Sealed or Free-Air kickpanels?

[AndyInOC 10+ year member]

you'll shoot your eye out kid!!!!!

 

[mjf 10+ year member]

i was toying around with the idea of a tline for my doors, as it wouldnt exactly need to be too large. heh

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

Free air does not equal IB //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

Just needed to clear that up...

 

[CadillacMatt 10+ year member]

Mother****.... I really don't forsee this kick panel thing happening.

I just got back from the car and I was thinking of doing the kicks like Matt Borgardt over at ID recommended (mounting them open air into the A-pillars) but when I pulled the carpet back, I was greeted with a factory wiring harness bolted the entire width and length of the A-pillar, and pretty much no room to recess the 6.5"s into the body panels...

OK, so I toyed around with the idea of doing it like everyone else and building a "pod"... well, I placed the speaker about where it would sit on the driver's left and it felt like my leg was in my chest, I have long legs and I'd have to drive with one leg **** near indian style in order to make it work... I don't know, this is really frustrating... would I be better off just putting them in the doors? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/mad.gif.c18f003ab0ef8a0d9c27ca78d77a6392.gif

Here are some pics by the way.... and that big ****ing mess of wires you see is the remnants of the wonderful job the piece of shit install shop did with my alarm //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/mad.gif.c18f003ab0ef8a0d9c27ca78d77a6392.gif//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crap.gif.7f4dd41e3e9b23fbd170a1ee6f65cecc.gif//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/mad.gif.c18f003ab0ef8a0d9c27ca78d77a6392.gif

The big black piece of plastic on the left hand side is the wiring harness, and everything to the right of that is firewall

 

[Horsemanwill 10+ year member]

if you took the door and extened the bottom of it to match the arm rest how much room would you have between the seat and the speaker?

 

[CadillacMatt 10+ year member]

I don't quite follow.

 

[CadillacMatt 10+ year member]

Didn't mean to freak out, went back downstairs with a cool head and managed to sort through that mess a little bit... the plastic harness cover will come off with a little careful destruction, and what's left is a bundle of wires about 1.5" in diameter... I should be able to move them out of the way by a few inches.

There is actually a hole behind the harness leading into the A-pillar, which was a surprise. The foam underneath the carpeting by the brake pedal was slightly damp, which concerns me...

So I went ahead and made a template to match the approximate size of the speaker baffle, and toyed around with the location and I actually found a spot that wouldn't be too intrusive... the speaker would have enough depth for mounting, and I could pull the carpet and glass an enclosure that would open into the A-pillar.

However I got to thinking about it, and I'm wondering how exactly I would blend all this in to the existing carpet... lots to think about.

Here's the template I made

And the wiring harness peeking out from inside the plastic clamshell

 

[Horsemanwill 10+ year member]

in that case reroute reroute reroute. and find out where that moisture camre from.

 

[CadillacMatt 10+ year member]

in that case reroute reroute reroute. and find out where that moisture camre from.

What if I made sort of a "wall" instead of a full on enclosure?

What I mean is, take a piece of MDF and shape it to the contour of the left side kick panel (my car has carpet there where some other cars already have plastic kicks).

Once I have the "wall" made, I would build the baffle off of the "wall", position it and secure it with dowels, and put fleece/resin over it just like all the other methods.

Then I could go back and cut out the backside of the wall to allow the speakers to come through and provide an open airspace between the speakers and the back of the wall.

So in essence the backside of the wall, including the A-pillar space a would be the "enclosure", but it wouldn't be sealed up like glassing it to the opening of the A-pillar would be... would this be a waste of time?

I'm sorry if I'm confusing and exceedingly random but I'm new to this stuff and I'm trying to soak it all up at once I guess, thanks for putting up with me //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crazy.gif.c13912c32de98515d3142759a824dae7.gif

 

[Horsemanwill 10+ year member]

i haven't done kicks i'd ask matt that question.

 

[CadillacMatt 10+ year member]

kthx

 

[Boris 10+ year member]

There's no way I could ever drive with kicks.

All I would be doing is just that, kicking the shait out of them.

Give the door one more look over, build pods on the doors. Or not.

 

[brian84corvette 10+ year member]

I would use caution if building them there.

moisture will find it,

and mess up your mdf.

and maby some one will step on your pod, or speaker, and wreck it.

I actually took apart my doors to find a good spot to cut in some 6.5" holes

for speakers there. found out that I could fit in a pair of 8" or a set of 6by9 -

but I kept the 6.5" speakers since I already had them to use. but now I can upgrade to some 8" if I find them.

for my doors. alot of room in there foward up. all my window motor stuff is dead center of the doors.

give em a good looking over to see what space is avalable.

take off a door pannel, and run the window up and down a couple of times

to see wherere all the crap inside is running to. lets you know how much space is avalable to work with. migt be suprised how much room you got in there.