[LJZ]

I have finally got around to finishing my long awaited sub box which I have been dying to make since I bought all my DD gear a few months ago.
Here is a quick write up of the build with pictures along the way.

I chose to use Digital Designs gear because I have done a lot of research and found it to be the highest quality, it may cost a bit but certainly worth it.
I Put in a Clarion 7" touch a few months ago but other than that the rest of the gear is DD.

Front speakers;
DDAW6.5 - 150WRMS @ 4 ohm

Amp (sub);
DDCM1 - 1000WRMS @ 1 ohm

Amp (speakers)
DDC2b - 120WRMS @ 4 ohm

Sub's
2 x DD512 - 300WRMS / 1200MAX


To start with I made a cardboard cut-out of the boot floor, I made it as large as possible becuase this box needed to have huge volume because I was using 12" subs in a ported box.
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I transferred this shape onto 18mm MDF board (I used 18mm for the whole box) and fit it neatly into the boot space
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It was a huge pain to cut around the rear struts because this was going to reduce the total litrage by quite a lot.
[attachment=1509:PA070119.JPG]

The first to go up was the backing wall
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Trying to work out all the angles for the box was a nightmare from this point onwards because the box was on a slope to match the Supra’s rear hatch.
Not only did the cuts need to slope lengthways down the car but because of the rear struts they also had to slope widthways away from centre.
This took many, many, many nights to get my head around and subsequently I couldn’t be bothered taking pictures of this painstaking process.

This is once I had glued, screwed and no more gaps all the sides of the box together and fit into the boot... like a glove
[attachment=1514:PA260017.JPG]
As you can see from the inside I didn't leave a huge amount of room to work with. Keep in mind that there is still 18mm MDF to go on top of that plus 6mm MDF as the cover plate. Snug as a bug in a rug
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Front ports
[attachment=1516:PA310021.JPG]

I wanted to fit the 2 subs and the 2 amps into the face of the box, so as you could imagine there wasn't a lot of room to play with. careful measuring was needed to ensure that everything fit neatly as well as having maximum litrage & sound performance
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Once the measuring was done it was time to drill the holes and cut out the shapes. loads of fun :ok:
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As part of the design the amps would be recessed into the box with blue neon’s lighting up the front sides of the amps. Neon’s
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After sizing up the faceplates and fitting the recesses putting the amp and sub in to see that it fits
[attachment=1525:IMAG0006.jpg]

Now the wiring... man this was a bigger job than I thought.
I previously ran 0 gauge wire from the battery with a 200amp ANL fuse into the boot and connected it to an "Anderson" clip (quick disconnect plug used in farm equipment, tractors etc.) I wanted it so that I could take out the sub box without unscrewing anything from the amps. this is a huge pain.
Also running 0 gauge into the box and then dividing that into 2 x 4 guage to the amps.
[attachment=1527:IMAG0029.jpg]
"Anderson" clip (I think this is what they are called)
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Now it was time to glue and screw the lids one, first I had to pull all the cables through and make sure that they were all tied up neatly inside the box.
[attachment=1532:IMAG0076.jpg]
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Paint the bop of the box with black paint in case you could see down the cracks in the cover. then install the subs and amps
[attachment=1533:IMAG0077.jpg]

Time to load the box into the car and make sure everything hooks up and works
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I glued in female RCA leads to the back of the box as well as a REM switch wire so that I could unplug the RCA’s from the car if I needed to take the box out
[attachment=1535:IMAG0095.jpg]

I wasn't very happy because the DD splits came with really nice looking crossover units that I wanted to incorporate into the face of the box but ran out of room. so they just got screwed to the back of the box where nobody will ever see them :cry:
[attachment=1536:IMAG0094.jpg]

Now for making the faceplate to cover all the edges, this was probably the most challenging parts of the whole build. I used some coreflute, laid down and sideways in the boot and traced the edge with a texter. From there I cut out holes for the sub and amp bigger than needed and individually cut out the correct shapes. A little hard to explain, was all very tricky stuff.
[attachment=1537:IMAG0091.jpg]

Tracing the cofeflute onto the 8mm MDF and cutting the shapes out
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Now that the faceplate fits nice and tight, allowing a few mm each side of the amps and sub for the fabric to tuck under. I can cover it with my black vinyl. I bought this from spotlight, 1000mm x 2000mm (i think) for $30
[attachment=1541:IMAG0104.jpg]
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All that was left was to fit and enjoy. which i have been doing for the last few weeks and loving every second of it.
[attachment=1543:IMAG0110.jpg]
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And that concludes my sub box build. Sorry about the picture quality. over the last few months I used a combo of a few cameras and phones depending on what was handy. I might put up some decent finished photos later on.
Hope you all enjoyed my write-up.

Big thanks to the guys at www.ddaudiodirect.com.au for all their help and support. Bill helped me choose the correct setup and with the tricky sub box design. It is spot on, just the sound I was looking for.

Luke

[The White Knight]

Magnificent work mate.. Looks a treat.. Might need some advice On an install in my mkii when she's running again...lol.
:walkman:

[SPRAGRL]

Nice :rock:
Soooooo wanna do mine?? lol
I gotta have a look soon. How does it sound?

[LJZ]

SPRAGRL, on 02 December 2010 - 06:57 AM, said:

Nice :rock:
Soooooo wanna do mine?? lol
I gotta have a look soon. How does it sound?

Sounds Awesome!!! right now the sub amp is only turned up to half because the manafacturer recommended that the subs need a few months to wear in and loosen up, thats when the real fun begins :rock:
and yeah im always keen for a good project

[Darren]

Looks great. :notworthy:

Love the step by step guides as they give others ideas and show any potential areas that could cause headaches.

Be good to see and hear the final result in the flesh.

Cheers
Darren

PS where do you put the Party Pizza now :lol:

[LJZ]

Darren, on 02 December 2010 - 11:07 AM, said:

Looks great. :notworthy:

Love the step by step guides as they give others ideas and show any potential areas that could cause headaches.

Be good to see and hear the final result in the flesh.

Cheers
Darren

PS where do you put the Party Pizza now :lol:

Yeah im happy to help anyone with questions on it, i learnt alot from doing this and know that i could save people headaches. sadly pizza is off the menu for me, i can only get chinese now and keep it between my legs

[G21]

looks great, i started something like this a few months back now, on a much smaller scale though. finished the box and then let it sit in my boot. im clueless when it comes to wiring it all up, especially to my clarion 7" as well. and i just dont have the money to get someone else to do it for me now. was it hard, or did you know what you where doing before you ventured into all the wires and that. Looks like its doomed to sit half completed in my boot.

[PHANTOM]

wow first time i seen this write up. EXCELLENT WORK! need more threads like did you utilise the wheel well at all for extra literage? my box is very different would be good to hear the differnce and get it DB tested.

Love the DIY and end quality. this setup still allows you to change layouts and designs. my bro has DD competition gear in his commo (never ented a comp but) they absolutley crank

[LJZ]

PHANTOM, on 26 December 2010 - 10:45 AM, said:

wow first time i seen this write up. EXCELLENT WORK! need more threads like did you utilise the wheel well at all for extra literage? my box is very different would be good to hear the differnce and get it DB tested.

Love the DIY and end quality. this setup still allows you to change layouts and designs. my bro has DD competition gear in his commo (never ented a comp but) they absolutley crank

Cheers Mikey,
I still wanted to keep the spare wheel so I made the box floor to fit over the top of it. none of the well space was used. This made it very difficult to squeeze the litirage I needed for the large subs. If it wasn't for such a shallow boot I would have made the walls of the box without all those tricky angles and had the faceplate cover all the gaps.
Would LOOVVEEE to get a DB test done on it, do you know where I can get it done?? or does the club sometimes run these things. either way im very keen. atm still breaking in the subs, amp's only at half volume but creating quite a large amount of earth shattering bass. DD gear it the bee's knee's!!

Ill have to give you a good run down on the build next time I see ya and we can compare the differences. I would be very interested to see other setups in all the rides to see what people have managed in that small space

[PHANTOM]

john at marvey tech who's up north can do it. and he is a club sponsor. i had mine done by Adelaide pro sound back in 07? but no longer around. the upcoming SMASA and OSNA car shows will have Db comps at them too. for a street car 130-140 is a good figure. its just a matter of finding that frequency to produce the figure

[LJZ]

yeah would love to give it a shot. would be embarassing tho if i cranked out like 90 db lol

[JTMILLER]

Even the weak stock system in my car cracked 107, although it sounded horrible at that level lol

[LJZ]

JTMILLER, on 30 December 2010 - 04:34 PM, said:

Even the weak stock system in my car cracked 107, although it sounded horrible at that level lol

haha yes!!! im in for a shot.
who in the club has the highest db record?

[Darren]

I think Celcius1 holds Top Dog in the dB challenge

[PHANTOM]

both Hardy and myself have got 139-140db at different events. even Killas old system that has been sold off to someone else i believe made the same 139-140

[LJZ]

Nice, I will have to wait till I can put the amp's up to full volume and then give the record a crack

[Darren]

Just checked Celcius got 128 dB at last club comp.

Hardy and Phantom are the Top Dogs at the moment :notworthy:

[LJZ]

bring it on haha

[IcE]

Ill have to fix my sub box so i can crack the 130mark then...

[PHANTOM]

i made 139.9dB couple weekend back. to go any further the box design will have to change...tempting :)