did a quick drawing and came up with 770 inches of material needed. The amount of volume per 12" is .02 cu ft (1.5 * 1.5 * 12 = 27 / 1728 = .015625 so I rounded to .02). 770" broken up into 12" sections is 64 sections. .02 cu ft x 64 = 1.28 cu ft. Now I figured I'm missing something, cross bracing etc. So I just decided, to round up to 1.50 cu ft for the frame itself. Just the frame!

1.09 - 1.50 = - .41

Port displacement is approximately .29 for both ports. if I do one port, it's way less than that. According to the Precision Port Calculator on their website, 1 6" port would be 5.45" long and 2 6" ports would need to be 14.29" long to achieve 36hz tuning.

-.41 - .29 = - .70

If you divide that up into 4 parts that is what is needed to subtract from each subs air space.

.70 / 4 = .17 cu ft

subtract that from the desired air space.

1.20 - .17 = 1.03 cu ft of air space per sub. So at this point that leaves out any of the wood that I'd planned on using for support and strength between the frame. Just to be through, if I did decide to do the wood anyway, it would be approx. 1.09 cu ft extra inside of the enclosure. I could go outside of the enclosure I guess, I was just trying to keep the seat from raising as much as I could. It would already be going up 4" higher than it currently sits right now. Another 3/4" may not be a big issue, but it might also.

My other thought was to weld expansion metal on the outside of the frame, and then fiberglass over it on the outside. Then on the inside of the frame, I'd fiberglass it with a few layers to really seal it up, and strengthen over the metal.

The only wood at that point would be the sub baffle on the front.

So right now to do the rear seat enclosure, I'm looking at approximately 1.03 cu ft per sub, ported by 2 6" aero ports, tuned to approx 36hz.

So that's what I've figured out.

The other part is subs. I have one sub right now AA-10, and it's a dual 2 ohm. I had only planned on using one when I bought it. So if I go that route, and buy 3 more dual 2 ohm subs I'd be looking at a .5 ohm load per amp using one amp per pair of subs. I think that's probably a bit much on these subs, so I could always gain down on them although I have no idea how to figure out how much I'd be sending each sub.

If I go with dual 4 ohm subs, I'll be running a 1 ohm load per amp, which I'm fine with. That just leaves me with another sub. I could still use it as a center console mid bass sub I guess. I have it.

See here's a picture of what goes through my mind daily! ADHD IS A BITCH!!!!

[boom50cal]

you think too much lol.

Pretty badass you still have an imagination like you do though. World would be a lot better place if people could just keep their imagination so bright and vivid.

[scooter99]

Sad but true! LOL

[bigmizzle99]

I've been thinking about trucks and subs and the one idea I like most (for me) would for trucks with the 40-60 split rear seat, remove the 60split piece and buy/find another 40 split to fill the space, making "buckets" if you will. Then I'd fill the leftover space in the middle with sub. I've drawn various versions that slope and curve and extend up to the front seat and form a rear center console as well. Just my 2 cents.

[boom50cal]

I've been thinking about trucks and subs and the one idea I like most (for me) would for trucks with the 40-60 split rear seat, remove the 60split piece and buy/find another 40 split to fill the space, making "buckets" if you will. Then I'd fill the leftover space in the middle with sub. I've drawn various versions that slope and curve and extend up to the front seat and form a rear center console as well. Just my 2 cents.

I've been wanting to do the same...

Scott, is porting up out of the question?