Enclosure hair tricks?

[DARKBRINGER]

Hello everyone. I'm currently doing my first car audio build with the help of a friend. I'm purchasing 2 Fi audio team V.3 18s with a taramps 15k clamped at about 12k watts. I'd like to be able to push enough air capable of hair tricks. I'm working in a 2001 suburban without the third row seats and I do not want to build a wall. Is it possible to move enough air through a vehicle this size without a wall to get it hair trick certified?

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[Buck 5,000+ posts]

Hello everyone. I'm currently doing my first car audio build with the help of a friend. I'm purchasing 2 Fi audio team V.3 18s with a taramps 15k clamped at about 12k watts. I'd like to be able to push enough air capable of hair tricks. I'm working in a 2001 suburban without the third row seats and I do not want to build a wall. Is it possible to move enough air through a vehicle this size without a wall to get it hair trick certified?

Yes. I can design you a box that will do that.

 

[metalheadjoe 10+ year member]

Everyone has different definitions of "hair tricks". Please share a video of your desired outcome. Regardless, I think with 15k or 12k you would have to do a lot of things wrong to not achieve your goal.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

I was doing mild hair tricks with my 2 18's on my 9.1's (2400w or so). My explorer had a lot of roof stiffening done, people really need to understand that over a certain SPL level, you're just getting murdered on efficiency if you don't brace your vehicle and add more subs or power. I ripped hatch metal fairly severely and the bass made the rear doors push out so far that the metal actually clapped on the body door jam metal loudly. All of that movement is a massive amount of sound lost. Think about how hard you'd have to push with your arms to make your doors clap without opening them. I was only doing high 140's.

I guess some sauce would be that every subwoofer box is inside of an enclosure. Your vehicle is also a box, but it's made of metal and has all sorts of gaps and seals. It's only going to hold so much pressure. Hair tricking requires keeping the pressure in the vehicle all the way up to the windows. Enough power and cone area will do that no matter what, but if you want to blow people's faces off, you have to seriously stiffen the vehicle panels and keep the doors from opening.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

Weak spots for pressure losses are the rear hatch, all doors because they can push out. Where the front windshield meets the roof line in the center from left to right-> that's usually a huge flexing problem. Same thing in the rear if you have a trunk or a pickup.

Usually the bottom of the car is solid, usually the firewall is fairly solid (not sure how you'd know). In a big SUV, the rear quarter panels and glass, if they're super long, they can flex very hard.

Adding a lot of mass to the doors is the easiest overall way to keep them from pushing out. Also, if you seal the doors and created a hard wall for your door panel, it makes the air inside of the vehicle hit the wooden wall and put pressure in it, instead of putting pressure on the actual flat sheet metal part of your door. Adds a lot of weight, door becomes harder to push out.

A suburban is so damn long, your roof is going to flex like crazy. I've done a slide in series 6th wall for 2 Fi team 18's, older versions, for a tahoe/suburban. Walls, especially bandpass walls, they have really good properties for hair tricks. You could do a slide in wall, that you could always pull out. The wall will brace the roof for you, if you can build a face for it after you slide it in.

Just some thoughts. I've designed a lot of systems like what you're talking about right here.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

Like if I was to design you a ported box for those 2 18's on 12k, and you had like serious electrical, multiples alts, etc, I know over time that you would absolutely destroy that vehicle. You'd break the vehicle where it would eventually need repairs, if you don't really work on the vehicle's structural integrity.