My Lancer OZ build Log ess queue

[captainobvious! 10+ year member]

Sharpie placed into the hole to give an idea of the space inside the framerail area. Theres plenty of airspace in there.

I also wanted to mount the new Peerless SLS 8"ers in the doors as well this week. I'm too poor to be able to afford L8's right now, but these look to be a HECK of a bargain. We'll know after I get some listening time in.

Cut baffles for the SLS8's and mounted them to the door. Sealed any gaps with foam and both edges and seams of the baffles with silicone sealant.

What you dont see in these pics is that I added a couple more screws to really secure it to the door. Also, This was just the first baffle (3/4" Birch), I added a second to account for the depth.

Unfortunately, the door card would not fit back on with the newly upgraded hardware. I had to cut the door panel wide open to fit them. These things are straight up massive. They look closer to a 10" than an 8". Did some basic molding of the door panel and I will have to continue work on it to smooth it out, fill in gaps, and paint. Then I'll need to stretch some grill cloth over it or something.

 

[captainobvious! 10+ year member]

Yeah, my baffles are shitty...I know. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif But, they are functional so thats whats important.

Some more pics...

Heres where you can see I had to "modify" the lower dash. Thi sis the drivers side. I also had to do the passengers side. I'll pretty it up later, but for now the doors close, so thats a good thing LOL :roll:

I also ran out and picked up some contact cement so I'll be able to install my deflex pads when I go to do the work on the doors again. The deflex pads I got were from Madisound, and they are really beefy and heavy duty. Id say about 5/8" think and about 2+ lbs each...very nice quality

 

[captainobvious! 10+ year member]

Connected up the Peerless SLS's today. WOW. Lets just say they have some serious output.

my quick review:

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/...791#post506791

 

[michaellane 5,000+ posts]

dude nice build coming along...pm me if you got the time i got some questions for ya //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[captainobvious! 10+ year member]

I cut out a circle close to the diameter of the baffles that were mounted to the door metal, so the panel now fits over the midbasses and attaches to the door properly. Then I used some fiberglass/mat to build up some structure around the baffles to connect to the door card. Then I strated using Bondo to fill in dips and gaps, however its not turning out too pretty just yet. I need to pick up a few putty knives to make applying the (shitty) Bondo a bit easier. Then I'll sand it down and use a glaze putty to fill in any holes and such. After that its more sanding and then finally, I'll have to decide if I want to stretch some vinyl or texture paint. Either way, I'll need to also make some sort of grill to cover the midbasses and I'll likely end up covering that in grill cloth.

I'll post up some pics of the progress so that you'll see how I'm doing it. This is my first attempt at doing a door panel, so I'm kind of winging it here.

So today I focused on getting the L4/L1pro installed into the (sh*tty) kickpanel pods I made. I say (sh*tty) bacause I did a very poor job of aiming them before glassing them. Instead of pointing slightly forward and up, they are pointing slightly down. You'll probably be able to see what Im referring to in the pics. Because they will be located behind a (modified) factory panel, I didnt feel the need to "pretty" them up. I did wrap them though in something I thought would be both functional and clean- Ensolite foam. I figured a little extra damping couldn't hurt. You'll also notice some Great Stuff window and door foam on the inside of the enclosures. This should also give me a little more resistance to enclosure resonance. Keep in mind I still have to hack the factory kick panel and do alot of clean up, but you get the idea...

The surprising thing about my goof up with the aiming is the fact that with about 15 minutes worth of tuning from the controls of my DRZ-9255, these things still sound **** good.

Tonality is VERY good, and I must say that the L4's billing of being a wide-bandwidth midrange is absolutely not a hoax. Even when crossed as high as 10khz they still sounded quite good. :shock: I could certainly see these being used as a full range driver in a variety of applications. Well done Scott.

Here are a few pics of the door panels from better angles as promised. Hopefully I'll get to do some work on them over the next 2 days as you can clearly see theres alot of work to be done...

I also started making the cables to connect up the second amplifier. My main amp is an Arc Audio 4150-cxlr which is powering the L4/L1pro's with 80 watts per channel. The second amp I'm hooking up is a PPI PCX-480 which will be bridged down to 2 channels, providing 320 watts to each Peerless SLS 8" midbass (Im too poor for the L8's right now //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif but these do seem to be a very good driver).

Cables, techflexed/heat shrink...you know the deal:

 

[captainobvious! 10+ year member]

Well...been a while. I've had alot going on and got caught up in learning to play the drums to jam with my buddies so the install has been in a lull.

Im basically at the same position with the doors. I need to find a way to make them presentable.

The drivers are mounted to rings which are secured to the metal door. The door card can slip over the midbasses & baffles and still attach properly to the metal door. The problem is in making a protective grill and smoothing out the door. I think due to the curves in portions of that door panel that doing vinyl may prove to be extremely tricky. Especially for someone who has never wrapped vinyl

Anyways, I'm trying to wrap my brain around it to figure out a solution. Right now I'm thinking about making a metal ring that goes around the baffle. I could then stretch some fabric from the ring over the door panel and fiberglass again to get a better result.

Perhaps some of you experienced guys can offer some input?

Take a look at the panels a few posts up. ( I do have a fresh set of door panels as well as a back up plan, fyi). Part of the problem is that I have limited clearance to "build up" the panel much more due to space where the door panel meets the dash when the door is closed.

Im also considering pulling out the kick panel enclosures and doing them over. I know I can do a much better job, and I think I can aim them properly to get better response from the mids. In fact, I may just end up doing the 4" mids in the kicks and move the tweeters up to the A-Pillars. Since I plan on running the mids up to between 6-8khz, the tweets will be used more for top end sparkle anyway. The a-pillars I feel much more comfortable about. They should be a pretty easy job. Its these doors that have me screwed right now.

Amps have been changed as well. I'll be using a pair of JL 300/4's to power the system now.

Well, I think (with some help from others) that I have an idea to try and get the doors banged out. Its going to take alot of work, but hopefully they'll come out ok.

My plan is to make rings to go around the baffles (speaker rings) I currently have mounted to the door. These will make a lip that I can use to stretch fabric over the space between the baffles and the door panels. With a little fiberglassing, drilling, filling and sanding, I think I may be able to get them to be presentable. Chances are that they wont be able to be vinyl stretched because of some of the difficult shapes in the door panel so unless some of the experts chime in otherwise, I'll likely do a textured paint.

Here are pics of the rings I did tonight. I've seen others do this with ABS or other plastics/materials, but I got this idea from one of Geo's threads (thanks dude !!)

I used the speaker grills that I will be using as a guide to shape the rings. I first wrapped one layer of dense volara foam (1/4") to allow myself a little wiggle room for the material.

PICS:

Where the cut was made at the end of the strip, I used some superglue on the seam to hold things together. I'm letting the rings sit on the speaker grills tonight just be sure they dont lose shape. After trimming and sanding the edges, I'll likely wipe the top and bottom with a little Titebond III to be sure I'll have no separation issues. Im not really worried to be honest as they will soak up some resin when the fabric gets stretched

 

[captainobvious! 10+ year member]

The product says it can be "ironed" on. Its basically a roll of real wood veneer. Easily bendable and it has a good adhesive already applied. All you need to do is heat it up to activate the glue. I chose to use the heat gun since it was just easier in this application.

This can be found at your local Lowes or **** Depot. Cost is about $6.50 a package. For reference, one package was enough to do both of the rings for the 8" drivers, and still have left over. In fact, its probably enough leftover for tweeter rings. 2 packs probably would have been enough to do all 6 drivers...looks like I'll have some extra //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

 

[captainobvious! 10+ year member]

Well, unfortunately weather isnt cooperating today...

But, i did manage to get some prep work done. I glued the material to the rings which will be used to stretch over the panel for the fiberglassing work. I also did some door prep work. I had to remove all of the bad fiberglassing I initially did to get a fresh start. I sanded the door panel area and drilled a bunch of small holes which will be needed to make sure the fiberglass and filler stay put once they are applied to the panel.

Pics:

Old fiberglass and Bondo removed

Holes drilled and panel sanded

 

[captainobvious! 10+ year member]

Old t-shirt...Draw the outline of the ring, cut it about 3/4" smaller diameter.

A little contact cement

Now the rings are ready to be secured and then the material stretched and glued/trimmed onto the door panel

 

[captainobvious! 10+ year member]

In progress...

I used contact cement to try and hold the fabric in place once stretched.

Not perfect, but I think I can work with it once I get a thin fiberglass shell done. Ill put a coat or two on these and then remove the door panel. After that, I'll get some on the back side of the door panel as well to to strengthen it up. Cross your fingers.

 

[captainobvious! 10+ year member]

I layed on the resin on the stretched fabric and unfortunately, it was a little to thin. I got areas where it sagged. I think I can still work with this though. I'll have to sand and grind the fiberglass layer a bit, and then drill some smal holes in it so that I can apply filler.

I'll chalk this one up to being a rookie with this. Hopefully the end result will be decent though. I sense a LOT of elbow grease about to be summoned. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif

 

[captainobvious! 10+ year member]

Yeah they (the panels)really are slick. I've scuffed them up with sandpaper and drilled a bunch of small holes in before stretching the fabric. The main reason for this is that I'll be able to do some filling from the back side of the panel and it should really help to bond and solidify the whole panel. Pics below are of the door panels as I took them out of the car tonight after allowing them a few days drying time. As expected, the mold is a bit thin and flimsy right now since theres no fiberglass matt in there yet. I plan to drill some holes in the mold and a few more surrounding it in the doors. I trimmed the excess material and as you can see they dont look nearly as bad as they initially did.

Remember when viewing these that the panels are not actually being used to "mount" the midbass to, so they won't need as much total mass as a door "pod" would. I really wanted to take this approach because I feel that when you do a door pod your left with much more panel resonance issues. When the door panel is part of the enclosure it makes it much more difficult to decouple it from the solid door structure. By mounting the midbass baffles(rings) to the door metal, I enable myself to be able to use closed cell foam to decouple the normally vibration prone door panels from the door metal for a much cleaner sound.

I really just need some decent weather and some time to get these things built up. Its been rainy and wet around here for the majority of the last 2 weeks. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

After drilling the holes and then laying down some fiberglass matt on the front and back of the panels, I'll begin sanding/grinding and prepping for filler. I'll go into more specifics in my process for that once I'm at that point. Here are the pics from tonight...

Door panels removed from the car...

Trimmed the excess material...

 

[captainobvious! 10+ year member]

...and thats where we are at right now 6/17/09

I'm hoping to get some more work done on the doors this weekend.

 

[michaellane 5,000+ posts]

dude im really hoping the doors come out good. i know it sucks being a rookie (im one too) im just too nervous to cut my doors and mess them up! but it looks good. and im digging the purple LOL

 

[jmanpc 5,000+ posts]

Bondo on the doors ftw!

Other than that, lookin clean //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

I'm diggin the DRZ-9255 //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/boink.gif.91933e72f927f2cefc79aff02573090c.gif