Volvo S60 build resurrected! Old School!

[americannight 10+ year member]

[quote name='Mitch86']Very nice, detailed build! The amp racks look great! I'm anxious to see the sub enclosure now.. I'm no expert, but I'm going to say you need a larger port than the 3". You may be better off sticking with a sealed enclosure if you can't get the layout to allow for larger ports. @pro\-rabbit ; may be able to chime in with suggestions on the ports.[/QUOTE]

I'm wondering if the sealed might just be the way to go. If I build it sealed, I can always easily add the precision ports on either the top, sides, or back. I'm looking at this front baffle area, got some 3" PVC at the hardware store and even that port would barely fit. If I put it there, glass it in, and hate the sound then I'm pretty much stuck with it. I could seal these puppies up good, put some fiber fill in there, and give it a go. Kind of leaning towards that today...

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

Did some work on the subwoofer enclosure this weekend but not much to write home about. I've decided to let my ears be the judge. I'm going to seal one chamber and port the other, fire 'em up see which I prefer. Then once I decide if sealed or ported sounds better in this car, I will vinyl it up and be done with it. I think with this kind of install with so many variables, it's best to let my ear be the judge. Conventional wisdom is that ported will pound better but ya never know....

 

[Trevor28139 10+ year member]

Awesome build! regarding the port, i always use the 15-20 sq in port per cu ft.

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

Slow going working on the front edges (sides) of the subwoofer enclosure where it buts up against the two sidewall amp rack panels. I want the enclosure to follow the curvature of those panels so it has a nice custom fit look from the front. I'm trying some modeling clay tonight to see if I can get it to harden in the shape of that curvature so I can then trace it onto a piece of MDF. At this point that gap doesn't need to be perfect but I do want to mirror that curvature as best as possible and then can work out the details later with some body filler. We'll see how it goes. I **** with clay...

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

For anyone wondering, the clay was a bust, lol. But at least it did give me a general idea for the shape. What I ended up doing was drawing the shape onto MDF as close as I could. I don't want the enclosure to be too fitting to the sides at this stage. Once the fiberglass resin gets applied to the fleece it will have a tendency to swell and expand. Then with the added thickness of the vinyl, I know I'll need a bit of gap there. Once I have the front of this thing glassed in then I plan to do some detail work around the sides with body filler to close that gap with just enough room for the vinyl. With any luck, it will fit right in. Here's a couple pics of where I'm at. Glue is drying on the fleece. Once dry, I'll trim off the extra and use staples where needed. Hopefully I will have time to apply the resin tomorrow. The big accomplishment for today was just getting the sides of the enclosure they way I want and, most importantly, test fitting it in the trunk to make sure I can get it in there without issues. There are some limitations to how high and wide this enclosure can be due to the trunk opening size.

 

[husker77 10+ year member]

That is gonna look nice when done. Very clean!

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

That is gonna look nice when done. Very clean!

Thanks man! It's nearly freezing tonight in Seattle and we're prepared for snow. But that didn't stop progress on the enclosure. No sir! Check it out. I put two heat lamps in the box, one in each chamber and then set the back piece on there. This created an oven of sorts. Applied the resin to the fleece and the oven worked like a champ. Me and my son used a couple heat guns to work around the sides of the fleece from the outside as well. All said, took about 1.5 hours to dry. Some good tunes were heard during the drying process. Now it's all cured. I used a little extra hardener due to the cold climate. So glad we pulled this off. Next steps will be a layer of chop mat and body filler on the outside and then will use a few layers of mat on the inside.

What do you guys recommend. How many layers and what thickness of mat should I be using on the inside to strengthen this thing?

Here's the current state of the enclosure:

 

[Shinju 10+ year member]

I'm wondering if the sealed might just be the way to go. If I build it sealed, I can always easily add the precision ports on either the top, sides, or back. I'm looking at this front baffle area, got some 3" PVC at the hardware store and even that port would barely fit. If I put it there, glass it in, and hate the sound then I'm pretty much stuck with it. I could seal these puppies up good, put some fiber fill in there, and give it a go. Kind of leaning towards that today...

The IDQ really excell in sealed enclosures. If you are going for SQ I would stick with a sealed enlosure as the ports will make your subass sound boomy and you will able to localize subbass and it will pull your front stage back.

If you are going for a clean sounding daily car and do not car about staging ect, then sure drop them in a ported enclosure. Good work so far I would like to see this in person!

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

Seahawks lose...only one thing left to do with the afternoon...FIBERGLASS!

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

Enclosure is coming along. I did some body filler work to an area on the front where the fleece wrinkled when I applied the resin. Now it has a nice shape to that area. Soon I'll apply a layer to the front and a few more to the inside. Then it should be close to a point where I can test it out and see how it sounds.

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

Glass...and more glass...tonight I basically wrapped the enclosure in fleece and fiberglassed the whole thing one more time. On the front baffle, I used some double thick woven mat for strength. This gave the whole enclosure a more rounded and less boxy look. I also used my router around the speaker holes to cut away the excess fiberglass so the holes are cut out. I have a little sanding to do around the speaker holes but not too much. I have some more chop mat and body filler to put on the hole thing and then it will finally start looking more smooth. I still plan to give it a test run as both a ported and sealed enclosure to see which sounds best. Can't wait to fire up THE BOOM!

 

[audiobaun 5,000+ posts]

You have done some Beautiful work man..I think its going to sound, and look very nice when all done.A man taking Pride in his work deff pays off! this has been one of my favorite builds to watch.Very detailed, and full of information,and fantastic Pics!Excellent man..Very Nice Indeed!!

 

[UnderFire 10+ year member]

CA.com needs more build logs like this, great work on the build and the log.

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

Thanks for the props. To elaborate on one thing I did here. If you look at the earlier pictures a couple posts above you'll see that I was a little sloppy with the resin around the speaker holes. There was some overhang of the fiberglassed fleece around the holes. I used a router to cut that off so the fiberglassed edge was flush with the speaker hole. There is a bit I had laying around from routing the edge of kitchen countertop flush with the edge of the counter. That bit works well here also.

 

[americannight 10+ year member]

Tonight I used some 60 grit sandpaper on an electric rotary sander to knock off the extra fiberglass mat from around the edges and also round the edges the way I wanted them. I also had time to apply body filler to about 2/3 of the front of the enclosure to fill in all the gaps and then sand it to shape with 60 grit paper. I've found that just using the sandpaper by hand without any sort of sanding block works well for this. I wear gloves while doing this to protect my hand. As the body filler enters the "green stage" I have been using a pencil to poke at it. When it has a rubbery sort of consistency, that's when I start to sand. I tear my sand paper into 1/4 sheets and pretty much count on the first sheet getting ruined. With the body filler still rubbery, it clogs the sandpaper almost right away but this is still an important step to get the shape the way I want from a 100 foot level and then once the filler gets a bit harder I grab a fresh 1/4 sheet and start doing what feels like real sanding. I'm happy with the result here. I was a bit worried because with this thicker fiber glass mat, it's basically double thick mat with a layer of chop mat on the bottom of the sheet and a layer of woven mat on the top, it didn't set as evenly as just the chop mat. There were definitely some hills and valleys. However the body filler made things nice and even. Based on my experience with this sort of mat, I see it's good for strength but if I'm just trying to make the surface smooth, it's better just to use the chop. I'm going to use just chop mat on the top of the enclosure and the sides where I am not needing to add strength, just smoothness. I will probably also add one more layer of the combo woven/chop mat on the inside. I have some work to do there to seal off the two chambers. In the front of the box, there are gaps where the rings protrude farther out than the enclosure. I need to seal off the middle. Here's how it's lookin':