sq_mgb

Thank you sir! Kim told me that it looks good in the pictures, and they do not do it justice. She said it looks even better when you can actually see it up close. She may be biased though!

Cablguy, He let me drive it once....took me a week to wipe the smile off my face! The car I have now is the fastest thing I've ever owned and it's still not as fast as that GN, or anywhere near as fun. I tell you this much....driving it is addictive!!!

So....I'm just guessing here.....if I wanted to TRULY isolate an amp, I could build a well braced box around the amp and use some sort of elastomer under the box the amp is in to decouple it from the mounting surface (asuming proper airspace around the amp for cooling). BUT... that is un-neccessary if you have a well designed and built amp because it would be able to withstand the vibration anyway, correct? I'm just wondering because since the mid to late 80's I've put I don't know how many amps on the back of sub-boxes and it's never been a problem before, I've just been reading a lot about it online lately. That's really interesting about the difference in acoustic energy transfer and I guess what would be called mechanical energy transfer? I'm thinking that just to be safe, I'll use some of the closed cell foam I have under my amps this time around, although I just can't see a pair of isobaric 10's with about 500 watts shaking my truck like the systems that have multiple 12's, 15's or larger with 1,000's of watts! Thanks for the info!

My apologies if this is a threadjack, but with all the vibrations caused by subwoofers and 1,000+ watt amps that flex the roof, windshield, etc....is there ANYWHERE you can mount an amplifier in a car and NOT have it vibrate all to hell??? M5 touched on this, and I like to think I understand about decoupling of the amp from the mounting surface, but wouldn't the sound pressure waves still vibrate the amp? I've just never gotten a good answer to that question which seemed to flow along with yours so I just thought I would ask in here. Should make for some good learning opportunities for all of us!

Welcome to the forum! Where in Mississippi are you located?

You can check my build log after this weekend as I'm going to re-vamp mine if you want some ideas and can wait that long. I'll be using angled rings made of two pieces of mdf glued together, dipped in fiberglass resin, and screwed to the door using drywall screws with non-hardening clay under and around the baffles. I'm also using angled baffles to see if I can get the system to image better, if not, I'll go back to a flat baffle. I'll be sure to try to get pics of inside the door where I put sound deadener. This was all done before I found out the "proper" way to do the job, so there is a lot of overkill and wasted material I'm sure. At least the result ended up the same, I just found out too late that there's a better way. There's lots of good info here as the above posts show. Good luck with the job and be sure to let us know what worked for you.

I TOLD you not to put that screw there............ All kidding aside, glad to hear nothing got damaged. Any revisions or just rebuilding the way you had it? By the way, your heatsink is here, I'll bring it down when I come to the show at the end of the month. Be sure to post LOTS and LOTS of pics.....we LOVE pics!!!!

Me likey, keep up the great work!!!

Thank you sir!

6Appeal, Planets aligning and Lord willing, I'll have it playing by Saturday afternoon.....I just wish I had time to work on it during the week....I might try to hook up the amps one night and at least get it playing. Then it's just a matter of playing with the angles on the tweets and the 6's to get the image right. Sunday I'm going to try and make some angled baffles for the 6's in the doors so I can move those around as well. I've seen how some people cut up the door cards to get the speakers some room to move and I may have to do that when I put the new baffles on. At this point, I'm not worried if I have to cut anything which you know is a MAJOR thing for me since I've been able to put a system in every vehicle I've ever had and return it to stock without anyone ever knowing a system was in it. At least I've made it to the last lap, so it won't be long now.

Looks good brother.....can you get the spare out without any trouble? It looks tight, but I'm sure you can. I'm digging the form fit of the panels.....wanna share how you copied all the curves? All in all, I'm digging it dude. Keep up the great work!

Looks good......keep the pics coming.....I need ideas for when I do the MG!

X3 on the family time.....your kids will remember it always. Good looking build......keep the pics coming!!!

Thank you sir.....I've only been trying to figure out how I'm going to build this thing for "a long time now" and I'll leave it at that.....I'm sure 6Appeal can attest to how long I've been thinking about it. Let's just say it's been over a year in the planning stages, but I only got serious about it in the last couple of months. I'm just glad that all the effort is starting to pay off. As someone said to me once....."I just hope it sounds as good as it looks!"

Thanks J-road.....I appreciate the encouragement.....it makes me feel good to know that others appreciate all the hard work that goes into something like this....also.....this is the part I'm most proud of.....those inserts are press fit into place, no mechanical fasteners at all.....most people would use bondo and double side tape to make a uniform gap all the way around, but I've never been one to do things the easy way.....those are all HAND SANDED to fit, no bondo anywhere except where the screw holes were filled in. I also soldered and put heatshrink on every electrical connection I made in this build which took forever as well. The next step will be to pull the door panels and re-do the baffles in the doors and put non-hardening clay behind and all around them. They are already deadened and had the holes sealed up which made a HUGE difference in midbass output and I'm hoping the clay will make it even better. It's been a long road, but I can finally see the end.....now the FUN part is coming......TUNING!!!! I'm fortunate that I have access to an RTA so I can address peaks and dips in the response of the system as needed, but since this is an "old school" build, I'm going to have to get it close with crossover points and slopes and also careful manipulation of speaker angles to get the image and stage right. That's why no pics of the a-pillars yet.....the tweeter angle isn't set yet so I don't want to wrap them until I get the angles just right. Won't be long now though!!!!

Ok, I had already done some of this so I just had to take the pics to show it..... Pretty factory looking engine bay....except for the K&N FIPK.....yes, I know it's dirty under there...... Still looking factory...... What's that hiding under there.....I have found out I need to add a fuse to this wire so this will be taken care of soon. Power wire run through split loom to look factory.....I'll get another pic of this to show the wire inside later.... I will be doing the rest of the "Big 3" soon, I just ran out of daylight and motivation to keep going. I'll recharge this week and finish it this weekend, if the weather co-operates with me.....stay tuned!!

Ok, here are a few more since I know 6Appeal and Cablguy will give me crap if I don't put more pics up...... Getting it wrapped.....the puckers and bumps you see are not there now.....I pulled them all out after snapping this pic.... Mounted to the base..... Wrapped the first shape..... It's factory match material to the seats.... Test fitting the back wall in the truck.....looks like a tight fit to me! Test fitting the insert..... With the seats in..... Seats are finally back in the truck!!!! Now I get to start under the hood.....those pics are soon to come!!!

As promised.....I finally have more pics!!! The back wall needed help as you can see.....Can't have just a board mounted up there..... So...I made another board to "trim it out" so to speak.... Well a flat wall is kinda boring, so I decided to give it some shapes....this is where I was trying to decide how I wanted it to look.... Once I decided on the look, it was time to cut them all out.... Then I cut out the shapes on the back wall.... Filling in the holes I made when cutting off the screws to hold both pieces together..... Then it had to have a top to fill in the gap between the back wall and the window..... More pics to follow.....stay tuned!!!

I'll have pics soon...I don't have pics of some steps, I was in the zone and didn't want to stop...back wall is done, box is done, source is in the dash with the preamplifier and crossover, just have to get the amps hooked up and I'll have it playing. I'll try to get what pics I have up tomorrow.

That is a good looking truck brother!

That's what I'm hoping for....get the output off the front of the cone firing directly at the dash to get the "impact" of the cone hitting the air for maximum dynamics. Ok, that's , but it sounded good! The front of the cone is pretty close to the front edge of the seats....the sides extend past it a little so HOPEFULLY it won't show itself when playing, but I guess I'll find out when I turn it on the first time. Got some bad news....the sony is dead....I got it to turn on, but the face won't open or close and there is absolutely NO information displayed on the screen. The only way I can tell it's on is by the ring around the volume knob and the noise it makes when it tries to open up. Soooooo.......I guess I'm back to the Alpine or putting in the Eclipse I took out of my old Altima. I would LOVE to get a Kenwood 9140 and put in there, but I have to get rid of the PA-II and XO-3 and I'm not ready to do that just yet. When it rains it pours!

Looking good..... Keep up the good work and keep the pics coming!

Thanks J-road, I do what I can. I had some good guys to learn from when I was coming up and I tried to absorb as much as I could from them. I learned most of what I know from watching a certain black truck being built a few years back. All I have to say is 1152 screws to mount the woofers and 6APPEAL and Cablguy will know exactly what truck I'm talking about. Here's a few pics of it.... The dash.... The back..... and when the strokers were in it.....24 to be exact..... There were a lot of things I learned during that build like how to put mounting screws under removable panels that pressfit into place, how to do upholstery, how to run wire so it is protected, etc....I wish it were still on the road, but alas it's sitting in a field in the Mississippi delta last I heard. Cablguy, The plan right now is to finish the "big 3" and upgrade my alternator ground and battery ground, since I've already upgraded the wire from the alternator to the battery. I am trying to figure out how to make a mount to put a battery under each side of the bed where the stepside part is. I got to looking the other day and I can get a decent size battery under there, I just have to find someone to weld something up for me. (I don't weld, I just make big holes in metal when I try) I will run both of those in parallel with the main starting battery isolated with a 200amp solenoid when the truck is off. If funds allow later, I'll have those batteries isolated entirely with a dual alt. setup, one for the truck, one for the stereo, but that's a long way off right now. I managed to get almost 100,000 miles each (replaced it once) on my old Probe stock 65amp alternator running two modified 1752's and as big a batttery as I could stuff under the hood. I'll be running the same current draw, but I have twice the alternator now, so I should be fine for a little while. I'll just have to weigh the pros and cons of adding a second one wire alt. for the stereo vs changing to a high output alternator. I'm thinking the second alt. is the way to go simply because I can isolate the amps from the rest of the truck electrical and run a slightly higher voltage to the amps. (powerwheels anyone?) But all that is a loooooong way off right now. I just want to get it playing and tuned, then I can concentrate on the rest of it. I'll be there for the March show, God willing, and hopefully John will have his ready by then too. See ya there!

6APPEAL, I have matching vinyl and some high heat contact cement to hold it on with.....that was my first idea for the a-pillars. I saw a build the other day where the pillars were wrapped with grill cloth and they looked GOOD.....that's what gave me the idea to do it that way. On the texture coat, I'm worried that over time it will crack and I'll spend a lot of time fixing it over and over again. I'll probably just stay with the vinyl. I have it already and it can always be taken off and sanded later if I decide to texture coat it. I still have to get it playing and work on the tweeter angle before I finish them so I may end up down there with unfinished a-pillars.....just depends if I like what I hear or not. I'm just ready to get the 2.2 on those 6's and see how much difference it makes over the Q50. I guess time will tell. At least there's a HUGE cavity to hide the crossovers in the dash! Easy to get to and very serviceable if I should ever need to do anything to them. Waaaaaay better than the last setup I had with everything hidden and hard as hell to access ANYTHING in the truck. I can get to anything in the truck MUCH easier now and I think it will look nicer than ever when I'm finished. I'm going for a "stock" look as much as possible...I'll just have a few "extras" in my truck that didn't come from Chevy! Cablguy, Thanks for the compliments! I had to do something to make it look nice. I think the factory cloth on top that matches the top of my doors was a nice touch. Sort of ties the console in with the rest of the interior. I have plans for the amp rack to have something similar on it as well. Don't know yet if they will be covers or bases to mount stuff, but I have a LOT of it left over and with what it cost to get, you bet I'm going to use as much as I can! See ya at the show!

That's the plan right now Cablguy....hopefully I can get all the wiring finished this weekend and get it playing again. I still have to come up with a bracket to mount the head unit, but I'm thinking backstrap may be my friend. I also have to finish the bezel and make it look presentable, cutting the entire bar off right above the a/c controls was a bad idea. In hindsight I should have just cut it in half instead. My hands aren't steady enough with a dremel to sand that piece I made perfectly straight so I got another bezel that I'm going to cut up and try again. I did get a message from my guy who's making the DD conversion kit saying it shouldn't be too much longer so I may just hold out for that. I also have to finish getting the a-pillars done, but once the angle on the tweets are right, it's just a matter of sanding and wrapping them. At first I was thinking vinyl, but now I'm thinking of wrapping the entire thing in grill cloth to hide the tweets.....any thoughts?