2003 Jetta build V4.1 AKA "Violently Expensive"

Actually got some work done this weekend! Epoxy is drying so no pictures yet. Might have time to snap some photos and whatnot tonight, if not it will be tomorrow.

Pillars are "done".
New door spacers are built.
Protection caps are wired up.

I can almost hear it now!

Matt
 
Actually got some work done this weekend! Epoxy is drying so no pictures yet. Might have time to snap some photos and whatnot tonight, if not it will be tomorrow.

Pillars are "done".
New door spacers are built.
Protection caps are wired up.

I can almost hear it now!

Matt

how much longer you think till it’s 100% done? What I mean by that is everything in cause we all end up adding and changing stuff after it’s “done” 😂.
 
how much longer you think till it’s 100% done? What I mean by that is everything in cause we all end up adding and changing stuff after it’s “done” 😂.
It will never be done man, you know that!

The pillars I just made are a temporarily permanent thing. I want to fiberglass them, so this is the "template" to glass over, but before it gets glassed I want to make some changes to the pod shape that will require a fair bit more work.

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The aiming is slightly off on the passenger tweeter, and about 10 degrees off on the driver's midrange, so I'll probably dig out the dremel and cut the cups free and re-epoxy them. I got excited and test-fit them before they were fully cured I guess, and they sagged a bit unfortunately.

The doors are going to need alot of work. I have a spare passenger door panel so it got chopped up to test fit the hexagon I decided to **** around with at work this week... Miters and a bit of a round on the edges.

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They stick out a little far for my liking, so they might get cut down an inch at an angle firing into the footwell to give some extra protection to the speaker. These will only be playing from about 400hz down so being on axis isn't a huge deal.

Wiring is in progress. Need to get the protection caps soldered in-line on the 4-16 wires in the dash, and then I get to work on the pigtails for the amp and run the DRC wire and modify the mount to fit in my dash.

If all goes well, I could have a working stereo by next weekend. It would be a single 18 in the baffle, the dash would be together, the door panels wouldn't be finished, and I would still need the amp rack finished, but it would be 80 percent done. Final wiring/amp rack can't be finished until the box is finished, and that's going to take a bit...

Matt
 
The prep on aiming, laying it all out etc can take up a lot of time! When I do this stuff I’ll go out to the shop in the morning and poof 8 hours goes by in the snap of a finger lol. Wiring is another thing that can take time doing it all clean. I’m dreading that part 😂. You are gonna glass the door panels or?
 
The prep on aiming, laying it all out etc can take up a lot of time! When I do this stuff I’ll go out to the shop in the morning and poof 8 hours goes by in the snap of a finger lol. Wiring is another thing that can take time doing it all clean. I’m dreading that part 😂. You are gonna glass the door panels or?
If i dont open the garage door.. Ill forget what day it is 👀 👀 💩
 
The prep on aiming, laying it all out etc can take up a lot of time! When I do this stuff I’ll go out to the shop in the morning and poof 8 hours goes by in the snap of a finger lol. Wiring is another thing that can take time doing it all clean. I’m dreading that part 😂. You are gonna glass the door panels or?

Aiming and laying it out doesn't take me long. I got these pillars cut, pods aimed, and everything secured in less than 3 hours. Making it pretty is a different story, lol.

Same with my amp rack. I know the layout, just can't make it until the box is built.

Wiring is a diffent story. It's something I want to make nice, but I hate taking the time

Matt
 
Small update been sick since Friday afternoon, got the tweeters and midrange in the pillars, and got the protection caps wired into the amp pigtail for the tweeters and midrange. Went ahead and threw a Deutsch connector on the end of the amp pigtail so I can just wire up the male plug to the speaker wire and keep things plug-n-play. It's especially helpful since I have 4 wires essentially hanging out from bridging channels 5+6 and 7+8 for the midbass. This way they can be out of the way and can't short, but still used if I want them down the road. Got the glove box back in the car as well, and I pulled all the under-dash parts out of the shed to be installed this week.

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Amps should be going back in on a temporary board while I figure out power and ground routing to the new location. Once I get the midbass back in the doors I can fire everything up and load in the DSP parameters I saved and pull a few frequency sweeps with the Dayton mic I got.

Matt
 
Got the audison and the remote in today. Turns out setting up a DSP amp takes ******* forever if you don't know what you are doing.

3 input calibrations, 2 harness re-wires, and about 6 hours of sitting on a computer in my car and its finally working. No EQ whatsoever yet, but I got crossover points, some basic level matching and time alignment done. Still have some messing to do, and the midbass volume isn't making me happy yet, but I'm definitely a noob at this whole "no knob on the amp to turn for more volume" thing.

Might be able to do a few REW sweeps tomorrow and get some EQ work done. Still have to put in the sub amp, but I'm waiting on a short RCA cable to run from the f8.9 to the smart 3 so no bass for now.

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Fun stuff. Can't say I enjoy sitting in the car with a laptop instead of turning knobs and messing with the headunit settings, but so far it sounds pretty good.

Matt
 
Got some test panels cut for the enclosure and got them in the car. Figuring out how to get the top panel in was a royal pain, but it fits!

Still working on it and trying to get as much space as possible while keeping the box relatively easy to put together. I'm trying to avoid having any dimension bigger than 48 inches, but the MDF at work is actually a 4'1"" x 8'2" section. Don't really want to use MDF, but it's free and I gain almost an extra 1.5 cubes by making it 1 inch wider. Should have the final dimensions and cut sheet done today. Might be making a trip to Tampa to get some "marine ply" if I decide against waterproofing the MDF.

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Alright, got the final enclosure size figured out I think. Don't have actual dimensions written down since I need to do a final test fit of the enclosure in the car and being Florida it started ******* pouring. BUT if it fits the external dimensions will be as follows.

Enclosure is 31.5 deep on top, 20.75deep on bottom, 51.5 wide at the front, 42.5 wide at the back, and 24.5 tall. Here's where it gets a bit rough on the dimensions since the enclosure isn't a rectangle.

The back is at an angle and works out to about 27-5/8, and to clear the wheel wells there is little triangle cut out from the 51.5 at the top and bottom in the rear. It's a 6.5" transition and goes from 51.5 down to 42.5. Works out to about 15.3 cubes on paper, but once I test fit the enclosure I'll get proper measurements and break out the trapezoidal, triangular, and rectangular prism calculators and figure out the actual internal volume.

After loosing a cube or so for sub and bracing, I'll be left with about 14 cubes net sealed or ported. The enclosure will start out sealed, but the rear will have a Cutout and a blanking plate where an external port can be bolted on to come up through the rear deck. I have no idea how much port area I need for this, but a 14" square port only needs to be 30" long to give me 30hz tuning and that's 196 square inches of port.

Any idea how much port area I need for 370 square inches of cone area and 31mm of xmax? I doubt I'll be able to reach Xmax on 3k with the pair of these, I don't trust winisd.


Matt
 
I had someone much smarter than I am do a few plots on a pair of these in 14 cubes. Funny thing is, these subs appear to want a small enclosure and LOTS of power. For example here are 5 different plots, 2 of the pro 5100s on 3k for each. None of these come anywhere close to Xmax, and the 14 cube enclosure still doesn't reach Xmax until damn near 15k with a proper subsonic.


Red = 14 @ 28Hz
White = 10.7 @ 31
Blue = 6.6 @ 37
Pink = 3.8 @ 41
Green = 4.6 @ 27

download.png


Doing some figuring, but this may end up being almost a home-theater type enclosure with how the driver behaves. Should have a cabin resonance plot done today and then the real work can get done.

Matt
 
I had someone much smarter than I am do a few plots on a pair of these in 14 cubes. Funny thing is, these subs appear to want a small enclosure and LOTS of power. For example here are 5 different plots, 2 of the pro 5100s on 3k for each. None of these come anywhere close to Xmax, and the 14 cube enclosure still doesn't reach Xmax until damn near 15k with a proper subsonic.


Red = 14 @ 28Hz
White = 10.7 @ 31
Blue = 6.6 @ 37
Pink = 3.8 @ 41
Green = 4.6 @ 27

View attachment 38731

Doing some figuring, but this may end up being almost a home-theater type enclosure with how the driver behaves. Should have a cabin resonance plot done today and then the real work can get done.

Matt

How many square inches of port? If it’s there my bad but I’m getting old and don’t see it 😂
 
How many square inches of port? If it’s there my bad but I’m getting old and don’t see it 😂
Port area is going to be HEAVILY dependent on tuning and power. So far it's looking like 100 square inches is good for the 28hz tune on my power. If I decide to throw a SALT12k or something on it, I can only fit 170 square inches, but my port noise is minimal.

I don't trust WinISD, so take those numbers with a grain.

Matt
 
Port area is going to be HEAVILY dependent on tuning and power. So far it's looking like 100 square inches is good for the 28hz tune on my power. If I decide to throw a SALT12k or something on it, I can only fit 170 square inches, but my port noise is minimal.

I don't trust WinISD, so take those numbers with a grain.

Matt

With that size box and that much cone area, I’d want to at least double that to 200 sq in . I know it’s easier said then done lol. With the enclosure I did, I wanted 120 sq in but had to settle on 117 to comprise and get the tuning I wanted. You are dealing with an enclosure that is double the size tho lol.
 
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