reedal's '03 Tahoe build

[reedal]

Well, newest item is now a TORK2 relay kit from Tony C (aka snafu). Also bought one of his books to give to my cousin for Christmas.


And now all of my money is going into supplies to build a new enclosure. I intend to use some birch-ply. I'm off all week, and the temps aren't that bad, so I'll probably have it done by end of day Christmas (wife works Christmas Day, so we won't be driving to see family until saturday). I've got a pretty good idea for my amp/batt rack IMO. Or maybe simple is a better word... I'm gonna buy everything I need tonight, and get started tomorrow. Tomorrow will be all about that rack, and depending on how long that takes, I may get started on the enclosure as well. Measure eight times, cut once, cause i can't afford a whole lot of wood.

The amp/batt rack is going to hold my XS Power D4700, SoundQubed 3500, both AQ two-channels, AQ 4-channel, TORK2, and cockbox. Until I buy more wire and redo my doors/A-pillars, the two-channels and cockbox won't be used. Stay tuned

 

[reedal]

so, $267.56 later, i have two sheets of 3/4" birch-ply, two sawhorses, a new porter-cable sander (****** black & decker sander attachment for the matrix started separating from the velcro that holds the sandpaper on it), lots of sandpaper from 80-2000 grit (gonna make some things really shiny hopefully ), wood screws, six tubes of liquid nails, and four 1" X 36" wooden dowels for bracing and legs.



Tomorrow I will get started, and hopefully don't get shit for doing this on the patio of my apartment. Pictures will be taken as I go. And sound deadening the rear hatch and under the carpet of course

 

[reedal]

Here is the enclosure details for my three year old SoundQubed HDS312D2's (thank you to Triticum Agricolam after I was having issues getting my design to show response the way I wanted):

What it will look like


Torres specs (actual tuning is 28hz)


Cone excursion


And lastly, frequency response

 

[reedal]

Who wants some pictures?

Everyone wants pictures, that's who!

No pictures of the woodwork yet (because who cares about seeing wood being cut?) but I started the day off with taking the amps, battery, and subs and the pre-fab enclosure out. It's like there's a whole bunch of space hiding back there. It was very solemn to do this though.
Old amp rack I designed to fit in the not-as-wide-assed-as-the-Tahoe-Explorer. Monoblock, 4-channel, and battery with some olddddd no-name wires laying about.


I believe I have found the reason for the loss in output I experienced over the weekend. I had two broken screws, and the glue joints on the baffle next to that same sub had separated. After almost four years of having that enclosure, not bad results from that little prefab


My subs are a little dirty, the surrounds are scuffed, but overall I feel like they're in pretty good shape for the abuse I have put them through in three years.



And this will be my arsenal (excluding mids and highs)


Thank you to n8 and dollarbilz for the AQ amps, priced very well(cheap) for their good condition imo.

That's all I have picture-wise. I made a mistake and wasted some wood by measuring and making the same cuts twice. So I think I'll just make use of the extra port wall and cut it into shape for my battery.

Tomorrow should be the last day for cuts, then it's all sand, glue, and screw.

 

[reedal]

Slowly coming together. My cuts aren't perfect, so I'm going to have to do some filling in some places, but being this is only the second time I've tried making my own enclosure, first time in 5 years, I'm not too upset about it.



Only cuts left are the sub cutouts on the double baffle. Will the .75" difference between counter sinking the subs and not counter sinking make any kind of difference?

 

[reedal]

Update time!

Let's get all of those loose boards glued, clamped, and screwed together





Andddd my port walls




And now to test fit the double baffle




I was a little concerned about bracing it, and with more help from Triticum, I decided on this


It looks rough, but it was cleaned up a lot






Baffle glued and screwed


Some body filler where it's needed

 

[reedal]

For subwoofer installation and removal, I decided to go with some barbed threaded-inserts and machine screws. It required drilling the mounting holes in the sub larger, but no big deal

 

[reedal]

For my amp and battery mounting plans, I made a floor out of the plywood that takes up the entire cargo area, and made a little fence for the battery



I'm going to attach the 3500 to the rear of the sub enclosure, and I felt like the vents on the bottom of the amplifiers don't get enough air flow, so I took some of my scraps/screw-ups and made some raised platforms to mount all of my amps onto.








And my two 200.2's





Still need to finish the rack for the 90.4, paint it all, and install it. Got some stuff on the way from sky high, and maybe I'll be done by next weekend

 

[reedal]

And the "amp rack" is built. Now I need to paint it. But I don't want to, because I'm terrible at it.











Thank you to those watching

 

[reedal]

Alright, so I decided to go with green for the port and amp risers


but after painting the port, I decided that it's too damn cold for painting on my patio right now, and I'm going to wait until spring, and I'll just bump in my plain color for now. Plans are either black paint, or maybe a carbon fiber wrap. We'll see.

Here is what the back side of it all will look like (minus some amps and color )


This shows how much distance between the port and the hatch door (8.75 inches)


And lastly, I decided to use the threaded inserts and some threaded rod in between the subwoofers for terminal posts. A positive and negative for each sub