I really appreciate all the comiments I get whenever I post a pic of my sub enclosure. I'm not fishing for more, but many folks have emailed me for info on putting one together for themselves. So I am starting this thread to give instructions for this simple DIY project.

Materials for this project should come in under $40. You will need:

1 Bondo brand fiberglass repair kit. Sold at hardware stores and WalMart auto dept. Cost less then $20.

1 can of HIGH EXPANDING spray foam. Do not get the low-expanding, it's like rock! Again, WalMart, $1.99.

1'x2' piece of wood for the face. I used 5/8" plywood that a friend had around. Also try construction sites for freebie materials. Cost $0.

2 large poster-size sheets of heavyweight construction paper. Should be able to buy at any art store for less then $1.00. My wife is a school employee, she had it lying around. Cost $0.

1'x 2' piece of factory carpet. You should be able to find a junker with nasty carpet. The carpet behind the seat is usually pristine. Get your razor knife out and cut. Pick-n-pull yard charged me $1.00.

5 lb bag of fiberfill. Bought at WalMart sewing dept for $3.99.

1 10" speaker grill (waffle-style)
$14.00 at local car stereo shop.

1 terminal cup, $5.00 at Circuit City.

Some small finishing nails.

[This message has been edited by stimpy (edited 02-13-2001).]

Now that you have all yor goodies combined, you need to create a form for the fiberglass back of the enclosure. Taking the construction paper, cut it in to workable pieces, about 6" x 24". Take these pieces and push them back into your footwell (behind the back of the console and the outboard footrest). Where the pieces overlap, use duct tape to secure them in place. Once the footwell is completely lined with the paper, the paper should be fairly rigid and easily removed. Once it is out of the car, spray the inside with high-expanding spray foam. Use just enough to make a layer against the paper. Use a cheap putty knife to spread it over as you don't want it too thick. Be very careful about what you get this stuff on. It's nasty. But once it dries, you should have a very rigid form of the footwell of your car to use as a mold for the glass. As it dries, youmay want to put it back in the car so it keeps theright shape, but be careful bout putting it in too soon or the foam will fall on to your carpet. You DO NOT want that.

Got Pics? (TM)

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steve@fieroproject.com
http://www.fieroproject.com

Once the face is glassed on, all that is left is the cosmetics and putting the speaker in. Taking the carpeting from your picknpull trip, scure it to the face with finishing nails (the kind with the very small heads.) The head of the nails shoud lie underneath the nap of the carpet and be invisible. The rubber backing on the carpet makes a great gasket for the speaker, in addition to having that stock look.

Before installing the speaker, line he inside of the enclosure with the fiberfill. This will "trick" the speaker into acting like it is in a bigger box.
Well folks, that's the scoop. If y'all have any questions or feedback, please post them here so others can benefit. Thanks for the space.

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Loud Pipes Save Lives!

[This message has been edited by stimpy (edited 02-13-2001).]

[This message has been edited by stimpy (edited 10-25-2001).]

good job stimpy. it was nice for you to take the time to explain all of that. seems very easy to follow. i'm getting my sub and amp soon, so this came at a pretty good time for me
i'll show it to you at the fiero festival in may. well, probably get some pics here too.

BTW, where did you put your amp? and how did you mount it?

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sqoach@yahoo.com

Both amps (1 for sub, 1 for front 4x10's) are behind the passenger seat, amp for the BassShakers is mounted on top of the center console glove box. The amps behind the seat is still a bit ghetto, not really mounted but someday I'll build a rack for them.

Here's some pics of my sub box, with a 8" sub. I made mine just as Stimpy did, but with a few differances in materials.
I started with a piece of plywood cut to fit the opening in the footwell. Then I used some plain cardboard and duct tape to create the back of the box. Using the trial and error approach I formed it until it fit. I then figerglassed the entire box, leaving the cardboard under the fiberglass.

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-Brian, Toolmaker
Lincoln, NE
85' SC & 87' GT-Leather, Lowered, Nitrous

quote Originally posted by stimpy: Maybe you can put all this stuff on your Fieroproject page once I get it tgether?

That'd be great!

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steve@fieroproject.com
http://www.fieroproject.com

Great article and good writing, stimpy!
How about a driver and porting? There are a lot of choices here, maybe some audiophiles on the list can suggest some good price/performance setups for the enclosure.
You mentioned BassShakers, where did you install them?
I really like this subwoofer location best of all I've seen, if only the speaker grille could be less conspicuous (top mount? camoflage?)
Ideas?

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CozmoPooky
Suncoast Fieros
'87 Duke Coupe
'85 2M6 Targa

For my sub I used a Polk dX10 4ohm. This speaker is built for small closed enclosures. I really like the tight sound it has. From my limited understanding of boxes, a ported box will sound looser and boomier. So to each their own. The grill can be camoflagued, I had intended to use headliner material spray-gued over the grill, and then paint the rubber ring around the grill with interior dye, along with the clips. But after I put it in, the looks really don't bother me. The box is far enough under the dash where it's invisible from the outside, and I kinda like to look at the speaker bumping. Weird, huh?

The BassShakers are a nice enhancement when they work. I have the ProSeries that are 50w each, and come with a matching "100w" amp. Unfortunately, if I start really driving the bass, the amp overloads and shuts off. The shakers themselves are mounted underneath the seats, directly over the "access plug".

Stimpy, Have you been back in the Wal-mart auto center again????

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Dillon
Black '87 SE V6

"Wal-Mart: Why go anywhere else?"
Someday they'll build a Wal-Mart Supercenter with an attached trailer park. White-trash nirvana, baby!

Hehe...

Great write-up stimpy!

Just wondering, what did you do as far as internal volume and tuning? Which goes hand-in-hand with my next question, what is the internal volume? Its a sealed enclosure right? Iv never been a huge fan of fiberglass at all, I really hate the stuff to be honest. A ported enclosure could be done fairly easy. It would be quite a bit larger then a sealed. I would imagine stimpys is about .66 ft^3, a ported for that would be about 1.57 ft^3, depending on port dia. and length, and tuning frequency.

As far as what to use. I love Polk Audio, they are great. Use Dx/Db or Momo's. Momo's are the bomb (10"&12" only). Other brands I would favor are: Alpine R's, Image Dynamics, MB Quart, Boston Acustics, AudioBahn, JL w3 or w6's.

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Sean's Fiero Page
Sean Heberly
Silver 86 GT 2.8 Auto (3.4 Conversion in Progress)
"It's always in the last place you look." Of course it is. Why would you keep looking after you've found it? Do people do this? Who and where are they?

Duh... To be honest, Sean, I have no idea what the internal volume of this box is. Being that it is an irregular shape, I have no idea how to figure that out short of filling it with water and measuring the volume of water. Since I didn't want a mildewed box, I figured I could live without knowing. I'm sure with proper tuning it could be made to sound better, but so far I am quite content with it.
I guess the more appropriate thing to say Sean is what would you do to improve it? Obviously you are more savvy in this area then I am, so lay down some tips. I'm sure any other folks who are contemplating this project would appreciate your input.

quote Originally posted by stimpy: "Wal-Mart: Why go anywhere else?" Someday they'll build a Wal-Mart Supercenter [b]with an attached trailer park. White-trash nirvana, baby![/B]

Go to Tilton, NH they have a Trailer park in the back

stimpy--Nice work. Thanx for the write up. I was actually planning on emailing you about this once I got the chance. I plan on doing this sometime this summer.

Sand is what I use to get the size of odd shaped boxes. A little less messy then water. There really isnt any easy way to make that odd shaped of a box to a specific size like that. If you have the enclosure sealed, there is a pretty wide range of sizes that will pretty much give you the same sound. If you go to ported you have to be pretty exact on sizeing. If you want to have a ported box, which would be louder, I would just get a general idea of the box size you need, build it, and calculate the correct port size to go with. That way you wouldnt have to keep changing the box until its right. With simpy's box, I would just build the box larger then the proper size, and then fill it with sand to get the volume. Then just add some peices of wood, or extra fiberglass in there until your volume comes pretty close to what you want.

True dat, Sean. Good call on the sand (or kitty litter, hehe). But as I am far from being IASCA Man, what's better, big or small? I almost think this box might be too big, as it is recommended for a .3 cu ft box. I have fiberfill in it as well. It can be a bit boomy if I bring the gain up past 1/3. I'd much rather have a tight crisp sound. Right now it sounds great w/ R&B but my tastes really run more to rock & roll. Should I be shrinking the innars of the box, and would an irregular shaped interior be better or worse then squared off inside of the box?

Thank you very much for the write-up! I'm gonna go out and get an amp soon and do this! I'll take pics of the construction, too.

What is the specs on the box, what is the depth? Would you sell a box?

Sure, I'll sell it. Two-thousand dollah! Send cash and it's on it's way,

As far as measurements go, it's 18" wide by 11" high by 10" deep at the deepest part.

Since we've had about a thousand new members register since thisthread dropped off the map, thought I'd bump it up for the newbies.

There is an easier way...

1) Use long strips of mail tape. Tape every part of the footwell, and outward at least a foot. (hardest part of the job)
2) Use BondoJelly (found at WalMart), doesn't drip like fiberglass. Put on some latex gloves, and go to work.
3) Remove, cut an angle for the face and top. Mail tape a 2x2' flat board, glass straight panels. Sit the unfaced box ontop of the wet fiberglass, let dry.
4) Cut the excess off around the edges (Dremel cutting bit). Cut speaker hole. Dor the same process to make the top.
5) Cut hole for the wire connector.
6) Reinforce with fibermat/fiberglass on the inside.
7) Use fiberfil, install and wire sub, carpet box, hook up to amp.

Piece of cake unless it is winter, you don't like the smell of resin, or you don't like cleaning up after yourself.

Greg

Bumped because I added a more recent pic, plus I'm a self-indulgent prig.

WOW! looks JUST like mine... I made mine on my own initiative... I thought *I* was the first

hehehehe

Great minds think alike, eh Stimpy? Looks awesome. I did mine with "Granite" paint on the MDF cap , and painted the grille, too. Almost matches the Fiero Grey interior... At least enough to make it look like it was ALWAYS there.

He's right folks. I made this type of box for about $40 cdn

You mentioned finding an old beat up carpet. Will it work to use the footwell section of that carpet to spray the foam on? The carpet is already exactly formed, and its just going to be garbage anyways.... Info on this would be appreciated!!

Uh, I suppose that could work. Why would you want to hack up your footwell carpeting though? (unless, of course, you are recarpeting and the original is fubar) Part of the beauty of this method is that it is totally reversable. Another problem that would need to be overcome is that a top plane would need to be made. I'm sure you could use duct tape for that. But the posterboard method is very cheap, I'd recommend trying that out before I hacked up the carpeting in my own car.

You know, I just realized, you may be talking about the carpeting in the junkyard car. If that's the case, that's a pretty freakin brilliant idea. Let me know how that works.

Yea, the junkyard carpet. I went looking for that high expanding foam stuff and couldn't find it. Do I still need it since I'll already have the shape/form from the old carpet???

When I made my box...I used masking tape (2 layers think) placed cloth not mat down then used resin and a paint brush. After drying adding a layer of mat and resin, pulled it out and removed tape. Added paint sticks from Home Depot under a couple more layers of mat and resin. Bought a piece of thin solid board and make face, fiberglassed both sides after cutting hole. If u do it right it will be flat with the foot area.

quote Originally posted by Jncomutt: Yea, the junkyard carpet. I went looking for that high expanding foam stuff and couldn't find it. Do I still need it since I'll already have the shape/form from the old carpet???

No, the whole purpose of that foam is to retain the shape. The pre-formed carpet should do a wiaard job of that. Now, why couldn't I think of that?!

OK.. I got the whole carpet fiberglassed. I have a pretty thick layer of fiberglass goin but I don't know how to make/attatch the face..

Also, since the fiberglass doesn't stick to carpet, I glassed the rubber backside. I can, it seems, peel the carpet out of the glass But should I leave it in? Or take it out to have just a fiberglass shell?

I'm kind of at a standstill here. Anyother tips to help me out would be nice too... hehe