The Final Product: no space, plenty of bass. My Kicker L7 project

[NickD85]

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[miamiheat3332]

looks great, but wouldnt it fit more with the interior if you covered it with beige/goldish carpet?

[korbeano89]

looks great or you could trim around it with some wood, or not its your call it looks cool as is AAA++++ when you get the time you should take a short video

[N2mesnob]

Good job I too was wondering if you had anyplans to match the interior and or put a grille over it to keep it from getting messed up?

Also have you considered making more of those boxes for sale???

[Qxxx4]

daaaaammmmmnnnnnnnn

[NickD85]

thanks guys . Regarding carpet color, I'm not really concerned with matching the interior. I think it looks fine because the sub is black anyway. The only thing that bothered me was the fuzziness of the carpet, which looked pretty bad (you can kind of see it in the pics). I took a lighter to it though, and everything's all smoothed out now. Much better. I definitely will consider a grill to protect the sub, although I usually lash the heavier, larger cargo items pretty securely. Still, a grill would be a wise precaution. I'll try to take a video and get it up- can I use photobucket for that? Finally, regarding the sale of more of these boxes (I've been asked this 10000 times) it really wouldnt be a cost effective venture for me. The time and material costs are just too high. Also, a lot of custom fabrication went into the car itself, in order for me to securely fasten the enclosure to the car. It was really like a one off project, that I made up as I went along.

[slickroger]

that is sweet i honestly doubted that you would be able to make it look so clean.

Excellent job i just hope there is enough airspace in there to keep your sub from blowing on you.

you should cut out the cover for your amp especially because your amp is so much better than mine.

[NickD85]

yea man, I love your clear cutout- that looks great. As for airspace, I'm right in the butter zone for a sealed enclosure with the L7 8 inch. I filled the box with water a couple weeks ago. It held almost 12 liters, or .42 cubic feet. The minimum kicker recommends is .33, while the max is .75

[NickD85]

Oh and thanks again to all you guys who gave me pointers along the way... made the job a lot easier. K03... that wiring description with the factory amp helped tremendously, and Qxxx- it would've taken me another month to find that hole in the firewall through which I ran my power cable. Everyone else, you know who you are, thanks for the advice

[Pwnin O'Brien]

The install looks great! It looks really clean and custom and I wish I could do something similar with my Type-R.

One tip though, I see you have your fuse next to your amplifier which is not good. When installing an in-line fuse, you generally want it to be at most 18" from the battery. If too much current is pulled, the wire can heat up and melt the sheathing and the wire can catch your car on fire. The fuse can help prevent such an occurrence but only if it is near the battery.

[NickD85]

hah yeah... I found that out after the install. Rather than removing the fuse next to the amp and putting it in next to the battery, I simply added one closer to the battery. That shouldn't be a problem should it? The fuse next to the battery should still be the "weakest link" so-to-speak, and should go before any damage can be done, should it not?

[Pwnin O'Brien]

Yeah, the fuse closest to the battery will blow first.

Good work, it all looks really good!

[02pathy]

i like it, especially for the fact that it is mainly flush good job

[WINNIPEGS_MOST_WANTED]

Looks great!

[KyooX4]

Awesome! Looks good! How does it sound?

[NickD85]

sounds amazing... none of my friends can believe it... "THAT sound is coming from THAT little sub? " I have a friend with two tens in a box that takes up half his trunk... he's jealous of the little kicker. I'll try to get a video up soon

[JHC828]

Absolutely Perfect! Exactly what I'm wanting to do. I have two 10s and they take up almost the entire cargo area. You need to do a step-by-step write up for this. Would make a great weekend project! Props!

[screwinitupagain]

Looks cool. I like the idea of having a ton of space free too.

[NickD85]

http://s705.photobucket.com/al...B.flva crappy vid
Modified by NickD85 at 9:29 AM 8/6/2009

[ECMgarrett]

dude you should make a few more to sell. seriously. i dig it (minus the color)

[korbeano89]

can you give a rough estament of what it cost to make that

[NickD85]

the box itself didn't actually cost me anything to make. I had the glass, the wood, epoxy, and sealants already. But if you were to purchase these things, you could probably build one for under $50. That's a quote for standard glass and polyester resin, and MDF rather than marine grade plywood, marine epoxy, and high strength "E-Glass," which is what I used. The labor is the tough part. I first cut out a large amount of the plastic trunk wall. Next I made a mold of the new space using duct tape, and cardboard. I then covered this "mold" with packing tape, which I then coated lightly with mineral oil. I then began to glass, and laid down two layers of woven cloth. When that had cured I pulled the whole thing out, and trimmed the edges. I then sanded the inside and laid in two or three layers of biaxial E-glass (super strong glass that takes curves well), plus fiberglass diagonals over all the large faces of the box, and another layer of glass. I then cut the plywood face of the box (3/8" marine mahogany plywood), and covered the back face with a piece of woven roving (thick fiberglass). Next the two halves of the box were glassed together. I then made three steel brackets, and bolted them to the car- brackets to which the box is fastened. I finally drilled a hole in the box for the wiring, ran the wires, sealed the hole, carpeted the box, installed and sealed the sub into the enclosure, and fastened the whole thing to those steel brackets. The whole process was pretty time consuming, but i really enjoy doing these things.

[bmlawless]

So the picture with the blue area in it (2nd pic) is a picture of the cubby hole with all of the plastic cut out? I am also trying to figure out what the square piece with the hole in it is (3rd pic).

A detailed write-up of this would be awesome.

[NickD85]

yeah that's the cubby minus the extra plastic. The blue is a piece of foam to prevent rattling. The third pic is just the box, screwed in and being fit, before I cut the actual hole for the sub in it, and covered it in the black carpet

[Pwnin O'Brien]

What did you fill the box with? Polyfill?

Also, how much depth is there behind the panel you cut out? Just curious if I could make a custom box also. My sub needs an ideal box depth of about 12". I don't think there's enough depth, although maybe a spacer could fix that problem?

[NickD85]

haha you'd need a seven inch spacer.... theres only about six inches from the panel to the body of the car. And yeah, the box is half filled with polyfill

[Pwnin O'Brien]

That would be a pretty large spacer haha

[W O T]

Looks good dude, sounds like your happy with the bass output

I didnt know if I stressed enough how UNhappy youd be with the L5

[exvin]

Dude..This is hot!

[Micallen]

Any chance this could get updated with working pictures?