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

[scooter99]

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 actually thought about this. I was actually going to buy a couple of front seats and put them in the rear to open up the center. The problem with that is, and has continued to be the issue I've been trying to work around, is the functionality of it. When we go camping during the summer, and we've been doing that a lot now that we have a trailer, it goes a couple of ways. Depending on where we're going, who we're going with, when we can go (meaning if I can get off on Thursday or Friday or off early enough to go earlier) then we either take two cars, my wife's explorer and the truck, or we just take the truck. That means my 2 daughters, my wife, my 2 dogs, and against protest my mother in law recently. We also went on a trip this summer that included a friend of on of my daughters. So there's that to think about too. I'm sure they'll both be bringing friends soon. That means I need a full bench seat. If we drive separately and everyone rides with my wife, I just take the dogs in that case normally, and then it's not a problem. But we would rather not spend the money on fuel to take two separate vehicles all the time when we decide to go camping.

Now, a long work around for that, would be that I do the two seats, and the center sub, and when we go somewhere that i need the full bench seat, I could just swap that in and the others out. I've thought about that as well. The issues I see with that are, the time it takes to strip the back seat area to swap them, and of course storing the seat or seats and enclosure whichever is not in the truck.

I'm trying to figure out ways to make this all work and be functional as well as not have to do any extra work in the future to make it more functional. If I'm able to keep this seat as a bench seat, then do this enclosure under and behind it, then all I need is a protected cover over the subs and it's fully functional 100% of the time.

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?

No nothing's out of the question. Here's the reason for me doing port forward and in the middle. You can see in the picture below, there's a hump in the middle under the seat. That really is going to prevent me from putting any subs there. I can get two subs on either side of it, but instead of that being a blank area in the enclosure, I thought a port or two would really fill that in nicely.

Looking under the truck, the whole entire hump under the rear seat, that raises the seat up in the first place, is way up off of the frame. I could take it down to floor height and that would gain me about 1.5 cu ft (give or take) and would go a long way allowing me to not have to move the seat too much. The concept would have to stay the same in that the seat frame itself would have to be removed and the cushions actually sitting on the enclosure, but it would most likely not have to raise up the 4" or so it's going to have to do now.

There is that cross frame piece there, but if I was to frame it in, and then close it up, I think there wouldn't be much difference in structural lost. On the top right of the picture, you can see the seat bolts.

This picture shows the hump in the middle. Nothing even close to it. So technically I could eliminate it all together, and drop it down to the rest of the level without a ton of work.

Of course the original thought to doing this was to not have to cut on the truck. But, to me, if I did this and got the subs in the cab then that means they'll always be there. I won't have to pull them out to haul something, or whatever like I would with a blow through enclosure.

Here are some other pictures of the sub sort of in the place I'd like it to sit.

This was the other option I was looking into. Putting the subs in the back of the seat back, eliminating the frame of the seat back, leaving just the foam, and then carve out half of that and re wrap it. This is with the sub right up against the back wall. The sub would drop down about 2 more inches bringing it forward and off the back wall, since the angle will change the depth the lower it goes.

You can see how easy it is to take the foam out and that's what's left under it, the steel frame. Also that piece of wood holding the foam up, goes over the back of the foam and screws into the frame itself.

This just shows the depth and that the seat wouldn't change much depth wise. I was thinking to cut holes in it where the subs would be at, and covering those with grills so that when they're sat against the person sitting wouldn't be leaning back on the sub. The difficulty with that is the leather. The sound won't travel through the leather like it would with cloth. So i don't want to have 4 or a long cut out in it with a cloth cover. It won't look right. Another thought with this application would be to push the seat up about 2" from where it is now, and then Leave it solid except for the center arm rest. Cut that out behind it so the port could breath. Have it so it folds up and down like normal, that way someone can sit there if necessary.

SO I don't know, either way is going to be tricky as hell. I'm still playing with ideas!

[scooter99]

Ok here we go. This is what I designed today. With this design, I get all the subs in, 4 4" aero ports, and it's about 1.3 cu ft per sub. I can always take up more room if needed by adding some bracing or an extra baffle or something. Let me know what you all think.

Tomorrow, I'm going to take some 4x4's and a piece of 3/4" birch and have my kids sit on it and see if it'll be ok. If not no point in proceeding. So I'll know tomorrow.

Here's the design. Stock everything, as close as I could get it, on the left, and the design with enclosure on the right. What you see on the front that is clear, will not be glass, it'll be grill cloth or something. I'll be putting mesh over the holes, and then cloth over that, so the subs are hidden and protected.

Side angle

Seat Hidden - The top of the seat bottom, the seat back, the very top, and the sub baffles are all 3/4" birch ply.

Steel frame. Square tubing on the bottom, that will anchor the seat itself to the frame of the truck. Then L steel metal on the back. The yellow is fiberglass. I'll be doing this on the back and floor, as you see, so that I can cut down on thickness.

So that's it. I'll see about more tomorrow.

[scooter99]

Ok so I just did a test with my girls and myself. I put a single 4x4 down on either end of the seat, so it simulates raising the seat 3.5" and then put a piece of birch over top of it. That's about 4" (4.25" technically). They sat on it and were fine. Actually my younger daughter, who's shorter, liked it because it puts her eye level just above the front seats and she could see better.

Then I sat on it, no it didn't break under the load, and sitting straight up, my head just barely touches the roof. Of course I have bed hair since I haven't taken a shower yet, so I'm guessing I have about an inch or so to play with. I'll get back to this.

Next, I put a second 4x4 on top of the first (stacked them) and put the birch on top. This brings the total raise up to 7.75". They were fine with that as well, however, I'm not. That's too much. It looks high, looks out of place, and just isn't right.

The good thing safety wise, is the seat belts for both heights still goes over the shoulder on the girls, so I wouldn't have to move them at all. Getting back to the head height for me, or any other average sized adult in my circle, obviously the second height won't work. It's too tall causing me to have to hunch over. My only concern with it being so close on the first height, is if we hit any significant bumps an adult would hit their head on the roof.

It's making me think now, if I do cut out the pan on the bottom and level it out with the floor, I may not need to raise the seat up much at all. I'm going to go talk with my neighbor who's a welder, and ask him what his thoughts are as far as how difficult the job would be and how safe it would be after etc. I want it to be as safe as stock.

Getting closer to a decision. Let me know what you guys think.

[boom50cal]

cutting the floor shouldn't be too hard. You might want to talk to a few air ride shops and ask their opinions and advice on it.

There's a guy not far from Elk Grove, Eddie's Chop Shop, that I would go speak with if you can. According to google. his shop is 20 minutes from Elk Grove. He's built some wicked stuff and knows a good thing or 6 about sheetmetal work. He built this badass custom GMC Cab Over out of like 3 different trucks.

[scooter99]

I'll look him up. I'd like to see if I can do this without cutting, but I'll definitely go talk to him.

Here's another design. This one puts the subs behind the seat, and the ports out the front on the bottom. Pretty close to the same air space. Same tuning, except with 2 6" aeros instead of 4.

[Mtnbikecrazy55]

Loving all the work/pics/thought processeses!

[scooter99]

Thank you!

[yurvalentine]

Lol, this shit is awesome. I'm excited to see the end result.

[scooter99]

Ok, so I'm getting off track here. This is how things get effed up in my builds. I'll be getting back to the SDU, hopefully tonight but we'll have to see. I need to get that finished up, and then I can move on. I'll get back to this sub stage when it's time to deal with that. I have an entire front stage that I need to get working first.

I think the 2 AA-3800's will be here today, and I picked up a pair of XP3000's from Karkov last week, but they won't be here for a while. So I am about complete with all equipment for the whole system.

I have not been able to work on the temporary enclosure with my daughters since last week. Too much going on. I'd like to get that finished too. The glue finally dried in the kerf cuts, so it's ready to get smoothed out and move on. That shouldn't take too much longer to finish. Just need time.

That's what's up for now.

[scooter99]

Ok, so I got back on it a bit tonight. Not much, I took pics but didn't upload anything. Just some wire prep.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to turn on the soldering iron and get some wires put on the board and relay etc.

I still have to figure out the end panels, so I'm kind of stuck there until I do, and I can't really solder the RCA jacks until that gets figured out because of the way they connect the panel.

So as always, one step forward two steps back.

I'll post up some progress pics this weekend.