Funky Bass Box for a 1994 Civic Del Sol

[TJ Mobile Audio]

Another system built for a customer. Actually, I've only got pics of the subwoofer so far, the rest of the system is still in the works. For some reason, most of my younger customers want to start with the subwoofers and go from there.

Design goals, as dictated by my customer: 1 - be able to hear the bass over the ricer exhaust and road noise (it's a removable hardtop Civic Del Sol) 2 - leave room for the removable hardtop in the trunk, and still have the bass sound normal, 3 - match the red spray-painted interior of his car.

We were working with limited space (the box could be no taller than 8.5" if it was to fit beneath the hard-top storage rack) and a very isolated trunk, e.g. minimal transfer function. This is by no means my favorite installation, but I'm hoping someone can benefit from seeing the creative solutions we found, and perhaps take them to the next level. Let me know what you think, please.

[TJ Mobile Audio]

Another design objective I forgot to mention is for the speaker baffle to be sturdy enough for amp mounting. Here's a view that shows the internal workings of the design:



Due to the shallow profile of the box, we're working with about 1.25 CF net per chamber, but the subs only have a Vas of 1.6 CF and my spreadsheet says it should work OK. The entire enclosure is 2.5 CF net, 3.3 CF gross.

Here's a close-up of the MDF work for the port. I wanted to eliminate port noise completely, so it may seem a bit OCD:

[TJ Mobile Audio]

Now, for routing the wires. Don't worry, these are adequately stapled and tensioned so they won't buzz:



I also decided to over-fill the chambers with poly-fill to help the enclosure behave a bit larger. I put 12 ounces per chamber, so just over 8 ounces per CF.

[TJ Mobile Audio]

I used little bits of scrap speaker carpet to hold down the poly-fill behind the vented pole pieces. This should help protect the subs. There's plenty of mounting depth as well, roughly 7.75" for a sub that's only 5.5" deep.

[TJ Mobile Audio]

Now for the test-fit:



The big amp even fits under the hard-top with room to breathe:

[TJ Mobile Audio]

Red speaker carpet, FTW:



A picture with the dusty old hard-top in place:



My customer ran these on his 500 watt Alpine monoblock and had the windshield (and every other part of his car) shaking excessively, so I'm excited to see what kind of damage we can do with the 1440 watt Kole amp. He bought the Kole amp as planned, and installed it in the designated mounting location, but I don't have pictures of that just yet. Stay tuned, when it's all said and done I'll probably throw up a fresh YouTube video...