Custom fiberglass enclosure is finally FINISHED !!

[ToddG]

Well, it's finally complete, and installed, what a major difference. I high passed the door speakers at 120hz, and low passed the sub at 120hz also. I am sooo happy with the results. The wife jumped in yesterday and I cranked it up a bit for her and she just grinned when the bass vibrated her and the truck. Best compliment I could have ever had. I tried doing a movie to post, but the tiny microphone on my digi camera does no justice to the actual sound, it tends to attenuate or normalize anything loud to level things out, so basically it sucks (kinda like some of the exhaust vids I watched, when the exhaust got louder the worse the clip sounded). This was only about the 4th time I worked with fiberglass, and I can honestly say it's not for a beginner, unless you have lots of patience and maybe some help from someone experienced. But as I stated, I am very please with the results. It's definitely not perfect looking but it's sound surpassed my expectations by a lot. Thank you Polk Audio again!





























Finish was a combination of the black bedliner stuff and textured paint lightly over that.
Also I added 4 rubber feet, to raise it up a bit to allow for speaker excursion, and consequently had to adjust (bang) the seat pan in a bit to make it fit under the seat as initially designed (ie not sticking out the front).

What do you guys think of it?

[smizwhiz]

That is sweet-lookin'! Never would have imagined it would turn out like that as I progressed through the pictures. Nice job!

[minman]

Very nice job. Best part is you rounded the corner facing the door, which looks much more integrated than the jagged corner boxes sold by so many of the vendors. Hope banging the pan got you plenty of breathing room for the sub. But I guess the wife smiling answers that question.

[05cc4x4]

Looks good man. How difficult is it to get everything mixed right? The build and fabric look straight forward enough but I'm wondering how hard it is to mix the chemicals right.

[ToddG]

Originally Posted by 05cc4x4

Looks good man. How difficult is it to get everything mixed right? The build and fabric look straight forward enough but I'm wondering how hard it is to mix the chemicals right.

The resin for the glass is what I'm assuming you are asking about?
They all vary, but the hardener for this particular resin stated 14 drops of hardener per 1oz of resin. I started with that, but soon found out it was drying much too quickly, so I backed it out to approx. 13 drops per ounce and never mixed more than 10-12 ounces at a time so I could work with it before it started to harden. The real pain was the amount of layers of glass, very time consuming. This thing front to back took me the better part of 2 weeks to build, you know, an hour here an hour there. Put a layer on, let it dry, repeat. The final filler coat was a challenge to get smooth, I just about wore out my orbital sander and went through tons of discs (sand paper). It's kinda rough in spots, sorta like a rock . . lol. The sides that weren't showing when installed got less attention if you know what I mean

Oh, and this was a 5-1/2" top mount depth speaker Polk Audio db104. So 5-1/2" can be done with glass if you don't mind
"adjusting" your seat pan.

Maybe I can get a decent sounding clip if I use my digital camcorder. If so, will post.

And thanks for the compliments guys, it was definitely a time consuming project.

[gti16vman]

Wow!!! That thing looks great. Makes me want to redo mine now. I also really like the curved corner.

[06_footy]

Originally Posted by smizwhiz

That is sweet-lookin'! Never would have imagined it would turn out like that as I progressed through the pictures. Nice job!

agreed man that looks stock....

[ToddG]

It could use another filler coat and then sanded again. I was just running out of patience and left it go. It's not too bad looking, and the texture helps, but it's not show quality. Maybe someday when I don't have so many other projects going on around the house I'll pull it out and finish it better. But for now I'm happy, it's in the back, under the seat, I never see it really so who knows. Plus the paint is kinda sporadic but that was sorta what I was going for, kinda rustic, like a rock or stone.

I haven't had my 10 year old boy back there to try and bounce his 80lb butt up and down that should be fun.

I just spent some more time adjusting on my system again and all I can say is I'm impressed with this sub more than I can actually express, still. For a 10" this thing hits incredibly hard and clean. Can you say "mirror vibration"? My rear view mirror is unusable at higher volume levels, it's vibrating so much that you can't make anything out, no lie. For the record, I took the door speakers down to a high pass of 100hz, and took the sub up to 140hz, which gave me some overlap that my ears said it needed. My mid bass is more alive now. I'm sure that isn't the last adjustment I'll make as I listen more to different kinds of music and explore the volume level. I'm thoroughly impressed with this sub.

Here's the bad boy powering everything (Alpine PDX-5, 5 channel amp, 75 watts x 4 doors + 300 watts for the sub = 600 watts total RMS):


Here's the carnage involved in installation/hook-up of the amp:



Here's a video of the mirror shake, all from one Polk Audio 10"!!
More than enough bass for an "audiophile" such as myself, total bottom end fill, finally. I'm not trying to shake the neighbors house, I just want all frequencies adequately represented, period. Believe me when I say even the video doesn't show how bad the mirror shakes. Obviously the sound is attenuated in this video like I said earlier, but let the vibrations tell the story!!

[Eric05mx]

Nice man, looks great. I know you have a different sub than me but mine sounds much better facing up. Yours looks close to the floor like mine was.
Also how do you like the PDX? I was thinking about giving up my PG Ti600.2 for a PDX 1000 for my sub but i'm alittle skeptical still.

[ToddG]

I'm actually very impressed with the PDX-5. For as small of a foot print as this thing (fits right under my driver seat no problem) it pushes some serious power. I couldn't ask for more. It totally jams without breaking a sweat AND stays cool to boot. I give it high marks thus far.