blowthemup

Somone over on caraudio.com said it looks as if its been hot and cold a lot. North Carolina has hot summers and reasonably cold winters but your should be able to leave your system in your car year round without issues I feel like. You might have a good point about beating her up some more before doing a recone, glad you mentioned that.

Thought I would update this for those that commented or were maybe following. My singer alternator was in need of a rebuild. Mike fixed it up and got it back to me in a timely manner. Its been sitting in my closet for a while now, haven't got around to putting it back in. Hopefully I don't have to do this every two years, it will get old swapping alternators.

This thread blew up over on caraudio.com and I forgot to even check back here. The subwoofer still plays just like it has for the past two years unless somewhere along the line something happened to it and it was still beast enough to chug along and make some bass but not at its full potential. It would be sad on my end if this zcon has only been limping along but still peasing me here and there. Ive had so many comments the past couple days over at caraudio.com that I don't really know what to think. One thing I do know is it that it has always had a soft spot in the surround, noticed it the first couple times playing it but I didn't think anything of it cause it sounded decent and was doing the job of making bass. Took two years of listening and tried a different enclosure here recently to finally decide that something possibly wasn't right with it. Its always lacked the wow factor that one would expect from a zcon. Maybe the damage occurred very early in its life and I never noticed the difference for some odd reason. If curiosity wouldn't have gotten the best of me then the system would still be in my car. I just had to question its capabilities do to what I have heard and seen in person which is hard to describe on these forums. Maybe I need to experiment with box size and tuning more to find the sweet spot, but at a minimum the surrounds condition isn't good and in need of replacement. I tend to be on the perfectionist side of things and just because its still playing doesn't mean its ok to have a funky cracked up surround. I cant prove it was like this from its beginning days which is when the issue should have been addressed but you also have to question that subwoofers have a lot of variables subject to error. I'm not blaming myself or SSA, i'm taking into consideration the nature of car audio and also know that if this was my fault then it had to have occurred in its very beginning days cause the surround has been like this for a long time. With all that being said, all I can do now is have it reconed or maybe do it myself and part ways in fear the zcon doesnt offer the sound i'm after. Or give it another run and hope for some better results with the ideal that this thing wasn't right from day one or damaged very early on in its life. From my understanding this should be a very pleasing subwoofer and be able to play a variety of music very well which right now I feel its not doing. I plan on getting in touch with SSA very soon to see what they have to say. I believe do to the nature of car audio that theres not much they will do but i'm sure they will be more than happy to fix it up and get it back to me freshened up. I feel with a nice fresh subwoofer I should do everything possible to make sure she doesn't get damaged. I have considered sending my amp out to be tested just for safe measures but others think that is ridiculous.

Any recent progress or updates?

Trying to make room for a larger box to fit in from the front of the trunk/rear seat. You can see there is some sheet metal in the way that would need removing. Think this would hurt the structural integrity of the car? Lazy half azz drawings...sry The pieces outlined in yellow triangles will bolt out. I would have to cut my rear deck trim panel up to the red line. The orange rectangle is a slight hump that may limit my height of the box getting through, its probably removable but will not be able to be put back after without welding lol. It may not interfere after cutting the top of the opening. I marked a red line on the back about egual to the red line on the front to show where I would probably cut. Here on the back side you can see the bolts holding the bottom side triangle pieces in. Also the hump that may pose a problem to the height in and out of the opening.

Thanks everyone on steering me in the right direction

Guess im gonna need some advice on building the box in the trunk. I would think it would be best to have all the pieces cut and test assemble the box before putting it together inside the trunk. Any ideas on the best way to fasten it together besides glue and clamps? Gonna be hard to screw much if any of the box from the exterior of it. Feel like clamps will be impossible and hard in some spots as well.

Ok.......you ain't gotta twist my arm on it anymore. I just need to get a bigger vehicle with more room.

Thats about the size I would be looking at for two twelves, aint getting in there unless i do what basshead did or build it in there though. I really think i would be fine removing a litte sheet metal, i'm not even cutting into the main upper portion like basshead did.

Hey Jason what happens to the net size if you dropped the height down to 15?

Do you feel like if affected the car at all, i wouldn't even be taking out as much as you did?

I dont know about taking it that far, just settling with the idea of removing sheet metal was hard. I remember when I first got the car I wanted to cry when I started drilling holes in the trunk to mount stuff. Think I need to focus more on building in the trunk, theres plenty of room for two twelves. Building in there I bet I could go from 29" wide to almost 36", take my spare out and i can go from 24" deep to 30" or so, could go up an inch or two from 14.5" but would make the last top panel harder to get on building in the trunk.

Something like what this guy did might work for me.

Cant hate on ya but I really don't like the idea of a IB setup, not even remotely interested in going that route but thanks for the idea

I really wanna think that it would not hurt it much, being it is a performance oriented car I would hate to cripple it though. As of now i'm leaning towards not hacking the trunk and building in it or doing something smaller.

Thats not an issue leaving it in. I did have the idea of building a box in the trunk but figured finishing it would be hard and messy inside the vehicle. Not sure how well Im capable of building a solid box in the trunk, out of the trunk is no problem for me lol. I suppose you could come up with some kind of tab system to screw the box together from the inside. Or can it be done strictly with just glue and clamps? Having a hard time picturing long clamps holding panels together within the trunk. Seems like the clamps would require a lot of additional room.

Can you recone a 12" to a 15" if you get a larger basket?

It's your money I think one 15 would be enough. If money is the main factor then the 15 with a bc3500d is the way to go. I don't think you will gain that much by going to two 12's. X2.... If I do go two twelves they will be firing forward as well as the port. Slight possibility it will get sealed off from the trunk if thats the case. Just kicking around ideas, but I like the idea of upgrading from a twelve to a fifteen and upgrading to a larger amp. Overall it will be slightly cheaper, less work I have to do on electrical, and lighter/smaller...not trying to make my civic any slower than it already is lol.

I can probably squeeze two twelves its just gonna involve more work and a larger budget. Was my original plan but I started to try and cut my costs.

My electrical runs the 2500 just fine. 280a Singer alternator, xs 5100 under hood, 3400 in the back. Plan to add a second 3400 in the back and ditch the 5100 under the hood cause its in the way of a cold air intake waiting to go in. I think the two xs power 3400 will be enough for the crescendo 3500.

I would be going from 3 cubes @ 30hz to 3.8 cubes @ 33hz for the 15" if i can fit the bigger box. The 12" is currently port and sub foward and the 15 would be sub up and port forward or back.

You doing one sub? I would go with the 3500 and make sure you set the gain and others amp settings properly. Yeah just one sub, I would like to do two but space is tight in my little civic.

Would sell my sundown saz2500d and probably get a crescendo bc3500 or 5500. Leaning towards the bc5500 to accommodate impedance rise and have a little head room maybe.

Sure you can. What do you want to recone? Awesome, thinking of having my 12" zcon reconed to a 15" and stepping up the power a little more.