# 2013 Genesis Coupe - CD1 horns, MB8, IDW15s, TM25s, SS Rubicons



## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

It's been over a decade since I've put a system together. I bought all the parts for this system about 5 years ago and have finally found the time and motivation to put it together. When I'm not travelling for work, I run a speed & fab shop so I'll be fitting this work in between those two things.

Here's the plan:
SI TM25 in the pillars
CD1 horns under the dash
ES MB8-4s in the floor
IDW 15s IB next to the rear passenger seat
ES MB8-4s in the rear deck for fill
Head unit is some Alpine double-din display unit - I forget what model
Processing via MiniDSP
Power is handled via some old Soundstream Rubicon amps, 2x 1002 for the subs, 2x 604s for the MB8s, and 2x 302s for the horns and tweeters.

I decided I wanted to start with the midbass. They're going to be the most detrimental to the usage of the vehicle while under construction so I want to get them out of the way.

The Genesis Coupe has this really awesome sealed area under the pedals. For some reason they didn't build the entire wheel well in to this panel. What they DID do is fully seal all the cavities of the car. This cavity, the rockers, and cabin are entirely isolated from each other. Unfortunately this cavity is not deep enough to flush mount the entire speaker in to the floor, so I'll have to cut out the back side and box it in. There's also another cubby under the floor board that I will probably be enclosing for more volume. The pictures explain it way better than I ever could with words.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

I also started on a small mount for the circuit breakers for the system and big-3


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## captainobvious (Mar 11, 2006)

Nice work so far- I'm looking forward to seeing your progress on this one as it continues. I do have one question though...why the horns _and_ the SI tweeter?


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

The si tweeters would be for 15+ khz. I don't know if I'll need them or not but I have them just in case.


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## Jroo (May 24, 2006)

pwnt by pat said:


> The si tweeters would be for 15+ khz. I don't know if I'll need them or not but I have them just in case.


Ive heard a car with a similar set up. The tweets high up in the a pillar crossed over high. I have kept my infinity ribbon emits for that same reason. Also wanted to try it and cross those over at 8 or 10k up


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Yeah I've forgotten way more of the technical aspects of acoustical reproduction than I care to admit. Basically I've retained the electrical and crossover knowledge and forgot the rest. The last time I had a car with hlcds was easily 15 years ago. One thing I distinctly remember was the need for high mounted high frequency drivers. I don't remember why though.

I'm just going to put it all in and tune by ear. We'll see what happens lol


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## nyquistrate (Apr 17, 2011)

Nice! I'm working on ES Comp neos (fullsize) in my WRX. Hoping to get the ES MB8's in the kicks once the horns are finished.

Are you running those floorboard MB8's infinite baffle or sealing completely?


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

After taking some measurements and doing the math I can only get about .2 cu ft (330 cu in) out of the kicks, even if I section in the second compartment on the floor. I messaged Eric on Facebook last night ands he said unless I can get up to .5 cu ft then I'm better off running in. So that's the route I'll be going.

I got the driver's side wheel well welded up. Don't mind some of the ugly work. My mig machine has a bad main board for the second time in 6 months and I can't currently wait 4 months for the back order so I have to use what I have. It's all sealed and sound, just not perfectly pretty. I'll be doing the passenger side foot well now and hopefully have it done by the end of the night. Speaker rings are being cut by the laser shop and I'll be welding the inside stuff together when they come in.


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## SQ_Bronco (Jul 31, 2005)

Wow, very cool.


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## JohnnyOhh (Feb 19, 2015)

i feel like you are a professional metal worker maybe....?


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

That would be correct. I do power plant contract welding and machining and run a race car fab shop when I'm not traveling.

I didn't get the passenger side done. I had a customer come by to drop off their car and they hung out for just over an hour. 

The driver's side is primed and painted. It still needs seam sealer and then undercoat. Passenger side is finish welded and will get primer, paint, seam sealer, and undercoat tomorrow morning.

I also have to plug two holes you can see in the pictures and cut the IB vents


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Finishing up the outside panels so the car is driveable again. I have to start on a customers car tonight so I may get to work on the genny again Monday. No picture of the prime or paint but you don't really need to see that.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Speakers currently sit below the factory undercarpet insulation. I threw the speakers in and threw the stock carpet in over top of them for the time being. For the drivers side I will be re-creating the kick panel out of steel expanded metal and put grill cloth over that. I'm going to try for a totally invisible install for floor drivers. If I can find an acoustically transparent carpeting I will use that instead of grill cloth


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## JohnnyOhh (Feb 19, 2015)

man i love how causally you cut a pretty big hole in the body of you car's sheet metal and seal it up and make an enclosure. pretty unique talent around here, i feel like.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

So from here on out posts are going to jump around a bit as customer work comes in, I'm waiting on parts or materials to be delivered, and run in to natural stopping points. The car will be reverted back to my daily driver in 2 weeks so I'm trying to get all the heavy fab work done any all the finish work can be done without interfering with the drivability.

So I started on the underhood wiring. I cut a terminal block on the mill and ran a new alt-to-batt wire. I'm using CCA for the Big-3 and OCF for the system wiring. The system will be grounded to the chassis and I'll also be running an extra a CCA ground wire to the rear. The e-tape is just temporary. I only have heatshrink up to 1/2" and had to order some 5/8"


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Next I started on the tweeters in the a-pillars. I turned down some uhmw on the lathe to create the cups. Thankfully the t25s are sealed back so as long as they don't fall out, they're golden. I sunk the tweeter all the way to the metal of the a-pillar and also gave the pillar a little persuasion to go a little deeper. Aiming is at eye level between the two head rests at driving position. Since they'll be playing solely above 10k they needed to be as on-axis as possible. I also cut the pillar a little farther for a more gradual sweep.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

I also started with the IDW15s. While the BMW guys are blessed with massive kick panel/fender recesses, the Genesis guys are blessed with MASSIVE space where the rear door panels go. There's more than six inches of depth from the pinch welds to the outer body skin. I can fit these 15 inch IDWs underneath the stock plastic inner trim. The cavity also vents in to the rocker, so I'll be cutting open the underside of the rocker to vent these to the outside. 

The plywood is just the template. This area of the car is structural so it has to be stronger than just MDF. I'll be cutting a 1/4" steel sheet and welding the mounting panel to the chassis, of course.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

So here I could use a little advice. I was planning on running two MB8's in L-R fill. The genesis is set up for a single 8" center rear speaker. Has anyone played with a single rear fill driver or should I power through and continue with the twin fill?


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## nyquistrate (Apr 17, 2011)

I would first listen w/out rear fill. You can always place a temp driver back there to compare.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

I've had l-r rear fill before and I know from experience it's the way to go. I just haven't tried it with a center mounted single source driver. My assumptions is a single driver wouldn't work well solely due to hrtf.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

I have a couple of free days so I'm going to try and have the sub and midbass done by the end of day Monday. If I'm lucky I can get the sound deadening on the floor done as well.

I only had a few hours today, so I got the roof about 50% done. The genesis has some nasty carpeting glued to the roof which took almost two hours to get cleaned off. I replaced it with 80mil kilmat and jammed butyl rope in all the places where metal could flex. I also cut out some 3m auto/acoustical thinsulite for the headliner, which I'll glue once the headliner is recovered. I'll also cut small strips of thinsulite to jam in plastic fins/spacers that are bonded to the headliner.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

After I got that done I started work on the subs again. I took some rough measurements of the cavity the subs will sit in and it turns out that it's almost 2.5 cu ft per woofer. With that in mind I don't think I'll be venting the cavity outside the car until I test the subs out first. The cavity vents in to the and the rockers are completely sealed, so win/win. I did open up the access to the cavity for airflow. 

The outer skin of the cavity is super super thin and you can move it with just your pinkey. That won't work for a sub cavity, so I put a layer of kilmat on it. I will be adding a layer 1/8 CCF, and then bonding a layer of fiberglass on top of that. That should stop any vibrations from flexing the body panel.

I also got started on the sub baffles that will be welded in to the car. If you though wood was expensive, this is what $500 in raw material gets you right now.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Starting with the fiberglass laminate reinforcement. I was able to get two layers of biaxial weave in place. When it cures I'll pull it out and put down two more layers. Then it gets bonded to CCF, then that gets bonded to the CLD/body skin. Then I'll probably put another layer of CLD on top of the glass for good measure.

I also realize I never took a picture of what the stock inside quarter looks like so here is the stock p/s compared to the final cutout d/s shape is. I'm hoping the glass cures before this evening so I can get it done. The glass/laminate needs to be installed BEFORE I can weld the sub baffle in place or else it just won't fit back in.

I also found out this afternoon that the cavity I'm using vents through the entire rear skin, so each sub will have approximately 3-4 cu ft of space each, which is great.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Started on tweeter glassing and was able to get the quarter reinforcements pulled and three more layers of biaxial weave. Pictures look bad but the phone was on less than 5% battery so... meh Tomorrow morning I'll get them trimmed and bonded and I can get started on welding the baffles. 

I have to say, this weave really sucks down the resin. The fiberglass shop I got it from said 2.5 qts per yard of weave. I don't know how much resin they're putting in to it but I was only able to get it to eat about .75 gallon for the ~2.25 yards that I have used so far.


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## JohnnyOhh (Feb 19, 2015)

are you putting 15" speakers in your rear door panel area??? holy guacamole!


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

I apparently forgot to get a picture of the trimmed fiberglass and foam reinforcement laminate but you can see it in the pictures. The sub baffles are completely welded in. Because I pushed the baffles in a little and didn't account for the thickness of the fiberglass, now the enclosures are not deep enough for the subs to mount, so tomorrow morning I'll be cutting some birch spacer rings. It's probably better that way rather than mounting the subs directly to the steel plate.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

JohnnyOhh said:


> are you putting 15" speakers in your rear door panel area??? holy guacamole!


It was before my time so I have never heard it, but I have always idolized the Speakerworks GN. This is the first car where I've had the ability to somewhat replicate it's design. On top of that, the genesis has a VERY VERY small truck passthrough and overall a very short trunk. I want to maximize the space in there and putting anything above the floor of the trunk or in the passthrough area is a non-starter.

Just wait for the amp rack build. The cutting and welding isn't near complete yet.


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## JohnnyOhh (Feb 19, 2015)




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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

So a couple of things happened today. I cut the sub baffles out of birch and installed them. I think I might get a different set cut out of ABS or HDPE. The birch isn't super high quality and had a few lamination spots split out after routing. Plus the plastic will be waterproof. 

Then I put the rear deck and seats back in. I'm going to skip doing rear fill right now. In order to do the rear deck the way I want to I am going to have to remove the rear window and I don't want to do that until this winter. I will be leaving to travel for work in a couple of weeks and that could be 3-4 months long. I don't want to leave the car out of commission for that long. 

I then trimmed the rear panels to open up for the subs. I will do the trim and finish work on them probably in the winter. I'll do all the finish work after everything else is done.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Next I got the midbass rings all welded in. They're currently welded, cleaned, and primered. They will get seam sealer and paint tomorrow when the new seam sealer showed up. I used up my last tube on the outside of the kicks and forgot to re-order it. Tomorrow I'll cut the holes for the kick vents and make the critter/water barriers.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Finally I grabbed one of the horns. I was scoping out where it was going to fit and how I was going to mount it. The genesis dash is basically built for horns. There's tons of room for the drivers up underneath. Nothing hangs low, the dash is deep so full bodies can fit. All that needed to be cut on the drivers side was a little notch to clear the AC low pressure line.

Here's where I ran in to a problem. As I was holding the horn up, the body just split in half. I'm not sure what the problem is? It was a brand new body set..... I contacted Eric on FB and am waiting to hear back about ordering a new set of bodies.


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## lithium (Oct 29, 2008)

That's an oddly clean break...


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Yeah. If you look at the picture of the horn on the floor you can see a line where it snapped. I think these bodies might have been cast in two pieces and glued together. Looking at the split it almost looks like they were 3d printed and the break is where the printer stopped for a spool change, reset, and the part cooled down too much.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Not many pictures today. I worked mostly on sound deadening and didn't take a lot of pictures because I didn't make a lot of forward progress. I put down CLD on the floor and trans tunnel and I got the passenger floor CCF and MLV'd, but not 100%. The seam sealer didn't show up today so I couldn't complete the footwell section. I also realized I didn't order anywhere near enough CCF. I thought 5 yards would have been enough, but lo and behold, It's not even half enough. I don't have enough now to work on the drivers floor or passenger door panel. Or the rear-seat area.

Then I got the drivers side door CLD'd and built the MLV/CCF inner panel. Like I said it was my first time doing it and took forever. But at least the passenger door will be a lot easier now that I have a complete template. I didn't get pictures of the MLV because I'm not done with it. I still need to insulate the door wiring so it doesn't rattle.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Regarding the tweeters and horns:

I got the glass work done on the a-pillars. Tomorrow I'll do the filler and sanding and hopefully get them to a trim shop with the headliner and b/c pillars for covering. And I talked to Eric Stevens and got a new horn body on the way.

Finally, one more shot of the midbass in the floors. It's a lovely sight to see and I'm super thrilled it's "completed". I love how they look. I don't know how some guys get 10's or 12's down there. These 8's are massive, at least in my car.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Today I worked on the sound deadeneing. For the passenger sizde door. I got the CLD in the door skin and insulated the door wiring with CCF. I deleted the factory speakers and blocked the openings off with butyl rope and 1/8" aluminum plate. I also got the MLV cut and when the extra CCF shows up on tuesday I can get the CCF cut and installed on the passenger side door. I did the same CCF wire insulation on the drivers door and finished the MLV on the door. Drivers door is now done.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

I also finished the a-pillars and will be taking them to the trim shop for covering - along with the headliner, a, and b-pillars.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Finally I got the floor welds seam-sealed. Tomorrow the 8's will be going in for the time being. I received the wrong foam for the floor vents and I don't think I'll be cutting the vents for a little bit due to scheduling.

I also got the red heat-shrink for the power wire and started cleaning those wires up in the engine bay. I still need to do ground wires but didn't get that done today. I also got some aluminum cut to get started on the amp rack.


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## SQ_Bronco (Jul 31, 2005)

Maybe it’s the narrative style but I feel like you are on fast forward  like, “today I did… {this and that and 5 other things that each would usually take a week}.”

anyway this is awesome, thanks for sharing!


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## JohnnyOhh (Feb 19, 2015)

dude..... i'm saying this guy is legit! so fun to watch.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

SQ_Bronco said:


> Maybe it’s the narrative style but I feel like you are on fast forward  like, “today I did… {this and that and 5 other things that each would usually take a week}.”
> 
> anyway this is awesome, thanks for sharing!


Honestly, that's because this is all I'm doing right now. A lot gets done when you can devote 6-10 hours a day to a build.

With that said today I worked on the amp rack. I didn't get nearly as far as I wanted to and I forgot to take a bunch of pictures. With all the missing pictures I can't really describe what I'm doing so all I can say is a 3/8 roundover bit bit the dust. It'll make sense tomorrow when the rack comes together.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Feeling under the weather today so I won't be working on anything. I got the amp rack most of the way welded up. I still need to design how the rack mounts to the car and see if I have enough room to mount the DSP and fuse blocks to the rack. I really hope I do but if I don't it's not a huge problem - just more work. You can see how I machined the uprights to mimic the shape of the case. Some of my amps have seen better days and I would like to get them re-coated eventually.


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## nyquistrate (Apr 17, 2011)

Neat. Get some rest


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

This will probably be the last update until December. My contracting season kicks off any day now and I will be on the road for the next 8-12 weeks. This past two weeks I've had customer projects coming in the shop that took my attention. That and I have an 88 f250 351w that I've been trying to get fixed up to flip. My current truck is a 93 f150 302. It's served me well, but I've overloaded the leafs too many times that now they don't support a ton of weight, even with air shocks on the back. That happens when you throw 3500lbs in the bed a few times a year every year! As is the truck has basically been relegated to farm duty... What I'm hoping is that with truck prices as high as they are, I can flip this f250, sell my f150, and then put another 3k in and get dodge/12or24v. I don't want or need a newer truck, but I need something with overdrive that can handle the abuse. The 88 f250 would be perfect but it's a 4x4/c6. Not good for highway driving.


Anyway, I "finished" the mlv on the floors. The gray up front is factory 1/2lb foam bonded mlv. There was more in the car, but I took it out and replaced it with the heaver 1lb. I left that area because I cannot get it out or replace it without pulling the dash and hvac. I may do that later to load up the firewall, but for now it stays.

I ran out of HV66 later in the day or else I would have completely finished the main cabin What I have left is the rear seat deck and waterfall and the rocker ledges. Working with the MLV has been such a pain in the ass that I don't think I'll ever do it ever again. The working window of HV66 is tight. MLV cannot be formed or creased in any way. It doesn't form to any shapes period. The car is WAY more quiet, but holy hell, what an overall nightmare.

I have more HV66 being delivered wednesday but I could potentially ship out any day now so I thought I would put the car back in a usable state for the wife to drive while I'm away. If I get the f250 done, I may come back and get the horns mounted or finish the MLV or work on the rear sub trim and grills.



















All this said, I do have a question for anyone reading: Has anyone worked with 2-part expanding foam for cavity filling? I'm looking at filling up the rear quarter area between the subs and trim. I could probably stuff it with rockwool, but I think I might want to foam it instead. I also want to fill the area under the center console and around the shifter. Those will probably get just rockwool. This car has a LOT of dead space underneath panels for "weight savings"

Also, I've been thinking about it and I think I'm going to see if I can find a PG cyclone. If I'm going to be cutting out the rear parcel shelf, I might as well put a cyclone on it as well for those sweet sweet infrasonics. I have plenty of amp channels to spare, or I could swap out a set of the 4-ohm MB8s for 2ohms and get a spare 2-channels that way.


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## lithium (Oct 29, 2008)

I've stuffed cavities with denim insulation per a build log from @keep_hope_alive 2014 Accord Sport SQ Build keep_hope_alive

Rockwool could work as well I guess. With that kinda of fiber in the car you could consider wrapping it in some plastic drop cloth...

here's my coupe for some ideas 2015 Honda Accord Coupe - Build Log


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

That product looks great. Unfortunately it's out of stock..... everywhere. 

I was thinking something like this, maybe: acoustic focused blow-in insulation. It's in stock and on sale. I just don't know if it is loose or if it's mat that gets chopped during the blow-in process.


https://www.lowes.com/pd/US-Greenfiber-SANCTUARY-by-Greenfiber-R-60-Blown-In-Insulation-Sound-Barrier/5001939515


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## lithium (Oct 29, 2008)

That looks promising but if its superloose its going to end up everywhere. Atleast the denim product was more of a matt that held together. 

You can get denim insulation here: Quiet Batt™ 30 Premium Soundproofing Insulation - Batt Insulation | Soundproof Cow


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

I'm back and starting on the car and other customer projects.

I decided I didn't want to cut the floor of the trunk out of the car and wasn't 100% happy with how the amp rack was turning out so I decided to throw it in the scrap bin and try something else. Here's some photos of that.


























































Two racks built. One more to make that'll hold custom fuse blocks and maybe the DSP(s?) It'll be a couple days before I build the next rack - I have some anti-theft fasteners on order that need to show up and a couple customer projects I need to get built.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

3rd rack done for now. Time for customer parts.


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## nyquistrate (Apr 17, 2011)

pwnt by pat said:


> 3rd rack done for now. Time for customer parts.
> 
> View attachment 316405


I always appreciated the boldness of overhead racks.


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## Jheitt142 (Dec 7, 2011)

hoe my gawd! 

I too love that GN and LOVE where you have put the 15's

I clicked because i saw rubicons, what an amazing project.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Some customer work:






















I had about 5 hours today to work on the car so here's what I got done. I had to mill some slots in the rack to facilitate RCA and power lead access.















The genesis is wider at the front and narrower at the back. I build all the racks the same width to make the headliner trim panel easier to build. I originally was going to float the racks on the mounting bolts and jamb nuts, but after cruising around a couple days with the racks in the car and a couple of amps mounted I decided that's not really the best idea. So I machined up some spacers to load the mounting bolts in tension and steady the racks. And these are the style of antit-theft bolts I'm using to secure the amps to the rack and rack to the car.














All the amps bolted in the car. I'm going to drive around again with everything mounted up to see if I need to make any more changes to the racks - reinforce them further or secure them to the car better. They will come back out one more time. I still need to do more deadening on the roof before they go up for good.
































Plenty of headroom


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Got a little more work on the car today. Nothing done and kind of bounced around a little bit.

Following JL808's rockwool results I started stuffing. So far I only have the front and rear windshield boxes done. I will need to do the side pillars and side roof boxes. Just stuffing the windshield boxes was almost 10 hours worth of work. The difference it makes on a tap test on the inside of the car is a little less ringing, but on the outside... Holy hell. What a difference tapping on the sheet metal. That'll make a huge difference for wind resonance. 














































When I finished stuffing the rears, a new short shifter I ordered back in April finally showed up, so it was a fight to get that in. It's still not it - but only because the previous owner of the car lost some of the parts internally in the shifter mount base. So tomorrow morning I need to go to the junkyard 45 minutes away to get a new shifter assembly because the lost replacement parts cannot be ordered individually. The old shifter isn't machined right and has a ton of side-to-side slop and rattled like a box of macaroni at highway speed.








x`













After being shut down by previous owner incompetence and with only a little extra time tonight I started on some dead-pedal / midbass grill mocking up. I just got the first frame kind of bent up. I needed to get a lot more steel than I bought. For some reason I thought 4 ft would be enough. Turns out I need at least 16ft. I am moving the dead pedal up closer to the clutch position for more comfortable driving. The factory dead pedal was really low and not super comfortable when cruising. The entire footwell will be framed up as the midbass is way wider than the dead pedal area. I'm going to have it bolt to the firewall and kick panel area. I'm also going to be capturing the dead panel plastic so it doesn't vibrate from the midbass drive in the floor.

Also, I am going to be building an identical pedal for the passenger side for consistency.




















On a final note, with the floor being deadened, isolated, and blocked, the tire noise is now obscene. As such, I've ordered some Second Skin spectrum and bedliner to coat the insides of the wheel wells with. And it looks like I'm going to have to remove the dash out to MLV the firewall and front wheel wells. I was only able to get to the top of the floor mat when I last worked on the car.


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## Theslaking (Oct 8, 2013)

I just came across this build. Fantastic.

To answer your question, which may no longer need an answer. I have used two part foam and ruined a trunk lid doing it the first time. It had enough relief holes but the cavities it had to travel were so narrow it slowed and dammed itself. It has no problem pushing steel aside as it solidifies.
Have used it since with good success.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Hey thanks.

I was thinking foam for filling the large cavities around the sub to trim and inside the center console and behind other trim pieces. 
I think I've found a better idea: I'm going to order a cheap memory foam mattress or several cheap memory foam pillows. They expand super easy, don't have a lot of expansion force, and most importantly don't make a mess.


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## Theslaking (Oct 8, 2013)

The loctite expanding foam isn't awful. It's considerably more dense than the others. Still messy. 

However that memory foam is a great idea.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Yeah was thinking about using marine hull foam. I figured there would be a learning curve. I didn't need it for any mass loading though. It's entirely for vibration dampening and killing cavity resonance. I think the memory foam should work really well in that regard.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Todays update. First and foremost: dog-tax. Thought I'd have the dogs hang out in the shop with me this afternoon. They just wanted to sit in the car all afternoon.... Not hang out and sunbathe or watch the chickens, geese, and cows....


















So I got the shifter fixed. This is what a 45 minute drive each way and $125 in parts gets you. Thanks Hyundai for not itemizing part numbers for individual purchase. I was not going to spend $550 on three o-rings and a rubber boot but I am tired of my shifter rattling like a monkey with maracas. Now I have to figure out a way to get the slop out of the slip section of the driveshaft to kill that noise. It might be an $1800 new driveshaft fix 












Anyway, after the shifter debacle was finished I started working for real on the driver side midbass driver grill. I will have a trim shop sew up a nice cloth cover and maybe re-attach the factory tread plate to the dead pedal. The assembly only mounts off a single m6 stud at the top of the dead-pedal. I will secure the gas pedal side with some velcro. The single m6 is enough because the way the carpet is trimmed for the midbass makes the grill recess into the carpet. It's actually a friction fit and the stud is just to keep it from moving in case of an accident.

I did end up scrapping the part I built yesterday. After driving around with it it was a little too high. I needed to taper it towards the driver as I ended up just resting my foot on the corner by the clutch pedal. This one might be a little low, but it's still a little higher than factory, so that's something.

The way the Genesis kick and dead pedal assembly is set up is the factory dead pedal uses this single m6 and the kick panel cover just free-floats. nothing secures it from vibrating. I build a trough in to my grill so that I can pack the trough with OCF and slide the kick panel cover in to secure and isolate it. This way I can also pack foam behind the cover to reduce cavity resonance in that area.
























































Here's the plan for the next couple of days:
I have 3 gallons of fiber filler being delivered on Thursday. I want to have the midbass grills and headliner ready to go to the trim shop on Monday. So tomorrow I'll be building the drivers side midbass grill first thing. Then I have to re-build the front "amp rack" that will house the power distribution and DSP. I forgot to take in to consideration sun visor pockets in the headliner so I need to take about 3 inches off the length of the rack. Then I have to build the DSP and distribution panels. Then I have to reinforce the rear and mid racks to the roof a little better. They're plenty strong but vibrate slightly at certain RPMS and I'd rather just knock that out. The front rack I can isolate with melamine foam, but I'm going to PL some brackets to the roof support bars and screw the racks in to them. The wife and I are doing thanksgiving on Friday, so getting everything done by monday will be tight; most of the struggle will be with the roof trim panel.

I said before I have some spectrum being delivered.... eventually. I have 5 gallons on order. I'm debating on spraying the roof. I think I'm going to order some resonix and cover the roof in that as well. The car is pretty loud without a headliner and the killmat just isn't cutting it for resonance deadening. I want to use the resonix on the trunk too as I have a very loud exhaust on the car that needs killed as well.

So should I spray the roof and resonix? or spray or resonix? I also have 1.5" thinsulate to go up there as well.


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## lithium (Oct 29, 2008)

I believe most decent CLD will outperform a spray on deadener. The spray on stuff might be useful for added mass but as a dampener its kinda **** by comparison. To block noise you need a barrier. To control panel resonance you need CLD. Resonix CLD is probably the best CLD we access to. They also sell a lead barrier that you might want to consider if MLV isn't compatible.

For the headliner you want to deaden with CLD (resonix CLD would be best) then add some absorption if there is air space above the headliner. The spray on stuff sounds like a giant mess.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Right. Right. I was thinking I'll have plenty so maybe it would be worth the time spraying some up there. Then add cld. I have 1.5" thick thinsulate for the absorbtion above the headliner. 

Is there anything out there that makes a decent blocking barrier for the roof? Like .25lb mlv or something?


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## lithium (Oct 29, 2008)

barrier performance largely based on weight per given area. So 1/8th MLV is 1lb/sq, 1/64" lead sheet is also 1 lb/sq so both would perform about the same. You need to isolate the barrier from the panel to prevent transmission structurally. Resonix has a lead sheet and closed cell foam encapsulated product. 

Truthfully, not sure how much airborne sound is coming in through the roof. I would presume little compared to areas like the kick panels, doors, floor, etc. I would just deaden and then add adsorption as you planned.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

The problem with 1/8 mlv on the roof is supporting it. Actually since I have the racks up there I probably could put a sheet of mlv up there and be just fine. The only places that would be unsupported would be up by the sun visors, which would probably be fine.

There's actually a decent amount of noise coming from the roof. The skin is not really well supported in this car. I guess I'll see what it's like after deadening and isolating. Once everything is wired up it will be a giant pain in the ass to go back and add more if it's not enough. I'm really trying to avoid that situation.

There actually is a ton of noise that comes through the kick enclosures right now. I am going to spray and CLD the insides of them. I'm hoping once I cut the IB vent they won't resonate as badly.


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## Theslaking (Oct 8, 2013)

1/64 lead sheet could be fastened more easily.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Breaking for lunch. Got the passenger side grill done. It doubles to move the foot rest closer to the passenger, which is a complaint I have when the wife is driving and I'm riding shotgun. After lunch I get started on fixing the power distro and DSP rack


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## steelwindmachine (May 15, 2017)

really awesome project! Looking forward to the finished install as I'm sure you are too!


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

I did not get far with the front rack. I got the welding modifications done. I had ordered some black plastic to use to mount the DSP and distro blocks. I think it was HDPE. Well I ended up miscutting one piece and scrapping it. The second piece I got worked in but I'm not real happy with it. The finish on the HDPE is not great. I tried DA sanding the scrapped piece to see if I can restore the luster and it only got cloudy. So I am thinking I'm going to have to ditch the plastic all-together. I think I'll go get some MDF tomorrow and work with that instead. I was really trying to avoid using wood in in this build but it is what it is. 

I was frustrated scaping $75 worth of plastic so I went and did some maintenance on some of the shop equipment and swept up a little.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Some pictures from the last couple days and this morning. The family did thanksgiving so those two days were mostly cooking, but I did get a couple hours to myself each day.


So I don't have a router table. I'm a man of quality and antique machine tools. If I go buy one I'm going to try and find a 50-100 year old cast iron model, not a plastic hobby machine. I don't really need a router table as once I'm done with the little bit of router work I have to do, I won't need one again. Therefore, I had to build my own. 

I had purchased a router table adapter plate in anticipation for doing this build. I also have a ton of plywood. One and one makes two. I did mess up the first recessed insert because the bit walked in the router.











I have an older Ryobi router that didn't fit the plate. I've had it for over 10 years now and bought it when I first started messing with speaker box building in my youth. It didn't fit, so I modified the plate to get it to bolt up.











After eye-balling the center and bolting it up I realized it wasn't centered on the plate. None of the bolt holes came close to centering it. So I had to machine a sleeve adapter center the router in to the cast bore of the plate. If I didn't need to use some router guide pins I wouldn't have bothered centering it but the plate has the mounting point for the guide pins centered to the cast plate bore. So here's that adapter and how it works.


























































Perfect. 

There's about .010" slop, which is fine. The cast bore isn't exactly perfectly round and I didn't feel like re-machining the plate bore. Plus it's only .010" It'll be fine.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

And here's what I have done so far today. I re-did the HDPE insert with wood and started machining on the power distribution system. The wood is about 1/16" smaller than the frame on each side for fitting some kind of wrap. Vinyl, alcantara, or jut headliner material. I haven't made up my mind.


For power distribution I'll have 8 leads going to a single 1/0 for power and ground. The other two blocks are wire guides just for keeping the wires elevated inside the plexi window I'm going to be making. For the individual fuse receptacle blocks, I'm robbing those from a set of old Phoenix gold distro blocks. I originally wanted to use 4 of these fuse blocks but I only had two and couldn't find another pair. 

These will be getting nickel-plated at a semi-local plating shop. I'll be taking the under-hood 1/0 terminal piece for plating as well, if I don't just replace it with an off-the-shelf available battery terminal.


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## JohnnyOhh (Feb 19, 2015)

this log makes me think to myself, ... hey you should just do a lot of your upcoming building using metal instead of wood.... it looks so straightforward, look at this guy..... then i realize i have basically zero metal working skills.

@pwnt by pat you make it look easy, looks great!



pwnt by pat said:


> Breaking for lunch. Got the passenger side grill done. It doubles to move the foot rest closer to the passenger, which is a complaint I have when the wife is driving and I'm riding shotgun. After lunch I get started on fixing the power distro and DSP rack


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Lol thanks. In my opinion metal working is easier than working with wood, but it's much slower and more labor intensive and the tools required are a lot more expensive. 

With wood all your cuts and preps need to be perfect. With metal, for the most part, close enough is good enough and you can fill any gaps with weld.

I would have used more wood but stuff like somehow sealing MDF baffles to the floor has me completely stumped.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

So here's where I got to today. I should have the headliner finished and to the trim shop tomorrow. I forgot to get a picture of the headliner in the car before adding the filler panels.




































Don't judge too hard on the quality of the work applying filler in the last picture. This is all fiber-reinforced Evercoat Everglass. Because it's overhead I had to apply it hot and do it in several layers in some spots. And there's some spots, like blending in the radius on the rubicon amps, where I was just gooping it on so it would retain some strength while I pull it off as it's a bit thin. It's a lot nicer looking in person than appear in the pictures.

I will still have another layer of filler after I get it out of the car and smooth out the rough and saggy spots. The area by the back glass has some hard shapes and the fiberboard doesn't like making complex curves so I'll probably be dumping a bunch of fiberfill on the back side and knocking the shape down hard to get the final shape I want. Then I'll drop a single layer of biaxial weave fiberglass over everything to strengthen it up.

The DSP and power sections I was going to cut before-hand, but after working with the board I figured if I cut the windows out then I wouldn't be able to get the flexing shape I wanted. I'm probably going to have to work the rack again on the passenger side to get the minidsp to sink higher up in to the roof. It's way taller than I was hoping it would be. I might be able to get away with mounting it on a 1/8th aluminum plate welded to the back-side of the rack and not putting a wooden filler board underneath it. I'll approach that once I get the headliner done and see how much room I have to work with.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Well I ****ed up. I didn't remove the foam from the headliner. I hoped the filler would bond through the foam. When I went to drop the headliner this morning half of it fell apart. The center board fell out completely. A lot of the filler didn't cure. 

It might have been too cold and too humid last night (despite being above 50 degrees overnight). It was an absolute mess. Thankfully enough held together I could dig out the bad filler, grind out a lot of good filler and grind away the foam, and re-fill a lot of areas. There was enough good filler that the front and rear shapes were retained. Had they fallen apart enough to loose shape then I would have had to re-do everything.

I had to work in stages digging out small sections of bad area and refilling with good area. Then as there became more-and-more good areas I could chunk out larger swaths of bad area. After 6 hours of work I'm now almost at a point where I can put the headliner back in the car and re-fill the areas to flush out near the amps and re-attach the center rib. I might fiberglass that one directly in the car to avoid it separating again when I pull it out. I was going to biaxial weave everything but I only had about 1sq ft left. So a layer of 10oz chop mat should be just fine.

Obviously I have a little more foam to remove. I'll be glassing all the sides to add rigidity but I won't be glassing any farther forward than I have otherwise the headliner won't fit back in the car. It needs to fold or flex a little to fit through the door way. It was designed to be installed before the windshield goes in the car. I still have to re-add a spot for the hands-free microphone to clip back in.


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## Theslaking (Oct 8, 2013)

pwnt by pat said:


> sealing MDF baffles to the floor has me completely stumped.


For future reference, PL400.

I like where the headliner is going.


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## preston (Dec 10, 2007)

I love a lot of what you're doing, but when I see that headliner project and nickel plating your terminals feel like this is you


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

LOL thanks. 

Honestly I'm open to suggestions and input. I haven't done any kind of headliner job like this ever and I only typically deal with metal in my shop. I'm not an interior guy nor am i experienced with woodworking. The only skill I have experience with is body filling and finishing and fiberglassing.

In your opinion, what would have been an easier way to do the headliner? There's big gaps to fill between the amps with no support locations except the amp spoiler standoffs. And the front hardboard section will have to be cutout to expose the dsp and fuse system.


As far as the nickel plating is concerned, that's because aluminum oxidation is nasty. Raw aluminum develops a powdered oxidation almost immediately. That and mixing the raw aluminum with whatever finish is on the fuses and ferrules I'll be using is just begging for galvanic corrosion. The plating is just to keep the corrosion down.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

I'm never doing a headliner again. Not unless it's a flat roofed car. 

So no in-progress pictures. I was too gross and messy to take any. This is two days worth of glassing, filling, fitting, retworking, etc etc. Yesterday I finished getting all the foam stripped and continued glassing, blending, filling, and smoothing. I didn't want to risk the center rib falling out of place again and the cardboard headliner backer on the sides was starting to get a bit fragile, so I decided to glass the rest of the headliner in the car. I worked with small patches instead of a giant sheet.

While the headliner was back in the car added the fiber-filler to the boards where they overlap the amps again to give me a good box-in shape. I knew the rear-most section of hard board was hanging down below the amp-height and that needed reworked. When I first set it up there I only held it to the radius side of the amps with double-sided tape. Between the filling and moving it sagged a little. To remedy this I threw a bunch of filler up between the amp and the board to show me the clearance between the amps and board. Then when I had the liner out of the car again I added a ton of filler to the backside of the headliner and smoothed it out to the indentation formed by the filler in-car. Then on the visible side I ground away at the glass and hardboard layer and reprofiled the shape. You can see in the second picture I went all the way in to the filler I added. I kept the edge height consistent all the way across the board so I know when I clean up the cover layer of glass it will all be at the right height. I also added a second layer of glass to the center board, again, just to help keep it from breaking off. It's still very flexible and will set to the proper shape when It goes back in place. Hopefully.

Tomorrow I have a bit more body work to do on the headliner, but it's getting very very close to complete. I will probably have to do body filler on the center rib overhead, in place, to make sure it holds proper shape when it's out of the car. I don't know how smooth it needs to be for the upholstery shop: probably not perfect but I'd still like to work it better than not at all. I'll also probably cut the distro and DSP access windows out before putting it back in as well.

One thing I need to come up with is how to secure the wood panels to the amps. I was thinking of bonding magnets to the back side of the headliner but the more think about it the more I want something a little more robust. Magnets could squeak, and by screwing the amps to the headliner I can help kill some panel resonance. I think I'm going to stick with screws in the the amps spoiler mounts, but I'll need to come up with a decorative way to cover the screw heads. Maybe there exists a small cloth button that'll go over the screws? Or a small trip clip cover that the screw holds in place. I'll have to see what I can find.


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## Theslaking (Oct 8, 2013)

Wrap/paint small magnets and stick them to the screw heads


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

That's kind of what I was thinking. I might be able to get them wrapped in the same fabric as the headliner.

Something like this is what I was thinking otherwise. But the screws are 6-32, so it would have to be smaller









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## Theslaking (Oct 8, 2013)

Snap caps are good too. I like it.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Finished headliner ready for trim shop. You might notice the cutout for the power and DSP has changed slightly. More on that later.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

The last few days I've been working on customer projects in the shop. I did manage to squeeze a couple of hours in today to make the under headliner beauty trim that will cover the front DSP and power sections. This will mount to the power/dsp rack sections and will sandwich under the headliner to conceal the open area around that rack section. I MIGHT build in vertical shroud sections after I test fit it to the rack and see how it looks in the car. The rack will be powdercoated black so hopefully not much will be visible. I will probably give this a brush finish and a flat clear powder coat.














You'll notice there's three holes in the beauty panel and yet from my other posts I only talk about power and a mini-dsp going up there. Well, today I received two pieces of history that are going in to this old-school styled install. In other posts on this forum I was asking about L-R/SRS injection for stereo widening on the drivers-side drivers with the mini-dsp. Turns out that's not really possible. Well I figured out how I wanted to solve that issue and here's what I came up with and what showed up. And honestly, no old-school build is complete without some audiocontrol products.























Now I do have two more pieces that I want to add to the build to finish off the dream equipment status of the build. The only down side is they're extremely expensive and I probably won't be able to afford them until spring.


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## mfenske (Feb 7, 2006)

I'm very interested in that ESP3. Any desire to sell?


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Lol not one bit. I just purchased it last week and it arrived yesterday. The only way I would get rid of it is to trade for an esp2. If you dm me I can put you in touch with a guy that has an esp3 but no remote. And unfortunately they don't work without the remote. 

Maybe if you gave me some time to reverse engineer the remote AND I covered what I paid for the epicenter and esp.... hah


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

So I've been thinking, and I could use some input on this decision:

I've been thinking about putting in some led lighting. I think i would only want to do white lights. I could very easily do edge lit acrylic around the subwoofer grills when I make those and the would be fine. I could do the same around the DSP/power windows with ease. I couldn't do full surround around the amps due to the shape of the Rubicon amps. I'm not sure I would want to. What I could do is edge lighting along the sides of the amps from the front to back of the car, but I'm not sure how I like that. 

I'm not sure I want to go through with it for something the might be a bit gaudy, but it would be nice to have some extra "dome" lighting when the doors are open. I definitely don't want to go over the top. One of my main goals with the build design was keeping things totally stealth.

I don't think I would do just around the sub grills alone. I think if I did it on the roof the sides of the amps might not be enough to look right. I do not know.

Anyone have any thoughts?


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Merry christmas. I got the best present: a couple of days to work on the car again.

cat tax










So I've been driving with the headliner in place. Everything looked good except for one spot on the very back. It's a minor gap, about 1/16. But it was upsetting me so I did another round of filling and shaping to that spot. Now the gap is closed. I still have to straighten a couple edges and I have one low spot to fill in that I messed up fixing the gap.































Next I did a little bit with the dsp and power distribution rack cover. I had everything shaped on the bench but you always have to make some adjustments based on how things look in place.





















After I got the panel modified I bent it on the press brake to match the shape of the rack. This is the trimmed panel after opening up a couple of the windows in a couple spots.






















Finally I formed and welded some mounting tabs to mount the trim panel on. The panel will be secured with rivnuts and isolated from the amp rack and headliner with foam on both sides. The rivnuts will mount outside the headliner reveal to they will be hidden. I still need to machine up some 1/4 spacers for the mini-dsp to bring it closer to the panel but so far its looking good.
























After another round of test-fitting all I will have left is to make some mounts for rca and power leads to secure to, drill and tap to mount the epicenter and ESP3, and mill one slot on the power-side for the 1/0 to exit the rack.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

It doesn't looks like much changed but this took all day to accomplish. It took milling, forming, shaping, lathe work, and several fits in the car with the headliner being dropped between fit. After all that the front rack is now 99% done. What's left to finish is some small locating spacers for the rack to the roof rails and I need to re-make the power block one more time. Centered on the rack frame ended up not being centered or squared to the window. Oh well. I would have gotten a picture of it in the car but it got too dark out to get a good picture.


Other than that the other two racks need to have cable support rails added on and center roof attachments put in. After that, all the roof work is DONE! I'm so ready to move on to another step of this project.


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## knever3 (Mar 9, 2009)

Wow love it! Are you planning on some new SS amps or getting those redone?


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

I would like to get these redone and re-powder coated. They're probably all due for re-capping. It would probably be worthwhile doing whatever upgrades can be done as well . I could recap then and have them coated but I don't know where to get the silkscreen files or where to even get that done.

I would like to get the install finished and make sure all the amps work before I consider repair or replace though. None of these amps have seen use in over a decade - some probably twice that. 

Today was two steps backwards. I was great fitting the DSP rack and messing with using magnets to hold the headliner up and the whole thing dropped in my head and one of the sides broke. So I spent some time this afternoon fixing that and adding a layer of glass inside the head liner to help support it. I also had to glass the front lip by the windshield. It was getting pretty beat up pulling the headliner in and out of the car. It's quite a struggle doing so.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

I tried to spray the fender wells out with SS spectrum today. It started with a degrease and pressure wash. I might have sprayed too thick but it's humid as hell right now and even the lightly coated areas weren't curing very quickly. 3 hrs to dry for the first layer. Second layer got sprayed and I called it a night. Between the two layers I'm probably just over a gallon in.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

So I have three cars coming in for work this weekend so this will be the last update on the car for a couple weeks probably.

I finished up with the fender wells yesterday. 2.5 gallons of spectrum in 4 layers is what it took. The final layer was one entire quart bottle per wheel well (minus about a cup and a half of slop at the bottom of the bottle.

Today I put the wheel liners back in. I need to replace the rear liners due to wear and the the front passenger because it was missing. I have some resonix foam CCF and CLD on the way and some spray-on bedliner waiting for the spectrum to cure. I'll get some new liners ordered and when the bedliner is cured, all the new liners will go in and get isolated with the CCF. I've been fighting a fender liner squeak for a few months now and that should take care of it for good. I also have to get some new hardware for securing the fender liners to the car.

SS says spectrum gets better after a couple days. I hope so. So far I'm not super impressed but every little bit helps. I have not driven with it yet either, and I'm trying not to until I can get some bedliner on it. I live down a long gravel driveway and just leaving to go to the road could damage the spectrum right now.





































So I also had ordered these expanding foam packs a couple months back. I bought these to insulate behind the front electrical connection bulkhead and behind the seat belt spool. Those areas open up completely to the a and b pillars and I'd like to pack those areas with rockwool. These foam packs are made for shipping packages and are high expansion ratio / low expanding force foam. Because of that they won't damage any outside area sheet metal they'll come in contact with. The shape of the picture below is just from the pack expanding in my hands while testing the force.













But I found anther use for it.



The IDW subs vent to the trunk through the rear quarters and through the rockers. After looking at the fender liner design in the rear I think I'm going to open the IDW's up to outside atmosphere. I'm planning on making the cut's I'll complete when I do the bedliner spraying. In order to cut off airflow to the trunk and rockers I can use these foam packs. They're OCF, which isn't great, but with a direct vent to atmosphere the pressure on the foam packs should be pretty low. They're also lined in plastic which will help prevent air movement. I think it'll be fine. So I crammed a couple of these packs in the crevices and popped them open and let them blow. Now the sub areas are completely sealed off. Pictures are of the drivers side from inside the sub flange but the passenger side got the same treatment.






























This also does a couple other things for me. When I mount the rear fill on the rear deck it'll help isolate air-spaces. It also lets me fill the rocker cavities with rockwool. Those things have been resonating like crazy while driving.


Once I get some of the work coming in the shop out-the-door then I'll be blowing apart the entire interior again, using the rest of the spectrum on the roof and trunk (loud exhaust), and start trying to wrap some bits of the install up.


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## Jscoyne2 (Oct 29, 2014)

I have a few ideas for those expanding things too but they are always really expensive. Did you find a good price?

Have you driven it? Did the sludge help?

Sent from my LM-Q730 using Tapatalk


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

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These are what I ordered. They are expensive for what they are. I will have quite a few left over. I only used 10 out of the $57 36-pack so far.


I have not driven with the spectrum yet. It's still only 24 hrs into it's 48 hour initial cure time. I would like to not drive it until I can get bedliner sprayed over it and SS says to give it 10 days before you top coat it.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Today is the day to bedliner the wheel wells. I still haven't driven the car. Two coats of bedliner and she's done. To anyone who is doing this, order (4) 24oz bottles if using the spray-on stuff. I thought two bottles would be enough and even with light coats I had the first bottle done before I finished the second wheel well. I had to go to the local paint supply store and buy another kit that was obscenely expensive to get the second coat on.

What I will say is moving the car from the car-port to the shop down the gravel drive and I couldn't hear the tires cutting through the gravel anymore. Granted, I was going very slow to not kick up dust or rocks in to the spectrum, but if that's any indication of the results of the spectrum them I will be very very pleased. The only thing I was judging before was the panels I welded in to the fenders for the in-the-floor midbass. I was giving her the old knock test, and the sound of that piece of steel didn't change drastically. That might be due to the resonance of the cavity itself. We will see. I still am going to spectrum inside the cavity and applying some CLD as well.

If you look at the brake hard-lines you can see how much material has been added overall. The brake lines in this car are not coated or reinforced. What you see is just added material.






































Here's two of the five cars I've been working on in the last two weeks. 73 caprice LS/4l80e twin turbo swap. 98 integra GSR big turbo. Not shown: turbo MR2, 53 GMC pickup with a 70-nova front clip grafted to the truck frame and 10-bolt rear end swap, and 370z twin turbo


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

I just took the car for a quick test drive. I know the bedliner isn't cured yet so I was gentle. 

Holy hell the difference is incredible. It's night and day. It's indescribable how much spraying the wheel wells helped. There's very little tire noise now and only when going over rough sections in the asphalt. 

What I hear driving over small bumps and rutts now it's mostly suspension noise. Unfortunately with the case being on coilovers there's not much I can do about that. I have some heavy duty anti fatigue matt I could use to try and isolate the front struts with. They're the worst offender as the top bearings are spherical joints and have zero compliance. 

I also plan on putting some cld on the fender liners and ccf on the attachment points. There's also a very large cavity behind the fender liner leading to the top of the fender by the a-pillar and door jamb that I think I'll fill with bagged memory foam.

I'm going to end up putting the the rest of the spectrum on the trunk floor, rear quarters, rear seat area and roof. If I have any left I'll pull the mlv and do the main floor. I don't think I'll have that much remaining. I have about 2-2.5 gallons left and I bet the trunk is going to swallow most of that.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

It's been a while since I have been able to work on the car. I have had a very busy spring with work. Normally my work season ends at the end of May and doesn't begin until the beginning of September. This year, however, I will be working straight through summer. I was given two weeks off for a vacation and have a couple days I can use to play with the car. Since I only have a couple of days I was looking at things I can actually knock out and cross off the list of stuff to do. 

I wanted to get the rear trim for the IDW's done. I need to make a foam-guard to keep the memory foam off of the subs, but I can't make the guard until I know where the trim is going to be exactly. So I started on that.

It took over half a sheet of 1/2 mdf to make the templates to get where I needed. I had originally started out with a hardboard template which lead to the smallest piece in the picture below. After looking at it in the car I decided to scale it up an inch and I am much happier for it. I now have templates for every size inbetween by 1/4". I have decided I am going to do some acrylic LED work. hopefully the acrylic gets delivered in time for me to finish.













Here you can see the 30 degree lead-in chamfer and the rabbit for fiberglass on the front and vinyl tuck on the back side. I'm currently planning on making a pressed grill with a 45 chamfer popping out of the trim but I will see how a flat one looks first. The plan is to not make the grill removable.








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And here's the trim fit to the factory panels.



























I filled in some of the over-cut area with some plastic strips I will be glassing the ring to the panel, so the strips are just to help hold it's shape while the resin is drying.












And I got some fabric stretched and started the base foundation for the panel. It's rough now but it'll clean up quickly tomorrow.


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## gmack7277 (10 mo ago)

Great work. Enjoyed following a;pmg


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

Get ready for some crappy pictures. I have the rear panels all body-worked. The plexi I ordered didn't get delivered today like it was supposed to, so these won't get completed before I ship out again. Next time I get to work on the car will probably be between thanksgiving and christmas, provided I'm not sent on another assignment after my current one.


I glassed the backside of the t-shirt material for support. Then I got the parts cleaned up and holes drilled and ready for filling.
































Seven hours later and the work is done. There's still two or three tiny spots I'm going to touch up tomorrow because I feel like they'll show through the vinyl. But everything's been DA'd and block sanded. I also decided to sand down the sharp edge leading in to the reveal bevel. It looks much better now I think.



























I regret using the staples I used to hold the fabric to the panel. I've been fighting them all day. And they caused the MDF to split on the backside where I cut the rabbet for the vinyl to wrap around. I ended up having to use the vibratory cutter to trim the back flush at the base of the rabbet and I'll re-cut the vinyl tuck groove in the acrylic piece. Annoying to have to do but ultimately no big deal.


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## mfenske (Feb 7, 2006)

@pwnt by pat those panels look INCREDIBLE so far!


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

So it's been a while. A long while. In my time overseas I have decided that the direction of this project just isn't where I want to be. Times change. People change. And for this project, well.... It cannot continue on it's current path.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

What's changed is I picked up a 2013 bmw x3 that I can use for my daily and now I can sacrifice my trunk space for these bad boys! I have three that I need to try and fit in somehow. I'm hoping I have the room to cut out the rear deck and build a trunk baffle, but I'll most likely have to make a manifold of some sorts.


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## Theslaking (Oct 8, 2013)

If you do a build log with 3 cyclones you'll probably break the internet!


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

It's the only proper way to round out a build with idw subs and horns.

I have either 6 days to work on the car or 6 weeks. I may be going back internally but won't know until maybe Tuesday.

Today I did some work on the amp racks again. There has been some resonance issues with the amps. The racks can handle the weight without issue but are certain rpm and speeds the amps still vibrate. My solution is to secure the racks to the reinforcement panels bonded to the roof. 


A little bit of time on the mill to make some blocks, some screws, and some welding and we're good. There are now 3 brackets on the front of the front rack, 3 connecting the two racks together, and 4 connecting the back rack to the rear windshield box. I'm addition to this I welded the spacers to the side of the rack that stand the racks off from the roof support.

I also added some stand offs to support the front rack as well.

I want to fill in the cutouts on the sides of the rack for where the airbag mounts. I cut them out in case I needed to service the airbags but I realized if I need to service the airbags, then the car is probably done for.


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## dgage (Oct 1, 2013)

Have you seen resilient channel isolation, which is how studios isolate the drywall from the studs to ensure vibrations don‘t transfer? Seems that might apply here for isolation.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

I have not but it's a sound concept. Except in this instance I am using the roof to reduce the vibrations of the rack. 

Here's a video I took showing the difference between u trying the extra mounted versus without. This was after it was just tack welded in place and I hadn't made the rear window anchors yet.



http://imgur.com/a/kYqyvge


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## dgage (Oct 1, 2013)

Nice. Might want to use some rubber bushings/washers when mounting the amps just to try to isolate them from some vibrations but that would be more for internals as I don’t think you’ll get any noise vibration as your video shows. Really nice job!


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

That's the plan. I was actually going to line the entire mounting face with some closed cell weatherstripping. I will be loctiting the screws when it's time for final install. I will probably also use nordlocks as well.

I did a little clean up in the shop, but it's still a mess. Now I'm awaiting a phone call from the boss. If I have 6 weeks 
off then this is my idea of a vacation.










I ordered some equipment upgrades while I was out of country as well. Depending on what news I get I also need to order another package or two of the lead barrier.










Today I'm doing Thanksgiving with the wife so I won't have any real time to play around with the car or shop.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

This last week has been a fabricator's worst nightmare: having to re-make bespoke parts. I was preparing the racks for powder-coating and I dropped the DSP rack and bent it. Unrepairable bent it. I had to remake it from scratch. This wouldn't be so bad, but the headliner was built around it, so it has taken me several days and dozens of test-fits and adjustments to make sure the rack remains centered to the cut out opening of the headliner.

It is, however, a blessing in disguise as the first revision was a path-work of ideas and parts. I wasn't really happy about that but because it was going to be hidden I could have lived with it. The new rack is better designed and allowed me to incorporate a few changes and upgrades I wish I had done with the first rack. One of the upgrades is the sheet metal trim covering: on the first rack it was located and secured by rivnuts to sheet metal tabs. On the new version I used some billet aluminum stock which I'll tap the threads straight in to. The billet stock is a lot more ridged than the sheet metal tabs and will be a lot stronger. I also am able to incorporate some machined tabs that'll mount the cover panel. These will make more sense when everything is final-installed. Remaking the rack also allowed me to correct a slight misalignment between the rack and headliner that I didn't anticipate on the first go-around.












































I also got a chance to start playing with the carpc. It has a very tiny screen and a LOT of I/O. It's an AMD e350 embeded processor with 8gb ram and win7 pro x32. The sound card doesn't have drivers for x64 or win8, but oh well. The screen is pretty coo. It's a 7" lcd with touchscreen capabilities. My dash allowes for both a 7" screen and double-din radio, so I can feed the head unit into the PC, do some pre-processing cool stuff with it, and then pump analog and digital signals out to the mini-dsp. I'll go more in to the software later.


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## pwnt by pat (Mar 13, 2006)

I love wasting $50 worth of polycarbonate. I guess this is yet another part I have to send out for CNC.....













DSP/Fuse rack completed and ready to go to powder-coating tomorrow morning. I'll be tapping threads after powder-coating in all the aluminum standoff slugs.


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## MinnesotaFats13 (Sep 9, 2019)

I've really enjoyed following your journey. Keep up the innovative work.


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