onebadmonte

Nothing to add, just a quick question? Why not tune lower to like 28Hz? If it's going to be playing music and demo-ing and what not I'd figure a low tune would be the way to go.

Nice a/c cover. I think a little polyfill in between the cover and the a/c unit will go a long way in reducing a/c blower noise. Excellent job. How long did this take you to do?

Texas Heatwave Check it out.

That radio install kit looks serious. Can't wait to see how it looks all finished up.

Alright guys and gals, today's update is short and sweet. Tonight is Glee night with my girls. After yesterdays fiasco I got the mounting flange updated and ready to go. Here it is fitted in place. With the mounting holes located I was able to my favorite tools to create mounting provisions for the sump. Now it's time to weld up the sump. Gosh that is a lousy name for my creation. From here on out it shall be called "the wiring chingadera" My parts prepped and ready for welding. The parts are self fixturing, fancy wording for they fit together without external forces. Here are my first tacks. Yes I used a jack stand to hold things down. The sides are in place. Fit is looking good, very happy with the way this is turning out. Here is got it all tacked together. I got the grommets in place to verify fit. Here's the wiring chingadera in place. Here is a shot from the outside. The wooden rods are still in place for a little visual of how the cables will be routed. The wire chingadera isn't done just yet. I just got a little ancie and put everything in. I still need to seal the edges and corners of the wiring chingadera with a little silicone and paint it to prevent rust. Then it will be done.

Thanks. Indeed. o_o Some days are better than others. We start with desire and envision the final product. It's figuring out the in between that takes time. Like the saying goes, "Rome wasn't built in a day. Thanks for hanging in.

Lol! Thanks. I guess as long as you don't mess with the body a couple of cuts to the floor and the firewall ain't gonna hurt nobody. My brother is bummed that I'm in SATX now. He said he wanted this build to come from our home town of El Paso, since nothing good ever represents El Paso. Just don't waste you time with those hobby machines they sell in Hot Rod magazine. A buddy of mine bought one and we've been through hell and back trying to get it going right. Sadly the electronics those things come with don't support enough parameters to properly operate a plasma. On the other hand the machine at work was just over $90k and it was a floor model. o_o I'd recommend learning a CAD software and figure out what the local metal and machine shops use. If you can help them they can always return the favor.

LED is not just a gimmick. It gives a better image then normal LCD's, colors are more true and better contrast. To each his own. LED back-lighting is a novel approach in achieving darker blacks and sharp contrast. The issue I have with it is that it was improperly implemented. The LEDs currently used are like light bulbs. They light up everything with no direction. In a TV they end up screwing up the contrast. To get it right, manufacturers would need to use light pipes to properly direct the light. Unfortunately that is cost prohibitive. So we're stuck with what we got. When I bought my XBR9 I also bought a Samsung UN55B8000. I put them side by side and watch them for a week. We all (me, the wife, and the kiddos) decided to keep the Sony and sell the Samsung. The mother-in-law even comments on how good the Sony looks compaired to her TV, she's got a LG LH90. This might be a little much for this thread as the specified budget was $800 and the TVs I just mentioned were up over $2k when new. I guess it's a little food for thought. Like I said to each his own.

First and foremost stick with LCD. No matter what they say a plasma screen will always burn an image after a couple of years. With an LCD I'd shoot for the highest refresh rate I could afford. There aren't too many options with $800, I think Vizio might have a 240Hz at that price. I'd stay away from LED, it was just a gimmick to raise TV prices. If it comes with it cool, but not a deciding factor. With that said pretty much any 40" 120Hz TV will fit the bill. I will say Samsung TVs picture looks a funny, some like it some don't. I've got a Samsung 40" 120Hz with the Home Theater in a Box that does netflix and pandora, and a Sony XBR9 52". To this day I have not found anything that compares to the Sony in picture quality. Good luck.

Lol! With those six funky pups in your avatar I don't think I can do anything to top those. You should try making it to the Heatwave show in Austin coming up in July. I trying to get as many forum members to meet up there. Thanks bro, I'm glad your liking it. I know it's not a full on build like the frame off lowrider your building, but I'm hoping these little details pay off in the long run. Thanks. Thanks. I'm slowing nearing the end of the install, but there is still a ways to go in testing and tuning. o_o

Thanks bro. I've been doing this work for just over ten years, and this is the first time they let me cut stuff out for a personal project at work. LOL! That last part that reminds me of the scene towards the end of Dinner for Schmucks when Steve Carrell fights back against Zach Galifianakis by having mind control over Zack's mind and laying eggs in his brain. Just some random nonsense.

Oh no! Another thread resurrect by a dang noob. I've been off the grid for a bit pondering about nothing, but now it's back to business. Since my power cables are eventually going to poke though the body, back to the great outdoors, I wanted something to secure them down out of harms way. It was back to the computer for a little CAD work. This is what I came up with. A couple a grommets and some mounting hardware, and I think I'm in business. It's all nice and pretty in the computer, but what it looks like in the real world is what matters. Check it. Wait for it, wait for it. BAM! There is a bit more to this design than meets the eye, I'll get into that a bit later. Right now before I can bolt these bad boys down I need to figure where my cables are going to run. To do that I need to finish off my battery rack. Last I left off with the buss bars in place. I need to figure out my grounds, power connections, and buss bar connections. I started off my drilling and tapping the buss bars. This wouldn't be a proper build with out some tool breakage. Damn it, broken drill. How about a little hand tapping action? Getting back to that wire hold down bracket. With a couple a snips and some filing, the bracket is shaped into some fancy wire separators. We'll see them in action in the next few pics. Here is the battery rack in all its glory Here is a close up of the passenger side. I used a piece of cardboard to mock up the frame rail so I can get my grounds setup. I'll be able to use this cardboard to transfer the ground locations onto the frame. I used my wire separators to keep everything in place. A little tip: Dusting the grommets and cables with baby powder goes a long way in sliding the cables through the grommets without hangs up. Here is the drivers side. Not much happening, just a pair of grounds. With the battery rack in an almost ready to install state I am now ready to start thinking power cable routing. I got the first row of batteries in place. I looked around the area I had to work with. I was first thinking I'd be able to poke out through the floor under the third row. The floor makes a nice vertical wall there making for a nice poke through like the firewall. Unfortunately there is a frame cross-member directly behind this wall. It was a little more than I wanted to deal with, so the search continued. I decided to poke through the floor above the rear axle pumpkin. My power cable connections on the battery rack are on the drivers side, so the cables will be routed from the center towards the drivers side. There is a frame cross-member in between where the wires poke through the body and make their connection on the battery rack. I was able to mount my wire hold down bracket on this cross-member. With all this talk of mounting locations, drilling holes, and working under the vehicle I wanted to mention eye protection. It's very important. Here is a shot of yours truly wearing his preferred type of eye protection, the full face shield. Look at that ham. Here is a shot look up at the battery rack and the wire bracket. I used some wooden dowels to show cable routing. Here is a close up of the wire bracket. Here I am looking through the hole I cut in the floor for the wires. You can see the tips of the dowels representing where the cables are going to be coming from. Now, you're probably thinking that is one hell of a hole for a few cables. Here is my thinking. It is dang near impossible to bend the cable to have it poke through the hole and have a good seal. I envisioned a sort of sump I could make to angle the cables through the floor at a 45 degree angle. This way I could get a good seal and have the cables routed in the general direction without relying on the cable to hold the shape. For the sump it was back to the computer. Here is what I came up with. A shot of the bottom side. I'm not going to be using all the mounting tabs, just the ones that land on the raised portions of the body floor. With everything cut out, I mocked up the wire sump mounting flange to drill the mounting holes in the body. Wouldn't you know it, none of the tabs hit the raised portions of the floor. I'm going to have to try again tomorrow.

Looks cool but kind of pointless posting it here on a car stereo forum if it's not going to have a car stereo.

Poor little Lexus.

Insane! Bummer it blew at the end, but the score is what matters. Too bad comps are rated by wattage and not by coil size. The test Pulse Audio did would have made for an interesting comp.

Gas mileage on that Lupo is going to drop to that of a Suburban. I love it.

Effin thread resurrect had me all confused. I was like ? Had to look at the dates to realize what was going on. I was bamboozled by noob.

If building walls doesn't work out for you you can always fall back on the deck making business. Nice platform.

What's up everybody. I got a little bit of progress done today. With the front grounds done I'm starting to work on the making the positive runs to the battery bank in the rear. I decided to poke through the firewall and run the cables through the interior up to the rear axle hump, right at the foot of the third row seats. From there I don't know just yet, but let take a look at what happened at the firewall. I already poked the power wire for processor and the front stage amp. I'll be poking the power cables through the same area. Here is the area in question. For now the, I don't know what the hell it is, controller has been relocated off to the side and I have trimmed the black matting. I'll be circling the existing wire with the new runs of power cable. I made a paper template to locate my hole locations around the existing wire. I started off by folding a standard sheet of copy paper down the center both length and width wise. With the paper nicely creased I measured from the creases out. I then folded the paper at the measurement marks overlapping the original creases as a guide to get a straight fold. Here's what it looked like once I was done with my folds. Here are the grommets mocked in place. I carefully cut my template, and taped it on to the firewall. I used a spring loaded center punch to mark my hole centers. I started off drilling a 1/16" pilot hole. I followed that up by using a stepped uni-bit to enlarge the hole to the hole saw pilot diameter of 1/4". From there it was onto the hole saw for the final cut. In this case the required hole is 1-1/8". I lucked out having just enough room for the drill and hole saw by removing the brace between the firewall and drivers side fender and the plastic fuse box cover and snap on housing. This is how it ended up looking. I'll have to run some cable through those grommets and see if that controller will be able to be mounted back in place or if it's mount will have to be modified. We'll leave that for tomorrow. Now time to chill and enjoy and ice cold beer. It was a toasty one out there today.

haha same here Make it three over here.

Great work man! Awesome getting the little one involved. My oldest help in similar fashion when I did the first iteration of my infinite baffle build in my little olds. I'm digging what you did to get the cables through the firewall. I'll be doing the same. Keep up the good work.

x2 o_o

I cant thank you guys enough for the kind words. To hear that you guys are enjoying and learning from this build as I am is awesome. I was really hoping to bring something to the table that all of us can take and build from. It's great to hear that is happening. Again, thanks. Back to the task at hand.

Thanks, but it's actually a mental disorder I take medication for. Srsly. o_o It's like a scab. I just can't stop picking at it. I don't know what you're talking about. Your build is effin rockin. No way will my weenie 15s compare to your beastly 18s. That Yukon is lookin good.

Thanks. Yeah, the dies that came with the crimper are actually intended for wire rope, which is gauged differently that auto wire. I lucked out that the dies weren't hardened. If they were I'd still be trying to cut on them. Thanks. The spacers are so I could keep the cables inline when stacked. I could have stacked the ring terminals on top of each other but then the cables would of ended up side by side with them making a "vee" meeting at the ring terminals. If I only had a pair of wires meeting that would have been okay, but I've got 8 meeting there. I would have needed like 8" of frame to pull that off. Like this I used up 4" of frame, including the welded spacer that went unused. (opps) Thanks.