Hi everyone,

This sub enclose is made for high end sub. It was design to fit a shalow 8" subwoofer and a "deap" 8" subwoofer. Here are the 2 subwoofers I'm talking about:
-Pioneer TS-SW841D (Shallow)
-JL Audio 8W3v3 (At 4 Ohm)

I will do my best to comunicate with Fierosounds, try to make some fitting... At the end, I'll try to do my best to respon properly to your requests.

For the other subwoofer, I will try to go over many brands of car audio system to see statistically what other subwoofer could fit in there. (By statistically, I mean by calculating the specs of the subwoofers. Though they will not be tested therefore I can't garentee it fits properly without any modification on the enclosure. I can't even garentee they will fit at all. It's just to give an idea of what could fit if you already have the sub, or you really want this sub option, or if you are a handy man and you want a little project. Basically, a list that will fit without many mods or maybe even without mods, who knows!)

For the tuning, I'll tell you guys when time will come. Because the Pioneer sub might not require as much damping or even no damping at all... Or this situation might happen with the JL Audio sub. Every subwoofer will react differently on the same subwoofer enclosure with the same given air volume and the exact same shape. Therefore the damping must be adapted differently to one sub to the next.
The problem is not with the water itself, it's more of a poblem with the extra material added. Here is a picture to show you: (I made it fast on Paint at midnight just for a visual support)


This is the example of the bottom of the enclosure cut in half (Where there is the hole) if you would watch from the passenger door to the enclosure. Because we needed more spacing to put the shallow one. Here is the ledgend:

Blue = Layers of fiberglass
gray = Fiberglass resin
Red = Gelcoat
Yellow = Filling Putty (Used for body work)
Black = Where the sub hole will be
Green = The space unable to be counted if we test the volume

(Note: The final product will be only made out of Fiberglass, Fiberglass resin and Gelcoat, these are waterproof and are not affected by water)

Basically, we made a first rough shape with fiberglass and gelcoat, a rigid base. When it was time for the modification (To take more place out of the underdash) in this case it was to be able to put the sub too. We needed to tilt the sub box to make it fit so we added extra putty for the support where the enclosure will screw on.

By adding this putty, if you put water, or rice in it, it will show the volume of the inside of the enclosure (In the diagram, it would be the upper gray portion represented by the fiberglass resin). This means that all the extra putty we put would be ignored, useless. In the final product, there won't be putty so the enclosure should like more like this picture:


The green part is all the extra space we made and can not be counted right now because of the material taking the space.

As you can see, there is alot of things modified, and we can't put all the sub in the water because it will show the exterior volume (The bottom yellow part of the first picture). Yes it will be the exact same exterior volume but the interior will change because you need to add the thickness of the material (fiberglass, resin and gelcoat) Therefore in both ways it won't give a proper volume reading.

It's not only the bottom that had been modified, here is a photo of the enclosure:


In this case, the red is the gelcoat, the pink is all the major putty we put on and the yellow is the finishing putty.
I don't know if you guys understand, if it's explin properly. It's pretty hard to explain. If you don't get it, just tell me and I'll give it a second try to try to help you!

Rixthetrick, I'm sorry that the enclosure won't fit for you. It's such a nice project I'm so excited with. I can't wait to hear it! But I would of hoped to have someone who has alot of knowledge in the subject and expertise to try it, make a critic of thing that could be ameliorated, or things that are awsome. You can still fallow the subject and post, if you have anything you can think of.

Fred

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87 Pontiac Fiero GT

Hi Austrian Import,

There was little that was done on the project for many reasons:
-I've developped severe back pain
-I've got sick (Flue I think)
-School started

Though, as all Fiero owner, the family is involved! (My father has some, my brother, my mother...) And this project was for our Fieros at the begining, (The 4 first enclosure that will be made will be for my family member and I) so I don't have to tell you how mutch everyone is pretty excited about the project! My father was my partner on this one and he made an awsome work on it.

Just because I am an awsome son ( ) and I love to make surprise, my father took vacation today and he will not be home for a couple of weeks, therefore I will try to make as mutch progess as possible and hopefully, the mold will be done when he'll be back of vacation! (I don't know how this surprice will work out due to school problems, my priority is there, I'm sorry... ) But, I'll do my best! (These weeks will be my self-kick in the butt to move on the project! :P)

Progress:
First off, I've made some remarkable sanding, 3 out of 6 faces are ready to be polished and the other 3 has only little bit of sanding. (But still, I'm not starting from skratch! )

Next step:
Sanding the 3 other faces!

I like the fact that you are still interested in the project, I really apreciate, thanks! I'll try to get some pics of the enclosure when he will be all sanded.
Fred

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87 Pontiac Fiero GT

All faces of the enclosure has been wet sanded with 400 grid sand paper. It has beed sanded with a hard sanding block to remove all the defects in the bad clear coat I painted... ( ) lol

Next step would be:
Sanding with an even smaller grain of sand paper (We can still see all the marks left by the sand paper)
I'm guessing a 600 sand paper will be ok, if not, I'll go to 800... 1 000... PLEASE hopefully I will be done and I won't be forced to go to 2 000 grid! lol...

As soon as the sanding is done, I will post some picture!

Fred

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87 Pontiac Fiero GT

Ok, I done the 400 Grid sand paper (there were still some big marks left), I've done 600 grid sand paper (there were a little marks left) and I've just done the 800 grid sandpaper.

Next step:
Polishing and waxing! (It will be finished soon I think -> Hopefully!)

I'm just so excited on how my sound system with the sub and this enclosure will sound like...

Fred

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87 Pontiac Fiero GT

Unfortunatelly no

Once again, I'm sick (Damn, twice in a month? fortunatelly it's not H1N1! :P)

The only thing I can tell you as update is:
I've polished 2 faces of the enclosure (Polishing alone is quite difficult because it moves everywhere on the table, I'm just waiting for my father to come back for his second vacation for some well placed help! )

After that, it will be officially the time to start making the molds! (Unless there is something wrong or I'm forgetting something... :P )

Fred

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87 Pontiac Fiero GT

Hi everyone!

As for any updates, I've been giving the enclosure a couple of coat of wax but some more are coming up. (Sorry, I'm busy with school, second time I was sick...)

Austrian Import
The two subwoofers that were made to fit were:
-Pioneer TS-SW841D (Shallow)
-JL Audio 8W3v3 (At 4 Ohm)

I don't know if a subwoofer is better than an other one, nothing have been tested yet. Though, I just have this feeling that a 12" subwoofer made by Alpine would sound GREAT!!! (too bad it doesn't fit... ) I will test the 2 model of subwoofer and we'll see from there... Though, I will try to give you all the mesurments (When the enclosure will be ready) so that you can fit in your own subwoofer if you want to. (So Austrian Import, with these mesurements, you will be able to figure out if your sub fits. The reason I am doing it this way is, I don't want to be responsible if the sub doesn't fit. This is why I'm only taking position on these two subs, because I know these will fit. Though, I'm not really recomanding this subwoofer [The JL Audio 8W7] because because it requires around 0.875 cubic feet of air to making it work in optimum performance and our enclosure just isn't that big enough, we have around 0.3 cubic feet. You will need a MUTCH more powerfull Amplifier to drive it and it won't be good for the subwoofer and the subwoofer won't work at it's optimum performance. But this is my opinion, I wouldn't do it, you can if you want, I'm just giving you facts. [Sorry if this seamed harsh somehow or if I desapointed you.])

I have calculated roughly the air volume of the subwoofer and it's close to 0.3 cubic feet. This mean that the two subwoofer that I fitted in will not require a ported enclosure. (Wich is good because there is no space to fit a tube! lol) Though, it's possible that the enclosure can be bigger than 0.3, or it's possible it can be slightly smaller. THIS IS NOT A DEFINITIVE AIR VOLUME MESURMENT! (I'm not yelling, I just want to make sure everyone understand this. Sorry if you get offended) A better mesurement will be taken when the first production subwoofer will be made.

The weight of the subwoofer will certainly matters. I just don't know how mutch it will matters. It depends on how mutch layers of fiberglass I will put in there. I juste know that the magnets is significantly heavy. This is why, again, some test will be needed to be done.

If you have some questions, comments, suggestions or if this didn't quite answered your question, just let me know!

Fred

EDITED: For links...

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87 Pontiac Fiero GT

[This message has been edited by Black Pegasus (edited 10-29-2009).]