# E34 three way kicks, cement board baffles



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

After trying many different things in this car, I finally decided to use its configuration to its fullest advantage. E34 are blessed with large, deep and voluminous kick panels with 3" thick carpet and padding underneath. Its a lot of space!

Goals:
1) Keep it relatively inexpensive.
2) Optimize for two seat listening (sinful, I know).
3)Make it sound great, in both tonality and image.
4)Use minimal equipment and minimal external processing while relying heavily on physical positioning.

Equipment:
1)Two SWR-823D as sub/lower midbass hpf~125-170hz.
2) Two Celestion 5" Neodymium mids for upper midbass/midrange.
3) Two Cdt HD-100 tweets and EX-550i passive crossovers.
4) Samsung Note II as head unit.
5) 5 channel Kicker Amp

The type Rs were a no brainer for sub and lower midbass, inexpensive and sound fantastic

The Celestions I picked up for $9 a piece from PE during a sale on top of buyout. They were designed for acoustic guitar amps, but response curves look good.

The Cdt tweeters and crossovers were scavenged from a previous build. Crossover from mid to tweet is 2500hz at 24db slope.

The Kicker amp is nothing special, 4 channel plus Class D sub channel. 2 channels will power the Celestions, crossover, and tweeter. The type Rs will run mono off the Class D section. 2 channels will remain idle for now. I will use the built in crossovers.

I got rid of cable and internet to save money. I was due for an upgrade with my mobile. So I needed a new phone, with a large screen and large data plan. So for an upgrade of my nearly 3 year old MyTouch Slide, I went for the Note II. The really, really nice thing about the Note II is a well implemented, built in Wolfson DAC. It sounds very nice . The stock media player has a 7-band eq, various effects options, and can play both wave and flac files and many others. 8gig built in memory, 64gig expansion, unlimited 4GLTE, cloud storage, ect. Truly a great all in one device which just so happens to have excellent sq capability.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

The build gets a bit unconventional with materials, but there is good reason for it. The basic configuration is the 8" Type Rs flush mounted into the stock kickpanel openings. They are sealed. I estimate about .3 cu ft of volume once various electronic boxes were relocated. The actual volume may be way larger, as the sill area is very large and open and runs down the length of the car, but its not easy to estimate.

The tweets and mids are mounted essentially on the same baffle in .2 cu foot enclosures directly below the Rs. Remember the 3" of padding I mentioned above? Well that has allowed me to build very nice sized enclosures that will allow for many different drivers and cossover points down the road. The baffles are angled so that the tweeter sits slightly further away and off center to the mid but at the same physical distance to the ear. In testing I found that this allowed for very good mid to tweeter transition. I honestly cant hear them as separates.

Pics, some video to come.


----------



## SPLEclipse (Aug 17, 2012)

Sweet! Can't wait to see more.


----------



## nucci (Mar 29, 2012)

If you're using cement board like for residential tile and bathroom construction, that was also my idea... didn't know if it had been done before.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

nucci said:


> If you're using cement board like for residential tile and bathroom construction, that was also my idea... didn't know if it had been done before.


I didn't either, I dont think it has really. I just stumbled on the stuff at the local big box building supply. I was simply looking for something strong, stiff, uniform, dense and thin. It fit the bill...mostly. Specifically, I used Hardie Backer. Not all backers are created equally. Retrospectively, I have discovered that it has been used to line speaker enclosures in home audio applications. There are drawbacks, especially when trying to tool the material. Straight lines, like in a shower stall, no problem, just score and break. Anything else get difficult. More on that later.


----------



## nucci (Mar 29, 2012)

My reasoning was that it seemed like a less messy way to mass load custom kick baffles than making metal-filled milkshakes... I plan to laminate it. Eager to see how you have incorporated it.


----------



## GLN305 (Nov 2, 2007)

Met an ingenious guy who made a laminate of MDF, floor tiles (school floor type) and 3M VHT tape. His enclosures were DEAD.




nucci said:


> My reasoning was that it seemed like a less messy way to mass load custom kick baffles than making metal-filled milkshakes... I plan to laminate it. Eager to see how you have incorporated it.


----------



## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

IN!!


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Shocking revelation in the area of car audio...some things have changed. I fully intended to complete the system outlined in the initial post. But after hours of testing, and positioning, and more testing, I found that I was running into problems. To top it all off, the weather here is been a bit absurd. I don't remember the last day that it _didn't_ rain. 

The 8" type Rs are great. However, they are really designed with the idea of small box and tons of power. As far as midbass, they do a good job to a point, but they are not as flexible in frequency response as a true midbass speaker. The kick panels in the E34 have lots of volume, more than what the Type Rs really need for sealed box . So, why not use the extra volume and work Hoffman's Iron Law to my favor? Out go the 8" Type Rs. I slightly enlarged the hole in the cement board baffles to fit 8" Dayton RS225-4s. With the RS225-4s I get 6db more sensitivity, much more cone area, and much more system flexibility. I lose xmax and power handling, but I didn't have much power to play with anyway.

With system simplicity in mind, I decided to ditch the two-way passive system and give some fullrange drivers a try. There are many drivers that intrigued me. Inevitably, when one researches fullrange drivers enough, one runs across their use in line arrays. This caught my interest as a major aspects of line arrays is the ability to direct sound. This aspect of arrays has its advantages and disadvantages; but in car audio where near reflections are a constant menace, I figured I could use it to my advantage. I scrounged up my 15 year old drivers from a Cambridge Soundworks 5.1 system I used on my first PC build Hardware One - Review Printout. The FL, FR, RL, and RR drivers are self contained and identical. I hot glued two of them together to create a two driver array for each channel as proof of concept. I placed the makeshift arrays vertically below the RS225-4s. I listened for a couple hours and I was fairly impressed with the results. 

So I set about the process of looking for drivers that I could utilize in a similar fashion to the test array. I needed something between 2-3" with an fs of at least 150hz and the ability to play high enough to dismiss the tweeters. I looked at numerous drivers from TB, Dayton, Peerless, Fountek, Fostex, and even Mark Audio. In the end I settled on a driver designed specifically for arrays. Compact Array - AN2775 - Celestion - Guitar, Bass & Pro Audio Speakers 
Not exactly inexpensive, and very new to the market and as result they are a bit of an unknown. But they seemed to fit my needs.

So now I am going subless and tweeterless two-way kicks . Still using the kicker amp and the Note II. I have a four day weekend and no excuses. Initial testing has been interesting. 

BTW, its absolutely pouring down rain again :worried:. Hopefully there will be some breaks this weekend so i can get to work.


----------



## damonryoung (Mar 23, 2012)

In for array and mid bass only!


----------



## ecbmxer (Dec 1, 2010)

Need moar pics.  I like where this is going


----------



## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

...lurking too.

Want more


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

So I have made a bit progress, but I wanted to go back and start with the build of the baffles for the kickpanels.










The above picture is where things started with the Type Rs. The original baffles are made from MDF. But after making the baffles, there were some things that I didn't like. My initial grievance is that I hate the stuff. I really hate working with MDF, I don't like it's vulnerability to moisture, and I don't trust the quality. 










On the practical side, there were other concerns. The MDF pictured is 3/4" thick. The kickpanel area that they were to be mated to appears mostly flat, but it is not; there are lots of creases and folds in the metal to add stiffness. To get the MDF panels to mate in a form fitting fashion to the kickpanel sheet metal would have resulted in a baffle that is almost 2" thick. While a 2" thick baffle may not seem to be an issue by itself, there were less then desirable obstacles. I was not willing to cut much sheet metal. With a 2" thick baffle, air could not escape from the back side of the driver cone without a good amount of chamfer. That chamfer would have necessitated the enlargement of the kick panel opening in the sheet metal by several inches all the way around. The other issue was that any additional intrusion into the footwell area would compromise the width and positioning of the other drivers.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Time for a plan B. I went on the hunt for a material the was thin, stiff, fairly strong, very dense, and most importantly, very inexpensive. I was at the local big box store, and happened across cement board. Cement board is used as a backer for tile in shower stalls and such. There are different kinds, some quite fragile. The stuff I got was reinforced with a fiber matrix, hit all the criteria mentioned above, and was only $10 a sheet. For that price, it was worth it to try something unconventional.










I started by taping up the kick panels to make fiberglass molds that fit exactly to the sheet metal. Fiberglass mat and polyester resin was used to reduce cost. Carnauba car wax plus hairspray was used as release agents over the tape. I wont bore you with picture of the glassing, but suffice to say its a ***** to lay on your side, in the foot well, while stippling glass at arms length.










Jumping ahead a few steps. You can see the fiberglass piece molded perfectly to the kickpanel sheet metal. The piece that is on top of that is the cement board. I used the previously cut MDF baffles as templates for the cement board. Cutting the cement board was a serious *****. The typical method for cutting the board is to score and break. That method is great if you are making long, straight cuts (like for a shower stall). But I needed to cut circles and compound curves. I turned to my trusty Makita jigsaw. I had a few dull blades and some new ones. The initial cuts proceed quickly, but the cement board eats the blades within minutes. The blades would abrade and narrow quickly in the center (in the section of the blade that passes through the cement board the most times), and the narrowing blade would eventually start to grab and vibrate the cement board as the blade reciprocated, due to the difference in thickness of the blade. To get the blade to last longer, I would actually vary the cutting depth of the blade while making the cut by lifting the jigsaw off the surface. This allowed the blade to wear more evenly and I was able to mitigate the grabbing of the cement board caused by uneven wear. However, the teeth would still round over completely and eventually I would have to change blades. In all, I think I wasted about 10 blades. The blades are not that expensive, less then $10 for a pack, so it was not much of a loss. There are carbide encrusted blades that would have done the job, but I didn't have access to them, and they most likely would have been more expensive than an entire pack of regular blades.

If you look around the edge of the cement board piece, the gray coloring is actually metal from the blades which is has abraded and embedded into the cement board .


----------



## vwdave (Jun 12, 2013)

Looking good. How will you attach the cement board to fiberglass? Resin? Nice unique approach.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

vwdave said:


> Looking good. How will you attach the cement board to fiberglass? Resin? Nice unique approach.


I got a bunch of pictures of how I did that. But basically fiberglass for the larger voids, and body filler / resin slurry used to fill the rest. I will detail that more in the next posts.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Another look at the cement board and molded fiberglass piece.










With the cement board and molded fiberglass piece out of the car, you can see the various contours of the sheet metal. The space between the cement board and molded fiberglass piece will need to be filled. The outer skins of fiberglass plus the inherent strength of the cement board provide more than enough strength and stiffness. The material used to fill the voids only needs to have have some compressive strength. The sharpie line is an area of the fiberglass that will be trimmed.










A view from the outer edge. The cement board is 3/8" thick, half the thickness of the MDF of the original baffles. At 3/8" the cement board is just as stiff and more than twice as dense as the MDF.


----------



## coke101 (Dec 3, 2011)

Looks interesting in for final results!


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

I started the process of filling the void between the cement board and molded fiberglass by sealing one edge at a time with tape. Then I mixed a polyester resin / body filler slurry which I could pour down, from the speaker cutout, into the taped off area. I did this about four times for each baffle. The cement board is slightly porous. It will soak up some resin and allow for good bond strength between it and the molded fiber glass piece. The end result was that the cement board and fiberglass piece adhered to each other and baffle was sealed around most edges. Then I did some lay-up of fiberglass mat over the exposed face of the cement board.










Again, I won't bore anybody with the fiberglass steps but the end result is pictured above. The molded fiberglass piece has been trimmed along the sharpie line to accept the driver basket.










The assembled baffle back in the car for a test fit. The exposed face of the cement board has been fully glassed over. There is a gap around the edge where the baffles meets the firewall. Originally I had thought that some shrinkage had occurred, which is a potential problem with polyester resins. But after some repositioning, the baffle fit exactly to the sheet metal. Notice that I glassed some flange area between the kickpanel and the firewall. 

This picture also gives some sense as to how much volume is available in the E34 kick panels. The space is essentially hollow from the kickpanel up the A-pillar and down the sill plate of the unibody. Lots of volume to work with.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Since it will never stop raining, I guess I have to shelve the work I had planned for today. But, I guess that gives me the opportunity to post some more of the build.










This is a quick test fit I did of the Type Rs. The blue screws are special cement screws. The drill bit has a carbide tip and came with a kit that included the screws. I think it was about $10. I wanted to try to use the screws to secure the drivers and also to attach the baffles to the kick panel sheet metal.



















There was also another purpose behind the screws. Since I needed to fill the voids between the molded fiber glass section and the cement board, I was somewhat concerned with the possibility of the fiber glass piece bending or warping during this step. I planned to stuff the larger voids with resin soaked glass and then pour polyester resin / body filler mix into the smaller voids. To avoid flexing, and thus ruining the overall shape of fiberglass section, I used the cement screws at strategic locations to prevent flex in the fiberglass section while filling the voids.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Pictures of the stuffing process just to get an idea of how it was done. Nothing too complicated here. The glass was over saturated with resin, and I spent a good amount of time stuffing the glass into the space to prevent voids. Before the glass cured, I quickly made a fairly low viscosity polyester resin / body filler mix to pour over the stuffed fiberglass. I then used my palm sander to vibrate the baffle to work out trapped air and voids. 

This was somewhat tricky work in regards to the amount of catalyst used. Too much catalyst, and the mix would kick off before I would be able to work out the bubbles. Too little and it would never cure. The fact that the area was mostly enclosed, was an advantage. It allowed me to use less catalyst, and once the cure started to kick, the heat generated in the enclosed area would help to ensure complete cure. Small bubbles left behind are not a great concern, but ideally I wanted to eliminate the bulk of them. 










A picture of the void filling process. I had just finished filling the open edge of the baffle on the right. With the baffle on the left, I had started to fill the voids from the opening of the speaker cut out. Again, the blue cement screws are used to maintain the shape of the fiberglass section during the void filling process.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

After doing multiple rounds of void filling, the molded fiberglass section and the cement board were finally a solid, single baffle. The next step was some cosmetic filling. The surface does not need to be perfect here because the baffles will be covered with 1/2 acoustic foam and grill cloth, but it does need to be level. I dammed up the edge with body filler and used the circular gasket from the type Rs to create a counter sunk area for the subs. 










Here is the cosmetic filling I did on the first baffle. Again I used a polyester resin / body filler mix. This mix was thicker than the mix I used for void filling. In fact, the mix here was too thick. The idea is that it would be self-leveling, but you can see it did not level properly. Yep, thats crappy body filler in the background . I wouldn't use it for much else, but talc is talc and I am just using it to fill voids. 










Both baffles after cosmetic filling. 










More sanding than I cared for. Live and learn. But you can see the baffles are finally starting to take shape.










Quick test fit. There are still some imperfections on the face that will need attention. At this point the baffles are quite heavy for their thickness. They are very solid and strong too.


----------



## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

liking this!! they must me bomb proof now! are they quite dead as in low resonant frequency?


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

sydmonster said:


> liking this!! they must me bomb proof now! are they quite dead as in low resonant frequency?


I would hesitate to make a definitive statement in regards to resonant frequency without actually measuring it. But they seem to be less resonant than 3/4" MDF. I think I actually have video of me striking the surface to show how dead they are; It was like punching concrete. There is another where I pound on the baffles when they are mounted to the sheet metal of the kick panel, and the only thing you can hear is the door rattling. I will try to post those videos at some point.

One thing is for sure, they are extremely stiff. Far stiffer than MDF alone, and stiffer still than MDF / fiberglass composite panels I have made in the past.

They are mostly bomb proof, with some caveat that resulted in a design change when I switched the Type Rs for the RS225-4s. I will give details of that later on in the build log.


----------



## Schizm (Jun 12, 2011)

^^^^^^ WTF?

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Xparent Green Tapatalk 2


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Schizm said:


> ^^^^^^ WTF?
> 
> Sent from my SCH-I545 using Xparent Green Tapatalk 2


Lol, no idea. My guess is post in wrong thread with a language barrier to top it off.


----------



## Schizm (Jun 12, 2011)

The link is a sales brochure though lol. 

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Xparent Green Tapatalk 2


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Quick look at the passenger side baffle out of the car. Obviously there is still some cosmetic work needed.










A look at the back side of the baffles. I think this is the first picture I have posted that you can clearly see the different ridges and contours of fiberglass section which was molded to the sheet metal of the kick panels. There is a good amount of mass to those baffles. You can also see my trusty Makita drill; its a good 20 years old .


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Another test fit. This time the baffles have been bolted to the sheet metal. I was somewhat concerned with spreading the load over the surface of the baffles. I was finding that I needed to torque the sheet metal screws to a greater degree than I had originally envisioned. The original plan was to counter sink the screws into the cosmetic surface so that the face of the baffle would be flat, and I would be able to apply whatever finishing surface I wanted (grill cloth, micro suede, vinyl, ect) over that. But with the need for the washers to spread the load, the original plan would not work. 










Just messing around and having fun with different arrangements and drivers here. You can see the Note II with Wolfson DAC. The media player is Neutron player, which has some good features such as 4-band PEQ, ability to adjust channel cross-talk, echo, reverb, and other effects and DSP like abilities. No TA though. Its hard to tell in this picture, but I have also cut the carpet back to make room for the midrange enclosures.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

I apologize for the rather low res quality and glare in this picture. I think this was a picture taken with the Note II. The main reason I am showing this picture is because of an additional feature I did not mention before. If you look carefully, you can see some thin, black material sandwiched between the baffle and the kickpanel sheet metal. That black material is actually 1/8" thick neoprene. The thought was to make a gasket layer between the baffles I made and the sheet metal. The idea was that this would seal imperfection, allow me to remove the baffles if needed, and _hopefully_ provide a dampening layer between the drivers and baffle and the body of the car.

Well that idea did not work so well. It did fine for casual listening. But as I turned up the volume, I could detect some resonance of the sheet metal to which the baffle was bolted. I spent some time retorquing the screws. I would let it sit for a day, then go out and retorque them again. These steps did help some, but they did not solve the issue completely. But I had planned for the possibility of failure here.










The solution came in the form of a tube . This a less than ideal solution, because I would have preferred to have the ability to remove the baffles if needed. This solution is nearly permanent. But, this where the extra flange area that I built into the baffles (which I mentioned earlier in the thread) will be of great benefit. Mostly useless in the case of fastener attachment, the flange areas change the direction of force to compression and elongation, and adds surface area for the adhesive. It always I good idea to plan ahead, just in case your first option fails to meet expectations . 










Gut check! No turning back now!


----------



## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

GO FOR IT!!!


----------



## Voorttimies (Mar 19, 2011)

Sub'd.

Especially interested because a friend of mine also installed 8" subs into the kick panels of a E34, although this was like 18 years ago.  

Interesting to see different approaches.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

With the baffles glued in place I set about making enclosures for the mids.










After hours of testing, I settled on a position similar to the above picture. Note that this picture was actually taken before I glued the baffles to the kick panel, but it was the only picture I had.










After deciding on the basic design and angle of the mid enclosures, I started the not so fun task of glassing into an awkward area. Tape and wax. Foil would have done just as well. Although I left the securing hardware in place, the sub baffles are actually glued to the kick panels with polyurethane adhesive.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

After the glass cured, I pulled the piece from the car and started to design the baffle for the mids. The typical method used here would be to make a ring out of MDF, position the ring to the fiber glass piece with dowels, stretch fleece over the ring and attach the fleece to the fiberglass. Soak the fleece in resin, and so on. This results is the bulgy eye look typical of kick panel enclosures. This technique is quick, easy, strong and serves the purpose well.

However, for aesthetic reasons (and partly because I am a masochist ), I decided on flat baffles. Fitting a flat baffle at an angle to an edge with multiple contours is no easy task. I positioned the mid at the correct angle, and then cut small pieces of cardboard to fit the contours and angles. It took many pieces of card board and multiple trimming sessions to get the proper shape.



















After making the proper shape, I used the cardboard baffles as templates for plywood baffles. Still, the plywood baffles did need quite a bit of massaging to get them to fit at the proper angle. 

Don't be deceived, the two steps above took a tremendous amount of work. I did not consciously keep track of the time involved, but it was a fairly tedious process, and I had to do it for both sides of the car.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Left and right side mid enclosures. I placed the fiberglass sections in the car. Then I positioned the plywood baffles and used some hot glue to hold them in place. After that, a small amount of body filler was used to provide more support than the hot glue. After the body filler cured, I carefully removed the enclosures. I then sealed the edges of the baffle to the fiberglass section with a mix of body filler, chopped fiberglass and polyester resin. The enclosures have a fair amount of volume, a bit under .3 cu feet.










Here I am visually inspecting the enclosures. Its hard to tell, due to the angle of the camera, but the enclosures are virtually mirror images. The enclosures fit so tightly to the car, that it takes some work to actually get them into place.


----------



## TheBetterMethod (Sep 19, 2012)

This is gonna be an awesome build. I really like the construction you're doing.

Keep at it!


----------



## ecbmxer (Dec 1, 2010)

No doubt! Wanna see more! I like the idea of having a full 3way stage in your kicks that can reproduce the whole frequency spectrum


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

TheBetterMethod said:


> ...I really like the construction you're doing.
> 
> Keep at it!


Thanks!

Tonight or tomorrow I will try to post some video of construction of the kick panel baffles. I kinda of stammer through them a bit, so apologies um ahead of um time .

The videos explain the reason for the design and some of the process. They are not the best videos, I just picked up the camera and started filming; but I think they can give one a clearer picture of the cement board baffles. If I would have thought about it ahead of time, I would have done something more thorough and filmed every step.


----------



## TheBetterMethod (Sep 19, 2012)

I'll be watching for the vids!


----------



## SPLEclipse (Aug 17, 2012)

This looks like such a PITA. I love it.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

SPLEclipse said:


> This looks like such a PITA. I love it.


Lol, you have no idea. It's no weekend job for sure. Even more work has gone into the dash and knee boards to "correct" the asymmetry of the E34 cabin. Did I mention the dash yet ?


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Just a few more pictures of the mid enclosures.



















These two pictures show how the mid enclosures fit to floor and kick panel. The enclosures are a snug fit; it takes careful positioning and a thump from the palm of the hand to pop them into place.

The E34s have a good 2-3" of foam padding under the carpet. The opening for the mids is ~1/4" above the carpet level. The carpet in this car was in fairly bad shape, so I will be replacing it with better condition stock (black) carpet from a good donor car. The new carpet can naturally cover most of the face of the enclosures from the floor and up the firewall, with only a small area of aftermarket trim and/or grill cloth to cover the remaining area towards the kick panels.

You can see the PL polyurethane adhesive (beige stuff) pushing out from behind the cement board baffles.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

So,










This picture is a random shot of me testing tweeter positions and giving the system a good listen. Unfortunately, I found there were things that I couldn't get right.

I spent hours, and hours, and hours listening to music through different genres, different source codecs, and different crossover settings. Overall sound was a bit muted for my liking. Warm all around, but there was a general lack of detail. Maybe the combination of paper/kevlar pulp subs, paper/kevlar pulp mids and silk dome tweeters was too forgiving?

Most significantly the stage was wonked. The stage issues only became apparent to me after many hours of listening. There was some rainbowing, especially with female vocals present. Although, the stage was high and well centered for most vocals, the instrumentation to the right side of the stage "appeared" to wrap around and drop several inches aft and down from the right side A-pillar. Changing crossover, EQ, ect helped with some songs and some source material, but no matter what I did, the stage had a natural tendency to follow the above pattern. 

The type Rs, running mono off the sub channel, were giving me issues too. I am not saying it is a fault of the subs. But, in my situation, I was struggling to get them to do what I wanted. Again, I am limited to the Note II for source and 4-band PEQ of the Neutron player and amp crossover settings. I was trying to boost the low end while extending FR into the lower mid-bass region to meet the Celestion mids. What I found was a nasty peak in 150hz region and around 60hz. It was boomy or bloated or both. It would make my ears ring in one setting and be lacking in the next. I could not tame the Rs with the 4-band PEQ to get it to sound right. I also had only about 250 watts to feed each, which is on the low end. 

I was also using passive crossovers that were not designed for the mids. Again, not a fault of the equipment per se, but maybe asking too much from a mostly static arrangement. 

So I hit a crossroads. I could buck up for more processing power, go active with more channels and get more amps to fill those channels. That may have worked. But, the expense was out of the question. 

After a lot of consideration, I felt the answer was to switch to more efficient drivers for sub/mid-bass duty and to try a different solution for mid and upper frequencies. I actually have more volume in the kicks than needed for the Type Rs. So I can work Hoffman's Iron Law to my favor with a more efficient driver. The passive crossovers could be eliminated with full range drivers. That would leave me with only three amp channels occupied. One for the sub/lower mid-bass and two for L and R on up from there. Two amp channels remain unused or possibly bridged. This solution is even more simplistic than my original "basic" set up .

This new configuration sounds good on paper, but so did the first arrangement .


----------



## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

150hz could possibly be cabin gain...
Hang in there, hope the new drivers work out better for you!


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

The 8" type Rs were replaced by Dayton RS225-4's. The Daytons give me better sensitivity at the expense of a few dbs on the low end (according to modeling). When I replaced the Rs, I made a few design changes to the baffles. First, the diameter of the opening had to be enlarged to fit the RS225-4s. At the same time, I obviously needed to make new mounting holes. With the Rs, I had used cement screws. They hold well enough, but do not tolerate too many in/out cycles, which could be a potential problem. At the same time, I was reading a white paper regarding the importance of isolating the driver from the cabinet or baffle. The issue (as I understood) is that energy from the driver basket can transfer to the baffle if hard mounted, no matter how solid the mounting and baffle. In my view, this issue is compounded in the car environment where typically the box or baffle is in direct contact with sheet metal. This has the potential to excited the entire car and create all sorts of panel resonance.

So, I decided to isolate the drivers from the baffle. I did this by drilling holes into the cement board baffles and then I epoxied nuts into the holes. The drivers are secured by machine screws. The machine screws are a smaller diameter than the mounting holes in the driver basket. By careful alignment, the machine screws pass through the basket mounting holes and screw into the epoxied nuts _without_ touching the basket itself. A thick gasket was used at the basket/baffle interface and neoprene backed washers were placed between the head of the machine screws and the basket. Effectively, the driver floats between the gasket and the neoprene washers.










The enlarged opening with the mounting nuts epoxied into the baffles. I filled the recess that was present with the Rs (different colored body filler ring) and place acoustic foam into the kick panels. You can also clearly see the urethane adhesive which was squeezed out between the sheet metal and the baffle.










The RS225-4. The gasket is a bit uneven because it is compressed down from 1/4" thickness, but it makes a good seal all the way around and does an excellent job at isolating the basket from the baffle. I actually do not have the neoprene washers in place in this pic yet.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Just two quick teaser pics of the arrays. Sorry about the washout from the sunlight off the dash in the second pic. The drivers are Celestion AN2775 2-3/4" full range compact array drivers.


----------



## SPLEclipse (Aug 17, 2012)

Looking good!


----------



## GlasSman (Nov 14, 2006)

Interesting build so far....although you are limiting yourself by not using a standard headunit/processor combo....headunit source not as much but processor....yes.

Also that cement board might not be the best choice of material for baffles.

I've worked with it before and would never use it in a vehicle.

Any plans to just throw the Type R subs out back or possibly use another sub?


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

GlasSman said:


> Interesting build so far....although you are limiting yourself by not using a standard headunit/processor combo....headunit source not as much but processor....yes.


Of course I am limited here. But part of the intent was to limit devices and save money. The Note II has a decent DAC, and there is some promise that the Neutron player will provide more PEQ bands in future updates. It is a bit of a philosophical approach; to do more with less. These devices are becoming ever more powerful, its just a question as to whether apps will be developed to utilize that power. The Neutron player is a good first step. 



GlasSman said:


> Also that cement board might not be the best choice of material for baffles. I've worked with it before and would never use it in a vehicle.


Possibly yes . Again, there are different types of cement board, all with very different composition. It is very inexpensive material, and hit the criteria of stiffness and density (mass) while being thin. Its really just utilized as a heavy core material, but it does supply a lot of stiffness and some strength.

I needed strong, massive, thin, and _flat_. I could have piled on massive amounts of glass and resin to get strength and stiffness. I could have used filler material to add mass. But cement board serves both functions nicely. I have no reservations about its durability.

Still, as I mentioned, its a ***** to work with. I would never dream of using it for a complete sub box. I would even be somewhat hesitant to use it for door pods or door baffles. I would not use it where curves could be utilize instead to add stiffness. _*I definitely would not recommend it to anybody, that would be foolish; the baffles only serve as testament to what can be done. In my application, they are all I could ever hope. *_ 



GlasSman said:


> Any plans to just throw the Type R subs out back or possibly use another sub?


Yeah, its a consideration. Most likely first try the Rs tuned low as I can. There is no doubt I am missing the bottom octave with the RS225-4s. That was also the case with the Rs in the kicks too. Full sized spare tire well would make for a nice enclosure. Might consider a sealed 15" or 18" at some point.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Time flies!

More updates. Things have become more complicated, its the rabbit hole we all know too well. Processor of some variety is in the future. I am slowly piecing together the dash. Subs have been added.


----------



## TheBetterMethod (Sep 19, 2012)

All that sounds good to me. I'm glad you're still at it.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

To recap, the work on the dash came about for two reasons. First, the original dash was pretty beat by the southern sun. I wanted to change interior colors and I could not find anything from a salvage car in decent condition. The BMW plastics don't hold up too well over the years, most of the vinyl has shrunk and pulled the contours of the dash out of wack. Secondly, I wanted to try to make the interior symmetrical as possible. Radical surgery needed, but I wanted the new dash to mate to the contours of the door panels and blend well to the interior.

The best advice I can give if one is to pursue such endeavors, is to use as much of the original dash as possible. Sadly, I lost some pictures in the process. But hopefully I can give everyone a good idea.










This is the lip of the dash. The dash lip matches the lines of the door panel, so I needed to preserve these contours. I used a piece of 1x4 pine and a jigsaw to recreate the lines of the lip.










I then cut multiple pieces of the 1x4 to match the first piece in the previous picture. Since I only have a jigsaw, it is difficult to make the pieces identical even with the best hands. The blade shifts on its own and any differences in the wood ect cause variations. So I stacked the 1x4 pieces together, added body filler, and sanded the contour so that each individual piece was identical.










I simply clamped the 1x4 pieces together. The body filler held them in place once the clamp was removed. The pieces stick together well as long as one is careful with the sanding process. Once sanding is complete, I broke the individual pieces apart.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Unfortunately, this is where I lost some pictures. I basically cut a piece of underply with one edge straight and the other curved in a way that matches the front of the original dash and the contour of the windshield. I then used my jigsaw to completely remove all material of the original dash except for the edge meeting the windshield and the brackets that mount the dash to the A-pillar/kick panel area.

1x4 is at the lip of the dash and screwed into the brackets at each end before the bulk of the original dash material was removed. This helped to keep everything aligned. The contour pieces of the lip that I made previously are evenly spaced and attached to the 1x4 that bridges the brackets.










Another view


----------



## REGULARCAB (Sep 26, 2013)

Orion525iT said:


> Yeah, its a consideration. Most likely first try the Rs tuned low as I can. There is no doubt I am missing the bottom octave with the RS225-4s. That was also the case with the Rs in the kicks too. Full sized spare tire well would make for a nice enclosure. Might consider a sealed 15" or 18" at some point.


In before "IB 15's" because someone is gonna say it. Im just jealous because i have a truck and cant run IB.

I love the work you have done so far. I have always wanted to do a custom dash in my silverado. Never had the time money or paitence all at once. It seems that you have patience in spades!

I personally enjoyed the choice of the cement board.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Sorry for the blurry picture. The next step was to fill the areas between the lip pieces with spray foam and then sand to complete the lip of the dash. I then used fleece and pulled it over the lip and applied poly resin. It seemed like a good plan, but it failed nearly completely. I sprayed the polyurethane foam in very humid conditions. Polyurethane sets up faster in the presence of moisture. Even after 24 hours of cure, when I cut the foam back to match the contour of the lip, it subsequently shrank. The foam appeared to be fully cured, but it was not. The atmospheric humidity cured the outer surface quickly while sealing off the inner foam, thus preventing full curing of the inner foam. 

Damage done, I let the fleece cure and then filled the imperfections due to shrinkage with multiple passes of body filler. Less than elegant, but good results in the end. 










Underside of the dash. You can see the original center mounting bracket, defrost ducts, and the hand made front lip of the dash. Fleece was pulled over the entire section, on the top side, and spray glued to the back where the original defrost vents can be seen. The under ply was attached to the fragments of the dash with PL polyurethane adhesive used to attach the cement board kick panels.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

REGULARCAB said:


> In before "IB 15's" because someone is gonna say it. Im just jealous because i have a truck and cant run IB.
> 
> I love the work you have done so far. I have always wanted to do a custom dash in my silverado. Never had the time money or paitence all at once. It seems that you have patience in spades!
> 
> I personally enjoyed the choice of the cement board.


Thanks! I am just having fun. Although, there is always frustration too.

I can't run IB either, its a wagon! Or can I...


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

With the basic shape of the dash complete, I moved onto more difficult terrain.










After hours of aligning, measuring, eye balling, and repeating the processes over and over, I made some cuts and mocked up a skeleton for the cluster. Looks good, right! 










Except when I tried to pull fleece over the frame, this is what happened. Kinda like those "Chinese Handcuffs" you played with as a kid, the fleece sagged. The tighter I pulled, the more it sagged! Obviously, this will not work. Yes that is High Life in the background. It was a rough day; don't judge .










Plan B. I made a basic template of the cluster surround out of wood (you can see it under the mask) and then cut several pieces of polystyrene to match to make a mold for the cluster surround. In regards to perfectly cut pieces, the same issues I had with the dash lip occurred here. Because I used polystyrene (got the pieces out of the trash at work), I could not use body filler to make the pieces match. Instead, I use plaster. Plaster sets up quickly, is easy to sand, and has good enough strength to serve as a one off mold. 










After sanding.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

I covered the mold with foil for extra protection and ease of removal. 










Stretched some fleece and saturated it with poly resin.










Removed the cured fleece/poly resin part from the styrene foam/plaster mold.










The basic cluster surround.










After endless minutes of positioning, measuring, and eye balling, I used some body filler to tack the cluster surround into place. A reference line is drawn in the center of the cluster at the lip of the dash. That line is placed at the center of the steering column. Its is very difficult to measure alignment here. There are probably tools and techniques to do things like this, but for me it was a hours of eye balling and aligning from multiple positions inside and outside of the car to get the cluster surround centered.


----------



## SPLEclipse (Aug 17, 2012)

Very nice! I regret not using any of the original dash in my current build, I couldn't get perfect symmetry and made things much harder than I had anticipated. Next build I'm planning on doing the same thing as you by cutting the outer edges to line everything up and then filling in the "guts" with glass work. Thanks for the pics and ideas!


----------



## Voorttimies (Mar 19, 2011)

Just a FYI: Fibreglass resin (polyester resin) will melt unshielded polyurethane foam ( = spray foam) and polystyrene. That's probably what happened to you. You need to cover the foam with packing tape or something similar before applying the resin. 

Nice work on the dash, not everyone has the guts to do that.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

SPLEclipse said:


> Very nice! I regret not using any of the original dash in my current build, I couldn't get perfect symmetry and made things much harder than I had anticipated. Next build I'm planning on doing the same thing as you by cutting the outer edges to line everything up and then filling in the "guts" with glass work. Thanks for the pics and ideas!


Thanks for the compliments.

Unless you have a way of leveling the car, removing the windshield and have access to multiple measuring tools, I would never again try to build a dash completely from scratch. Its just too hard to line things up. 

I wish I hadn't lost the pictures of the beginning of the dash build up. But basically, I cut the lip off the dash. Then I used a good, straight piece of 1x4 in place of the lip and screwed the ends of the 1x4 into the original metal mounting brackets at the ends of the dash. Then I slowly removed material from the dash. The whole trick is to make sure the dash remains dimensionally stable, through whatever means, as you are removing the original material. Then you build up from there. The other key is to use as many alignment lines and marks on the old dash and the build up so you have reference points to measure from and eye ball. 

I actually pulled a dash from the salvage yard to cut up.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

More updates










A quick shot of the dash. The entire top of the dash is covered with one layer of poly resin soaked fleece, followed by three layers of style 7781 E-glass. If I were to do it again, I would skip the fleece.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Moving on to the next major challenge. The stock dash was drivers centric, with the hvac controls, radio, center vent and console angled towards the driver's side. This angle impacted line of site from the passenger's side kick panel to the seated position. In addition to this asymmetry, the knee boards on both sides had very different shapes. The goal was to create identical knee boards on both sides which also worked with the existing contours of the car and the newly constructed symmetrical upper dash. This required elimination of the glove box on the passenger side and relocation of the main wiring harness junction box on the driver's side.










This is a picture of the driver's side door panel. See the crescent shaped contour on the door panel? That shape must be copied by the new knee boards.










Using the same technique as the front lip of the dash, I made several individual ribs that matched the door contour. You can see the irregularities in the ribs. These ribs would be more similar in shape if I had a band saw, but sadly I have to do most of my work with a jigsaw.










Here are the individual ribs that have had body filler applied and then sanded down so that each rib is identical.










Each rib separated after sanding.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

The ribs were then aligned and attached to a straight piece of pine lumber.










The next step is to create the surface of the knee boards that matches the contour of the ribs and door panel. Stretching fleece will not work, and I did not want to repeat the disaster the I made with the dash lip. So I went on the hunt for a dimensionally stable material that could be bent to the contour and would also serve as a rigid core to glass over. What I used was cedar paneling normally used for closet interiors and such. By applying even, gentle pressure, the boards can be slowly bent into the contour of the ribs. I drilled holes, and then used wood screws to secure the cedar to the ribs. You have to be very careful when doing this; the ribs or the cedar can and will split if you mis-align or over torque the screws. I piece of the underply I used for the dash top is used for the straight section of the ribs.










Several passes of 7781 E-glass were used on the front (cosmetic) side of the knee boards.










Once the front side cured, I flipped the knee board over. I removed all but the end ribs, and glassed the back side with mat. I used mat here because I was running low on the E-glass and the back side of the knee boards would not be seen, and would not need finishing.










The front side of the knee board after the back was glassed. You can see the drill holes where I removed the screws which originally held the cedar to the ribs.










After trimming and cleaning up the excess glass, I cut the single piece in half to make individual, identical, left and right knee boards. Those boards are extremely strong and extremely stiff! They didn't need to be that robust, but it shows what sandwich composite construction can accomplish.









Checking the contour. Looks good . The knee boards will be covered with foam, mass loaded vinyl and than a cosmetic vinyl as part of the interior.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Once I finished the knee boards, I set about making the center dash area and upper console. Part of the challenge here is to make the individual panels removable without obvious use of hardware. Most stock dashes, regardless of vehicle, use flange areas on the dash board to mount the individual panels that make up the complete dash. These flanges and hardware are typically hidden behind snap on trim/beauty pieces. I am not going to come up with anything novel here, I intend to use similar type flanges for mounting (albeit differently than the stock dash). 










This is a picture of me aligning the drivers and passengers side knee boards with the frame out for the upper center console. The clamps and and piece of lumber across the back edge of the knee boards are holding every thing in place. I used lots of hot glue to keep things in place. You can also see a dowel rod coming through vertically from the underside of the dash. That rod runs into underside of the knee board to help maintain alignment. There are 4 total rods used. Most of this was done in the car so that I could eyeball the alignment and correct for measuring errors. Tricky stuff! Cut out is for the steering column. 











For the contours from the knee boards to the upper center console, I decided to use some old cotton bed sheet to stretch. I used a combination of spray glue and hot glue. The hot glue was used in area that would be saturated in resin (you could use CA glue too). The contours here are pretty tricky, and simply stretching and securing the fabric would not yield the desired shape. In this picture I am using a piece of wood and hot glue to coax the fabric into the desired shape. I placed a bit of hot glue, pinned it in place with the wood as the glue cooled, and slowly worked my way down the edge of the fabric to complete the shape.










A few more wrinkles to work out, but the fabric is almost ready for resin.


----------



## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

wow... this is coming along!! wicked!


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Time to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. 

I took a break from the dash build and started thinking about subwoofers. The RS225-4s did a good job, but I was finding that the bottom octave was missing. I was struggling in the 20-40hz region. About this time, I was also reading about various subwoofer configurations, pros and cons. By far the easiest implementation would be a large sub sealed. The spare tire well is huge and a false floor could be made to further increase volume if needed. But what fun is that?

Then I stumbled across a web page about a slot loaded manifold built by Nelson Pass. I was intrigued by the arrangement. It used multiple LF drivers in a slot with an open baffle implementation. 

The Slot Loaded Open Baffle Project Article By Nelson Pass

I did some more research and came across a PPSL (Push-Pull Slot Loaded) example built by Les Hudson. Les used two large subwoofers in a ported box for his build.

Push-Pull Double 15 Subwoofer Pic - Les Hudson - High Efficiency Speaker Asylum

Then I thought, what if I combine the two designs? Build a multi-driver slot like the Nelson Pass but use a Push-Pull like Les Hudson. The ultimate goal is to get as much cone area as possible into the smallest foot print. Here is the thread on DIYMA where I was considering the various design advantages. Stars aligned and PE just happened to be having a great sale on Dayton subs, so I picked up ten 8" Dayton Classics, and got to work.

Did I mention I am going to run the manifold IB? :laugh:


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Checking the spacing in the trunk. That is a single row of the 8" Daytons. They will be arranged Push-Pull in a slot loaded manifold. 










Plotting out the manifold. I am using 1/2 birch ply.










Holes cut out. I am making the dividers for each subwoofer pair. The dividers are made from two 1/2" pieces of birch ply. I used Titebond III for glue.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

I decided to try to make the plenum for each subwoofer pair as small as possible. This will increase compression, and may low FS of the drivers. There are some advantages to a larger plenum; they can act as band pass, but it is likely I will cross the subs over way sooner before any benefit would be realized. In addition, I could have made the back chamber square but decided to make it curved to further reduce plenum volume.

I first tried to make the curved section out of laminate sections of 8" cardboard concrete forming tubes. I laminated 3 layers together. That worked well, but I felt like they did not add enough strength to the plenum. In addition, I had some poly resin and filler that was getting a bit old. I wanted to use them up so they would not go to waste. So I cut a piece of 8" pvc coupling into four crescent sections to use as molds, and then I poured poly resin/body filler mixture into the mold.










Mmmm, milkshake! Blocks of wood are there to take up volume and add some strength.


----------



## TheBetterMethod (Sep 19, 2012)

This is getting more and more interesting. Keep working on it!


----------



## damonryoung (Mar 23, 2012)

Orion525iT said:


> Time to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.
> 
> I took a break from the dash build and started thinking about subwoofers. The RS225-4s did a good job, but I was finding that the bottom octave was missing. I was struggling in the 20-40hz region. About this time, I was also subwoofer configurations, pros and cons. By far the easiest implementation would be a large sub sealed. The spare tire well is huge and a false floor could be made to further increase volume if needed. But what fun is that?
> 
> ...


That is some very interesting reading... Thanks for sharing. 


Beware of autocorrect...


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Once the poly resin / bodyfiller began to set up, I pulled out the crescent shaped pieces of the PVC tubing before things got too hot. You can see one plenum with the PVC removed, and the adjacent plenum with the PVC (wrapped in foil) still in place. 




























A few pictures of the manifold and the plenums after casting the back chamber. You can see in the center plenum, there is a crack. That crack is the result of shrinkage in an area where the cast was thin due to the blocks of wood. This plenum probably got too hot during cure. Its very difficult to get the proper mix of poly resin, body filler and catalysts to achieve proper cure while also preventing over heating. A little less catalyst, or casting less in one shot may have prevented the cracking. In any case, its not a catastrophic flaw, and can be fixed easy enough. 

More to come!


----------



## TheBetterMethod (Sep 19, 2012)

Really cool construction techniques. Kudos to you for thinking "outside the box"!


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

TheBetterMethod said:


> Really cool construction techniques. Kudos to you for thinking "outside the box"!


Appreciate that! Thanks.


----------



## ecbmxer (Dec 1, 2010)

So the subs will be open baffle on the back, and each pair will fire through a shared slot but one will be wired backward so each pair are push/pull? Any issues with separating the backwaves from what comes out of the slot?


----------



## sinister-kustoms (Jul 22, 2009)

Wow man, this just blew my mind! Looking forward to the results. Keep up the good work!


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

ecbmxer said:


> So the subs will be open baffle on the back, and each pair will fire through a shared slot but one will be wired backward so each pair are push/pull? Any issues with separating the backwaves from what comes out of the slot?


You could do that but you would not get very far into the subbass region before cancellation. The only thing that makes it similar to the design by Neslon Pass is the use of multiple pairs through a shared slot. In my case, OB becomes IB. The plan, as it stands, is to wall off the entire rear with a thin sight window (most likely lexan) to see out the back. The wall off will continue up the rear seat back to the back edge of the double sunroof, with the slot firing over the rear seat. The attempt is to also retain rear seat fold down capability too. If this proves to be too difficult, I will build a rigid cargo cover over the rear of the car with the slot in the same position over the back seat.

I will get more pics up to show what I mean. Right now the major challenge seems to be a way to build supports at the shock towers for the slot to bridge across. But I will find a way to do it.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

sinister-kustoms said:


> Wow man, this just blew my mind! Looking forward to the results. Keep up the good work!


Thanks! Might have blown your mind, but I am sure I have lost mine 

Truly gone fishing.


----------



## ecbmxer (Dec 1, 2010)

Orion525iT said:


> You could do that but you would not get very far into the subbass region before cancellation. The only thing that makes it similar to the design by Neslon Pass is the use of multiple pairs through a shared slot. In my case, OB becomes IB. The plan, as it stands, is to wall off the entire rear with a thin sight window (most likely lexan) to see out the back. The wall off will continue up the rear seat back to the back edge of the double sunroof, with the slot firing over the rear seat. The attempt is to also retain rear seat fold down capability too. If this proves to be too difficult, I will build a rigid cargo cover over the rear of the car with the slot in the same position over the back seat.
> 
> I will get more pics up to show what I mean. Right now the major challenge seems to be a way to build supports at the shock towers for the slot to bridge across. But I will find a way to do it.


Oh gotcha. I didn't realize you were going to wall off the whole back. You sure you want to do that? Thats really going to cut down on the functionality of your car. There's really no way to make that look good IMO, even with lexan and would be tough to seal off fully and achieve a sufficiently rigid baffle. I don't think it would be worth it. If you really want an IB setup, why not cut out the bottom of the spare tire well like many have done? You could probably figure a way to fit the same sub setup down there. Not bashing your idea or anything, it'll be cool no matter what you do!


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

ecbmxer said:


> Oh gotcha. I didn't realize you were going to wall off the whole back. You sure you want to do that? Thats really going to cut down on the functionality of your car. There's really no way to make that look good IMO, even with lexan and would be tough to seal off fully and achieve a sufficiently rigid baffle. I don't think it would be worth it. If you really want an IB setup, why not cut out the bottom of the spare tire well like many have done? You could probably figure a way to fit the same sub setup down there. Not bashing your idea or anything, it'll be cool no matter what you do!


No offense taken, thanks for the input!

Nothing is set in stone, just running the ideas. Right now the shock towers are proving to be an issue. So many angles to work with. One of the benefits of the push-pull is force cancellation.


----------



## req (Aug 4, 2007)

super cool work so far dude.

im interested to see what you end up doing for the midrange... 

i have come to these conclusions with exception: unless meticulously tested, tuned, and redone (highly's gti for example) i have made these general observations on midrange\twetters

dash mounted speakers - most of the time the stage width will suffer - but depth is great out of the box... but usually this type of install is more complicated\permanent due to custom fab of the dash... can suffer minimal rainbow effect. hard to tame reflections of the windshield. path length difference is in the middle.

pillar mounted speakers - with usually suffers and is limited to the width between the voice coils of the drivers (wider tweets and adjustment of aim can help here). depth is not as good usually, but these are easier to build than cutting dashes apart. hard to tame reflections off the opposite windows reflecting into the opposite ear (right speaker reflected to left ear off driver side window and vice versa). path length difference is the most.

kick panel mounted speakers - can be more complicated than pillars due to pedals, hood releases, and wiring harness ect - has great width and imaging - will usually suffer drastic rainbow effects. reflections are mitigated, corner loading helps direct sound and mitigate diffraction. depending on seating position and listener, the speakers can be blocked by peoples bodies. path length difference is very small.

everything is a compromise. in cars, there is always a trade off... its just finding out what that is and thinking objectively as to what trade off is best.

i really want to do what you are doing and custom build a car - but i just bought a house less than a year ago and i dont want to get elbow deep in something before i get other things off the back burners. i have a plan, and it will eventually come to fruition. until then i get to watch guys like you and give advice when it comes to me 


did you think of trying to put the midranges higher or above the midbass speakers? i know you already made your underdash and such, but who knows


----------



## sinister-kustoms (Jul 22, 2009)

Orion525iT said:


> Thanks! Might have blown your mind, but I am sure I have lost mine
> 
> Truly gone fishing.


I don't know man, the true greats never accomplished anything by doing things that had already been done before. We need a bit of crazy in this world!


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

req said:


> super cool work so far dude.
> 
> im interested to see what you end up doing for the midrange...


I have been playing with 2-driver full range arrays in the kicks. It does some weird stuff with dispersion, some of it good some of it bad. I plan to use the kicks...mostly. I tried dash mount, and my ears could not get past all the chaos of the near reflections. 

My first attempt with mids and tweets in the kicks created an annoying amount of rainbowing. The arrays do far better in this regard and create a more enveloping sound. But one thing I discovered while messing with the arrays was that the rainbowing _was not_ caused entirely by the placement of the speakers in the the kicks. A huge factor turned out to be reflections off the center of the headliner board and even the lip of the windshield. This was reduced with the full range arrays because they tend to be more directional. After realizing what was going on, I then placed sound absorbing material at the headliner in the middle only. Viola, most of the rainbowing disappeared. So, I plan to experiment with this more to see if reflections at the edges of the headliner can lift the stage in the corners. I also plan to mess around with the knee boards I made to see if they can act like a wave guide or horn to direct sound. But this is all down the road...


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

This is the forward part of the trunk and the back of the split folding rear seat. The plan is to make a single piece of ply to cover the back of the entire seat. Then I will build a sealing flange all the way across the bottom and up the shock towers. The flange will have multiple lines of gasket. With the single piece of ply covering the back of the seat, I lose the split fold function and the entire seat will fold down as a single unit. But with the seat up and firmly locked into place, I should get a perfect seal around the edge.



















Here I have removed the carpeted ABS trim pieces from the back of the seats. Across the top, there are multiple threaded hard points, which are welded into the seatback. Those can serve as excellent anchoring points. In another bit of luck, the seat back is actually a flat surface (with ribs) to which I can easily attach the ply. Rarely will one be so lucky in a car to have a flat surface to utilize.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Test fit of the ply sheet cut to size.










The ply secured in place. I am only using two sheet metal screws here, but in the end the ply will be attached by a combination of polyurethane adhesive and mechanical fasteners.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

This picture has jumped a few steps ahead. I epoxied an additional flange area to the manifold. I have glued some pieces of the 1/8" underply, that I used for the dash, to the board that will mate to the seat back. These pieces of underply slot nicely into the backs of the split fold down while allowing the thicker ply to pass over the trim on the edge of the seats. I have simply screwed the manifold to the seat back (these will be separate pieces when everything is completed). 










Seat back and manifold in place. You can see two of the subs at the bottom on both ends of the manifold. I put those in place to check for clearance around the shock towers. The area between the subs and the shock towers is likely to cause the most frustration. Multiple angles with multiple surfaces and it all must seal perfectly. The center support is not needed, its just there for extra strength. Once I build up the shock towers, the manifold will bridge the space easily and no center support will be needed.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

sinister-kustoms said:


> I don't know man, the true greats never accomplished anything by doing things that had already been done before. We need a bit of crazy in this world!



True, true. If man did not endeavor, we would have never left the cave.


----------



## req (Aug 4, 2007)

unique sub install! i like it


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

req said:


> unique sub install! i like it


A product of circumstance, I assure you.


----------



## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

circumstance?..maybe.

Cool? for sure!

Props!! and keep going!


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

I am not going to get a heck of a lot done this weekend. But I have made a final decision to do the wall off. I was leaning that way almost entirely in any case. But the wall off will be less expensive, stronger, lighter and easier than any other route at this point. In regards to aesthetics, I do think I can make it look good. Keeping the fold down, if all goes well, will not severely limit utility (at least not as I have used to car to this point in time).

More pics to come.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Some updates. I haven't been able to get too much done. Life keeps getting in the way. Lost the only key to my daily beater, so I spent most of today breaking into and stealing my own car . Not fun but I got the car home and pulled the lock and code for the locksmith.

Anyway, I am shifting to using epoxy over poly at this point. Day time temps have come down, with nights dipping into the 30's. I don't trust poly in those temps, but epoxy with a fast hardener (West Systems) should cure down to lower 40's no problem. In addition, the manifold, seat back and supports that I am constructing need to be strong, dent resistant and abrasion resistant. Poly won't cover all that. Epoxies are typically less stiff than poly, but using a fast hardener results in a stiffer laminate than when using a slow hardener. Most parts will be constructed out of ply, perhaps some hardwood, and then laminated over with 7781 E-glass. Selective use of Kevlar (actually I am using Twaron, Kevlar's less expensive doppelganger) for abrasion resistance and added toughness. Carbon and Spectra would have been the ultimate fibers to use, but cost would have been astronomical.

Ok, I few pics now.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Basic design idea is to build supports over the shock towers and wheel wells and then mechanically fasten the manifold to the supports. The supports must hold the manifold very rigidly, so that the seat can still be folded down and the sealing area of the seat and manifold flange make good contact. This will also allow me to remove the manifold if needed.










The major issue with doing builds like this is all the disparate surfaces one has to deal with. Rarely is there a flat surface. There are creases in the sheet metal, overlap of different unibody parts, welded areas, seam sealer and asphalt deadener; all of which add complexity and difficulty. My answer is to first cut a piece of cardboard to the basic shape. Then I cut additional smaller pieces of cardboard, and hot glued them to the first piece. By doing this several times, I finally ended up with a shape that fit the area.










This is the cardboard piece from the previous picture. It made from 6 different pieces of cardboard stuck together like a jigsaw puzzle. 

Sorry for the blur.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

After making the cardboard piece to the desired shape, I traced out the part onto plywood. Usually, on the traced out plywood part, I redraw any areas I want to be straight and smooth the transitions between the different pieces of cardboard before I cut the part. Above is the plywood part. Even though I made the cardboard template, the part does not fit properly. This is in part due to the fact the the plywood is thicker than the cardboard, so obviously the added thickness will cause issues with the disparate surfaces.










Another shot of the plywood part. You can easily see how many different surfaces to which the part must mate.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

The plywood piece again. However, you can see a sharpie mark on the plywood. That area will be removed. The trick is to use a combination of jigsaw, disc sander, and drum sander on my dremel to slowly message the plywood part into shape.










This picture is from the outside of the car, looking through the side glass. You can see that the plywood piece is starting to take shape and now fits better to the car.










Pic of the same area but from inside the car.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Once I got the final shape on the driver's side, I used the part as a template for the passenger's side. However, the driver's and passenger's part will be slightly different because the fuel filler neck comes in on the passenger's side. The basic shape is similar.










Picture from outside the car again. Both driver's and passenger's supports are in place.










Picture from the trunk with both parts in place. This is just the start of the manifold supports! Both pieces seen here will have another piece of plywood glued directly to them to double their thickness. Then the supports will be boxed in all the way the the edge of the car and over the shock towers. Once that is done, the supports will be removed and laminated with E-glass. This should make a very strong and stiff final part. Much more work to do.


----------



## REGULARCAB (Sep 26, 2013)

Oooh updates! Nice work, Keep em coming. Im living vicariously through all your guys' installs for a while.


----------



## Chaos (Oct 27, 2005)

Damn, those kick panel woofer enclosures are ambitious.


----------



## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

checking in... and were looking good!


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

More time and more things have changed again.

The most significant change is the subwoofers. After spending a good long weekend staring at the work ahead of me, I decided to change course with the wall off. I really, really wanted to make it work. It was possible, but the reality is that I don't own the proper tools to do this the way I wanted. I was struggling to get the jigsaw to make accurate cuts that I needed to do the wall off properly. There are tons of angles to work with. I could gone with a more simple design for the wall, but the aesthetics would have been horrible. I could have made rough cuts with the jigsaw, and then slowly messaged the pieces to the proper shape, but I very well know how difficult and labor intensive that process can be.

What I really needed to do the job right was a router, a mitre saw, a drum sander, I table saw, a band saw, a drill press, and a few other hand tools. I just don't have the budget or space for all that. There was no point in doing the wall off, if there was the slightest chance I would not like the results.

So I took a good long afternoon to re-examine the trunk area and tire well. I know many have cut out their tire wells, and have had good results in doing so, but I am not willing to do that. The tire well sits above the gas tank, and is very much a part of the structural integrity of the rear of the car; the gas tank straps attach to the tire well and the rear tow hook is welded to the tire well. I could not help but think about the tragic consequences if I happened to get rear ended. The idea of gasoline spraying into the interior of the car near high current electronics is a bit unsettling. 

What I did discover is that the trunk vents are rather large and open. They do allow for a fair amount of air to pass. So I will utilize those vents to IB the subs. 

More pics to come of course!


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

So how does one fit the cone area of two 15" subs into a spare tire well? With a PPSL manifold of course .










Sad day for Mr manifold. Chop, chop .










What was once one is now two! I eliminated one pair of subs (I actually drove a screw into the cone of one of the subs by accident) so that the manifold could fit in the tire well. Whats is a bit crazy is that I could actually fit an addition four driver manifold next to the two manifolds seen in this picture. That would be equivalent to three 15" drivers.










A bit of work to smooth the edges of the manifolds.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

A look at the drivers side trunk vent. They are actually quite large. Hopefully they will provide enough air flow. 










I also wanted to make it so that I can remove the subs and place the spare back in the well at any time. Here I am checking clearance for the latch and the tire with the piece of wood (this will make more sense later).










The beginning of the trunk floor to which the manifolds will attach. Its just plain old 3/4" MDF (I still hate the stuff). The slots from the manifolds will fire through slots on the trunk floor. The floor will sit ~1" higher than the original floor and will have very little impact on cargo area. 










We all know that MDF does not like to be hit on the corners or edges which posses some problems if one plans to actually use the trunk. What I did to help with durability, I trimmed the edges of MDF with dimensional lumber. Its just pine, I thought about using oak, but it likes to split. Other hardwoods would have been nice, but I couldn't justify the expense.

To make the floor nearly indestructible, it will be laminated with multiple layers of E-glass and Kevlar utilizing epoxy resin. I have a piece of MDF outside next to the shed that has been laminated like this and has been fully exposed to the elements for over two years without issue, so I know this will work well. 

More to come in the next few days.


----------



## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

wow! and more to come! 
I like the look of the changes and understand why you had to do them!!

Keep going!


----------



## TheBetterMethod (Sep 19, 2012)

You keep up the hard work! Now I've gotta get some manifolds made...too cool!


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

TheBetterMethod said:


> You keep up the hard work! Now I've gotta get some manifolds made...too cool!


Hopeful by the end of this weekend, I will get to test them out. I am really interested to see where fs, q and the impedance spike end up (and over all response) with the manifold design. 

Weather has not been cooperative these past few weeks.


----------



## TheBetterMethod (Sep 19, 2012)

I look forward to the results of your testing. Hopefully it's all good.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Again, weather has not been the best, but I did manage to get some work done.










I spent some time with the trunk vents to try to determine just how much open area exists. I couple things I noticed. First, when looking into the vent on the passenger side, one can see some perforated aluminum material. The aluminum is very light weight (more like very heavy duty foil) and dents and deforms easily. It extends down and forward quite a distance. A similar material is used all the way around the muffler and vent on the drivers side. At first, I was not sure what it was there for, but I theorized it had some sound absorbing qualities. 

The second thing you will notice is the electrical plug in the vent. That plug goes to the side marker lights.










I removed the side marker light and again inspected the area from the inside. The housing on the side marker lights on the E34s are often cracked and sometimes even melted. It is almost impossible to find a used one in good condition; new ones are NLA. The marker lights are kinda ugly too. Can you guess where I am going with this ?










A look at the bumper cover with the side marker light removed. The trim on the bumper is also removed.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

I have stated emphatically that I will not cut metal on this car. But I never said I would not cut plastic . I grabbed the trusty jigsaw and started to open things up. The real key is to make sure I do not cut any of the support structure of the bumper cover. I decided to enlarge the side maker hole in such a way so that the dumper trim can go back on as normal.

The other interesting bit is what I found inside the perforated aluminum seen in the previous post. It is actually a sandwich of perforated aluminum, fiberglass and solid aluminum. This structure is on both sides, and therefor has nothing to do with heat reflection/insulation. It is in fact some sort of sound absorbing baffle.

You can also see some metal mesh, with aluminum behind, through the slot I cut. I have no idea what it does.










From the inside, things look pretty ragged. I was hoping to make a simple cut, but I think I will end up removing all the aluminum material so that it can't rattle around and make noise. It's a bit crushed too, so I doubt it will do much sound absorbing anymore. To the left one can see the bumper clip. I don't want to cut into that, but I may enlarge the slot rearward a bit more,










Another shot from the outside of the mesh stuff. I wish I knew what it was for. Probably more absorbing material, but I have no idea how it works.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Moving along. Couple things to keep track of here. There are three sets of support rails in the trunk. They are there to support the original trunk floor. The two side rails will be removed completely so they do not interfere with air flow from the sub manifold to the side vents. I will build an additional rail against the rail at the front (rail furthest away in the picture). A new support rail will be constructed at the hatch opening. The side rails will be rebuilt, but orientated left to right instead of front to rear.

Also, there is some paint work to do. At some point in the life of the car, a solvent or acid was spilled into the wheel well. The paint was destroyed in that area and there is some rust to treat. Its a mostly cosmetic repair.










Hairdryer, scraper, and too much time to mention. Only residue of the OEM asphalt deadener is left.










I first tried to use acetone on the residue, but it is far to volatile to work. By the time the acetone starts to cut the residue, it evaporates. My hand were freezing cold because the acetone evaporated so quickly off of my gloves. I then tried gasoline because I didn't want to buy another solvent. After removing the battery (Removing one lead was not safe enough for me), I went to work. The gasoline worked great! It evaporates, but not so quickly that it is not useful. But the gasoline leaves a residue also, so hot soapy water and then a final wipe down with acetone followed.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

The newly constructed rail at the hatch opening can be seen here. Its poplar. Poplar will not hold up well if exposed to the elements, but the board were straight and knot free. In any case, the poplar will be encased in a few passes of E-glass and epoxy for good measure. I kinda wish I had used poplar for the trim on the new trunk board instead of the pine. But what is done is done.










Trunk area has been painted. I painted the damaged area and the areas where I drilled out the spot welds from the original left and right trunk rails. I have also made the rear rail and new side rails. For the the rear and side rails, I used 1 x 4 poplar again. I glued on scraps of 3/8" underplay, that I used for the dash construction, to the 1 x 4s to get them to be at an even level with the rail at the hatch opening. All the rails will be encased in E-glass and epoxy.










Test fit with the trunk board. In this picture, the trunk borad looks slanted up towards the front. But its all an illusion, I assure you.


----------



## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

forum's make that work look easy, but every experiansed installer here knows just how hard that boot work was or could have been!!
Well done mang.


----------



## sinister-kustoms (Jul 22, 2009)

^^so true!

A few bits of wood, some shape, some glue and some screws...I can do that!...60 hours later it's burning in the driveway 'coz you got the ****s with it and torched it.:laugh:


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

^^^

Yeah, you start to feel a bit masochistic. It all seems easy enough, but once you are knee deep in it, and realize how many hours you have put in and how many hours you have to go, you begin to wonder about your sanity. Its not like you can follow a set of plans; you have come up with something that will work and then every piece is a one-off built by hand from scratch.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Quick update. Again weather has been horrendous. I can't seem to align time off of work and a good day . In spite of the weather I got in a few hours.










I am trying to use the existing trim panels in the car. There is a panel that goes over each shock tower and the wheel arch. There is a panel on each side, but they are different due to the gas filler neck on the passenger side. Originally the panels were covered with carpet, but I have removed the carpet and the panels will be re-carpeted to match the rest of the trunk once everything is finished.










The other obstacle to get around is the tail light housings. I need to make an access panel so that I can replace bulbs easily. This access panel will need to be structurally sound, as it will be part of the overall sub baffle before the back wave exits the side vents.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

This is a picture of the part of the panel that will direct the back wave through the trunk side vents. The overall design is very similar to the stock arrangement. In the stock arrangement the trunk board was flanked on either side by fold-down storage bins that also covered the trunk vents. These fold-downs are being replaced by solid MDF panels. The entire trunk board will be removable along with the new side panels. There will be a large sealing surface between the trunk board and the side panels at the junction. The side panel and trunk board will bolt together and then bolt to the new trunk rails. All this must fit together with a fair amount of precision to prevent the back wave from entering the cabin space.










Test fitting another piece of the side panels. This vertical piece fits nicely to the contour of the trunk pillar trim (on the left). It does not fit with the shock tower trim (on the right). The shock tower trim will be modified to meet the side MDF side panel.










This is a picture of the space behind the vertical piece seen in the previous picture. You can see the edge of the poplar trunk rail at the far left (the tail light access panel I need to make will be located slightly above this). You can see the boxed in section of the trunk vent and the inside of the rear quarter panel.

At this point, you may be wondering why in the heck am I designing the side panel like this ? It would be far easier to simply direct the back wave out the side vent; why the need for an entire panel made from MDF? When I pulled apart the interior of the car near the vents, I payed careful attention to just how far BMW went with sound absorbing and deadening material. The effort by BMW is considerable. There are various combinations of asphalt deadener, jute, heavy rubberized pieces, mass backed foam, not to mention the funky perforated aluminum/fiberglass absorbing panels.

One of my major concerns with external venting of the subs was increased road noise / exhaust noise entering through the vents and increasing interior noise. Granted the noise would need to take a long path through the vents under the trunk board, into the spare well and then through the sub woofer cone. But the noise issue was still a concern for me. So, these side panels and the space behind them will have a labyrinth of sound absorbing an deadening materials. Most of the material used will be acoustic foam, fiberglass and maybe a few other items. The labyrinth will provide a long path with a very large surface area for sound absorption. But the labyrinth will have to be designed so that helmholtz resonances are not produced. 

Thats all for now. Years more to go .


----------



## SPLEclipse (Aug 17, 2012)

Ah...I was wondering why you were putting so much effort into isolating/venting the back wave, lol. Looks amazing! I know how it is with the weather, I'm in Auburn and it's been raining here all damn day (it actually JUST stopped a few minutes ago). I've been installing midbasses in my kicks and was hoping to get a lot done today but no dice.


----------



## edouble101 (Dec 9, 2010)

Orion525iT said:


> So how does one fit the cone area of two 15" subs into a spare tire well? With a PPSL manifold of course .
> 
> Sad day for Mr manifold. Chop, chop .
> 
> ...


I never heard of a PPSL manifold. I did a quick goggle search and the results made me very curious as how you plan on using it.


----------



## edouble101 (Dec 9, 2010)

I just looked through your thread. You made a custom dash and are kick panel mounting your front stage?


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

SPLEclipse said:


> Ah...I was wondering why you were putting so much effort into isolating/venting the back wave, lol. Looks amazing! I know how it is with the weather, I'm in Auburn and it's been raining here all damn day (it actually JUST stopped a few minutes ago). I've been installing midbasses in my kicks and was hoping to get a lot done today but no dice.


Thanks for the compliment. Maybe overkill, I know. There are some here that have done tire well cut outs to the outside who swear they don't notice anymore road noise. Not that I doubt them, but...I think it will be interesting to do comparison measurements of road noise with/without the absorbing materials. 

Weather system has been training over all day, finally stopped raining just now. Rest of the week looks good (dry), albeit a bit cold.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

edouble101 said:


> I just looked through your thread. You made a custom dash and are kick panel mounting your front stage?


Yeah, I'm a gaint dumb ass, a glutton for punishment :blush: I didn't do the dash just for fun. There are reasons for it, which I explained in the process. I have not completely ruled out drivers in the dash either. 

In regards to the PPSL, I stumbled on it really. But it seems to have some real benefits. Interestingly, it might actually be a better solution for midbass if you don't try to use them into the midrange (most cut midbass way before then). I think that the ability to tune the back chamber, to create a bandpass, could be very helpful for midbass frequencies, but is of little practical use for subs. I kind of wish I had stumbled onto the PPSL when I did my midbasses. Force cancellation is huge. Being able to orientate the subs vertically with the manifold will prevent spider sag that may plague other spare tire installs as well.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Hey it's f'in raining again...yippie  But I managed to get an hour in here and there during the week.










I have temporarily attached the side panel to the main trunk board. I did this so I could start to the build up behind the panel and the vent area.










Making cardboard templates again for more plywood pieces










After I cut the cardboard piece, I used aluminum foil so I could locate the various cut outs and contours of the metal. I then transferred the aluminum foil pattern to the cardboard.










The final cardboard piece in the shape that I want to transfer to the plywood. I am going to use 3/8" ply, cut very similar to the cardboard piece, and then I will glue that to 1/2" ply. This will allow me to get maximum contact and mimimum gap fill when I adhere the final piece to the sheet metal. I will use the high grade PL Premium poly adhesive again, like I did with the kicks. The difference is that these current pieces will not be molded exactly to the sheet metal like I did for the midbass baffles. Ideally I would mold them like I did the kicks, but I have exceeded my resin funds for now. I do believe that this will be more than strong enough regardless.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

The ply piece made from the cardboard template. You can see I used more than one piece. This is because I am trying to utilize all my remaining scraps of wood. Each piece will be laminated with E-glass, so strength will not be an issue in these less critical areas.

Yes, that is my blood on the plywood...and yes I am ok with that .










It was starting to rain at this point, so I was throwing everything back into the car when I took this quick pic. You can see the side panel, the new ply piece against the sheet metal, my trusty old Makita, some scissors, a glue gun, cardboard, 1x3 poplar, one of the PPSL plenums, wood clamps, and some High Life.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

At this point I am getting pretty itchy in regards to the subs. I have been looking at this crap for months. So I decided to make a quick baffle to test out the subs. *This is the first time I have actually been able to listened to the subs*










Sloppy construction with some scrap MDF. 



















Some pics from the back of the test baffle.

First impressions are very, very promising. I only played a single 4 driver plenum mounted to the hastily made 2.5 ft x 3.5 ft *open* test baffle. The baffle is literally angled against the opening to my hallway, open backed and leaning against the drywall. Even so, bass output was impressive. There is some audible chuffing at the plenum exit, but its nothing that a round over on a proper baffle won't cure. In the car, with both plenums (all 8 drivers) and with the back wave properly isolated and vented, I expect bass output will be far greater than I will ever need. There is almost no vibration of the test baffle, which serves as good testament to the force cancellation of the push-pull design (although there will always exist some inherent asymmetry of forces).

All and all, things are good on the design front .


----------



## SPLEclipse (Aug 17, 2012)

_"After I cut the cardboard piece, I used aluminum foil so I could locate the various cut outs and contours of the metal. I then transferred the aluminum foil pattern to the cardboard."_

This is brilliant...why have I never thought of doing that? So much of my life wasted on making templates, lol.

Glad to hear the subs are playing!


----------



## Jkdriver (Jul 30, 2013)

Wow! Looks pretty amazing. Especially since you are kicking it all out with the bare minimum of tools! Man, that takes some serious patience and creativity.

I know it's like a 6 hour drive, but if you ever hit the point that you can't do what you need without the right tools, head down to Destin, and you can use my shop anytime you need. I have a complete wood shop, metal working shop, and a vacuum bagging set up for composites.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

SPLEclipse said:


> _"After I cut the cardboard piece, I used aluminum foil so I could locate the various cut outs and contours of the metal. I then transferred the aluminum foil pattern to the cardboard."_
> 
> This is brilliant...why have I never thought of doing that? So much of my life wasted on making templates, lol.
> 
> Glad to hear the subs are playing!


I was using some fairly light duty foil in the picture. Heavy duty foils work way better, and I have been able to make wood cuts with foil templates alone. But I find that cardboard makes it easy to determine how flat a surface is before making the final piece, so I often still do the two step process.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Jkdriver said:


> Wow! Looks pretty amazing. Especially since you are kicking it all out with the bare minimum of tools! Man, that takes some serious patience and creativity.
> 
> I know it's like a 6 hour drive, but if you ever hit the point that you can't do what you need without the right tools, head down to Destin, and you can use my shop anytime you need. I have a complete wood shop, metal working shop, and a vacuum bagging set up for composites.


Thanks for the props and thanks for the offer. There are many times I wished I had bagging or infusion equipment. Beats the hell out of stippling like a mad man to get the fabric properly saturated when you are doing a ton of fab; and I am doing way more fab then I thought I would from the start.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Small progress into the new year. But, I have started the process to box in the vents and the rear quarter panels. The goals here are to seal the area, increase strength and stiffness to reduce panel vibrations, and create a sound absorbing path through the vent area.










Picture of the vent area and inside of rear quarter.










Picture looking over the lip of the side panel into the same quarter and vent area.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Gotta start somewhere. One challenge is to pick a place to start framing out. This seems like a weird spot, but it worked with the construction I had already done and the dimensions of the car. Little cardboard template.










Two pieces of poplar glued and screwed together. Using the cardboard template from the previous pic, my jigsaw, and some sanding, I arrived at this little piece.










Its a loose fit, and that is intentional. All pieces will be glassed, which will fill the gaps seen, and all pieces will be adhered with poly adhesive.










Passenger side.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Starting the frame out with cardboard templates. The trunks rail is the poplar at the bottom. On the left is the oem trim on the hatch opening. Vent opening is middle right with piece constructed in the previous post above that. The cardboard matches the contour of the quarter.










More cardboard . You can also see notes as to positioning. It can be difficult to get the cardboard positioned before the hot glue cools; especially when its in the 40's F temps. So you make a mistake, but you can't easily rip the whole thing apart to correct it. 1/32" wider at the far end.










Moving along.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Pic looking towards the rear of the car. Hatch opening is clearly in view with oem trim. the top part of the tail light housing is also visible above the cardboard template . I need to make an access panel here so that I can change out bulbs easily. The access panel will need seal well.










The tail light area fully framed in with cardboard templates. Hot glue is your friend. Note that it is a loose fit. Again, all pieces will be layered with glass and epoxy. Also, these cardboard templates are not absolute, they will change dimensions slightly as I start to frame out with the final pieces of wood/glass laminate. The main idea is to use the cardboard to help me visualize the process and to give me a start point that allows all the other pieces to come together into a seamless unit. I can trim and make adjustments to the cardboard as things progress. Keep in mind this is only the drivers side. I will need to do similar on the passenger side. However, the passenger side is a mirror image of the drivers side from the vent opening on back to the tail light housing, so flipping the templates over will be sufficient. The sides are asymmetrical forward of this point due to the fuel filler neck.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

I started to do some work yesterday, even though it was a bit cold out. However, things did not go well. For some reason I couldn't get comfortable. I was cold one minute, burning up the next. I couldn't keep my hands or toes warm. I felt like I was moving in slow motion. Sure it was 30F out, but that's not that cold, especially in the sun. Frustrated, I came back inside and sat down. I then realized I felt generally weird (as in bad weird) all over. Took my temp, 103F. WTF i got the flu. It's been so long since I have been sick that I forgot how it feels...and I felt like sh*t! Stayed in bed most of the day yesterday, and about 2:30 pm or so today I had all I could take of the lying around BS. I am no good at being sick. Got moving around and managed to get a bit done.










I did a last test fit with the side panel and cardboard templates in place. I then removed the side panel and very carefully pulled out the cardboard templates. 










For each template I made notes as to position and whether an edge was flush mounted or had a gap to account for expansion of dimensions when the glass layers are added. Again these cardboard templates are just rough estimates of size and shape, to give me a good starting point when making the pieces out of wood.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

This is a somewhat rough initial cut of plywood for my first piece. You can see its cardboard template to the right of the plywood. I have beveled one edge already, but I still need to make some adjustments to the other edges. The pencil lines mark relative positioning points and where I will attach a second piece of wood. 










I have added some 1x3 poplar to the piece, you can also see that the lip of piece has had two more strips of ply added to increase the thickness. Those added pieces of ply will make up part of the flange area to which the side panels will mount and seal.










The piece mounted into place with temporary screws.  You can see the thick flange area for sealing to the side panel. The end goal is that all these pieces will be held together as a single unit. That single unit will be glassed as a whole, and then glued into place with poly adhesive.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Again, I am checking clearances and positioning with the side panel back in. I had to make a few adjustments, but nothing too radical. 










Looking from the shock tower towards the tail light housing. The new plywood piece and the MDF panel fit nicely. The sealing edge will be where the MDF and plywood meet. There is a ton of cosmetic adjustment and modifications that will be made along the way, but things are starting to take shape. Finally! I am starting to get some traction on this part of the trunk vent.

At this point, it was dark and I was getting feverish again and I was a bit wiped out from this minimal excursion. It is supposed to rain some tomorrow, hopefully it will hold off. Like the rest of the country, it will be shockingly cold for the next few days. It will approach near 0 F here Monday, which is record low cold territory for Atlanta. For all those North of me, keep safe, keep warm, and don't get this flu....it will slap you around a bit .


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Updates.










Template for the flange area that will attach to the tail light cover piece and the main vent structure.










I have glued some pine trim to help the transitions from piece to piece. I did this to make smooth transitions for the glass lay up without using tons of filler. These joints should be very strong once glassed. The part to the left (made up of several small pieces of ply, poplar and pine trim) are glued together into a single unit at this point. The flat piece to the right is still separate.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

I am going to use the stock shock tower trim pieces and blend them to the MDF side panels.










Another pic with the side panel in place. I am going to make a top trim piece cover that will also blend to the window trim, the rear trunk trim and the shock tower trim.










This is looking back at the tail light area that I boxed. Originally I was going to make an access panel to get to the bulbs. But I think a better approach will be to drill small holes in line with each of the tail light housing bolts, so that I can use a socket and extension to remove the housing as needed. This will be a stronger and easier solution than an access panel. The holes can be filled with removable rubber body plugs.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Once everything was in its proper place, I used body filler to adhere all the pieces together. The aluminum was tacked up to prevent the body filler from sticking to the car in that joint area. It was fairly warm in the sun today, but still shy of 60F. I used to hair dryer to help the filler kick off and cure properly.










The part is now a single unit. I removed the part from the car to do more work. All transition areas will be smoothed and blended in preparation for glassing. There are some slight cosmetic and fitment adjustments to be made, but this piece is nearly complete. It should be very strong and provide a good flat sealing surface for the side panel. It will also provide some stiffness to the sheet metal, including the inside of the quarter panel, once the entire part is glued into place. Still need to do the other side, but I am seeing some light at the end of this part of the project.


----------



## REGULARCAB (Sep 26, 2013)

Alright ive been following along this whole time, but im totally lost as to what you are doing back there.

EDIT: back wave vented through the trunk side vents, alright im back on track, proceed


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Its been cold. I guess we decided to have winter in Atl for a change. Between rain and cold, its been hard to get things done. Alas, I am making slow and steady progress.









I took this picture looking through the rear glass to the boxed in section of the quarter panel. Where the MDF meets the ply is point that needs to seal. You can see that there is a gap, it's not a perfect fit. Considering the tools I am using, and the fact that I am piecing this together like a 3D jigsaw puzzle (it literally is since I used a jigsaw to cut almost all the pieces), I completely accepted and expected an imperfect fit. No issues; once I get the side panels squared, I will fill the gap with epoxy putty and then glass over that to get a perfect sealing surface.










Its kind of hard to see whats going on here, but this is one of the pieces that made up the tail light housing cover. If one reads back to some previous posts, I had originally planned to make an access panel to the tail light so that I could get to the bulbs and wiring if needed. In my last post, I decided to drill small holes to access the retaining bolts, so that I can remove the entire housing. I figured small holes would be easier to seal off from the back wave, as opposed to an access panel. It turns out I don't have to do either. I can actually shave off the piece seen here because there is enough room behind the tail light panel I made to allow access to the housing itself. I can do this without any loss in integrity. It should make for easier glassing of the boxed area in that section too. Ill take another photo once that step is done it give a better idea of what I am talking about.










A good look at how things are coming together. Still tons more work, but most of the tedious, frustrating work is behind me (hopefully ). You can see the stock vent grill to the left, sitting on top of the boxed section. I plan to reuse that for aesthetic reasons. All in all, this will be uber stealthy. Unless somebody really, really knows the wagon area of the E34 touring, there will be no obvious signs of what lies beneath.

I hope to get some glassing done this weekend.


----------



## SPLEclipse (Aug 17, 2012)

Looking good! 



REGULARCAB said:


> Alright ive been following along this whole time, but im totally lost as to what you are doing back there.
> 
> EDIT: back wave vented through the trunk side vents, alright im back on track, proceed


This made me LMAO, because I've had to go back and look through the pics a few times myself to see what's going on.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

REGULARCAB said:


> EDIT: back wave vented through the trunk side vents, alright im back on track, proceed


Ahh, but you make it sound so easy .





SPLEclipse said:


> This made me LMAO, because I've had to go back and look through the pics a few times myself to see what's going on.


I am not at all surprise honestly. I don't think this has been done before, and probably for good reason . I suppose it doesn't help that I have not yet made the slots in the trunk board for the PPSL manifolds, so it may be hard to visualize what is going on. 

But yes, essential the back wave vented through the original trunk vents. But there will be a sound absorbing baffle built into the side panels to (hopefully) prevent road noise from entering back through the vents, into the tire well and through the subwoofer cones and into the cabin.

I think things will make more sense in the next few weeks. 

I pulled the trunk board today to finish work on the trunk rails. Almost everything is close to final assembly. Lots of post assembly work to do on all the pieces in prep for glassing. Carpet and finish work will follow.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

This is the passenger side side panel. This is actually a new panel, and was not pictured before. I was having a hell of a time lining the old side panel in a way that would mate to the main trunk board and the vent baffle. After some frustration I decided to look at the side panel itself. It turns out, the original side panel I made was out of square. So I remade the panel, which is pictured above. In the picture I am checking to make sure the new side panel is square to the trunk board and vent baffle. All is good now, but it took some time for it to dawn on me what was wrong. I was careful with the original piece, but mistakes happen.










Once I got the side panels into the proper position, I no longer needed to use the trunk board as a reference for positioning. I removed the trunk board and started to work on the trunk rails again. There is a gap in the forward trunk rail. I could have run the rail all the way across, but that would have prevented me from being able to put the spare tire back if I wanted or needed.










Not the best picture, but the gap has been closed in such a way to allow for clearance of the full sized spare. The spare will be able to slip under the rail at the trunk opening.










Another area that will needed to be dealt with is the latch for the hatch. The latch is removed here, but the space in the center is where it bolts. Clearly there is daylight through that area. It will need to be sealed, but again the spare must be able to clear that area if I ever needed to put it back into the well.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Since some have had a hard time visualizing what is going on with the build, I made some crude diagrams with MS Paint.










This is the passenger side looking towards and under the side panel. The back wave will travel through the space where the wiring harness is seen.










This is the drivers side, same premise as the passenger side.










Red arrows represent the path of the back wave.










The arrows here represent the path the back wave will take. The numbers are sequential to the path the back wave will take. However, keep in mind that the path is separated only by porous sound absorbing material. So, some the the back wave will pass through the material, and what does not pass through directly will follow the labyrinth path. The idea is to maximum the absorbing surface area. 










Hopefully this will make things clear. The black boxes with the blue arrows are the openings for the PPSL manifolds. There are 2 four driver manifolds for a total of eight drivers. The red arrows are the path of the back wave through the sound absorbing labyrinth of the side panels. The purple arrows are the exit locations through the oem side vents and through the locations of the side makers in the bumper cover. The side makers will be removed and the mounting locations enlarge as much as possible without destroying the support and structure of the bumper cover. 

Hope that clears things up .


----------



## REGULARCAB (Sep 26, 2013)

Lol thats what i needed lots of arrows! Looking good. 

EDIT: it also looks like a total pain in the arse to do


----------



## derek0606 (Dec 1, 2010)

Please excuse my ignorance... Whats the purpose of all this. It's the first time I have seen something and I'm very interested.


----------



## REGULARCAB (Sep 26, 2013)

REGULARCAB said:


> Alright ive been following along this whole time, but im totally lost as to what you are doing back there.
> 
> EDIT: back wave vented through the trunk side vents, alright im back on track, proceed


^^^^^^^^^^


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

derek0606 said:


> Please excuse my ignorance... Whats the purpose of all this. It's the first time I have seen something and I'm very interested.


I wanted to IB. It's somewhat straight forward in a sedan. I wanted to explore the possibilities in a wagon. It's been done before with cargo covers. It could be done by simply cutting holes in the tire well, but I have explained in this thread as to why I have decided against that. The PPSL is something I wanted to try too. I think here are many benefits to PPSL. There is information in my recent threads here, with input from those who know far more than I do. There is more information outside the forum. Collectively, it's an obscure approach I have taken I suppose.

I have gone through contortions. I have done two full front sub dash builds, but always ran into issues. I decide to focus on strong midbass and let subwoofers do what subwoofers should do.

Beyond the technical aspects, there are things with which only the individual can find value, regardless of outcome. There are some things to which the process has more value than the end result .


----------



## REGULARCAB (Sep 26, 2013)

Orion525iT said:


> Beyond the technical aspects, there are things with which only the individual can find value, regardless of outcome. There are some things to which the process has more value than the end result .


rock on! :rockon:


----------



## SPLEclipse (Aug 17, 2012)

Yup, I'm sigging that one. Couldn't agree more.

edit: welp, trying to sig it, but I can't get my sig to show up, lol. Either way, it's a powerful sentiment.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Update time. I got some time off work next week and plan to put the hammer down on the trunk and get it mostly finished. It will be cold, with some rain at the end of the week, but hopefully I'll make good progress.

Another note, I have noticed that I am going into a fair amount of detail in each step. I am not trying to bore everybody with the minutia, but I feel it is important to illustrate how much work can go into a project like this.

Ok, more pictures.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

This is the front rail (also seen in previous posts). The needs to be smoothed and blended for glassing.










The front rail out the car. Lots of work to be done towards the final shape.











Not the best picture, the sunlight always hits the car in the afternoon in such a way that it tends to make it difficult to get a good picture. But, the front rail has been worked so that fiberglass will lay down easily without much frustration. A small amount of work is left, but the front rail is nearly ready for glassing.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

The piece I am holding in my hand is to seal the area at the hatch latch on the rail of the hatch opening.










The area circled is the piece I was holding in the previous picture. This must seal the area and still allow for clearance of the full sized spare.










Another area of concern is the original hatch opening trim. It's a thick piece of abs. I want to reuse as much of the stock pieces as I can. In need to use this piece because it mates to the pillar trim on each side of the hatch opening. The issue here is that it cannot be attached as was originally intended because of the new trunk rail at the hatch opening.










I trimmed the trunk opening piece a bit. Much more work to be done here, but I am getting an idea of how this should go together.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

This is the strut tower cover. The area circled will need to be trimmed to clear the new trunk rails, side pieces, and trunk board.










With the strut tower cover trimmed, I started to work on the vent trim. The stock vent trim allowed air to pass out of the trunk vents. The vent trim has no purpose at this point, but I want to use it for cosmetic reasons and because it mates the the strut tower trim and hatch opening trim. Areas circled on the side panels I made will needed to be adjusted around the sharpie lines (also circled in red).










With the adjustments to the side panels, you can see how things are staring to come together.










The area circled in blue is the junction between the original strut tower trim and the constructed side panels. That area will be blended together and matched to appear seamless and stock.


----------



## SPLEclipse (Aug 17, 2012)

I, for one, appreciate all the details. Keep 'em coming! You might have mentioned it before, but what are you using to sand all these curves?


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

SPLEclipse said:


> You might have mentioned it before, but what are you using to sand all these curves?


5" sanding disc and my drill with 40 grit, 60 grit sandpaper and lots of elbow grease, and a dremel with a carbide drum. Lots of patience with each. After going through many little sanding drums and even a few sanding mandrels, I finally stumbled upon the carbide drum for the dremel. The drum cuts fast and never gets dull, but its like sanding with 10 grit lol, so you have to go back and hand sand.

There is a gaint pile of sawdust next to the car right now, I have shaved back all the unnecessary structure of the side panels. It would have been nice to have designed the panels in a way that would have reduced this post assembly work, but there would have been no practical way to do that. Each piece was made to maintain position and act as reference points as I stitched the things together. So what you end up with is a bunch of excess material in the final piece. I could leave them as is, but I really want to glass over them to get good final strength and make everything impervious to the elements. Without removing the excess material, glassing would be a pain in the ass. I am using 7781 E-glass.

I hope to finish prepping the side panels today, but its supposed to snow :laugh:


----------



## SPLEclipse (Aug 17, 2012)

I'll have to look into that carbide bit, I didn't even know there was such a thing. The Dremel sanding drums work well for me if it's something small, and I've been using my angle grinder with a flap disk for larger stuff. The only problem is it tends to set the wood on fire, lol.

You guys get the snow/sleet/ice today? Auburn got hit around 10AM and everything went to **** on the roads quickly thereafter. Hope you and yours are all safe.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

SPLEclipse said:


> I'll have to look into that carbide bit, I didn't even know there was such a thing. The Dremel sanding drums work well for me if it's something small, and I've been using my angle grinder with a flap disk for larger stuff. The only problem is it tends to set the wood on fire, lol.
> 
> You guys get the snow/sleet/ice today? Auburn got hit around 10AM and everything went to **** on the roads quickly thereafter. Hope you and yours are all safe.


Snowmaggedon lol. 2 inches of snow and everything went to **** before anybody could think clearly. The schools decided to close early, which caused panic among parents who suddenly had to leave work, insanity ensued. Its like everybody jumped up at the exact same moment and ran to their cars to get home. In the Atl meteo area, something like that would cause a catastrophic cluster [email protected] even in the best weather. People literally spent 4-6 hours trying to get home with commutes that are normally 15-20 mins tops. Some people ran out of gas a slept in their cars. Some students spent the night in schools.

This may seem insane to the outsider, but it really highlights the sprawled out mess that is metro Atl. One little hiccup, and everthing goes to pot. Get some snow with some ice underneath...mayhem. 

Alas, I took some vacation time this week, and I didnt leave home .

Should be close to 60 F by Friday, go figure.


----------



## SilkySlim (Oct 24, 2012)

Lol so true we got a glancing blow. Taking to see how the cement board works out I have ask E39 that I'm doing 8's or 9's in. Thanks for the ideas.

Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

I haven't been able to get as much done as I would have liked over the last week. The weather has not been kind this winter. I shouldn't complain too much, I know everybody up north has been clobbered repeatedly. But I did get some stuff done. I feel like these pictures don't do justice to the amount of work that was actually involved, but hopefully they give some idea.










This is the inside of the driver side panel. All of the interior area will be smooth and blended for glassing.










The passenger side panel is on the left and the drivers side panel is on the right. The picture was shot facing the area that covers the tail lights. The panels were virtually identical, so you can see how much material has been knocked down on the passenger side panel. The same will be done to the drivers side panel. There is still areas that will need to be filled with body filler and then smoothed and blended.










The panels as viewed from above.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Inside of the drivers side panel again. The step area will need to be knocked down.










Picture of the step area as I am knocking it down and blending. You can also see the bit I am using on my Dremel. Its a carbide burr drum. In my opinion, it is the best thing I have ever bought for my Dremel. There is no way in hell I would be able to do the work I am doing now without it. It cuts fast and stays sharp. My Dremel is a cordless unit, which has pro and cons. The con is the battery life. I often have to shift work or stop work once the battery is drained, and it takes about an hour to recharge. I really should just get another battery. The biggest advantage to the cordless Dremel is that my hands are big enough that I can hold it much like a pencil and do fairly precise detail work. It does eventually become fatiguing to work with dremel like that, but its only and issue after 2-3 hours.

You can also see the colar is missing from my Dremel. I removed it so a can get the burr into tighter places and angles.










Somewhere in this process my trusty Makita **** the bed. The chuck was hosed, the armature was fried, and the trigger was touchy. I think that thing is damn near 25 years old. I unceremoniously tossed it in the bin, and went out and bought a new Dewalt.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Inside of the drivers side panel after hours of blending. Its not spectacular to look at, but there is a crap load of work involved in getting it to this point.










This is the original shock tower/trunk trim piece. Its glass impregnated ABS. I need to cut along the sharpie line so that it will clear the new side panels.










The side panels have been thoroughly worked and blended. With the side panel in place along with the original panel (that I trimmed in the previous picture) I can start to work I cosmetically matching the panels.











One more picture of the tail light area of the side panels. If you have been following along, you may remember that I had originally planned to make an access panel to get the the bulbs and wiring of the taillights. As it turns out, once I shaved down the excess material on the side panels, I found that I could easily reach I socket wrench into this area and remove the taillight if needed. That is a huge relief because making the access panel would have been, at a minimum, a full days work. 

More to come in the next few days.


----------



## TheBetterMethod (Sep 19, 2012)

Cool stuff! I can tell that those panels took a ton of work to get them right.

Keep it up!


----------



## REGULARCAB (Sep 26, 2013)

Yup there is nothing easy looking about those panels. It would appear to be coming together nicely.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

REGULARCAB said:


> It would appear to be coming together nicely.


Slowly, slowly.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

I got a bit more work done, so that means more photos! I first wanted to show something that I realized I have not really gone over. I wanted to show how these panels actually fit into the car, so one can get a better idea of what is going on.










This is the passenger side panel. I areas circled in blue sit ~1/16th of an inch away from the sheet metal on the _inside_ of the rear quarter panels. They are designed that way so that once they have been glassed, they will make good contact with the sheet metal without too much gap fill. The end goal is to make that section of the car rigid. There is only a single layer of sheet metal here (much like a typical fender) so I wanted to make this area as stiff as possible. The area will also be glassed after the panel is glued into place. Suffice to say, once in place that panels are not coming out...ever.










Sliding the panel into place.










Panel mostly into the final position.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Moving along. I mounted the stock shock tower panel (that I trimmed and modified in the previous posts), and secured it into position with the stock hardware. I then put the vent panel into place. Again, the vent panel is just cosmetic at this point, it serves no function. I had to make clearances on the side panel for the the vent panel mounting flange (circled in purple). The area circled in red will be blended to the side panel.










With every thing securely in place, I started to work on blending the panels together. I first took a straight edge against the MDF of the side panel and slid it up the panel. Maintaining the straight edge parallel to the MDF, I made dots along the stock trim.










I ended up with a pattern like this.










I then connected the dots. The line shows how the panel will need to be worked to create a uniform surface that matches the MDF of the side panel.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

I copied the pattern to a piece of thin ply. Although the ply is thin and matches the pattern, the ply will actually need to be trimmed back quite a bit to account for the offset created by the thickness of the ply.










You can see here how far back I needed to trim the ply so that it sits parallel to the MDF.










Once that was done, I cut a little wedge of ply to serve as a spacer at the top.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

The next step was to brace the ply so that it is straight and so that I can position it quickly when it comes time to adhere the ply to the panel.










I coated the back edge of the ply with body filler and then screwed the ply into position using the braces I made previously. You can see the filler around the edge. Note that the spacer wedge is also in place at the top. The foil is there to prevent the filler from sticking to areas that I don't want it to stick.










Another view.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Once the filler was cured, I set about to strengthen the ply by filling the gap at the top. I always keep my wood scraps. You never know when one of those scraps might be the perfect next piece.










I shortened the scrap piece, but you can see how close it came to fitting perfectly.










A little bit of sanding, and the scrap piece slid into place.










A bit more body filler at the top, and things are looking pretty good.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Jumping ahead a bit. I trimmed and reused some of the stock pieces to fill the rest of the area between the vent panel and the MDF. You can see I have added more filler around the edge of the ply. I need to do some more sanding of that filler to blend the pieces together better. But things are shaping up nicely.

One last area that will need to be worked is circled in red. That area will be shaved so that the transition is gradual and smooth. Most of the completed panels will get foam, MLV, and then carpet on top. The vent will be flocked to match the carpet. The drivers side will not be as easy because the stock panels are shaped differently on that side. The original trunk trim was asymmetrical due to differences in the side storage bins and the fact that the fuel filler neck comes in from the passenger side. However, I plan to make the drivers side match the passenger side so that the trunk is symmetric. In the end, I will actually have more trunk space from left to right than what was stock in the car. 

Much more to do.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

I think a got a bit over zealous with the filler. I was using filler from USC, but ran out. I decided to just go out and get something from a local automotive body supply shop. I am using Evercoat Z-grip. Its more expensive than the USC stuff, but it also sands better. They wanted $80 for Rage Gold, I said no thanks. The Z-grip is pretty good.










I sanded the filler back. I still need to blend the top part that mates to the stock vent trim. I am not sure exactly how I am going to do that yet.










Moving on the the drivers side. Same idea here as the passenger side.










Stuck the ply into place with filler and then started to work on the spacer at the top. The brace is there to keep everything straight.










As I mentioned previously, in the stock arrangement the trunk is asymmetrical . Due to the shape, I can't trim the stock trim pieces on the drivers side like I did on the passengers side, but I want to make both side identical. It seems the easiest thing to do is to make templates of the passenger side and then flip them over for the drivers side. It seems easy enough, but it also requires that I did a good job designing and making the panels identical on both sides. Lets see how I did.










Once I traced the pattern, I cut out the shape.










Flipping the pattern around I moved to the same location on the drivers side. If you look very carefully you will notice that the nose (tip that rests against the vent panel) of the pattern is bent very slightly. Looks like am I am about 1 mm off from passenger side to drivers side. Not bad at all, I can definitely work with that.


----------



## SPLEclipse (Aug 17, 2012)

Might be time for a new glove. 

Have you thought about using expanding or floral foam to shape and lay glass over? I've never done it myself, but I was at walmart the other day and saw that the floral foam was only a few bucks. Might be worth it to experiment. AFAIK resin won't eat through it.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

SPLEclipse said:


> Might be time for a new glove.
> 
> Have you thought about using expanding or floral foam to shape and lay glass over? I've never done it myself, but I was at walmart the other day and saw that the floral foam was only a few bucks. Might be worth it to experiment. AFAIK resin won't eat through it.


What, that's a perfectly good glove. Just a little extra ventilation is all.

I don't want to use expanding foam here. This is because of the way I plan to assemble everything in the end. I have complicated things a bit because I want to use epoxy for the glassing and the top layers will be aramid for added toughness. The big draw back with the epoxy is that polyester based body fillers will not adhere well to the epoxy. So I can't do post glassing cosmetic work. I can use fillers with the epoxy that will allow for cosmetic changes, but the cure time of 8 or more hours would make for slow work.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Pretty nice day today. It was warm and sunny enough that I had to adjust my catalyst ratio with the filler. Its was setting up too quickly. The hardener with this filler is about twice as active as the hardener I was using with the USC filler. It kind of took me by surprise the first time, when the filler started to set in about 3 minutes.










On the drivers side I was left with a small area where the original trim panel do not meet the panel I constructed. 










Easy enough to fix. Made a template out of cardboard.










Used the cardboard template to cut a piece of thin ply. I then stuck it in place with filler. I then sanded everything down. There is still some low spots and cosmetic defects. I will fill those with leftover filler from the next part of the build and sand it to an even surface.










I then moved back over to the passenger side. The area circled needs to be blended. I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out how to do this. It's not as straight forward as it seems. All those individual pieces must fit together seamlessly. But, they also must be able to come apart. Although the side panels that direct the subwoofer backwave outside of the car will become a permanent part of the car, the rest of the trim pieces must be removable. If anybody has worked on BMWs, you will know that they are put together in such a way that every piece must come out and go back in a specific sequence. The vent trim at the top slides into a series of clips that are a part of the chrome window felt (at bottom of the window) The vent trim also hooks under the pillar trim at the hatch opening and shares two common fastening points with the shock tower trim. Even with the stock trim, you have to go through some contortions to remove everything.










What I decided to do to help with the blending is to stack pieces of thin ply in a stair step fashion. That will reduce the amount of filler needed for blending and also give me good parallel lines to follow as I star to sand things back.










To start, I used filler to stick the two smaller individual abs (black pieces) together with filler. I also tacked the abs pieces to the vent trim so that everything stays in place for the next step. It's hard to see in the picture, but there is a black sharpie line about the edge of the MDF (I have redrawn the line in the picture in teal, so that the line is clearer.) I will need to cut along that line once the filler set up. If I do not make that cut, the pieces will never come back out.










After making the cut along the sharpie line, I glued the stacked pieces of ply and then added filler over the top. I laid down aluminum over the top edge of the MDF because I did not want the filler to stick there. After that, I removed the entire trim panel as a single piece. I started to sand and shape things a bit, but obviously there is more sanding and filling to do.










After some more sanding with the sanding block. I am checking for flatness with a straight edge. Looks like I am doing a good job with the sanding block; everything is good and straight. There are some voids and dips to fill, but the over all shape is progressing. One other note, the vent piece will be gently pulled apart from the main trim piece. I only tacked the smaller pieces to the vent trim to keep everything straight. The vent trim will remain as a separate piece.


----------



## SilkySlim (Oct 24, 2012)

I love the effort and attention to detail in this. That's a lot of time spent cant wait to see how it pays off. I have a E39 sedan and have thought about the same but wagon for my wife's car. I doubt I'll put this much into it but always wondered about this in a wagon.

Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

SilkySlim said:


> I love the effort and attention to detail in this. That's a lot of time spent cant wait to see how it pays off. I have a E39 sedan and have thought about the same but wagon for my wife's car. I doubt I'll put this much into it but always wondered about this in a wagon.
> 
> Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk


It's one option for IB in a wagon. Its is definitely _not_ the easy route. But for me, it is the only way to go because I was dead set against cuting holes in the spare well. If it was just a hatch, and not a wagon, a parcel self might work. The reality is that a sealed single large sub in the spare well, and perhaps a false floor, will go a long, long way. Bottom line; I would not recommend this approach unless your are certain you are up to the challenge. BTW, I think I have spent 5x the amount of time on this then I had imagined.

Edit: You really have to approach this from the same stand point as any hobby. Hobbies are enjoyable, for me, for the challenge and the mental exercise. You really can't be too consumed or worried about the time spent. Challenging yourself, being creative, and learning are always priceless.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

Quick update. I got a few hours in after work before dark.










Not the best picture in the dark with the flash, but you can see I have the passenger side trim almost completed. Again, the entire shock tower trim and the trim that goes over the side panels will come out as a single piece. You can see I have removed the vent trim, as that piece will remain separate. Everything here will get a few passes of 8.9 oz Style 7781 E-glass. You may also notice that there is a gap between the top of the MDF section and the trim above. That is there because everything will be carpeted. The gap will allow the carpet to be tucked under the trim and also tucked in over the MDF of the side panels. I plan to use a plush cut pile, and the hope is that the appearance will be seamless once everything is assembled.

Sorry for the flash washing out the picture.


----------



## TheBetterMethod (Sep 19, 2012)

Cool stuff, looks to be coming along nicely!


----------



## REGULARCAB (Sep 26, 2013)

Oooh updates! Looks good, ill pray for you when its time to carpet that. I always build without any consideration for how im going to cover it. It would appear you have thought ahead however.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

It's nice the weather has been favorable. I feel like I am getting some traction with this project .










I wanted to upload another picture of the passenger side panels because the last one I took was at night, and everything was a bit washed out. I think my camera, which is several years old at this point, is a bit past its time. It seems to be taking progressively crappier pictures. Oh well.










Yep, another crappy pic, maybe its just a setting in on the camera? If one looks back to how a made this trim piece, I made mention of using stacked pieces of thin ply to and bulk and reduce the amount of filler needed. I also mentioned that by doing so, I could easily follow the parallel lines of the ply as I sanded. This would help guide me while block sanding. It also has another benefit. The parallel lines will also help me make and align a template of the passenger side so that I can reproduce the shape on the drivers side. You can see the straight line of the edge of the ply in contrast to the filler (boxed in red).










Here I am making the cardboard template by aligning the straight edge of the cardboard with the straight line of one of the layers of thin ply (boxed in red). I should mention that I use cardboard boxes from work for all my templates. The flaps at the tops and bottoms of the boxes have very straight edges (provided someone hasn't mangled them to open them). This saves time, as you do not have to make the straight edge yourself. Its a good way to recycle, and there is an endless supply.










The cardboard template from the previous picture is shown here. I have transferred the outline to some thin ply. I then ran parallel lines down the shape in the ply. I did this so I can cut the shape into strips and then lay the strips over a form to create the contour of the passenger side for the drivers side.










After cutting the strips of thin ply, I made a template of the contour of the passenger side. I transferred this to 1/2 plywood. You can see the cardboard template of the contour at the upper left of the picture (slightly out of frame). You will also notice that there are two lines that follow the same basic shape on the 1/2 plywood. The top line is the outline of the actual template. The second line is offset from the top line by 3/8". The thin ply that I cut into strips is 3/8" thick, and the 1/2 ply will be cut at the second line to account for that thickness. I will make three identical pieces out of the 1/2 ply.










If you have followed through this build, then you have seen this same general technique before. The three pieces of contoured 1/2" ply act as ribs, those ribs are screwed to a straight piece of lumber to keep everything straight. I have simply laid the thin strips of ply over the ribs and then numbered them so I can quickly assemble them in the next step.










I mixed up some filler and coated the adjoining edges of the strips. I assembled them in order (1-5) and carefully squeezed out the excess filler between each joint. There is a layer of foil over the ribs so that the filler will not stick to the ribs. The ribs will not be involved in the final part.

The piece looks flat, but after sanding, the alternating strips of filler and ply shows that there is a gentle contour.










I removed the newly made piece from the ribs and did a test fit in the car. The piece turned out pretty good. But the end that approaches the trim for the hatch opening bows downward slightly (circled in blue). I probably should have used another rib in the previous step. There is not great stiffness to the ply by itself, and the piece most likely shifted and pulled a bit as the filler set. Its not a huge deal and can be fixed easily.










The next step was to attach the piece to the shock tower trim as was done for the passenger side (circled in red). 










Picture from way up top. Crummy picture, but you get the idea.


----------



## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

we get the idea indeed!! there's a lot of work and attention to lines/details right there.


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

sydmonster said:


> we get the idea indeed!! there's a lot of work and attention to lines/details right there.


Yeah, well...just a little bit of effort .

Looking back at my last few pictures, and I think I need to clean my work area a bit. What a mess! On another note, it appears the sunroof has leaked. This car has a panoramic dual sliding sunroof. Great fun when it works, but when it doesn't, it can cause some serious headaches. When we had freezing rain a few weeks ago, I bet the drain hoses (there are four of them, one in each corner of the sunroof rack) froze up and prevented them from draining. I found some wet areas in the car afterwards, but it didn't see any cause for concern. But a few days ago, I noticed that the front rail would not lay flat. I know it was not like that before. It did not take much observation to notice that the rail had gotten wet and had warped. It mostly likely soaked up water and also was subjected to a freeze cycle or two. I think I can salvage part of the rail, so its not a total loss. It pretty aggravating though, and it's more lost time. More the reason to get these pieces glassed, painted and protected as soon as possible.


----------



## REGULARCAB (Sep 26, 2013)

Orion525iT said:


> Yeah, well...just a little bit of effort .
> 
> Looking back at my last few pictures, and I think I need to clean my work area a bit. What a mess!


Thats too funny, I looked at the last pic before reading your latest post and the first thing i thought was "looks like my work area, just throw them tools wherever"


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

REGULARCAB said:


> Thats too funny, I looked at the last pic before reading your latest post and the first thing i thought was "looks like my work area, just throw them tools wherever"


Glad I am not the only one. It tend to get a little consumed. Before I know it, I am literally tangled up in the cords of my tools and I can't find anything I need. I really need to be better about that, but its hard to step back and straighten things up when your mind is in another dimension. So chaos reigns. It does not help that I work outside, so I tend to toss everything into thrunk at the end of the day. But really, I got clean things up before I get started tomorrow.


----------



## REGULARCAB (Sep 26, 2013)

It used to piss me off to see guys work in a mess when I was a lead carpenter, I always had everything picked up and planned out everything I was going to do before I started so I had tools set up and I would have to walk as little as possible. Working on my own projects... not so much

EDIT: you should see the 1/4 layer of sawdust in my garage thats been there for weeks


----------



## SPLEclipse (Aug 17, 2012)

REGULARCAB said:


> It used to piss me off to see guys work in a mess when I was a lead carpenter, I always had everything picked up and planned out everything I was going to do before I started so I had tools set up and I would have to walk as little as possible. Working on my own projects... not so much
> 
> EDIT: you should see the 1/4 layer of sawdust in my garage thats been there for weeks


This. If I'm at work or at a friends house doing work, I keep everything immaculate and organized. At home ****'s everywhere, lol. I really need to figure out what to do with all the scrap MDF and boxes on my front porch. I probably have 2-300lbs of scrap wood right now. :O


----------



## Orion525iT (Mar 6, 2011)

I didn't get much done today, as other pressing issues took precedence. But I did clean some stuff up...sort of.










I am getting pretty close to the glassing stage with the side panels. The thin ply, that I attached to the original shock tower trim to match the contour of the side panels, created a void between the ply and the original trim. I have had some bad experiences using spray foam, but it seems like a good option here. The objective of the foam is to fill the void, add some stiffness, and provide a surface for easy glassing.










After shaving some of the foam down. It does not have to be pretty back here, as this area will not be seen. However, it still needs to be flat enough for the 7781 E-glass to drape over. I was worried about using too much foam, but it looks like I did not use enough. Easy to fix.










Both of the panels together.










Panels back in the car again for the 100th time. Hey look, I cleaned the trunk up .










With the panels back in the car, I made sharpie lines where I still need to make adjustments. There needs to be space between where the shock tower trim meets the side panel and where it meets the floor board. That space is necessary to account for the dimensional growth that will occur due to the layers of glass that will be added to strengthen and protect everything. The space must also allow for the carpet to be wrapped over the edges of the pieces when I do the finish work.










Here is something we haven't seen in awhile; the trunk board. This is the underside of the board the edges are trimmed with dimensional lumber to add stiffness to to protect the edges of the MDF, which is inherently susceptible to damage at the edges. As with all the pieces, transitions have been blended for easy glassing.










Trunk panel in place.










I spent I good part of the day contemplating the trunk board. First issue is the sealing areas. I want to make the trunk board removable for various reasons. The trunk rails at the front and rear of the trunk board will be easy to seal with a gasket. The real issue is the area between the trunk board and the side panels (circled in blue). It would appear to be straight forward to seal that junction, but there are many things to consider. I have to consider the functionality of the seal, the finishing trim, and overall aesthetic. To simplify things, I may close the gap and use RTV or similar sealant in the seam. As long as I can pry the trunk board loose, or run fishing line through the gap, it should be easy to separate the trunk board from the side panels. This way I do not have to mess with making a perfect gasket surface, and the trunk board will be semi-permanent and removable if the need arises.

Another consideration is the positioning of the sub baffles in the trunk board. The black circle is the position of the spare well. I want the cut out this section so that I can pull out the subs and place the spare back into the well at any time. The other thing, which had been nagging me a bit, is the location of the manifold outlets. I really don't have any way of predicting in car response based on orientation. I can't just "turn the box around" if I don't like the way things sound. My thought was that I could make the cutout in such a way that I could literally clock the manifolds, and experiment with orientation to get the best SQ. The red arrows represent the ability to turn the manifolds (to clock) to experiment with different orientations.


----------



## SPLEclipse (Aug 17, 2012)

B-B-B-Bump! Anything new?


----------



## JoshHefnerX (Jun 13, 2008)

Been a couple of months... what happened?

Josh


----------



## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

been busy?


----------

