'13 Subaru BRZ HCCA/AQ2200/Fiberglass audio build
 

So I have had almost all of the stuff to do this build for awhile now but due to being busy hadn't gotten around to it. Well, I finally have a week off from school, so build time it is.

The plan is to seal it off from the trunk. I had some plans on how I wanted to do it, but when it came time to actually start measuring etc, most of my plans got changed in some way. The primary problem is that the width of the trim ring on the sub is about 13" but many parts of the trunk doesn't even have that much height. So, I am going to have to use some tricks.

I have a few goals with this build. One goal is to leave as much room in the trunk as I can. Obviously this trunk isn't that big and I sometimes need to go on trips. A second goal is I have to be able to cleanly remove everything for the times I autocross. I have some plans on how ill do this but still have it securely in there both for the sake of being safe and to make it harder to steal. Due to the second reason for making it secure, I won't show at least some of what I'm doing to make it secure. A third one is to make it as light as reasonably possible. I realize that if lightweight is the goal, I shouldn't be using an hcca. However, its what I have, so I'm going to make use of it. Obviously some of you will think its blasphemy to add so much weight, but, I like my bass, and at least it will be a clean install and removable for when I need it to be. :happy0180: Long story short, this basically means I am going to make ample use of birch which is significantly lighter than MDF. Additionally some of the box will be fiberglass.

I have a decent amount of time into this build already, but since a good bit of it is just measuring and thinking and whatnot, here is what I have to show.
First was to kinda place things where I envisioned them to see how it would look and measure. This brought about the first issue I found: originally I was planning on having a tilted front to the box. But too bad, the hcca has too big of a magnet to be able to tilt within the height confines I have. Oh well to that.
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...224_210318.jpg


http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...224_210338.jpg


http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...224_210406.jpg


http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...224_210433.jpg
Wire from an old build. Bringing new life and electrons to the AQ!
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...224_210703.jpg
Making a cardboard template of the trunk
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...225_150216.jpg


http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...225_150231.jpg
Transferred to birch
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...225_223055.jpg
Test fit of base. I left some extra room on this since I am not yet 100% on the measurements until I find how much room I can get on the side.
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...225_230744.jpg


http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...225_230754.jpg

Got some more materials

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...226_140742.jpg
Made a template
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...226_145003.jpg
Made some cuts
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...226_155910.jpg


http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...226_155936.jpg


http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...226_162057.jpg


http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...226_165212.jpg
Screwed it together to test fit.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...226_224811.jpg


http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...226_224849.jpg



I ran into some more issues with how massive the sub is. I hadn't actually checked the cutout for the sub, and it turned out to be more than what I had been planning the inside height of the box. That just won't work, so ill just have to deal with an extra inch worth of causing problems with being too high in a tiny trunk.

Good god that Orion's massive! What's the mounting depth on it, a foot!?

Nice wood working. :D

Lol pretty close, 10.28in.
And the diameter of the magnet is about the same.

Thanks.

Nice can't wait to see the end. I'm designing mine now

Sent from my Galaxy S3

Well I wanted to take a break from taping so figured id give an update.



First goal of the day was to make a template to shape my top piece. To do so I made this guy and taped on a pencil for exactly 12.25 inches:
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...227_135708.jpg


http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...227_140327.jpg
That let me figure out where I had clearance and where I didnt, leaving me with this guy:
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...227_150102.jpg


http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...227_150927.jpg


http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...227_151007.jpg
Which let me cut out this guy:
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...227_162153.jpg
If you wondered why the side piece was notched, now you know. Not enough clearance to go higher.
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...227_162202.jpg


http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...227_175728.jpg



http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...227_175920.jpg


http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...227_175940.jpg
And now to basically a whole roll of tape in the trunk. Bout to go back out and tape up the top, should have some more good updates later tonight.
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...227_205007.jpg

More tape
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...227_222037.jpg
Aluminum foil and set in place
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...227_231256.jpg



http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...227_235408.jpg
few layers on the right side

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...228_012347.jpg

Few layers more on the right side and a few layers on the back.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...228_025836.jpg



The reasoning behind not yet joining the fiberglass to the front of the box is I still have to take that side off so that my router has room to cut out the sub mounting hole. The cutout is going to be exactly the same height as the front piece, so I can't exactly cut it out on its own. So I am going to wait till I can have it attached top and bottom, but since the top piece is very difficult to have precisely aligned due to the nature of all the cutouts, I won't know exactly where it is going to end up until I glass it in. So basically I have this awkward list of dependencies of a specific order I need to do things in which is a bit different than typical. Fun.

Mid-worknight update:



Had to break open the roll of fiberglass.
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...228_155614.jpg
For some of this I switched back to some old resin I had. It actually seemed to work better than my newer stuff when working overhead due to it being thicker. However this came at the cost of the color and knowing I was using super old resin. lol.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...228_173726.jpg


http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...228_203836.jpg


http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...228_220119.jpg

So there is good news and bad news.



The good:

• The box separated well from the side. Yay using both tape and foil.
• Since the box won't fit through the trunk opening it is a lot harder to steal.

The bad:

• The box won't fit through the trunk opening.

So I had suspected this would happen. It is pretty close, but the box is just too tall to lift up high enough to even get the edge up to the opening. Thats what I get for trying to shove this big of a box into a brz. However, I have a backup plan. Luckily I was able to make the box so that it would clear the trunk opening. (by about half an inch) So, I just have to take it through a front door. Hopefully this won't make me have to take a seat out, but if I have to take a seat out, I have to take a seat out. Anyways, here are some pics of it separated:



http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...301_020236.jpg


http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...301_020450.jpg



(I won't take the foil off until it is out of the car in case there is some sticky residue left)

I made this video on how I created the template for the upper piece:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWSsVhwjHTg"]How to make a template for sub box clearance - YouTube[/ame]

I don't know what I'm more impressed by - that you're fabing this yourself or that you made that video while it was fucking snowing. lol

Good lord. What's the estemated enclosure volume?

Lol, well you gotta do what you gotta do. It wasn't that bad of snow, and all of the woodwork itself was done inside. I just don't have room in the garage for the brz and woodworking materials with the 67 mustang in there still.

Estimated total is 2.5 cubes. Although what you see there is over that. I will be chopping off some of the material toward the middle to get it to around 2.5 cubes. I had to leave extra because I still don't know how much volume is in the fiberglassed part.
I will be tuning it to around 34 hz.

Good news everyone. Photobucket is telling me I'm already at 90% of my bandwidth. Silly phone uploading full res pictures. Anyways im switching accounts now, hopefully neither maxes out.



Anyways today was a lot of work and not a lot of pictures. However there wasn't really much to take pictures of, it was largely just adding a ton of fiberglass. However the box is now all one solid piece. Observe:



Checking the space of the cubby thing. Is about half a cube.

http://i1132.photobucket.com/albums/...301_213028.jpg

Font piece partially routered out, but still left enough to let the front be solid. Excitingly enough, my 50 year old router died while I was doing this cut. I freehanded with a jig saw through the section that didn't get cut at all before realizing there was no way to do the rest of this build without a router. So off to lowes to pick up a new one.

http://i1132.photobucket.com/albums/...301_230644.jpg

How it stands now.

http://i1132.photobucket.com/albums/...302_061049.jpg



http://i1132.photobucket.com/albums/...302_061104.jpg


Anyways It is 6:34 right now and I just got in from working. Dedication at its finest. Anyways to clear any confusion, yes this box is ported. The port is in the box, I just haven't cut the face for it yet. Since I had a pretty set size for the box between the fiberglassed section and wanting to protrude as little as possible into the center of the trunk, I was running into trade-offs between tuning and port area. Since I have plenty of power on tap I was wanting low tuning. I settled on 34hz and 10in^2/ft^3 of port area. However due to a rookie mistake at about 4am, I ended up with slightly less port area and 32 hz tuning. I caught my mistake before it got too far, but after checking the numbers, I decided to just go with it. I doubt ill be disappointed with the lower tuning.