1996 Bronco build - everyday system, not a ground pounder (caution - pix heavy)

[mikelaubach 10+ year member]

I'm getting back into the game after a long hiatus. I had a Thunderbird TurboCoupe as my past stereo car, but things have come a long way since then. That was back when 100W per channel were for subs, and 1000W is how you measured house power.

Some years ago, shortly after buying the Bronco, I started to design and build a fiberglass/MDF box for a 12" sub. My goal was to not "intrude" on the space between the wheel wells. This is 48" across, and I still use the truck as, well, a truck. If I had a trailer, I could get crazy, but I don't, and I don't think (at this time) that I want to get crazy either. the enclosure was completed to about 60% and put away as life circumstances changed.

Well, some months ago, I pulled it back out at some urging, and decided to build something in the truck. I don't drive it often, mostly to pull the boat in the summer, or to make "building supply center" runs or if I have the neighborhood kid(s) with me. I like my music (as do they) and I want to hear it and FEEL it.

Headunit

The system starts with an Eclipse CD5444 that I bought back in 2004. The thing that drew me to the head unit was the Sony data card for MP3's. While this is common-place today with iPod and USB interfaces, solid state devices were "new" back then for car stereos. And being an off-road truck, having something that could take a hit and not skip was amazing! $450 later, and I had my new head unit. And it's that $450 that is keeping it in the truck today, I'm NOT spending that much right now on a new one!

Speakers

One in each door at 6 1/2" and one in the rear on each side of the rear seat. the rear seat locations are 5x7, but I have an older set of A/D/S 5 1/4" components from the TBird that I'll likely make a plate for and mount them in the rear just for fill. You know, so the passengers in the rear can hear the music too. ;-) I plan to de-tune these, as even though they can take 100W, it's 100W max, not RMS, and frankly, the rear does not need to be that loud. As for the front speakers, I'm still working on that issue. I've had some suggestions, and I've heard some (out of my price range) speakers, so I just need to find the right setup.

Sub

The aforementioned enclosure is installed in the truck (and does not intrude into the cargo area), but I want to add two more bolts for increased security. All attachment points are either inside the enclosure, or under stock trim pieces to both hide the attachments from ease of theft and to present as stock of an appearance as possible. They might destroy my sub speaker, but they won't take the enclosure that took FOREVER to build.

While I really want an ICON 12, they still have not released them, so I went with a Dayton (Dayton Audio RSS315HO-44 12" Reference HO DVC Subwoofer) as it could handle the power, and was affordable. This is in transit and due in by the weekend.

Part of my issue is clearance - I tilted the ring so that a direct line from the center of the speaker would hit the rear window (so angled up and back). This messes with how deep I have to work with because of the back wall of the enclosure. I may need to reduce the interior space as I currently have 1.75CF and plan to run sealed at this time. We'll see what I decide about porting the box later.

Amps

Soundstream, but not intentionally. I wanted matching amps for the front/rear and the sub. I had not decided on a manufacturer, but two Soundstreams came up in the classifieds about the same time - a 1000W and a 4-channel 640W. I jumped on both and got burned on the 4-channel. Paypal got me my money back, and I put that towards a factory refurb of the same design for only $50 more than the used one was going to cost me. This amp is in transit now, due in by the weekend.

This gives me 100W per channel to the front/rear, and 800W (at 2O) to the sub. These will be mounted behind the driver's rear wheel well, but the design is not yet determined.

Wiring

Holy mother of bat shite, this is my most expensive part of the equation!!! I just dumped a huge load at KNU for wire and parts. Wow.

0ga OFC for the power feed to the rear and the Big-3. I just bought the 50' spool for convenience - the truck needs 25 feet to the rear, and the Big-3, and I can use the rest on Big-2 for the trailer boat and the marina boat, so it won't go to waste. They had no 0ga OFC black for the ground, so I got the CCA for ground until they get the good stuff in. So only the battery to frame and body pieces will need to be replaced later (about 5-6' of it I'd guess).

I am using 4ga OFC to the amps for power from the fused dist block, and 4ga OFC ground for the amps to the body.

Add in the RCA's, the 5 miles of speaker cable (ok, I just bought a 100' spool of the 12ga and 20' of the 10ga for the sub since I'm not yet sure which way I'll run the wire to the sub). Connectors for speaker and ground and the Big-3, battery terminal posts, fuse holder and dist block, etc. Five hundred bucks. Shite!

I went back and looked at things trying to find ways to cut this down, but it just made no sense to do that. Take the speaker wire - $70 for 100 feet. I only really need about 60 feet of it. I wanted the Karma SS, and that's $.75 a foot. At 65 or so feet, that's almost $50, but it is tight, so if I miscalculated, I'm screwed and have to wait for more. So I spent the extra $20 for insurance and piece of mind. The same with the 0ga power - I could have gone with the cheaper CCA, but did not want to deal with issues with that. If I do decide to go bigger with subs, I don't want this to have been a waste of time/money.

Anyway, it's spent, and waiting to be shipped. Should be here by the weekend.

Which means besides studying for the bar exam, putting a second coat of paint on the dining room walls, and hopefully getting out on the boat, I also have installation work to do. Should be a good time. hahahaha

Ok, so EVERYONE always wants pix, so here they are:

The truck

Progress on the sub enclosure

Click to read more...

 

[mikelaubach 10+ year member]

That is all for now. More pix as progress continues.

 

[bigbangtheory 5,000+ posts]

Do good work!

 

[mikelaubach 10+ year member]

Thanks.

More pix. The sub arrived today. Great shipping and a great looking piece! Recall, I'm $150 into this thing (brand new), and that includes shipping!

Heavy. I weighed the whole unit and it's a shade over 23 pounds.

So I did some work in Win ISD just to see what the program is about and to see what the sub would do in it. I had to add the specs, but got it to graph. I did sealed and ported, just to see the difference. Again, as above, I already have the box built to fit the location and this sub is not my primary choice.

I can add MDF panels inside the enclosure to take up space and make the airspace less to improve the response, but it still is not like the ported graph. At 30Hz, the sealed is more than 6db down, but the ported is more than 1db up. At 40Hz, the ported is more than 3db up! So it looks like this is going to wind up getting ported in the end.

So my question is, what do we use to determine the frequency of the tuning for the port? I played with different tuning frequencies and the plot (obviously) changed, sometimes drastically.

Wire is due in tomorrow, front stage amp due in Friday.

Need to make a run to listen to some speaker options for the front stage.

Finally having this sub in hand has me a bit pumped. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 

[DMV1919 10+ year member]

I'm guessing thats not your first time using glass? that enclosure looks nice!

 

[Kangaroux 5,000+ posts]

33Hz would be fine for your application. How large is the inside of the enclosure, do you know?

 

[mikelaubach 10+ year member]

Thanks DMV, it's not my first time, but I'm far from pro.

The enclosure is 1.75cf, but that does not take into account the sub itself or the port. I was not able to find volume info on the sub, so I'll need to measure that myself. I can adjust the values in win isd to get the port size once I get the sub volume and can fine tune based on the port volume numbers I get.

What makes for a good specific frequency to tune to?

 

[Kangaroux 5,000+ posts]

33hz is good to start with, gives you plenty of low end without sacrificing a lot of the higher end. are you planning on using an aero/pvc for the port, or are you making a slot/rectangle port?

 

[mikelaubach 10+ year member]

No idea yet. This whole ported thing is a new idea for me based on seeing the graphs. I've been out of the game for some time now (and was never into serious stuff like competitions), so still trying to get my head around some of this. Not wanting a competition setup, but something that "hits and sounds good." Yeah, EVERYone says that. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 

[mikelaubach 10+ year member]

Well, had school this morning, but this afternoon I got the ground side of the Big-3 installed. That was a pain in the arse. Crimped the connections on, and then added solder (via oxy-acetylene torch) for good measure. The old cable was baaaaad. Ground was 8ga from battery to fender, and 4ga from battery to a mount on the frame where the insulation is stripped off and a metal retainer wrapped around it. From there, it continued to the engine block. 15 years old and nasty, not to mention brittle.

I ran 4ga to the fender, a sealed 0ga to the engine block, and a separate 0ga to the frame mount where that strap was. Voltage jumped up. I had an aftermarket battery terminal, but it was not new, and a pain in the rear, so the new terminal and the good wires, and I'm up a few volts. Nice.

I need to figure out the positive side now. Maybe tomorrow morning (taking the boat out tomorrow afternoon so long as its nice). That goes from the battery to the starter solenoid, and from the starter solenoid to the alternator. [And of course from the solenoid to the starter - that one I'm not changing.]

 

[mikelaubach 10+ year member]

Well, this *****. It's going to be SLOW going now. I blew out my achilles tendon on Sunday while stepping off the boat trailer after launching the boat off. It's a move I've made hundreds of times before, and the same move I make EVERY time I launch. It's basically a 12" step down. I may have hit an uneven spot that caused it - Surgeon said my body just wasn't ready for what it needed to be ready for. Had surgery Monday morning to reattach the two pieces and now I'll be in a cast for the next few months. Fewk. No motorcycling all summer. Boating is going to be a bear too, but hopefully the Surgeon and I can come up with a workable solution so I can at least swim. Take my bikes AND my boat, and you might as well just shoot me. We'll see how much I can get done like this.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

That's a beautiful truck.

 

[bigbangtheory 5,000+ posts]

Dam, sorry to hear about your achilles tendon bro. Hope you get back up and running soon.

On a positive note, I dont have no motorcyles nor boat and I get by fine......lol! I will say, you could let me live your life and let me borrow those items. I promise to take good care of them! //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[mikelaubach 10+ year member]

I don't loan out the toys. That's rule #1. LOL

Did get some work done today, though it is S.L.O.W. going. I have to stop often to put my foot up and relax. New cast went on Friday after the stitches came out. Doc says it all looks good. I saw it Doc, it looks like anything but "good." Still not allowed to put weight on it, so still on crutches and hopping. The hopping is starting to be a pain too - literally.

So, I got the sub box permanently mounted and the sub itself wired and mounted. I'll be running 10ga (I think - I have it, but it's huge in diameter) to the screw terminal cup, and ran two runs of 12ga inside for the dual coils. Meters out at 2.5 ohms. My amp can do 7-800W at that load, and the sub can take 700, so I'll start out around 4-500 and see what happens. For now, it is sealed. I have a 2" aeroport to add later.

And with the tailgate up:

I REALLY wish the SEM color match paint was a better match.

Bolting the sub down was a royal pain in the arse. I used the hurricane nuts instead of T-nuts as everyone touts them. Turns out it is incredibly easy to bugger up the threads if you don't get the bolt started exactly right the very first attempt. I had that sub out about 4 times to replace nuts. **** good thing they come in a bag of 50!!!!

So now I have to figure out how to mount two huge amps in a tiny location on the other of the truck from the sub box. These amps are huge!! Soundstream 1000 for the sub and a 4.640 for the front and rear fill. Thought I'd angle them and stack 'em, but that space is pretty small, that might be tough (recall, I'm trying to maintain the 48" to carry plywood, drywall, etc.). Also have to run my power wire out back. Jonesin' to hear this thing though...

 

[chawski 10+ year member]

**** sorry to hear about the achilles. This time of year and january are huge for achilles ruptures (now because its nice out, ie weekend warriors, january bc all the new years resolutioners that havnt moved since their failed resolution last year haha). Dont over-do it on that man, they take a while to heal. Where did it pop? near where it attaches to your heel?

Install looks great! I love nice simple glass work!