2005 Monte Carlo: from half-ass to whole-ass

[astrochex]

Thats outstanding commitment.

If you were able to bend up a round-shaped, tubular steel frame and weld that in for a mount, you would recover some of the lost rigidity.

[Bigred]

Once u go floor, you'll never go door

[pocket5s]

Once u go floor, you'll never go door

someone wise once said

[decibelle]

'Tis time once again for my completely coincidental weekly update- with lots of pics this time!

I have been a busy bee lately trying to simultaneously plan and work on the midbass enclosures, finish up the projectors, and find some time to not fail all my classes.

Now that I had cut open some space for the midbass, it was time to work on building them a cozy little aperiodic enclosure.


Cut a 4 1/4" hole thru the floor for venting.


4 1/4" Scan vents.


Not how they are actually installed, but to get a visual of the area 'round there.


Rough sub location in relation to hole.


Then it was time to make some molds of the kick area.





First layer of glass to start things off. Damn things kept succumbing to gravity during the curing process, so I did the only logical thing to try to spare them last minute and sat there for a half hour holding the corners up.

The squarish vent you see in the molds is this:


These will lie facedown in in the molds, and the vents will be placed inside, which will help shield it from water and road debris. It won't be the only protection they have, but the rest comes later.

Once the molds cured, it was time to trim them up a little. My dremel had just kicked the bucket, so I used the big kid's dremel instead: an angle grinder. It was going well, and I was feeling a little adventurous... until I took an angle grinder to the knee.*


*Cookies to anyone who gets the reference there

Apparently it got snagged on a part of the enclosure, and at 11,000rpms, one second it was om-nom-nomming away happily on the molds and the next, it was on the floor and I had a huge gash in my leg and a ruined pair of pants. And then it swelled and got much worse and much more painful overnight.

Today I picked up a few pieces of hardware for mounting the enclosures and slapped a couple of starter layers of glass on them. When finished, they will be bolted to the car and slightly elevated off the actual metal with a layer of foam sandwiching the space between, plus other damping/mass-loading stuffs. That's the project for the rest of the week/weekend/however long it really takes.

On to other things!

Projectors are juuust about done. It's been a long time coming, collecting parts and figuring out how to make them work on a headlight they were never made for. But tonight, I got them hooked up for testing, and I'm pleased to say they WORK!


Projector beam vs. factory halogen. Almost laughable, the difference.


LED high beam vs. factory high beam.


New LED high beams.


Both projectors lit.


Both unlit.


LED high beam and parking light.


Close up unlit.


Side shot!

Once testing was complete, I threw another pair of headlights in the oven to remove the lenses to transfer to these. The other lens is baking in the oven as I type, so with any luck I can get them finalized tomorrow evening! I have yet to wire up the stealth LEDs in the housing, so that'll come later as well I think it's safe to say I now have the only 6th gen Monte with projector headlights, and that's kind of special.


There are a couple more aesthetic things yet to come, and much more work to be done on the build, but progress has been steady! Still hoping to finish it all up early next month! And on that high note, that's all for now friends!

[Kevin K]

adventurous... until I took an angle grinder to the knee.*

is that like "taking an arrow to the knee" saying?

[papacueball]

A grinding disc going full tilt when it touches any body part causes a moment of extreme panic. Then all you can do is wait for the blood.

[ca90ss]

until I took an angle grinder to the knee.*

At least nobody stole your sweetroll.

[claydo]

Holy moly, an angle grinder to tha knee! Ouch.....particles, grinding wheels, and skin = bad combo.....watch that wound, she could get ugly! Oh, and projectors look nice too!

[pocket5s]

hmmm... I spy a midrange that looks very familiar....

[decibelle]

Was wondering if someone was gonna pick up on that

I have all but given up on the mid enclosures for now. They have been giving me nothing but straight sass when it comes to perfecting them, so they are due for a renovation once the midbass get done.

A grinding disc going full tilt when it touches any body part causes a moment of extreme panic. Then all you can do is wait for the blood.

It was one of those moments where you realize exactly what's going to happen a split second before it does, but there's nothing you can do to stop it, so you just... brace for impact. I was lucky, too - it wasn't a grinding disc, it was toothy. Could have been a lot worse. It's healing alright now, but it definitely ain't purty.