Wayback: 2002 build for Buffalo Bills player

[geolemon]

I stumbled onto some of my old installs that I thought were lost to history, on the Wayback machine. Archiving one here, a ridiculous F650 from about 2002 (I think) back when 'big and ridiculous' were cool. This was one of our local Buffalo Bills players, I removed his name since he was a little arrogant (his agent was a Mrs America contestant, who was very nice) and wasn't even with the Bills long. I think he got a big contract from his hyped-up name, then disappointed with his performance... I don't really follow football, what do I know.

Construction shots:

Sorry for the pics that are missing - lost to time, I'm sure irrecoverably. Each line below had a pic, some are missing:


I began by removing a plastic pocket from the bottom of each doorpanel.

The next step was to make a template on each side that would establish the shape for the fiberglass door pods.

In this case, my panel will extend all the way along the bottom of each door, relocating the midrange closer to the bottom corners of the doors, with the tweeter located higher on the forward edge of the door panel.

I then created mounting rings for each speaker, and spent some time aiming them properly, with some critical listening.
Once in proper position, I glued them up solidly on stilts, to hold the speakers in those positions.

I also created an oval ring for what will become an illuminated panel displaying Lawyer's autograph.
The next step was to stretch specialty fiberglass mold-making fleece, and resin it up.

Once cured, the rough texture had to be sanded smooth, as vinyl will surprisingly show nearly as many flaws in the end product as painting would.
The panel you see here likely has about 4 hours of sanding and finishing into it before it was ready for vinyl - where stretching the fleece and laying the resin up took just minutes.

Once the panel was prepped, it was wrapped in vinyl.
Due to the extreme curves on this panel, we used a specialty vinyl made for extreme stretches.
It took two of us, and heat-activated glues, to work the vinyl until it laid flat on the panel - which at this point is grey in color.
I started to build the subwoofer enclosure.
Although it could be built fully from MDF, this was a complex design, incorporating an illuminated plexiglass panel.

Here, you see the front baffle (no plexi yet), assembled with the top, bottom, and sides.
The cutouts in the side are positioned to accomodate the rear seatback tilt levers.

The box had to have all screw-holes countersunk and filled, all seams filled and smoothed, and all edges rounded.
We again used the specialty vinyl on this enclosure, as there would be some major stretching going on here.
Here we are, partway through the vinyling process.
As you can imagine, the tilt lever cutouts weren't easy - and would have simply been impossible without that amazing vinyl, the heat activated glue, and our trusty aluminum vinyl tool.

Ultimately, we ended up wrapping this entire piece with one piece of vinyl - with no seams. Pretty smooth looking, in my opinion.

Again, at this point, these vinyled pieces are the grey color of the specialty vinyl.

We brought a sample of the factory brown leather that the coachbuilder had provided for us to our paint supplier.
He used an optical color scanner to capture the color, and was able to blend a vinyl dye that would combine with the grey vinyl to give us exactly the correct color match to the factory brown leather.

Both the door pods, and the subwoofer enclosure were sprayed.

Not shown here, the back panel of the subwoofer box was also wrapped and sprayed - as well as having an entire Varad color-changing undercar kit mounted to it, and a pattern selected on the computer control to create a stunning visual swirling effect when the box would be complete.

I built the autograph illumination panels from dark smoke tinted plexiglass.

As you can see in the upper panel, where a little light is peeking through from the backside, the autograph has already been created. When a light is installed behind this, it will glow uniformly, as I frosted the entire autograph in place.

As you can see in the lower panel, where light isn't passing through the panel, that when the light source is turned off, the panel will simply turn black, without any hint of illumination or an autograph.

Here I am building a set of brass knuckles for the Guinnes Book of World Records.

Actually, this is the plexiglass baffle to which the subs will mount, built from 1/2" thick plexiglass, and will ultimately provide a circular window of about 2" between the subs and the MDF enclosure.

I frosted the entire backside of the plexiglass, so that the lights mounted inside the box would diffuse properly and create the glowing effects desired.

Here we are building the sliding amp racks.
Two sets of sliders were used - one set on the sides, one set on the bottom of the rack, to give superior horizontal and vertical stability - particuarly important as I would be ultimately locating the linear actuator to one far side of both racks, but a good idea anyway for any solid, smoothly actuating rack.\

Here is the enclosure with the frosted plexiglas installed.
As you can see, inserts have been installed in the plexiglass, to which bolts would be screwed through the subwoofer's holes, for some very solid mounting hardware.

The door pods were then mounted to the door panels.
Not apparant in this picture is the tight fit against the door panel, whose surface is not flat in all places. A quality fit is a must, for making a panel that looks like it belongs.

Here is the nearly complete door panel - without the custom flush-mount grille yet installed, and there is a red reflector in the door that needs to be replaced still.

On this passenger door, you can see the custom-built flush mount grilles.
Also, in this shot, the autograph panel is not turned on, showing the stealth mode.

[geolemon]

Continued construction shots:

Test fitting the completed enclosure into the truck cab.
This thing was massively heavy, and required two people to haul into that large truck cab.

Also visible in this shot is some equipment that was installed under the rear seat of the truck before we got our hands on it - this all will need to be relocated.
The Xbox is part of our new plan for the truck.

Test fitting the amp racks in early assembly.
Still relocating some componentry, and beginning to install and route new wiring as well here.
One blessing is that the battery box for the truck is located immediately below this area, making for short power wiring runs.
As you can see by the many holes at the fulcrum, getting the linear actuator linkage just right is part calculation, part perspiration.
In this case, my linkage would be used to multiply a 4" linear actuator's throw to extend an amp rack over 14".

After securing a modded Xbox in between, beauty panels were made and wrapped in ignorable black vinyl to close off the underseat area and not call attention to it unless desired.

Here's a shot of the completed subwoofer enclosure, illuminated, and caught in the middle of the color-changing swirling action.
The final touch was building a smoked, backlit plexiglass shelf for the iPod integration, in the center console.

The center console was a busy place, housing not only the iPod integration add-on, but also a video switcher, two video amplifiers, the input brain for the flip-down, the brain for the Alpine DVD head unit, the Alpine navigation unit, the Sirius satellite radio add-on, and power distribution for all this equipment.
None of this is apparent to the anyone in the truck - everything simply works as if the head unit did it all, and is seamless.

[geolemon]

Completed install pics:

[pic removed]	[player name removed] of the Buffalo Bills enjoying his new system for the first time.
	Here is a shot of the industrial sized truck from the outside. You can't buy one of these from Ford.
	Ford doesn't actually make an F650 for civilian use. This truck was built by Truck Customs by Chris, in Georgia. The interior was given power everything, upholstered with custom two-tone leather. This armrest houses the iPod integration below the cover.
	This shows the iPod integration. A lower base was made of smoke-tinted plexiglas, that has been frosted on the backside. A high-powered white LED is used below it on the far rear side, to cast a rich glow.
	An amazing amount of equipment went into this install, and all of it had to be hidden. A motorized amp rack was built to house two Audison LRx amplifiers, shown here. Located between the amp drawers is an Xbox, and behind it a power inverter and capacitor for the amps.
	Here is a shot of the amp rack motorized fully out. On the driver's side, an LRx 1.400, on the passenger side is an LRx 2.250
	A subwoofer enclosure behind the back seat houses four 12" Audiobahn Pro Compression Piston subwoofers. The enclosure contains a complete Varad color-changing undercar LED kit, and digital controller. The tubes were installed in such a way that the programmed pattern creates color-changing swirls of light around each subwoofer.
[missing pic]	This shows it changing from white to purple...
	This shows it changing from blue to red...
	This shows it changing to another shade of blue. This short video clip needs the brightness turned up - but it does show the color changing swirl action around the subs.
	Besides the flip-out Alpine DVD/Navigation head unit, two 7" headrest screens and one 15.5" flip-down monitor were installed in the truck.
	Focal Polyglass components were installed in custom fiberglass door pods. The speakers were aimed and 'glassed in position, while an illuminated panel containing autograph was installed in the lower portion. When the illumination is turned off, the panel goes perfectly black - no autograph detectable.
	This is a shot of the passenger door. The door pods were wrapped with vinyl, and color matched to the factory leather.
	An Alpine touch-screen DVD head unit was installed, along with the optional navigation unit, and the aformentioned iPod integration unit. You can see the air brakes, and commercial transmission controls from this angle. Not shown is an air-powered train horn that blasts with unbelievable authority.
	To give some sense of scale, here's a view from outside the driver's door. We also installed white footwell illumination.
	Here's a view from outside the rear door. The black vinyl wrapped covers concealing the amp racks and underseat components are visible here.

[BenevolentDictator]

these are awesome time capsules. I can only imagine that the F650 rode like crap...i drove an F-750 for 4 years at my last place of employment and my back and neck were in agony for the entire time. They were awesome trucks in theory to look at but weren't worth much outside of load bearing capacity.

[geolemon]

It was a totally ridiculous truck - I drove it and it felt like driving a dump truck. Ford did NOT make these as passenger vehicles, they were literally built to be dump trucks and similar. I bet your experience is dead on exactly the same. It had a seat that had some suspension in it, IIRC. The company that built them slapped a dually bed on the back and called it a day - but they had other even more ridiculous conversions, like a 6 door SUV they'd make by grafting on a big rear add-on.

Don't get me wrong - I appreciate an America where the middle class is strong enough that people can have some luxury and be proud of it, and the 90's and '00s were all sorts of bling bling. It's been a different time since the 2007/2008 Wall Street and mortgage trading segments collapsed (no, it wasn't "Mexicans", but that propaganda began the deep divide) - and today, indulgences are tastelessly obnoxious for many socioeconomic reasons that are unfortunately real. Even car audio - it's not tasteful these days to do anything that looks like you did anything. Oh well. I mean, I always specialized in "stealth" installs, but I appreciated all the crazy airbrushed fiberglass volcano installs sitting on top of custom welded air-suspended chassis with 16 color paint jobs tucking chrome wheels. Oh well. Reality is what reality is, and it's always changing.

I see the company that made this truck still exists:
http://www.f650pickups.com/
Looks like they have since moved on to Freightliner behemoths and a bunch of industry-oriented trucks as well - but their website is pretty damn '00s still, that's for sure!

[BenevolentDictator]

I remember seeing those installs you speak of and appreciating them to an extent but also looking at them and wondering...after all of that how do they even sound and what do these folks listen to....it's basically what i feel when I see SPL builds...and to some extent SQ builds with ridiculously priced equipment....and an even higher install bill.

My 750 didn't even have a seat with a suspension and i doubt it would have helped much....now I can't lie...if I could get a converted International with an upgraded cab....i'd be all over it, those drove like a dream. I could do a coastal drive in one of those and be in heaven.

It was a totally ridiculous truck - I drove it and it felt like driving a dump truck. Ford did NOT make these as passenger vehicles, they were literally built to be dump trucks and similar. I bet your experience is dead on exactly the same. It had a seat that had some suspension in it, IIRC. The company that built them slapped a dually bed on the back and called it a day - but they had other even more ridiculous conversions, like a 6 door SUV they'd make by grafting on a big rear add-on.

Don't get me wrong - I appreciate an America where the middle class is strong enough that people can have some luxury and be proud of it, and the 90's and '00s were all sorts of bling bling. It's been a different time since the 2007/2008 Wall Street and mortgage trading segments collapsed (no, it wasn't "Mexicans", but that propaganda began the deep divide) - and today, indulgences are tastelessly obnoxious for many socioeconomic reasons that are unfortunately real. Even car audio - it's not tasteful these days to do anything that looks like you did anything. Oh well. I mean, I always specialized in "stealth" installs, but I appreciated all the crazy airbrushed fiberglass volcano installs sitting on top of custom welded air-suspended chassis with 16 color paint jobs tucking chrome wheels. Oh well. Reality is what reality is, and it's always changing.

I see the company that made this truck still exists:
http://www.f650pickups.com/
Looks like they have since moved on to Freightliner behemoths and a bunch of industry-oriented trucks as well - but their website is pretty damn '00s still, that's for sure!

[geolemon]

I remember seeing those installs you speak of and appreciating them to an extent but also looking at them and wondering...after all of that how do they even sound and what do these folks listen to....it's basically what i feel when I see SPL builds...and to some extent SQ builds with ridiculously priced equipment....and an even higher install bill.

My 750 didn't even have a seat with a suspension and i doubt it would have helped much....now I can't lie...if I could get a converted International with an upgraded cab....i'd be all over it, those drove like a dream. I could do a coastal drive in one of those and be in heaven.

So - I'm also a career IT guy. I was actually recruited at the right place, right time, by a shop owner who knew me and was willing to pay my IT project lead salary to help manage his shop for several years. I typically work on implementation projects, which all begin by gathering requirements - then the next 6 months and several million dollars are spent developing, testing, and implementing the solution.

I mention that because it's also my approach to doing installs and especially so with the high-dollar ones. In the case of this truck, he actually listened to a diverse range of music and did want some sound quality - but also wanted some big bass. I don't think four sealed 12's were the biggest he experienced, but one requirement was to keep the interior with the stock, custom camel-on-grey interior he commissioned the truck to be built with. We also couldn't do a blow-through or to remove the back seat, so we were space limited. The four 12's sealed with those particular 12's were actually decent, in SQ and output. They weren't W7's, but those had remarkably large voice coils (the pole vent was something like 2.5" diameter if I recall) and a Q suited to sealed if I recall. I was never an Audiobahn fan but it had a few bright spots - those were actually pretty cool subs.

I can't remember if we used K2Power or Utopias in the doors - it looks like the TN52 tweeter so it could have been either, in that era. I'm betting we did the Utopias.
I did spend some time on the driver aiming, although he had no high end audio "imaging" goals, I remember that.

It ended up sounding pretty good, this one.

But I can't say they were all to my taste... really depended on the customer and their goals.
Even when we did demo cars - like the red Neon SRT4 - that was NOT done for SQ purposes, but rather as a fabrication demonstration tool - we even had the mids flipped only because they had cool baskets! Each design was true to it's goals, and that's a very interesting thing to do - it brings you all over the spectrum of sound.

Personally, I also enjoyed SPL competition, and building boom systems - it's also pretty geeky acoustical science, exploiting certain things to the nth level of detail - and if you don't understand the science, you won't be competitive - and you won't satisfy customers. It's less detailed, more brute force - but just as fun.

I typically like the simple systems best personally (please ignore my current build thread ) - a single sub and component set up front for SQ... SPL competition using a single sub and the least power to be competitive, but other people come in with VERY different "project requirements", which is fun to go down those roads also.

So to answer the question - this install sounded pretty good. And other installs - all over the map, but i think delivering what they wanted.

"Good" would always be up for debate.