The rebuild of my 05 Civic

[Jpangkilla 0]

wow that box is lookin really good man.

[fbi90909 0]

alright. todays progress was a little slow again but everything is prepped and ready to go. i began with sanding down the outside port kerf to remove/reduce it's blockyness(word?). in the pictures it you can still see the lines but that is the pulling of the wood which has caused that. right now if you were to run your hand across it, it's smooth and curved like running your hand around a 4"PVC tube.

i also cut out the speaker mounting hole and got the second baffle placed. the second baffle needs a little more cutting for the speaker to fit in but that will be taken care of easily with a dremel.

other than that everything is sitting apart in the 5 peices it will be to assemble it. right now i'm just pondering on placement of the amps and battery before i start tomorrow. obviously there is no fancy little amp rack to be installed and the amps will most likely end up on top of the box. eh.

well. here's teh pics of the day.

well for tommorrow progress will be slow as fudge. why? well i need all the parts to be glues FIRM before i can slap things around. plan of attack of attack is to lay the bottom board then mount/glue the back/side kerf board and the opposite side. after the glue dries for a few hours(2-3) i will add resin to the area to help seal it up. after the resin dries, i'll add more. maybe a few layers. then sand the resin smooth in the port area. the next following day i'll get the baffle/port in. glue that up well then then resin the entire area a few times. i have a bunch of FG clotch. which i'm not a fan of. maybe 10-12 yards worth. i ran out of mat so i may or may not pick some up locally. chit's expensive as hell to buy down here. w/e i plan i might or might not add fiberglass to the remainder of the enclosure. some food for thought for me. anyways, enjoy and thank you everyone for the comments. if you have any suggestions feel free to add.

on a side note i took my car to sears and got my car alignment done, along with all tires being rebalanced. and i couldn't be any happier. the car is better than before i initially bought it. at fisrst on stocks after 80mph i would have a bare vibration in my steering. it was never a problem as i'm never doing 80mph where i live and we relly don't have highways/turnpikes down here. only time i noticed was when i was up in the mainland which isn't very often. though now it feels much much better.

LAWL. 20!

[fbi90909 0]

alright todays progress once again is going a little slow. i started the enclosure assembling and already got 3/5 of the parts glued together.

the process!

first i took a garbage bag, cut it up and taped it into the trunk. that way i would not get excess glue spilled in the trunk. now i left the carpeting and the floor board in the trunk as i want to have a somewhat decent appearance. my initial box in the trunk didn't allow me to put the floor board back into the car which made the carpet sag and looked like crap imo. so well since this enclosure is being built in the trunk I'll leave everything in. i can still gain slight access to w/e is under the floor board. i just have to position the enclosure int he center of the trunk and tilt the front, thus allowing me lift the floor board for w/e reason need be.

ANYWAYS.

i then took the back/side kerf and positioned it in place. i took a bunch of L brackets and mounted them in positions to add pressure of the side board to the bottom board and act as a clap. since there is little space for any clamp of length to fit in a small space i had to go with the L brackets. they worked well though.

after i had the 3 boards int he postings that i wanted i unscrewed all the L brackets from the Bottom board, lifted the sides. and ran a thick bead of glue in each area. then repositioned the side boards and screwed them down in their pre-positioned areas.

about 3 hours later i go back and do a little check up of how the glue is doing.

so far so good. so i added a nother bead of glue.

about 6-7 hours later i then removed all the L brackets. underneath them well the glue was still wet. so i removed all the brackets and ran another nice bead of glue. after all the brackets were removed none of the box walls have shifted which is a good sign.

well.. i just checked it 4hrs after the last bead of glue and it is almost dry enough to add resin to but not quite. i will leave adding resin till after i mount the baffle on. which will be my goal for tomorrow. i need to pic up some body filler and flat black spray paint to paint this thing. lol, it'll be painted in the trunk so a whole lot of garbage bags will be used to protect the trunk and car.

yep!

[Tmax98 3]

wow

i wondered what u were goin to do to cover it

[todd.brust 29]

Dang, Last time i saw this log was when I asked about the XXX. You've made some good progress.

Keep up the good work!

[Bigpete123 1]

Man, that looks like a big pain in the arse! Good work though!

I'm still fixated on the curves you put into your design though. It sure seems like a lot of extra work to put all of those curves into it only to have them hidden inside the enclosure and on the back side.

Not to on your parade! At least you will know it's there!

[fbi90909 0]

well today i got the baffle/port kerf glued in. i just removed all the L brackets and added it's last bead of wood glue so it should be good to go for resin in the morning. if you guys can notice i lett the 3rd kerfed portion of the port un curved. since it was such a short peice it is HARD and i mean HARD to bend it into shape. i suppose this won't cause much of a problem to the tuning. as long as it stays in the 33hz range i'm fine with it. the same technique used yesterday was used today to mount the baffle.

after i took off all the L brackets and added the last bead i pulled out some Elmers wood filler and my sanding block with 36 grit paper on it. i then sanded all the cosmetic damage of screw holes i made while bracing the port down. i sanded all the areas up flat, then applied a generous amount with my index finger. i even added some to the end of the side port board to smooth that out for paint.

so tomorrow i have a lot of sanding to do. i test fitted the top board and it teeter todders due to the small side board sitting about 1/8th higher. lol when ever i build boxes i always end up having to sand an edge of a board to get the final peice to fit right. the sanding should take long with 36grit. so i'm not worried about it.after i get the side board leveled right i'll resin it up. sit the car int he sun a bit to speed up the drying process of the resin. then lay on the top board. while the top board is on i could probrably start sanding all the wood filler patches. unless if i get tired and lazy. lol

on a side note i ordered my laternator today. i changed my jmind instead of getting an iragge and went with a 180amp direct bolt on from Excessive Amperage. just too much negative information and reading how a lot of his alts are hits or misses. as long as customer service will treat me good, lets hope EA can provide what i need.

question: does anyone know how long it takes to get an alternator built? lol i'm going to have weverything ready and won't be able to pound at it without my electrical in. :/

[fbi90909 0]

woohooo!

chits looki HOT right now. lol

well today i got a lot done. i feel as i accomplished a lot. started the morning out with sanding what i needed to sand to get the top board to sit right. didn't take me but 15 minutes. after then i sleaned up all the dust and then resined the inside of the box. sat the car in the sun with the trunk open for a good 20 minutes then added another layer of resin. i let it sit for another 15 minutes as the resin dried up and then i began with locating qwhere i would get my L brackets in place to brace the box down. after that i layed a thick bead of glue and sit the top board on. i must say the top borad was a bitch to screw the L brackets in to. i only had access to the L brackets from the speaker mounting hole. it was quite un comfortable and i managed to get a lot of dripping glue on me. oh well.

either way the board mounted great. i left it in the sun a good few house then begane to sand the outside of the box. as i sanded i layed multiple beads of glue along the inside of the box just like when i mounted all the other peices.

well after a lot of wood filler and a lot of sanding i was at the point where the exterior of the box could be painted. so i busted out the garbage bags and layed them down all around the trunk area and outside of the car to reduce the risk of getting overspray on the cars paint.

for the paint i used 2 cans of Flat Black rustoleum BBQ grill heat resistant paint. i used it cause it's somewhat weather resistant. plus using flat black you don't need a super perfect paint job to get it to look good.

blah blah blah PICs!

i think the turn out is great. the port looks a little nasty bit i'm not too worried about it. i think that area was still wet as it took ALOT of paint unlike the outside of the box. tomorrow i will rub off the spray dust that is left on there from the can. add resin the the inside roof of the box. then overlook how i will be mounting the amps to the box.

on saturday i will be heading up to homestead to pick up a kinetik 2400. i will be selling the red top in the trunk. possible to me neighbor or anyone that wants it. 50 bucks. i can't fit this in my engine bay so i have no use for it. it's only a year old. lol.

[mikegrubz_32 0]

Awesome work. Really like your attention to detail.

[Aaron Clinton 2,372]

Wow, looking great. Hope you never have to take it out.

[cjosisek90 0]

Could only imagine getting a flat tire...

The wheel is right under the box.

[fbi90909 0]

nah the spare tire isn't in the car. it hasn't been in the car since the first box. lol.

i have road side assistance on my insurance so it's something i keep on hand incase of an emergency. the good thing is i live on an island only 4x4mi large. so where ever i am if i were to ever get a flat all i gotta go is call a friend or so and pick up my spare tire. though if i do go for long trips out of the city and up to the main land i take the spare tire and sit it behind the passenger seat.so it's nothing to really worry about for me.

update in a few minutes.

[fbi90909 0]

lol well, todays progress was just clean up and adding resin to the inside of the box. barely any pics today. lol

i like the look of it. all it needs is for the BTL to sit in it.

initially i wanted to mount both of the amps on top of the bot but i found that the tension bars for the trunk lid don't allow me to. so i have to mount them like so. it sucks when you have a small trunk. lol.

i really played it lazy today and just sat around. i ended up sleeping a large portion of the day. well anyways tomorrow i will attempt to mount the BTL, and run some wires. i have to wait till my hc2400 arrives before i can actually hook it up. instead of going to pick it up it'll be shipped. actually cost me less to ship it rather than driving a total of 7hrs for a battery.

tomorrow i will measure the area in my spare tire well so see how i can hide the battery down there.

on a side note my HU was ordered. might be here on monday or tuesday.

other than that i say things are looking pretty good.

Edited April 12, 2008 by fbi90909

[fbi90909 0]

well a lot of wiring was completed today. everything is pretty much ready to be hooked up to their sources. i need to pick up some 8GA ring terminals on monday. today i went by a local audip shop and picked up 8 1/0ga copper terminals. though they didn't have any 8's.

well i got the BTL installed also. wasn't as hard to mount. i had more trouble mounting the XXX than i did with the BTL. eh.

well all the speaker wiring is clean, no strands are sticking out of any of the terminals and everything is on tight. the speaker wire may look a little confusing to you but well it's not. lol. Left amp is the Positive, the Right amp is the Negative. the loops are the grounds to strap them. woooooo!

hopefully my battery arrives on monday. tomorrow i might start taking measurments of the spare tire area and create a small mounting crate that way on monday i can just slide it in, lock it, and get eerything powered up.

PICS!

^^^^^^^ i think i have a new wall paper. or i will after i get that red top out of there. lol

yep. i really wish i could listen to it but i can't. lol. sooooo close though!!

even though all the wires are cut up and good to go i'm thinking of removing all the wires and amps and buying some roll on flat black paint to paint the back of the box. that way i don't have to see bare wood with glue drip. yeah.

[sick6ness 1]

You did a really nice job man.

BTW Your tinted taillights, did you spray them with that tinting spray, or they after markets?

Give an update on your components SQ

[fbi90909 0]

well my build is coming close to a complete. i received my kinetik HC2400 yesterday and i started the process of getting all the 1/0ga ring terminals onto their proper wires. i started at 5pm after i got off work and didn't finish all the wiring till 11pm. i tried to keep it clean.

i then went out to a publix parking lot that was pretty large so i wouldn't disturb anyone. there wasn't anyone around anyways so yeah. lol

well initially after i set everything to flat i started out with setting the gain by ear on a song i normally listen to on the XXX. i was suprised at the output it had, i was like chit!! when i thought i had the gains set i pop the trunk open and i see the sub just going crazy with overexcursion and i was hearing this wear light popping sound. so i quickly turned it down and started to mess witht he gain and sub sonic filter. after much fooling around i got it to a point where i felt it would be better to have it set by a shop that has the proper equipment. so i set my gains a little low and set my subsonic filter just right so the sub would stop making with the overexcursion and the light poping.

swell i only have 1 pic to so here. it's just a pic of how i mounted my 4chan amp under the speaker box.

and well here's a little preview of what the sub can do. when i saw this today i was like DAMN!!!!!onE!!!!

though i have noticed a loss of flex elsewhere in the car. my windsheild, rear door, and rear window don't move as much. it's mostly the trunk. lol

this video here was with all 4 doors open and rear sets folded down. after the vid i put my seats back up. i'm not big on driving with the seats down.

on a side note i must say i am amazed at how well the sub sounds inside the cabin. nice deep bass. the soundeadener has help A LOT and has reduced 95% of vibration that occured when the XXX was in. my friend was amazed at how there was little to none of noise coming from the rear other then the output of the speaker. now i can actually here the trunk lid making it's vibration but it's very bare and can barely be heard as the bass overpowers it. that will be the first thing i deaden well after i purchase more, other than that the way it is set up i LOVE it.

though i have noticed on a lot of songs i used to listen to with the XXX i have a huge loss of output. i really don;t know why either. somesongs used to get stupid loud with the XXX, but then witht he BTL some of those same songs don't. hmrpf..

i'll get a good video in some time. i gotta feel what sounds best. so for now. enjoy 17 seconds of my trunk moving futher than i have ever seen. lol actually scared me at first.

[Tmax98 3]

wow that puppy is moving and with the seats down and doors open and everything damn!!!

[todd.brust 29]

DAMN! That is some crazy flex!

[528hz 0]

DAMMMM that BTL gets down!!!!!! I think you need to put some lead on your trunk, not deadener, just to keep it on. That's a nice build, fbi. I love that kerfed box. I was thinking about doing one, but I was too scared I would mess it up and not get the kerf right.

You know, I've actually thrown around the idea of getting a BL or BTL. How does your BTL match against the XXX? My guess would be that the sound quality wouldn't be quite as good, but the BTL I think would get louder.

How's my guess? I've never heard a BTL either.

[fbi90909 0]

the BTL compared to the XXX sounds great for what it's capable of doing at such high powered ranges. the BTL does get low, just not as low as the XXX sounded. the BTL is quite louder compared to the XXX. just that the XX sounded better. i have noticed that after about 30minutes of loud music i'm getting minor headaches. LOL

the sound quality of the components are great, i just can not give a comparison to any other brands of components as i just upgraded from stocks. when my 9887 arrives on tuesday and i start messing around with going active i could give you a better review on the difference between running passive or active. i must add though the components erally can keep up with the BTL. you don't just hear bass anymore. lol, you hear bass and music!

well yesterday i hooked up my trickle charger to my batteries after work at around 5:30. today i didn't take the charger off till about 12:30. it was still charging! voltage when i initially put t on was around 12.30, then today before i took it off voltage was around 14.25. so i set out and started playing some music to find some songs that would drive the car crazy. now i don't listen to these songs much anymore cause i played them out long time ago(lol). but these were quickies that really got things moving. so here goes!

all that noise you are hearing is the camera. if you heard this in person you would not hear any of those noises except for the trunk rattle when standing outside of the car.

yeah. i'll get more eventually when i find better music and maybe a better camera. lol.

[Adrian_D 520]

It turned out saweeet

[filtor1 13]

Looks great!!!

[Lord Baccus 1]

it took a min or two for me to figure out you were building that in the trunk !!!

Dammmmmmmmmmmmmm Thats Impressive

[fbi90909 0]

thanks for the comments guys. though still not done. lol

i' thinking of a method of bracing the box fromt he inside w/o taking up too much air space.

well my 9887 finally ****ing arrived today. i had to order it from 4 different sites and ended up going to crutchfield as a last resort with overnight. came out to 430.00 :/

thought is the price you pay for inpatience.

i started out with soldering all the wires to the new harness then heat shrinking them.

install went smooth.

i've only played with it for a good 2 hours. i'm getting used to the controls and how to perate the unit.

so far it's a nice unit and i like the looks of it. especially the black chrome like color. goes very well with my dash.

though i'm still having trouble setting the EQ. i currently have the speakers on their passive crossovers. i'm having a little trouble understanding the whole EQ system and everything so i'm going to study up on it. i'm going to be ordering a profile ap400 to run my tweets so i can change to an active setup.so far i'm having an issue setting the bass/trebble. when ever i push the rotary knob in multiple times it's only showing me Sub level, fader/balance, and Defeat. though in the manual it reads that if the MultiEQ is set to off i won't be able to adjust the bass/treble. so when i hold the multieq button down for 2-4 seconds i hear a beep and nothing happens. i try again with the rotary knob and the option still doesn't appear.. weird?

i dono.

i'm reading up on the Goint active with the 9887 thread so i can gain some knolwedge on the unit.

seems like a challenge. very confiusing too. :/

still waiting on my alternator

[sick6ness 1]

Good job dude, sounds loud over the cam. Keep me updated with going active, as I will be going active with my next setup.