# 2008 Chevy Colorado Standard Cab Install



## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Hey guys,

Its been a while since I've put an install up on the build logs. This one is for a good friend of mine, something clean, simple, inexpensive (relatively), but absolutely done right.

The standard cab model has a lot more space than I'm used to with other basic trucks I've worked on, so I'm taking advantage of that here. I don't have a ton of pics of what we've done so far but I'll try to shoot some more. 

The equipment list:

Sound Deadener Showdown CLD, MLV, and CCF. www.sounddeadenershowdown.com Don's the man.
Clarion DXZ785USB head unit
PPI DCX300.4 main amp
PPI DCX500.1 sub amp
Fi Audio 10" subs
Still working out the front drivers. I only have ~2" of clearance in the doors so I'm hurting for the right parts. I had a set of Kenwood eXcelon (don't laugh!) XR-S17P speakers but they came to me damaged so I gotta deal with that crap.
Knukonceptz 4 gauge wiring. I'm running "double-barrel" wiring here, no distro blocks or anything else. Stephen Mantz recommends avoiding them if possible, so I'm going to try it his way.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

LOL, I'm surprised you guys didn't ban me for explaining a build without pics. 

Anyway, let's cover what's been done so far..

The sub box fits behind the standard cab seats, with the subs facing backwards -
































Estimated airspace before center braces and before sub displacement is 1.66 cubic feet.


Here's the door I get to work with. I believe there is a lot of work for me coming up when I start to seal and deaden this door. Its also quite a shallow space between the speaker opening and the window track.-

















This is the door skin, overall I think this will be the easy part. Simply deaden, line with MLV, and gasket the speaker.









Factory head unit. We're going with a Clarion 785USB here.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

The power wire was extremely easy to get into the cab. Usually this step takes a while, but here it took .1 seconds to realize, hey, there's a perfect factory grommet.








Power wires are going to the battery with a simple Knukonceptz battery terminal. Those are Monster Cable reusable 4 gauge terminals. Not bad, they actually match the Knu's terminal screw's black chrome exactly.

















Power wires are run in tandem to the back of the cab. I'm trying for this 
vs. the standard distribution block concept, ala Stephen Mantz's preference to run multiple wires straight from the battery (this info is buried within his tech papers on the Zed site.) -









So next, we tackled the doors. Sonofabitch! Have any of you ever had to _remove the door_ to get to the damn molex? Well, if you work on a Colorado, be prepared for the joy of doing just that. Ob-freaking-serve -...and nevermind the yellow electrical tape that protects the paint during this procedure...

















For speaker wire, I've chosen to use Shaxon 4 conductor 16 gauge in-wall rated wire. And because I have a ton of it, I decided I will be using two conductors for the + and - each. 


The things also happened which we neglected to snap pics of. We laid a couple of pieces of CLD down strategically, and covered most of the floor with CCF. Lastly, I laid pieces of MLV down on top of that.


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## AUDIO_BASSICS (Mar 21, 2009)

fourthmeal said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> Its been a while since I've put an install up on the build logs. This one is for a good friend of mine, something clean, simple, inexpensive (relatively), but absolutely done right.
> 
> ...


very good start!!! good luck


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## JayinMI (Oct 18, 2008)

Wow, reminds me of my '05 Colly. I had an Alpine 9833, H701, C701, 8" Kicker midbasses and 4" Resolution comps w/ ND25A's (8's in door, mids in kicks, tweets on a pillar) box behind the seat firing backward. Amps down the middle (300/4, 300/2, 500/1) and 2 Solobaric 10's (the old round ones S10d4's)

Jay


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## mattyjman (Aug 6, 2009)

so no chance of leaving the door on for the molex? In my G35 it was super tight, I considered removing the door, but the molex was more or less accessible depending on the angle that the door was sitting at..... a PITA to be sure though. 

Your subbox looks great so far


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## JayinMI (Oct 18, 2008)

I didn't have to remove my doors to do mine. They went right through the big hole above the molex...but mine didn't have power windows or locks.
The molex popped out fine. It was a tight fit, but I didn't have to pull the doors.
Jay


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

The doors had to come off, but luckily the Colorado was made to do it. You unbolt the door check, and two more bolts on the hinges, and lift with 2 people...Whammo the door pops right off. You don't have to realign the door or do anything other than drop it back into the hinges when done. So, its not THAT bad.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

JayinMI said:


> Wow, reminds me of my '05 Colly. I had an Alpine 9833, H701, C701, 8" Kicker midbasses and 4" Resolution comps w/ ND25A's (8's in door, mids in kicks, tweets on a pillar) box behind the seat firing backward. Amps down the middle (300/4, 300/2, 500/1) and 2 Solobaric 10's (the old round ones S10d4's)
> 
> Jay



How did the sub setup sound when they fire backwards? Logic and wild-ass-guesstimation suggests that they would have more impact this way, but I think I'm going to deaden the living crap out of that rear panel.


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## JayinMI (Oct 18, 2008)

All in all, I was disappointed. It sounded nice. A friend who placed 2nd in class at IASCA finals a while ago helped me tune it and get it in the ball park, but it never had the impact I wanted. It staged and imaged reasonably well, but the subs never did what I wanted...could be due to being underpowered (2 S10d4's on a JL 500/1) tho. I figured that loading off the rear cab wall would help.

Here's a link to my half-ast webpage I had dedicated to it, but never finished the update on the page...

'05 Colorado Build


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

JayinMI said:


> All in all, I was disappointed. It sounded nice. A friend who placed 2nd in class at IASCA finals a while ago helped me tune it and get it in the ball park, but it never had the impact I wanted. It staged and imaged reasonably well, but the subs never did what I wanted...could be due to being underpowered (2 S10d4's on a JL 500/1) tho. I figured that loading off the rear cab wall would help.
> 
> Here's a link to my half-ast webpage I had dedicated to it, but never finished the update on the page...
> 
> '05 Colorado Build



The Fi Audio subs I have have NEVER been low on impact, so I'll so try them out and report the results.


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## GLN305 (Nov 2, 2007)

Looking good so far! FYI the Molex can be removed without taking the doors off, you just need to release the door check and the doors will open a little more. I did that on my '08 Colly. As far as front speakers are concerned, with a 3/4" spacer you fit a 3'' deep 7'' mid in the doors. It's close, but I had one in there LOL.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

GLN305 said:


> Looking good so far! FYI the Molex can be removed without taking the doors off, you just need to release the door check and the doors will open a little more. I did that on my '08 Colly. As far as front speakers are concerned, with a 3/4" spacer you fit a 3'' deep 7'' mid in the doors. It's close, but I had one in there LOL.



There is no room for a spacer in the door! The factory speaker nudges up against the factory door skin, with only a 1/8" of space. 

The more I hear about people doing thicker speakers in this truck, the more I wonder if the 08 model is different from other years.


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## JayinMI (Oct 18, 2008)

When I put my 8's in, 1/8" was all it could do. any more and it hit the plastic door card. I also had to take the rubber cover off the magnet and shave about a 1/16" off a corner to clear the actual glass...and those speakers were only like 2.5" deep.

Fourthmeal--

I'm sure I could have switched to some different subs and been fine, but I was using almost all old school kicker stuff, so I tried to stay that way. 

Good luck.

Jay


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## kota_sounds (Apr 21, 2008)

i feel your pain on those molex plugs i had to do power locks on one a few months ago and it was a half day project...


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

I had a major camera failure during the build so we took shots on camera phones. Disaster!

Anyway, we decided to change up the design a bit. We decided to set the amps under the subs, to hide them from sight and simplify the build. 

Since the camera died, I thought I'd just decided to show you via 3d sketches what I'm shooting for.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Oh yes, I should probably tell you now... The Kenwood eXcelon components are astoundingly good. The accessories included are somewhat fragile (had a plastic tweeter mount snap off with the smallest amount of pressure), and the terminals on the speaker are fragile as well (the metal broke off while pushing a terminal on...so I soldered.) However, once installed, I was able to push them incredibly hard without any audible distortion until insane volumes. Remember, these things are incredibly shallow, under 2" actually. The tweeter is smooth but accurate. I ran them active with 3.15kHz crossover points, 12dB/oct. I ran the mids from that point to 40hz, 6dB/oct! And get this, we were still waiting on the door deadening materials from SDS, so these doors are completely stock other than the speakers installed. And yet STILL, tons and tons of midbass. 

I highly, highly recommend them if you A: can deal with the slight fragility of some of the parts (fixable), and B: need a shallow and/or very light speaker in the door. 

More to come, this build is looking really good so far. I have no idea what we're going to finish the box off with, but I'm thinking something simple like black carpet or even bed liner.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Oh damn, I owe this thread some serious pics, right?

Well, let's do it. This is actually 2 weeks of work. 

This is the door we started with. Lots and lots of holes:









We are using the butyl rope available at sounddeadenershowdown. Don, you're good at what you do, dude. This stuff is fantastic. 
















This is what we decided to use to block the holes. It is a semi-flexible plastic mesh, which sticks to the butyl rope very well and flexes with the contours of the door.








Deadening added over the mesh:








Heavy 1/4" closed-cell foam placed over deadened/sealed panels. Very thick, good stuff, again from SDS.

















More CCF made into a door gasket 








1/8" CCF over the door skin


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

More SDS deadening tiles. As you can see, we are covering this pretty aggressively. Two 10" subs will point right at it, so it needs to be as strong as possible.









Pics weren't taken of the MLV and CCF we installed on the back panel. I think my camera was with my wife in her purse while we toiled away. Anyway, Deadening done, I turned to the wiring nightmare.

Techflex, and heatshrink are our friends


























Heatshrink and techflex makes things better:

















I'm sorry I didn't take pics of the amp rack buildup. We were coated in bondo and sawdust. Typical. Anyway, here's the rack carpeted. The top panel covers the amps and provides a base for the sub box.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

And again, sorry I didn't take pics of the buildup of the sub box. Again, covered in sawdust and bondo. Looks like this thrown in though:

















































The only thing not done is the endcaps on each side. That's why you are seeing raw MDF. I ran out of daylight, and will tend to this as soon as I can. Other then that, how does it look, guys?

I can tell you, it sounds very good at least.

Any criticism (constructive or otherwise) is welcome, I am no pro and I am not as experienced or skilled as many of you. But I try.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

no love (or hate, or otherwise) for my build?


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## chithead (Mar 19, 2008)

I gotta give it love man! Liking the "stealth" of the subs and amps, and also glad to hear someone else likes those Excelon speakers. Although I haven't go to try them yet, they do sound very good.


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## jimp (Jul 12, 2009)

nice and clean, really stealthy, blends well for security of the equipment.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Oh yeah. When the seat is in the normal position, all you see is a bit of carpet between the seats. And its black so unless you are trying to look through the tinted windows, you aren't seeing crap.

The experiment of installing the subs backwards worked, but it has a downside. Despite the massive amount of CLD tiles, CCF, and MLV I added, the back panel still shakes like all hell. If I had to do it again, I'd probably fire the subs towards the back seats, but with some space built in so they didn't contact the seats. That said, this backward firing setup plays VERY LOW, and very loud. Very impressive.


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## Canadian_Dude (Feb 4, 2009)

I like your truck looks nice and clean and simple. I am waiting for warmer weather to run wires for my amp in my 05 Colorado. Sucks that we have to take the door off though. I will probably end up just drilling holes and using grommets and split loom, I don't think I can get my wire in through the connector anyways. I am running the same HU with Hertz HSK165 components, eventually Clarion 4 channel, and a ****ty alpine 10" for now.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Canadian_Dude said:


> I like your truck looks nice and clean and simple. I am waiting for warmer weather to run wires for my amp in my 05 Colorado. Sucks that we have to take the door off though. I will probably end up just drilling holes and using grommets and split loom, I don't think I can get my wire in through the connector anyways. I am running the same HU with Hertz HSK165 components, eventually Clarion 4 channel, and a ****ty alpine 10" for now.


Definitely worth it to get the molex done. To drill, you'd need to remove the door anyway! Believe me, if I can fit in 4 conductor 16 gauge in-wall rated wire (thick as my pinkie finger or better), you can put anything you want in there. I used the factory wiring to install my tweeters. I just snipped the factory tweeter wiring after the final connector and installed the wire that came connected to the aftermarket tweeters. Doing this, I was then able to disconnect the aftermarket tweeters using those factory disconnects and leave them installed on the door while working on those. Then, at the head unit, I just spliced my aftermarket wire to the factory wire. Done, and it took maybe 10 minutes per side.


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## Bluepelican31 (Jan 7, 2010)

Nice and stealth. I will placing my SDS order pretty soon for my upcoming Tundra project.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Thank you! This weekend I'll be finishing this one off with those side panels, and I'll kiss this one goodbye (and hello, money!)


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## PSYKO_Inc (Dec 11, 2006)

Wow I really like the idea of the rearward firing subs. Considering something similar for my S-10. How much space needs to be left between the face of the box and the rear wall of the cab?


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

PSYKO_Inc said:


> Wow I really like the idea of the rearward firing subs. Considering something similar for my S-10. How much space needs to be left between the face of the box and the rear wall of the cab?


We battled with this for a bit and decided that as long as the woofer wasn't contacting the actual back panel, we're OK. Now, having said that, it was a very, very tight fit. The Fi subs have a lot of excursion. Also the back panel has some contours that make it stick out towards the sub a bit at the top. To compensate, I grabbed some spare 1/4" closed-cell foam and made a soft spacer on top of the sub ring. In retrospect, I think I would add an extra 1/2" to 3/4" of space if I were to do it again. The top and sides were sanded to a smooth roundover to help with chuffing or other nasty noises from the rushing air. 

We also have the peculiar problem of the vent flaps buzzing to the air pressure in the back of the cab to the outside. To stop that, I added some polyfill between the flap and its plastic cage. These flaps are annoying and it took us a while to pinpoint the noise they emanated. 

Despite the very aggressive deadening techniques to the back of the cab, it still flops like a wet fish on certain resonant frequencies. Scares the crap out of me how much it moves, because I fear for the glass.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

OK, finished with this truck finally. Just had to do some tuning and build the trim panels. 


Head unit is the Clarion 785USB









Dual 16 gauge wire run to each terminal on the speaker, and heatshrinked:



















Reused the factory connectors for a quick-release setup on the doors:



















The finished product with trim panels. Stealth, baby:


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## XtremelyYellow (Apr 29, 2008)

Very nice clean install.


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## jjbeenken (Feb 12, 2010)

Why no door treatment on outer door skin?


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## evan (Dec 2, 2006)

Cool build. Did you have to modify the door panel at all to fit the tweeter or woofer?


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

jjbeenken said:


> Why no door treatment on outer door skin?



What do you mean? The plastic panel?

If so, there is a 1/8" base layer of CCF, and around the woofer there is a multi-layer 1/4" CCF ring, designed to compress and gasket off the woofer.

Was that the part you are talking about?


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

evan said:


> Cool build. Did you have to modify the door panel at all to fit the tweeter or woofer?



The factory tweeter's area was sawed out, and the aftermarket tweeter installed in its place. The factory has a chrome ring around the tweeter hole, and what we did was take the hex-grille plastic out of that (with the saw) and shove the Kenwood tweeter in place. The Kenwood tweeter also has a chrome casing, so when we but the two together it looks pretty good. Like a multi-step chrome ring.


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## norcalsfinest (Aug 30, 2008)

fun little trucks to work on... NOT! I did a setup in a regular cab canyon 4wd, and they are a pain in the ass to take apart man. I hate the jack setup in the rear, so frustrating. 

Looks very nice though, bud.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

norcalsfinest said:


> fun little trucks to work on... NOT! I did a setup in a regular cab canyon 4wd, and they are a pain in the ass to take apart man. I hate the jack setup in the rear, so frustrating.
> 
> Looks very nice though, bud.



Thank you!

The customer is extremely happy, everything has been running for about a month now, and no tweaks, changes, or upgrades have been requested by my friend (the customer.) 

If you remove the jack stuff, wrap it in noise killing foam, and then stick it in a bag under the passenger seat, ... problem solved.


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## Sex Cells (Jul 21, 2007)

Fantastic build!


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## evan (Dec 2, 2006)

fourthmeal said:


> The factory tweeter's area was sawed out, and the aftermarket tweeter installed in its place. The factory has a chrome ring around the tweeter hole, and what we did was take the hex-grille plastic out of that (with the saw) and shove the Kenwood tweeter in place. The Kenwood tweeter also has a chrome casing, so when we but the two together it looks pretty good. Like a multi-step chrome ring.


Cool. Do you have any pics?


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

LOL... I just now realized I didn't take a shot of the doors at all!

Dumb me.

Sorry about that.


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## JayinMI (Oct 18, 2008)

fourthmeal said:


> Thank you!
> 
> The customer is extremely happy, everything has been running for about a month now, and no tweaks, changes, or upgrades have been requested by my friend (the customer.)
> 
> If you remove the jack stuff, wrap it in noise killing foam, and then stick it in a bag under the passenger seat, ... problem solved.


I found mine very easy to work on. I also liked that the jack mount *unbolts* from the truck, unlike S-10's. I used factory bolt holes in the rear wall to bolt the box in to the truck. 

And, my jack ended up under the psgr seat too.

Jay


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## PorkCereal (Nov 24, 2009)

Very nice! Me likey
Im considering doing the same thing in an f150 standard cab. Looks like i have little more room to play with then you do. Im also concerned about the back, i might just stuck with original plans and downfire.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

PorkCereal said:


> Very nice! Me likey
> Im considering doing the same thing in an f150 standard cab. Looks like i have little more room to play with then you do. Im also concerned about the back, i might just stuck with original plans and downfire.


If I were to do it again, I'd do it with SI BM's now that they are finally shipping. Two, three, or hell even 4 of them would probably fit perfectly in most trucks.


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## Duke Thorens (Mar 31, 2010)

'fourthmeal,' thanks for the link in the other Colorado thread in-which I posted. I came here and am impressed with your fabrication and installation. I bet the customer _is_ happy! I take it you are a hobbyist supplementing your car-audiophile vice with sidework? 

Why didn't you choose to use the butyl soundmat on the inner doorskin instead of the closed-cell foam liner for the door upholstery panel? I assume the screen is so that the CC foam doesn't deteriorate because it's otherwise in an opening of the door? The installs I have seen from looking online and from visiting local shops in FL all use lots of the butyl rubber panels both inside & outside of the door sheetmetal. Some do just the sheetmetal of the passenger compartment doorskin, some do the inside surface of the exterior doorskin, and some do also the inner surface of the sheetmetal holding the handle & etc. I have even seen where they just use the AL-Dynamat material right-over any of the inner doorskin openings w/o resorting to support like the screen you used. I assume they are just looking to in-effect convert the entire door structure into an acoustic-suspension sealed (as much as possible) enclosure. I am impressed by the sound-deadening capacity of the copious use of the sound-deadening material I have seen locally, and wonder why you didn't choose that method instead of covering the doortrim panel as you did. 

My intent in asking the questions is to avoid the mistakes as much as possible when I do begin. 

I saw these speakers, Kenwood KFC-X1730P which are fairly-shallow and look like a compatible install given their claimed-2 5/16" depth. Despite their 'mere' 86 db. s.p.l., if they are clean-sounding, I may choose them for an upgrade once I finish the amp addition (one I have lying around) that I mentioned in the other thread. Sorry if those are the speakers you mentioned, I am too-lazy to go back into the thread and to see if they are what you chose to use. 

It was interesting to hear you had the cabin vents in the rear bulkhead buzzing-away from the volume of air you must be displacing, and the sub-50 Hz battering you are giving the rear of the cab. You mentioned concerns for the rear window glass' integrity. I have a suggestion, and if it's too 'out-there' please ignore it. Would there be any advantage to constructing an interior bulkhead with an airspace between it and the rear cab sheetmetal, and 'decoupling' it as much as possible by the use of adhesive sealant and rubber blocks or strips? I am thinking Dow-Corning 790 Building Sealant or something similar. I am not an acoustic engineer to know if the void should be filled with a material like low-expansion foam or not, but from reading about soundproofing building techniques, the airspace and the rubber blocks would lessen the sound transmittal from the wood bulkhead to the cab rear sheetmetal. By making the entire rear cab wall structure reinforced, it would greatly strengthen the cab and likely eliminate any issues of resonant frequencies of low-frequency-high amplitude causing the window to crack. I know there is not a lot of room behind the seats and you found things tight. I am just curious to know if something like this would work. Since I am not a "Miami Bass"-kinda guy, I don't have to go to this extreme to try it myself. 

I am glad you documented your build with such a detailed discussion, and the pics also have helped me to refine some of my ideas leading into my own GM-355 Twin modest project.


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

My responses in *Bold*



Duke Thorens said:


> 'fourthmeal,' thanks for the link in the other Colorado thread in-which I posted. I came here and am impressed with your fabrication and installation. I bet the customer _is_ happy! I take it you are a hobbyist supplementing your car-audiophile vice with sidework?
> *The customer is one of my good friends, he helped with the build so I charged minimally for my services which mainly just paid for materials and tools and whatnot. I definitely don't mind doing side work and yes, most of the money goes right back into the hobby!*
> 
> Why didn't you choose to use the butyl soundmat on the inner doorskin instead of the closed-cell foam liner for the door upholstery panel?
> ...


Thanks for the feedback!


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## Jroo (May 24, 2006)

are you getting any heat issues with the amps being mounted or covered that way?


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## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

Jroo said:


> are you getting any heat issues with the amps being mounted or covered that way?


The owner hasn't complained of it. I wouldn't expect it either, because this amp radiates heat on the sides and the 500.1 has a small fan for circulation. Both sides are open.

So far, so good! We live in Vegas so if things are going to go wrong with heat, they will go wrong here.


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