Zach Gates

Not at all! My hope here was "adequate", really. Somethiing to use for daily driving until I do the big build and get more elaborate.

You may very well be right, my man. It'll be very touch and go at first. Constant checking for leaks, checking all the this and thats. The real gap between boards was, appropriately enough, at the port up near the bend. That thing was a real PITA overall. Actually, truth be told, I may do a complete redesign down the road, it all depends. The last thing I want to do is wreck a great sub. If this seems to work at least in the short haul, then so it shall. But I admit what I'd REALLY like to do eventually is make a longer, flatter box. Take up the entire floor of the hatch and not reach so high. Since I won't be buying the sub for a little while, it gives me time to think it over, if I want to consider this one "practice" and rebuild or try a new design or whatever else. Thanks for the input man.

Money's a touch tight at the mo'. I know $30 worth of wood and $10 of carpeting isn't that much, but when things are tight ya gotta save every dollar you can, y'know? So my thinking is I'll try it out. If it sounds bad, seems to bottom out or anything of that nature, I scrap it and start over.

I want to have sex with that box.

I did some math and, yeah. I lost about 1Hz of tuning and gained a touch of volume. So instead of 3.25@32 it'll be like 3.35@31. Oh noes. Of course, that's forgetting the slightly wider spot near the end. So I'm thinking it'll even out. Point is as long as things are sealed up I'm still 3.2-3.4 at 31-33Hz. Somewhere in there. That's all that matters. Now it's just a matter of saving up the money. Let's hope the Lottery Gods are good to me! I have to admit, too, it somehow feels "familiar" driving around with just the box. Like it's all official now, haha.

"Common wisdom" is to put the port and sub on opposite sides, but to be honest when I did it in the hatch eons ago both in the middle worked beautifully.

Yeah, I don't know the exact science behind how that might work (a changing-width port), so I'll just give 'er a go, y'know? If it goes tits up in the end I can just make another one.

Only took about three hours once I had all the boards cut at Lowe's. The bitch was jigsaw'ing the baffle. Note my totally professional workbench: Not perfect, there was need for a boatload of caulk in some areas and somehow the front port lost about a quarter inch of width. I don't know how. And the end of the back is about 3.5 wide. So... here's hoping that it won't make too much of a problem. I can't see how it would, but I'm no expert.

Not bad!

LOL, that better be the product slogan from now on. I can almost see the commercial now.

You make good points there, but you have to admit the number of salesmen that will just sit by quietly while you buy some installation parts without asking what you're installing (with the intent of swaying you toward THEIR products) is fairly low. Personally, I think more shops should just stop dealing directly with products at all. A smart shop owner would amass a team of incredibly talented installers who could can build custom enclosures and the like and just work on that end of things. No matter how much you "know" about car audio, nothing can replace the skill needed to put together a truly pro install. I'd pay for that.

Dayum. That's a nice looking box. I'm thinking I won't have quite the flex/shake problem you did since it's a 15 rather than an 18, but who knows. I'm going to be throwing at least 1300RMS at it, so things are definitely going to get interesting.

That's some good progress, David Blaine.

You're lucky you know your shit dude. Shop guys will absolutely prey on teenagers, thinking you don't know anything and hoping to push all sorts of overpriced junk on you. Last time I hopped into a shop I explained to the guy what I was planning on buying, and he not only decided to tell me I should be buying all Diamond, but that if I buy online I don't get a warranty(!). So that's, clearly, why I should be buying a $140 Clarion HU for $240 from him and paying MSRP+markup for some pretty mediocre parts.

Ahaha that door's gonna come flying off.