# Ford Excursion - Barn Door Subs by Handcrafted Car Audio



## handcrafted (Sep 22, 2009)

Did this one about two weeks ago. It's pretty self explanatory from the pics. I used two Hertz Energy 10" subs and ran them off of an Arc Audio XXD4080 bridged. All the other equipment in the truck was pre-existing. Let me know what you think.









Stock door frame.
















I cut the holes in each door to the same dimensions so that each sub would have similar size enclosures.








I made a frame that loaded into each hole, and then glassed the back side. As the glass was curing, I started to frame out the boxes.
























I skipped a few pictures in the process here, I got a bit behind! Basically, I just made the baffle of the box the same shape as the door panel that was pulled off, mounted it to the frame on each side and then just made four side pieces that fit the contour of the door. 








Here, I copied just the top section of each side onto a random piece of 1/2" MDF. Then, I rabbeted 3/4" in and 1/4" up into it. Once that was done, I followed the rabbeted edge with a 1/4" spiral flush trim. This left me with a 1/2" by 1/4" replica of the shape of the top of the box.








Here it is loosely in place.


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## handcrafted (Sep 22, 2009)

Here you can see why I made that piece. After attaching those pieces to the top of each box, I simply continued that 1/4" border all the way around. This gave me a place to pull vinyl over into and then lay carpet in the middle. This is very similar to the factory piece.








A few days later I threw a couple of grilles on them.


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## tdiantonio (May 8, 2007)

looks great. nice work


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## MTopper (Nov 4, 2009)

thats awesome.. great work as always. i always loved the look of subs molded into car/trunk parts.


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## handcrafted (Sep 22, 2009)

Thanks guys.


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## Zorasmiles (May 1, 2008)

looks great..nice use of space


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## reggiecab2000 (Jun 27, 2011)

everything i see here seems do-able, except i dont see where or how you successfully bolted/attached this frame to the actual door? could you show some pictures of how it is attached please? that is my only confusion seeing it is a thin fiberglass door.
thank you


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## eviling (Apr 14, 2010)

ha when i saw that big hole in the door my eyes went 0_o than i realised they were the back doors, still allot of material to be removed, but interesting way to utalize space. I like it


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## BowDown (Sep 24, 2009)

Very nice work man. Love when people think outside the box.


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## ecbmxer (Dec 1, 2010)

Old thread, but still awesome. I always like subs molded into hatch doors.


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## trojan fan (Nov 4, 2007)

A sweeeet shout out to a old thread.......nice


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## quality_sound (Dec 25, 2005)

I used to do the same thing but with Soundstream SPL 12s. Works AMAZING.


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## Deafabove30Hz (May 21, 2014)

I am starting the install in my Excursion, and I like the idea of putting the subs in the barn doors but I have a question. Do your rear doors and window rattle excessively? The Ford latches on those doors and window seem like they wouldn't have to much forgiveness for vibration. I lied, I have 2 questions. I was thinking of eliminating the rear mid speaker at the 3rd row bench seat and moving them to the rear doors along with the sub. Just wondering if anyone had any cons for that idea before I go and fabricate the doors for that set up to find out the imaging sucks in that combo. Thanks ahead of time for your input, and nice work!


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## handcrafted (Sep 22, 2009)

I didn't see vibration that was unacceptable. Naturally, there is going to be some, but nothing that would detract from listening. I just recommend that you sound deaden the doors very well before hand.

As for the speakers in the back, yeah the imaging would definitely suck. But then again, 85% of the sound systems we do are front stage only, so I might be a bit biased. If you are simply looking to have a lot more sound in the vehicle, it should work, but if you want it to sound good, I wouldn't do it. But if you do add them back there, make sure you isolate their air space from the subwoofers.


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## TheDavel (Sep 8, 2006)

From the dead! But still a sweet build!


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## Deafabove30Hz (May 21, 2014)

I played around with a 6.5 3-way in a little mdf enclosure moving it around the back. You are definitely right, the sound from the speaker is eaten up by the 3rd row seat and sounds like it has a pillow over the speaker. However, I think I hit paydirt when I located the speaker up on the rear headliner. It gave a good fill. I think I will fiberglass a pod for these and cover it in Vinyl to match the tan headliner. With a little luck these should blend with the subs in the door, at least better than my original plan. Already deadened the snot outta the rear doors this morning. Now, I am going to try and use your idea and do something similar for the barn doors. I think you were wise to use a strong baffle for those subs, I was originally going to fiberglass them on a reinforced ring like I saw on youtube a couple times but realize that is no way to mount a sub. Thanks for the reply, and for sharing your work, it has inspired me to take it up a notch in my truck! Now, if it looks half as good as yours I will be super smiley.


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## ben54b (May 30, 2014)

Hey guys, just wondering long term what effect the weight of those boxes on the doors will have on the hinges. As we don't have those vehicles in oz I am not familiar enough with them to know. Awesome idea and execution though. Ben


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## Deafabove30Hz (May 21, 2014)

I went out and inspected the hinges in depth, and I really don't think there is going to be any issues with the hinges themselves as they seem pretty HD and up to the challenge of a mere 10-15lbs of weight. The weak link IMO is the latch. There isn't anything to really keep those barn doors closed/tight except the single latch. It will be interesting how it holds up to the vibration over time for sure. If it becomes an issue for me I will repost.


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## Deafabove30Hz (May 21, 2014)

So, I was playing around with some mock set ups and working on the rear fill for the Excursion. I had put a 6.5 Beyma 3 way spkrs up high and at first it sounded awesome! After I mocked up the front speakers though I noticed the stage had moved back a few feet! I tried playing around with the gain on the rears and that helped, but at that point I had very little coming out of the rears to blend in properly and said to myself what a waste of a decent speaker. So, back to the ol drawing board, prolly going to move the Beyma's up to the third row factory location. Had high hopes for these Beyma's, they sound really good for a 3-way spkr. Sometimes an idea isn't always a good one. Plenty of good sound from the front doors-PPI P.653C 3-ways, (6.5 in door and the little mid and tweeter center dash) and Soundstream RC.6 comps. With the sub in the rear door area, this set up blends well. Now what is left (HA, just getting started) is to fabricate the door pods, the rear sub mounts in the barn doors, finish dampening, run the new wire, reinstall carpet and seats, mount the amps and start tweaking to make it blend the way you guys have shown is possible. So much for a weekend project, It is going to take me a couple weeks hard at it. However, after getting some ideas from the projects you all have shared I don't think I can go wrong. I will put together some images to post here when I am done so you can laugh at my feeble attempt at car audio bwa ha ha. Seriously, I am trying to do it right because I know the sharks are out there waiting to feast, and I am hoping they starve when I get this done. Thanks again to all for sharing your ideas, without them I surely would be lost. It has been a good xp learning some of the finer points of car audio and finding a way to integrate them into my project. The most frustrating part of it all so far has been the issue of power management. If only I had a nuclear generator under the hood. I ended up upgrading the alternator to a 275 amp TAD from Nations so we shall see if it can handle the system this NOOB designed. Alright gents, back to the workbench.


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## natersoz (Nov 6, 2021)

handcrafted said:


> Did this one about two weeks ago. It's pretty self explanatory from the pics. I used two Hertz Energy 10" subs and ran them off of an Arc Audio XXD4080 bridged. All the other equipment in the truck was pre-existing. Let me know what you think.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Very, very cool!
Do they rattle?


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