Inverted sub enclosure pics inside

Here is my the enclosure I made for my car.  Goal was "stealth" while retaining access to jack and spare under the box.  Sounds good so far after about an hour of listening, each JL 10W3-D4 is wired for 8 Ohms, then both subs are in parrallel for a 4 Ohm load to my amp bridged.  Made of 5/8" MDF.  I spaced the subs down into the box, but left about 1/2"+ from the face of the front gasket  to the floor.  This should provide enough clearance compared to the maximum excursion on the driver.

Alpine Guy wrote:

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Thats pretty stealth, everything is black.  Super nice car too!

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Thanks, the car is filthy though.  Used to always be immaculate, park 20 spaces from the nearest car, etc.  Then she got hailled on, and I moved and she has set for almost 2 years :-(  I'm fixing her back up though, and she's going to be my daily driver again :-)  I've steam cleaned the interior, but haven't given the outside a good wash yet.  Also has some paint scuffs I need to compound off and then wax her really well.

Nothing like crusing with the T-tops off on a nice fall day.....  Can't wait.

Mikr

Thanks for the kind words.  Here are some more pics.  I still need to put some velcro "tabs" on the underside of the carpet and on the box so the carpet lays better.  Also, need to figure out something to put over the motor structures.  In some of the pics you can see a cardboard and black ductape mock-up I made of a cover.  I'd make the real thing out of wooden batts and grill cloth.  Or, I may try using some 8-10" diameter PVC pipe with carpet wrapped around it and grill cloth on the top.  I welcome any ideas on that subject.

Sebastian018 wrote:

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everything looks clean and nice job, but the the cover made it with ductape, doesnt really good nice,............

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Um, OK.  You uncerstand that's a mock-up, right?  As in, something to test fit and get an idea from?  It's not the final product, just a way to test an idea; it's not going to stay like that.

Mike

Did a bit more work on the enclosure.  Added velcro tabs so I could pull the carpet taught and have it stay where I want it, and fabbed some brackets from aluminum angle to mount my T-top straps to.  The straps are mounted just like they are on the stock floor, that way I can still stow my T-tops just like stock.

MBZ oe wrote:

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Man, you did too nice of a job to do this part half-assed. Just pull the carpet and make a shelf/ step to cover each, and re-carpet. Thats the only way I can see it looking right. Anything sticking up that doesn't look like a floor is suspect. No What I Mean, Verne?

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Yeah......  I could just make something with a side and a top and leave the back side (facing the corners of the car) open.  also, I could stop the top panel short of the outside wall of the trunk by an inch to let the sound out.

I'm pretty sure I'd need to be able to remove the "shelves" to get the box in and out of the car. (remember, one of my "must haves" is to be able to pull the box up on the side of the road without tools to get to my jack/spare)  How could I go about making the "shelves" removeable and still have the carpeting look good?  I think I'd have to cover them separately from the rest of the enclosure.  Some good velcro might be all I need to keep them in place.....

I've built enclosures before, but none were as involved as this one, and I never took the time to carpet them well and really make them look nice, so these cosmetic details are new ground to me.

Mike

beady that is a sweet stealth install.  One helluva lot more stealth than the invert i did last week

Keep up the nice work.

stratusfer69, MBZ oe:

The enclosure sounds just fine to me.  I don't need giant amounts of bass, otherwise I would have gone ported or bandpass, or had the subs facing out of the box normally with them firing backwards for more output.  I used to have only one of the 10's in a sealed truck style box with the same internal volume (.63 feet cubed per sub) and this setup is definitely louder, so I'm happy.  I'm only concerned with the clearance issue if the surround hits.  But, the Xmax is .55" one-way, and the surround sits well behind the front gasket surface, so I figure 1/2" from the gasket surface should do me fine.  I'm only running an old school RF Punch 150 bridged to them, with the Punch seeing a 4-Ohm bridged load.  So, maybe 200 watts each if I have the bass gain cranked up and the HU volume way up.  95%+ of the time the enclosure will be coasting with probably less than 50 watts to each driver for a normal listening level without excessive bass.

I can't "lift the back board up", as it is part of the box, and it is a sealed enclosure.  However, I have the subs spaced down into the box with two MDF rings, so I could remove one if needed, or rout out the face of the lower ring so the sub is slightly recessed.  I don't think the loose carpet over the back of the sub makes much difference to the output, at least not much that I can hear.

If it comes down to it, I'll take the subs sitting lower in the box for a more stealthy install for a few percent loss in bass output.

Thanks for voicing your concerns though, I'm sure I haven't covered everything I need to do on the enclosure.

Mike

AHHHHH.....The FAMOUS PUNCH 150...APPLAUSE.......   What a great peice of nostalgic history! I have one sitting right here because "Nobody will take my precious" HEhEhA......I have so many old feelings/memories for it that I want to chrome plate it, and hang it on the wall.

MBZ oe wrote:

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AHHHHH.....The FAMOUS PUNCH 150...APPLAUSE.......   What a great peice of nostalgic history! I have one sitting right here because "Nobody will take my precious" HEhEhA......I have so many old feelings/memories for it that I want to chrome plate it, and hang it on the wall.

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Ah yes.... I love that amp still :-)  I bought it used back in college in 1991 or 1992 only a few months old.  It was my first really good amp.  My very first amp was a Pyramid 800 from JC Whitney, LOL.  Then I got a used Kenwood 70 or 90 watts per channel amp which outperformed the Pyramid significantly.  It was about that time that I started hanging out at the car audio shops in town driving the guys crazy with all kinds of questions, lol.  One guy let me listen to his system in his truck, it two 15's and an 18 behind the seats(if I remember right) subs were RF or Kicker, can't remember.  Anyway, it was unbelieveably loud and it was running with two Punch 150's.  The guy was going to get a Power 1000 I think and asked if I wanted to buy one of the Punchs, with box and documentation.  I said hell yeah and bought it from him and lived off .39 cent bean burritos from Taco Mayo fand Ramen noodles for a couple months, LOL.

I had a 6 ft^3 4th order bandpass box running two Kicker Competition 12's with the ports firing backwards in the hatch of my 280ZX.  The difference when I ran it off the Punch was amazing.  Easily sounded twice as loud as the Kenwood amp.  Poor 280 met an early demise, but the Punch has stayed with me and been in every vehicle I've owned since.  I had to resolder some RCA leads to the board, and have blown the internal fuses, but other than that it has been bullet proof, no matter what I've thrown at it, or how hot it has run.  I wish I had the birth sheet still, because I'd love to know how much power it really puts out, and I don;t remember what it said :-(  I think it was pretty good since the guy at the audio shop probably went through all the boxes and picked the amps with the highest ratings for himself.

I had a friend at the same time with a Punch 45 running his whole system in his truck.  He had a 15" behind the seat and that little 45 would seriously thump, even with the rest of the system running on the amp also.  Another guy at an audio shop in town had a demo system in his Blazer running off a Punch 30.  Had one or two 12's in the back, and was running all the mids off it also.  I couldn't believe that a single amp rated at "30 watts per channel" could put out that much power and still sound good.

Ahh the good old days :-)

Are there any amps for sale today that compare to those old Punch amps?  I haven't kept up with the audio scene too much, but it seems people don't think as much of teh newer Fosgate stuff as those old amps......

Mike