SomeGuy25thZ

I havent seen many threads on building a custom fiberglass sub enclosure in the rear seat area. I understand the sound may not be as great as the rear but i haev no room in the rear as my batter is back there and the entire rear of the car was cut up, raised, expanded, for a fuel cell and for the custom center mount exhaust tips...

Anyways, i want to have a thread to show the build and to also get opinions, suggestions, do's and dont's, etc...

I am trying to use all of my existing stereo components i have in my SUV many years ago. all this stuff have been sitting for almost 4-5 yrs now i beleive but was all working great when removed.

I have the following:

2x 10" Rockford P3's 800 RMS (i think)
1x Rockford 450.4 amp
1x Rockford 850.2 amp
1 farad rockford capacitor
150 amp fuse
4x infiniti 6012 si speakers

and i should be able to reuse all of the existing wiring.

here are a few photos of what i have plus the build area i am working with. as of now i just set the amps on the rear deck trying to figure out where to put them. i think i want to put each sub in a all fiberglass enclosure in the corners of the rear seat areas facing the center of the car so they are not directly faced towards the front but more at 45 degrees to towards each other facing the center of the car basically between the front seats (hope that makes sense).

SomeGuy25thZ

more pics...

SomeGuy25thZ

Any thoughts on the stereo components? im really trying to keep my money for the fibeerglass enclosure and not more stereo parts.

But if there is a problem anyone sees with this setup please let me know, i am not up to speed with stereo systems and such.

I'm giong to finish the dynamat in the areas that dont have it and then will start to lay down the blue painters tape and aluminum foil.

Some big questions right now are:

1 - where do you think i should mount the amps?
2 - should i make two separate fiberglass enclosure for the subs for each corner? How can i mount the subs and use the minimum amount of wood as possible? Weight is a huge factor for me. i dont want to add several hundred lbs of wood, i would rather spend more time glassing and save a ton of weight. again, this car is not a race car where i care a lot about drag times but also dont want to weigh it down for no reason. spending extra time building the enclosure is worth it for me.

I was thinking of making a large fiberglass base that extends across the entire rear passenger seat area and up the rear wall and the sides. Then i could create separate enclosures for each sub and in the middle maybe do some custom mounts for the amps? they are fairly big so space seems to be tight. i thought of maybe mounting the amps at 45 degree angles in between the two subs and have a plexiglass cover over them with some LED type lighting but my concern is heat. how can i keep the amps cool if i enclosure them with plexiglass (wont be air tight but will still trap heat).

Im ready to make the time commitment to do this and i hope everyone else can be as patient as me following this build lol. i'll try to keep pics coming as it moves along and am really looking forward to come good opinions/suggestions from everyone on the build. i've never done fiberglass so this should be fun.

THANKS EVERYONE

cw3adkins

I'm glad that I'm not the only one that is thinking about this. I sold off my rear seats a while ago mainly because I think they're pointless (unless you're seating a 8 year old back there).

My thoughts are that you should be able to just build a wooden skeleton (or frame), design your 'flow'/shape of the box with felt and then resin the felt and fiberglass from there. I have not done a custom enclosure like that yet, have just seen many fiberglass enclosures made in that fashion.

Were you looking to have the subwoofers facing up towards the ceiling or forward towards the driver/pass seats?

You could design the amps to sit flush in the top of the enclosure and the subs in the forward facing plane of it. Just an idea.
You could also just angle both subs (still in the forward facing plane) so that you're tucking the subs more into the corners. However, you will want to factor the enclosure volume in accordance with the required or recommended specs of your subs.
I personally would not split it into two boxes, would just run one box.

Are you looking for more 'audio' or just loud noise (please excuse the terminology)?

SomeGuy25thZ

I am certainly not looking for anything for competition but just want good clear sound with solid bass that i can hopefully hear over my engine/exhaust lol. the car is extremely loud (no i dont have open mufflers).

anyways, i've been tossing around the idea of facing the subs straight forward or up and mounting the amps either on top of on the front plane. i am looking to have a slight angle to the way the subs face because of the drastic change of how the system will look done that way. not sure how much of a sound difference it will make.

I just recently finished wiring up the front and rear speakers and have plenty excess to mount the amp any which way. next i'm going to get the rear panels in and secured then possibly start glassing the base of the enclosure and come up a few inches all the way around. I have a roll cage in the car so i am facing the possibility that this box may not be removable. if thats the case then neither will the interior panels, unless they can somehow break free with the right tugging.

Volume is going to be hard to calculate exactly given the contours in the corners of the rear seat areas. not sure if you can tell from the photos but the floor pans were cut slightly under the rear seats and raised with new sheet metal to make room underneath for the mufflers.

cw3adkins

If you want (if you're not in a big hurry to make the enclosure), I can model out a couple enclosures in Autodesk Inventor. That would give you a visual representation as well as calculated mass and volume. Only downside is that you would have to get me as many dimensions as possible since your third gen has been modified compared to mine. Again, that's if you would be interested. I planned on constructing a 3d model for my future setup, but yours would be a bit different.

SomeGuy25thZ

i wouldnt mine that at all... that would be a huge help.

i'll try and get some dimensions over the next few days. but most likely this weekend. not in a big rush to start but once i do i want to go straight through it without any issues so its best to work this out now.

thanks for the help. i'll get some more photos as well. i just finished laying down some dynomat and another product called hush mat. the hush mat actually stick way better than dynamat. like that stuff alot.

cw3adkins

Hey no problem, I've found that doing stuff in that manner helps me figure out a real good estimate in lieu of factoring needed materials and possible fitment issues. Not to mention that I can actually simulate stress forces on structural pieces if I wanted/needed to.

Yeah, I came across some stuff on eBay called "FatMat" that works just as good as Dynamat, sticks a little bit better than Dynamat and is considerably cheaper.

If you can, just sketch up a basic design(s) of what you would like to see so that I have something to go by for mock up purposes (to iron out details).