How To - Custom fit estate sub enclosure.

[onlyslightlymad]

As promised in another thread, here is how I made mine.

You will need:

Glass fibre kit - such as this one on ebay which I used.
One 8" or 10" sub
Some 15mm MDF
Some strips of wood or dowel
An old poly/cotton T-shirt or similar
Some acoustic carpet


First things first you need to thoroughly vacuum the left hand cubby hole area, then lay on 2 layers of masking tape, the second layer crossing the first at 90 degrees (or thereabouts), completely covering the area you want to fit the enclosure in to and a bit beyond. Then, it is recomended to stick down a lyer of tin foil as well.

Once that is done, following the instructions in the glass fibre kit lay down your first layer of matting and build up eventually to 4 or 5 layers. Be very carefull not to get the resin anywhere you don't want it as it does not come off easily!



Once it has fully hardened, carefully remove it from the cavity. It will take a lot of pulling and levering to pull it out as the masking tape sticks well to the carpet. If all is well there should be no resin stuck to the carpet. Once out, remove the tape and foil and the cut and trim the backshell to the desired size and shape.



Next, you need to cut yourself a suitable speaker ring out of mdf and mount it to the backshell using hot melt glue and some wooden strips or dowels in the postition you want it.



Once the ring is mounted and the glue has dried you need to stretch out the old T-Shirt over the ring and backshell really tight and using the hot melt glue gun stick it down around the edges. Ensure you stretch out the material properly so as not to get any folds or creases in it.





Next, once the glue holding the material is fully dry, mix up some resin and using a brush soak the material thoroughly and allow to dry fully. Be carefull though not to soak the hole where the speaker will go as it will be a lot harder to cut the material out later.

After the material has dried and gone hard you can cut out the speaker hole and glass up the material with about 4 layers or so of fibreglass as you did for the back shell.

Whilst this is all drying you could run in your speaker cable. I mounted an amp in the right side cubby hole where the CD player used to be



and ran the speaker cable round the back of the boot under the trim and in through a hole in the bottom of the left cubby hole. I terminated the speaker cable there with a male and female connector. In the matching place in the bottom of the sub box I cut out a large circle with a starett cutter and hot glued a plastic aerosol can lid in to the hole so it would sit over the connectors once in place.



Once all the fibreglass has hardened fully all there is left to do is sand down the edges and top surface until you are happy with it and glue down some acoustic carpet. Stretch it nice and tight to avoid wrinkles.

Because the enclosure is smaller than what was required for my sub I filled the enclosure with wadding which artificially enlarges the enclosure by slowing down the sound waves through the enclosure.



Lastly, mount the speaker, cover it with a grill if you want, connect it up and slide in to place and enjoy some better sounds!





This was my first go at fibreglassing and although it is not perfect, it worked and is not that difficult to do, so give it a go! Post up some pics if you do, I'd like to see them.

[gazza190]

Wow mate. That is awesome. Lots of work and great result. Looking to do something similar myself. Must sound much better than the hk stuff

[zero2]

You've done a really good job. That looks awesome.

[Dragrad]

Nice job

And placed here for posterity

[onlyslightlymad]

Originally Posted by Dragrad

Nice job

And placed here for posterity

Cheers!

[Blackwatch]

That looks very nice indeed I may do something similar in mine However I will also retrim the entire boot so it looks more flush / factory. I am also toying with the idea of using the empty spare wheel well. Mount the sub in a fibre glass tub with 15mm Lid with three amps and a power cap above where the tyre compressor normally goes.

It is going to be a project that could take a few months as I'll have to but the bits first.

But my thinking is Focal mids and tweeters up front Audiobahn 16.5s in the rear doors just for fill and a 15" bin in the boot. I would run the focals off a 2 ch amp the Audiobahns off another 2 ch amp and the sub off a mono block Vibe amp. Then to keep it steady I will run a 1 farad cap and a second battery hidden in the side.

[MG Tom]

Top work, well done.