[Drevs]

How hard would it be to cut through the felt covering?

Hmmmm... take some pictures of your tools and we'll let you know!
/KIDDING!

 

[macattack23]

Drevs,

You just wont let it go will you. I finally gave in yesterday when I was at the autoparts store and splurged on a $40 jack. I was an idiot for not doing this earlier but I had no idea how cheap they were. The also sell the jack that comes with our car, get this, it was on special for $9.99. We spend that kind of money on a car and they supply you with a 9 dollar jack, REDICULOUS

 

[Drevs]

Fine, I'll let it go...
And you can bet that LR only pays cents on the dollar for that $9 jack.

 

[ryanoz]

Looks great, congrats on putting so much work into it.
Why not just cut a circle out of the trim piece and have the sub stick out through it? Although not entirely stealth, I still think it would look pretty cool since the sub itself looks pretty nice.

Well, I actually thought about this back when all this started.
I thought it would be cool to cut out the panel and have a nice speaker
grill there. No, it wouldn't be hard to cut out; problem is... if it doesn't
work out or doesn't look good then your screwed. I can't imagine a new
panel from LR is cheap if possible to even get.
I've been looking at those pioneer enclosures for this sub. **** I wish
they would fit under the seats. The 8" sub box comes pretty close...
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/v ... sComponent
its deminsions are 9 1/4 W x 11 3/4 L x 5 3/4 H; 4 1/2 H (with guard off).
I did some measuring... it MAY fit, its too hard to tell without actually having it there to see. There is a shop down the street that sells
pioneer stuff, I'm going to stop by and see if they have any of these
enclosures. I really need to find a place to get some of these fasteners:

I'm not giving up on the tailgate yet, but I need more of these fasteners
before taking the panel off again. I'm going to try maybe a 1/4 or 1/8in.
speaker ring, I think it will work; the one I used was 3/4in and with the
foam behind it, it was probably 7/8in. Should have known this was too
thick, but I didn't anticipate having to cut a ring and 3/4in MDF was all
I had laying around.

 

[Drevs]

Your local stealership doesn't have those plugs? Surely they'll only be $13 each...

 

[macattack23]

Got my sub but in the tailgate yesterday for a total of $700 including sub, amp, wires, hushpad, and labor. Biggest mistake of my life. It sounds like **** and there is no solution other than to have them build me a new tailgate panel made out of fiberglass which will cost around a grand. The metal on the tailgate flexes and that is what makes it rattle soo much. They put hushpad, special felt hushpad and a bunch of filler that is essentially the inside of a pillow back in the space behind the sub, but it still sounds like ****. I dont know what I am going to do because I have to do something because I dont want to drive a $70,000 dollar car that rattles like an '87 buick with 3 15's in the trunk.

I think I am just going to have them put the stock sub back in the tailgate and I am going to purchase the small pioneer box and just put it in the back. The only positive thing is that I can control the sub through the factory interface under the sub tab. So basically I have it almost off because it sounds so bad. This whole slim fit sub thing was a dream that was way too good to be true.

Any suggestions on what to do next would be great.

 

[ryanoz]

This whole slim fit sub thing was a dream that was way too good to be true.
Any suggestions on what to do next would be great.

Yea, I'd suggest doing whatever you decide you need or want to do.
The pioneer box is an option, however they won't fit under the seats.
Nobody ever said this was a sure thing. I figured people would follow
my progress and results before jumping the gun.
Anybody can dump a huge bulky box in the cargo space and have
good sound, that wasn't the idea here.

Biggest mistake of my life.

haha sounds like you need to do a bit more living then.
I'm only kidding. Yea I wish it sounded better also and there weren't
as many rattles, but that's how it is. I'm not so sure about the "tailgate
flexing", I don't know how much flexing there is, but a big
problem is the holes (air leaks). I don't know if they sealed all your air
leaks or not, but it makes a big difference, you can see where I sealed
with foam and duct tape in my images. Anyway, I agree the sound is
not great especially at low range frequencies (20-40hz); it distorts.
I've actually been working all day on an enclosure for the cargo area,
not sure how this is going to work out either. If it works out, it will be
really nice (paneled off and stealth).
This may be a total failure. I'm trying to build this so there is no
protrusion past the trim panel wall, so it will be flush. The problem is
I don't know if this enclosure will be big enough. I also had to use 1/2in.
MDF (or it wouldn't fit) instead of the typical 3/4in.. Its very very shallow,
3.5in. and very small; I'm crossing my fingers that the speaker will
actually even fit this enclosure when i finish. The best solution would be
to mold a fiberglass enclosure here, but its been a long time since I've
done this and its a long messy complicated task.

 

[ryanoz]

here's some photos of the enclosure i'm building.
I proped the speaker up in there to show the size/scale.
It is small, but i'm hoping it will still sound good. I designed
this around the space and not necessarily around the sub
requirements. Its difficult to calculate the actual airspace (cu.ft)
because of all the angles, but it is roughly .5 - .6 which should
be ok. I'll have this enclosure finished tomorrow and hopefully
be able to test out the sound.

 

[jbrac25]

man ryan you have some serious carpentry skills there. If i were you though why dont you just make a whole fiberglass panel in that spot. It would prolly look more natural.

Mac did they dynomat that back panel? If its just rattling thats bothering you, it should be able to be fixed with some dynomatting in the right places starting with that back tailgate. Another popular rattle spot for me it the head liner right at the back of the sunroof. A very good shop should be able to fix the rattle for you.

 

[ryanoz]

man ryan you have some serious carpentry skills there. If i were you though why dont you just make a whole fiberglass panel in that spot. It would prolly look more natural.

Thanks... took about 8hrs to figure all the angles out and 30mins. to cut
them
Yea, fiberglass would be awesome cause It could be molded to the exact form of the panel. However, I haven't done fiberglass in a long time and
I can't remember all the steps and material plus where to get everything...
its too complicated. When I finish you won't see this box, I am paneling everything off with the same black carpet. It will look like one solid panel, its going to look good. I even ordered the pioneer box ($115), if my box sounds good.. then i'm going to use the metal gaurd thing from the pioneer box... so it will look like one solid flush black carpeted wall with the metal pioneer gaurd around the speaker.

 

[jbrac25]

thats a good idea. basically youll get the same result from the stock carpeting and buy using piece from the pioneer box should get a good install.

 

[ado124]

ryanoz,
if it works, maybe make extras to sell?

 

[macattack23]

Yeah the shop filled all my holes and put hushpad on my tailgate covering everywhere that they could reach and they even put special felt pad behind the sub on top of the hushpad. They also put polyfill in the tailgate to. They also put that felt stuff on my license plat braket and the license plate as well.

I just called them today and on friday I having them take it out and put back in the stock sub with the stock power. I ordered the pioneer behind the seat box ($119) and they are going to put the sub in it and throw it in the back. I told them I want to easily control the bass and also be able to take the box out with no problem because I need the space for stuff like my wheels when I get them swapped.

Ryan, I am not blamming you at all. It was a great idea and I did jump the gun. I thank you for all your input and hope you have better luck than me.

 

[ryanoz]

macattack-
oh well, we tried I'm curious how the pioneer box will sound, I
ordered the same one you did. Although I mainly ordered it for the
cool metal speaker gaurd. Also, if my enclosure doesn't sound good
I guess I can always use the pioneer. I'm also going to put the factory
speaker back, and I'm going to try to make my box as portable as
possible in case I need the little cubby hole space.
I'm thinking my box is going to sound good. It was hard to visualize
the actual size until I completely finished it and put the speaker in it.
It may be a hair small, but I don't think enough to matter. I just finished
sealing it up with caulk, that stuff smells bad and it has to dry so I'll
have to wait till tomorrow to power it up and see if she bangs.

 

[ryanoz]

ryanoz,
if it works, maybe make extras to sell?

yea I'll have my factory get right on it!
Hell, I don't even know if I could build this thing again,
I'd have to figure out what all the angles were I had to
cut I'd consider building more... for a "small" fee.

 

[ryanoz]

OK, so I couldn't wait till morning (well, sunrise morning anyways) for the
caulking to dry... I went ahead and powered up the speaker and...

OH MY GOD! THIS THING SLAMS!

It sounds REALLY REALLY GOOD! What a relief, after all the time and effort
I put into this; it finally paid off. My custom enclosure works awesome, fits
in the cubby hole perfectly and sounds STELLAR, no worries about it being
to small, its perfect. It was 2:30am so I couldn't open the garage to start
the car, so I only played it for around 15mins without the engine running.
I need to play with some of the settings to get them just right, it sounds
best when the radio fade and subwoofer are adjusted to even and bass +1
or +2... then you adjust the amp gain and LPF along with the audiocontrol
level from there. WHHHEWWW, man i'm excited!

macattack- your going to be very happy with the pioneer box if it sounds
anything like mine

Next: getting matching carpet and paneling everything off, adding the
metal pioneer gaurd. I'm also considering cutting out a small area of
the board the covers the area where the amp is, and placing a piece of
smoked plexiglass; the blue lights from the amp would shine thru.
Maybe I could get pioneer to sponsor me (for something, geez)?

EDIT: I found a place to get the tailgate panel fasteners from. They are
1.50 each. I'm ordering some to replace the 2 that got bent, I don't think
I will be trying the pioneer sub in the tailgate now, but I'm glad I did the
dynamat to silence the tailgate. If I ever need to take out the new
enclosure, I'm sure the factory sub will sound better also with the foam filling the trim panel too.

 

[umbertob]

Ryan, I admire your dedication in carrying this project through.

The one thing I thought was well done about the otherwise ghastly "Game / Gay Edition" RRS on eBay from a few weeks ago was the custom left panel in the trunk, which obviously concealed some sort of speaker - even though the cutout dimensions don't seem to match what your sub's would look like.

 

[ryanoz]

yea, I forgot about this.
If you notice in that picture, that is a whole new rear panel;
probably fiberglass. If you look at the metal strap hooks on
the floor, you'll see that the panel doesnt even come over the
top of them. There is no subwoofer shallow enough to fit in
the cubby hole without bring the enclosure out over the metal
floor strap hook. So I'm almost positive that they cut out the
factory panel and their enclosure goes back into the vehicle
frame, a lot of work. It turned out pretty good though, except
the carpet doesn't match.

 

[ryanoz]

I just got the pioneer box in...
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/v ... 37,00.html
Its really nice, well built, and if you have black (ebony) interior it matches
perfect, looks good. Best place to put it is probably directly behind the back
seats. It is small, but not small enough to fit in the cubby-hole space.
I'm about to put my speaker in this box to see how it sounds compared
to the one I built. I can't imagine it sounding any better, I've been enjoying
mine the past few days, awesome! I'll be posting some results soon.
Macattack- you get yours in yet?

 

[ryanoz]

The pioneer box and my box sound the same, I can't tell any difference...
they both sound outstanding. I would recommend the pioneer box to
anyone wanting a quick and easy subwoofer upgrade. It takes up very little
space, its attractive, and can be removed instantly with ease.
Here are some photos. I included a couple with my custom box, which is
just giving me ideas that I don't need at this point
I really could save myself a lot of work by just using the pioneer box, but
I save room by using mine, and when I'm done it will look completely
integrated into the side panel.