Growing up doesn't have to suck

[randeez]

If it's more like a winter thing, I'd be down to sword fight with you fellas

disney meet up?

 

[iamdub]

i put some all terrains on it and went up a size, its beast now

I saw one with some BFG AT's about a year ago. I was still sitting in the van when the owner, a doctor, came out of the store. I commended him on his "proper" Subaru. I don't remember if it was an Outback or Forester. I think Outback.

 

[iamdub]

she was just being nice...she def had that abortion it just wasnt successful


jk ily

She's too cheap to follow through with such a thing. My therapist has tried to convince me that my aversion to coat hangers is no coincidence.

 

[iamdub]

After coffee yesterday morning, I went into the garage for something and completely forgot what it was. I opened a cabinet and saw a cheap Scosche car audio fuse holder sitting there. It had a 100A Maxí fuse in it. I immediately thought of the four 25A fuses on my Alpine sub amp. On the workbench was a box of a 50' roll of #4 welding lead. Good stuff- Radnor Flex-A-Prene, OFC, USA-made. I now had a mission.


I dug through my grommets and found one that was a snug fit on the cable. Mic'ed the OD and drilled an appropriate hole by the right front mounting bolt of the right rear passenger seat. I sprayed dark silver paint into a plastic cap and used a Q-tip to paint the bare metal. The cable needed a shot of B'Laster to slide through without pulling the grommet out:




The amp is too wide to sit all the way down on the rails. I found that if it were about 1/2" higher, it'd fit perfectly. I checked my stock for 1/2" aluminum square tubing but struck out. Instead, I found some 1/2" x 2" rectangular tubing. As a cheesy bonus, it was chrome. I was in a hurry and didn't care, so it got just a quick wipe with a dirty shop rag. It's obviously reflective enough:




Plenty of air space:




While I was running RCAs, I ran the ones for the matching 4-channel amp that'll be under the other seat. I taped 'em down with the first roll of tape I grabbed off the shelf:




While I had easy access, I wire-wheeled the coating off the stud and top and bottom of the nut and the paint off the seat bracket to ensure a good ground:

 

[iamdub]

Soldered and heat-shrinked a lug to make a ground. Had to drill it out to fit the seat stud:




Routed and terminated the power and ground cables:




Soldered and crimped a lug with the hydraulic crimper for the power cable:




Since it'll be under the hood, I applied the same mesh sleeving I used for the Big 5 cables and secured with heat shrink:




Just a pic of the RCAs and where they penetrated the carpet:





After this, I coiled a little extra slack in the power wire and secured it all by zip-tying to the cold/low pressure pipe of the rear A/C, tied every ~8-12". Only after reassembling the interior did I realize I forgot the damned remote wire. For testing purposes, I shoved a wire into the battery + wire on the seat harness. Like the amps, the sub is also a period-correct Alpine TypeR 10. It was still BNIB up until a couple weeks ago when I unboxed it to install into a ported enclosure to play on my house stereo (Alpine amp on 13.8 VDC power supply) to begin the break-in process. I set it on the floor in between the two seats and powered it up to begin the tweaking and testing.

At first, it was super weak. I saw the sub moving a lot but you could barely tell any difference over the factory Bose sub. Yes, I changed the phase. It was strange- the sub was maxing it's excursion but it's like I was watching a sub excursion video on mute. I drove over to Garrett's (Tahoe Twin) house for a second set of eyes as he has a similar Pioneer HU and two 12s that throw down in his Tahoe. We got it playing pretty hard but it still was not making much sound. It romped pretty good in my house- rattled kitchen cabinets, bumped a little in my chest when sitting on the couch, etc. Garrett flipped the box all around to fire up, back, forward then face-down on some 2x4s to make a downfire- still no improvement. Then he moved it to behind the right rear seat. NOW it was acting like it should! I knew placement had an effect but it went from damned-near Mute City to Pound Town. We learned a lot about the acoustics of a GMT900 Tahoe. We tried firing down, sideways and rearward and both agreed downfire was best. I'm pretty much gonna copy the setup he has, but with one 10 instead of two 12s. For now, I'll mod the ported box it's in. I'll build a spec box later to fit against the back of the seat and use factory attachment points to secure it. Oh, and run a remote wire. I'll probably mount that 4-channel amp so I can wire it up to be ready for the speakers to be installed at a much later date.

 

[Tonyrodz]

Soldered a heat-shrinked a lug to make a ground. Had to drill it out to fit the seat stud:

View attachment 397617


Routed and terminated the power and ground cables:

View attachment 397616


Soldered and crimped a lug with the hydraulic crimper for the power cable:

View attachment 397618


Since it'll be under the hood, I applied the same mesh sleeving I used for the Big 5 cables and secured with heat shrink:

View attachment 397619


Just a pic of the RCAs and where they penetrated the carpet:

View attachment 397620



After this, I coiled a little extra slack in the power wire and secured it all by zip-tying to the cold/low pressure pipe of the rear A/C, tied every ~8-12". Only after reassembling the interior did I realize I forgot the damned remote wire. For testing purposes, I shoved a wire into the battery + wire on the seat harness. Like the amps, the sub is also a period-correct Alpine TypeR 10. It was still BNIB up until a couple weeks ago when I unboxed it to install into a ported enclosure to play on my house stereo (Alpine amp on 13.8 VDC power supply) to begin the break-in process. I set it on the floor in between the two seats and powered it up to begin the tweaking and testing.

At first, it was super weak. I saw the sub moving a lot but you could barely tell any difference over the factory Bose sub. Yes, I changed the phase. It was strange- the sub was maxing it's excursion but it's like I was watching a sub excursion video on mute. I drove over to Garrett's (Tahoe Twin) house for a second set of eyes as he has a similar Pioneer HU and two 12s that throw down in his Tahoe. We got it playing pretty hard but it still was not making much sound. It romped pretty good in my house- rattled kitchen cabinets, bumped a little in my chest when sitting on the couch, etc. Garrett flipped the box all around to fire up, back, forward then face-down on some 2x4s to make a downfire- still no improvement. Then he moved it to behind the right rear seat. NOW it was acting like it should! I knew placement had an effect but it went from damned-near Mute City to Pound Town. We learned a lot about the acoustics of a GMT900 Tahoe. We tried firing down, sideways and rearward and both agreed downfire was best. I'm pretty much gonna copy the setup he has, but with one 10 instead of two 12s. For now, I'll mod the ported box it's in. I'll build a spec box later to fit against the back of the seat and use factory attachment points to secure it. Oh, and run a remote wire. I'll probably mount that 4-channel amp so I can wire it up to be ready for the speakers to be installed at a much later date.

Did you do any tweaking to the amp itself to get the better bass? I have a similar amp that I haven't hooked up yet.

 

[George B]

I think you need to send power to the remote input on the amp to get it to turn on. Without that you are driving the subs with head unit output only.

 

[swathdiver]

No reason we can't schedule two meetups. Maybe Gainesville Raceway, Orlando Speed World, Don Garlits' Museum of Drag Racing in Ocala, etc.

Or we could all show up at Dan's house on the mountain! LOL We could do burnouts up and down the mountain until he fires up the grill!

 

[mattbta]

I would drive to Louisiana for some custom made big threeve cables!

Nice work on the FF stuff. Are there PCM modifications needed to "enable" the new physical sensor? If so, how are you doing it? HP Tuners, PCM Hammer/TunerPro?

Edit: Never mind, saw what looked like HPT in another thread.

 

[Sam Harris]

I would drive to Louisiana for some custom made big threeve cables!

Nice work on the FF stuff. Are there PCM modifications needed to "enable" the new physical sensor? If so, how are you doing it? HP Tuners, PCM Hammer/TunerPro?

Edit: Never mind, saw what looked like HPT in another thread.

View attachment 397630

Hell yeah!! I would too! Make me some for my ‘03.. @iamdub !