tRidiot's 2009 Nissan 370Z hatch rebuild

[tRidiot]

Meanwhile, we'd done a couple more layers of fiberglass on the backside of the enclosure, trying to build it up and give it a little more height. Then added some MDF bracing, which I attached with a kind of slurry or paste of resin I mixed pretty hot with 1/2" chop strand fibers.







Holes drilled for the wiring of the midrange amp (Zapco DC1000.4 bridged for 500x2 on Dynaudio MW162s).




The amprack went for carpeting last night. Today we'll be installing the sub box and glassing the inside to seal it up.

So... a little bit more about the sub enclosure design.

Eric made note that I am always changing things up, always trying something new, etc. Not a bad thing, he said he is glad to have me as a customer and a friend because no one else seems to give a shit about getting good sound anymore. Most of his work these days is alarms and such, or simple deck + 4, or ghetto boomers who don't care how it sounds, as long as it's loud. So... after rebuilding the doors in my Tahoe like 4 times, multiple reinstalls in the 'Hoe, now 2 in the Z, he suggested we build the box to be somewhat "modular" to allow me to change things around if I wanted to. As far as amps go, I'll have the power to do whatever I want and can run down to 0.5 ohm if needed. The sub baffle is going to be removable and replaceable. So, for now, that 3.0 (or so) cubic foot box that is too big for my current subs will probably have some wood blocks inside to take up some space and essentially "shrink" the box. This will allow me to maintain the usable space for the future, say I don't like the sealed sound of these subs, I end up cutting some ports and turning it into an admittedly less-than-recommended-size ported box. Say I don't like that, well, I can simply swap the baffle and put in another pair of 12s or even a trio of 10s, or even have room for a pair of 15s. 3.0 cubes, there should be some 15s out there that'll do okay in that size sealed box. In addition, we can build up the baffle to give me more depth in the future, should I want to. The bottom 3/4 of the box will not be removable without destroying it, but removing the top baffle and replacing it with whatever we want should be simple enough.

This allows me the flexibility to change my mind as often as I want, to try new subs out, different box types, from sealed to ported, etc, as long as I don't need more than 3 cubes or so total. There's even room to do ports on the exterior, should I want to cut into the sides, but I don't see myself doing this. I think having the amps mounted up and out of the way - meaning no more throwing my bags and shit on top of them - the subs recessed in a false floor (I'll need some decent grills that will allow for the massive excursion of these subs (28mm one-way linear), and the ability to swap things around all I want, is all worth the loss of the spare tire. And now I should have a lot more output than I had with that single Hsu Research 12 - it was pretty anemic. Sounded fine, but just didn't have the output I want when cruising with windows down at 75 on a bright sunny day, enjoying the drive. I drive 150 miles round-trip to work every shift, so I spend a good 9-15 hours a week just commuting. I gotta have something to enjoy on the ride, right???


So... today should be the day.

Mount the amprack.
Glass in the sub box.
Cut and mount sub baffle.

That's pretty much it. Some other small things if we have time - I would like to make in-door pods for my Dynaudios, like I mentioned above. May or may not put in the MiniDSP 6x8 - I don't really need it. We'll see. That's it. He has some work he can do on the Tahoe (electrical) if we have tons of time. But then, I'm going to smoke some ribs and there's a Thunder game tonite, too, so if we finish early, that's all to the better!

Finally, I'm optimistic! The last couple days I was pretty uncertain and discouraged, but my friend Eric has a way of working these things out that I just can't see. Always good to have another brain mulling over the problem!


More updates tomorrow, probably!


Later!

[Notloudenuf]

Did you post a selfie in that box?


Brother?

[tRidiot]

Hahaha! Nice... I didn't notice that!

[astrochex]

Now the rest of the amprack.






If you can't envision it, these are going to end up being right over the top of that last Zapco amp we mounted in the hidey-hole.

Are you going to put spacers between the amps and the rack to aid cooling?

Looks great!

[chithead]

That baffle idea is perfect!

[tRidiot]

330AM... just finished the build.

It is sweet. Clean. Nice lines. Classic. Black, a little anodized aluminum accents. I absolutely love it.


Got some tuning to do... the DC1000.4 isn't being recognized by the DRC-SL, but I assume it's just a programming issue. If I need to get on the phone with John at Zapco, I'll do that - but it's playing. Everything is in and working.

Await pics sometime on Tuesday.

[bigbubba]

Looks like this is coming together quite nicely. I do have one question. I haven't read every post but I was looking at the pictures in post #19. Did you mount the fuse block under the Zapco amp? If so, if you blow a fuse are you going to have to remove the amp to change it?

[tRidiot]

Looks like this is coming together quite nicely. I do have one question. I haven't read every post but I was looking at the pictures in post #19. Did you mount the fuse block under the Zapco amp? If so, if you blow a fuse are you going to have to remove the amp to change it?

Yes.

Honestly, in all my years, I can't recall a time I blew a fuse when I wasn't working on wiring and did something stupid. I know IASCA had rules about.. like... you had to be able to reach your fuse block within 30 seconds or some such crap. Anyways, it's never ever been an issue for me.



Finished the build last night. Here's the final pic, I'll upload more later, but I've only slept like 3 hours and I spent a little bit of time tuning just now.




Impressions - box is too big, subs are very very boomy and not nearly as punchy as I would like. I expected this, I need to secure something inside the box to cut down on internal airspace by at least 1 cubic foot, maybe more. I'll need to look into that. But for now - it all works!

[chithead]

That is awesome! Great work!

[chad]

This guy..... Does not dick around when it comes to getting shit done.....