UBL - Mikes Lexus LS400, Walled, 4 x 18s, slammed, 13 batteries, snakeskin trim

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Drove it for the first time the other day, a whole fifty meters or so haha

Still scrubs up well, the body is the next thing I wanna tidy up though..

Oh yeah and it definitely ain't no trailer queen, because it don't fit!! Too wide!

This is my voltage, because of no alternator, so I can imagine with good voltage the thing might get loud

The SPL meter in the dash ain't that accurate, but it looks cool

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Had an 'interesting' weekend with the car.

Picked up an unfinished front seat from my trimmer so I could finally drive the car.

It was an interesting feeling having it move once again, I haven't actually driven the car exept the day I bought it, months ago. It's sat pretty much parked since then, only driven inside and out of my workshop.

I was holding my breath with butterflies in my tummy the first time I test drove it up and down my street, but everything went well. I stood back and took some snaps of how she looked.

I copped a lot of friendly banter from friends for her being a 'trailer queen' or 'non driveable' so it was good to finally get her moving, I felt I needed to clock up some miles on her so I decided to take her for an afternoon of driving to iron out any bugs and prepare her for the drive to the show the next day which was one hour each way.

Whilst driving, I gave the system an absolute beating, having turned things up a little since the other day, it was funny to notice the poor audiocontrol was reading 4dB higher, being consistent 163s on music, the thing must be struggling hard, I don't think she's very accurate.

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took her for a nice seaside cruise to get a feel for the car, pulled up in the bay and took some more snaps. It's currently the end of winter here in Australia so that's why things are pretty grey.

It's amazing how much attention you get driving a car like this around, especially with the system turned up.

Things were going really well, but I was leaning on it pretty hard, turns out I broke a woofer on the ride home slapping E40 just a little too loud...

I wasn't really too angry, just a shame because I had a comp the very next day, with big expectations from locals for the car.

The American Bass softparts really are junk, the glue on the coils must have melted off very easily, it didn't even smoke, then the thing just unwound.

Here's my buddy having a laugh after we took the cone out.

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I figured I'd still take the car anyway, even with three woofers playing it's gonna be loud..ish and I'm not a serious competitor, I'm just in it to have fun.

We put the sub back in the wall just so it looked complete, even though only three were playing.

Cruises along lovely.

Posted up at the comp

The competition format here is a little different to usual.

It is designed to draw in crowds and spectators, so the runs are done over an average of 30 seconds of music, with both windows down.

That way, the crowd can feel involved and can hear and feel the music, much cooler than standing outside cars as they vibrate burps all day, plus, we don't have much of an SPL scene here anyway.

I did a few demos in the morning before my turn to compete, since I'd already destroyed one sub the previous day, I wasn't really concerned with going soft on the gear so I beat the hell on it.

When it came my turn, I didn't expect much considering the system was so hurt, but I thought what the heck, let's give it a try.

Still ended up pulling over 150dB average on music over 30 seconds, and with both windows down, not too shabby I thought, but still pretty quiet compared to a few days ago, like, it seemed reaaaaal quite to ear.

This was still enough to win the class I was in, win loudest overall, and win the comp

After I pulled up I still had music going, my buddy was looking at it play softly and says

"Did you blow another sub up??"

Sure enough, we pulled it out of the wall, and there you have it, another unwound coil, so it looks like I may have competed with only two woofers playing, so that explains why it sounded so quiet to ear.... and still managed to scoop up a win.

Sub ripped out and on the roof, DGAF!

So there you have it.... it means big changes in this system, more reliable subs to come, means louder and meaner demos and a general more bad ass system, but I think it did well for it's first week of service, it showed promise.

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Some more sneaky updates, this is why the build is taking a little longer than originally anticipated.

I'm trying to make this car something different to the normal groundpounder thing and do cool little bits and pieces, here's some progress shots of my front seats.

Bare foam + frames

Some panels almost ready to sew together

An 80% completed bottom section, still needs to be fastened down and the side panels attached

But you get the idea of what's going on

You may have noticed in some previous pics, the centre console lid was finally completed and doesn't it just look great?

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I kind of held out on you with numbers... here's the best score it did on music with all four woofers working last week

This was just a random song and no real testing, I think the coming months will see her increase a lot!

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Subs are out!

It's fairly low

My subless wall

So I went to see my trimmer, and the seats were almost done! And they were also looking great too.

So he and I finished them by painting a few left over bits of plastic etc, and we fitted the headrests. These seats are great because everything is electric, even the headrests, so I couldn't leave them off.

Everything has been recoloured or wrapped, even the base pieces around the sides have been wrapped and look killer!!

We even retained the First Aid kit, just for, as we Aussies call it 'Wank Factor'

Things are a little bit stiff and 'bumpy', purely because the seats haven't been fitted and been in the warm sun yet to stretch and level out, that explains why they're a little bit iffy looking still.

But you can agree, they are certainly miles ahead of before.

I also picked up the arm rests for my doors, this is the first step on the doors, following in a week will be the entire new door build outs to take the improved front stage

I read somewhere once, you can't say something looks beautiful until you compare it to what it was before, so if you remember what my seats looked like:

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So I turned them into 'dead bodies' and drove them home

Most of the interior has been fitted up, the door trims won't stay this way for long as the new doors will be built very soon

First seat in, the colours look a bit washed out due to the camera flash, in real life it looks awesome

Door fitted up

The map pockets have been removed, and the back panel of the seats have been wrapped. If you've ever wrapped something, you can understand how difficult a panel like this would be to do, it turned out great though!

How cool does the steel frame look through the glass?

Out in the sunlight, it's a little over saturated with my phone

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And then this arrived

My cat helped me open them

A whole stack of goodies from PRV Audio!

This should be nice and loud and clear!

Now I'm just waiting for my recones to arrive and I can get it playing louder and better than ever

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To put to rest any queries on whether it actually gets driven It's kind of fun to drive

The only good thing to do to American Bass junk