My first sub box - sport trac

in4no · 07-08-2008, 10:15 AM

Well after using this site as inspiration, and reading for what seemed like almost 2 years, i finally took a shot at fabricating a fiberglass sub box for the ever so small spot behind the rear seats in my explorer sport trac.
I used 2 Kicker CVT 10" subs and they are powered off a rodek amp, and another rodek amp is powering the front stage. Pictures are woth a thousand words, so i'll let them talk:

Taped up and tin foiled:

First layer, shell popped out of spot:

After 3 layers:

After 7 layers:

After 9 layers:

Cut to size:

Speaker holes cut out on mdf and attached to mold:

Fleeced and soaked in resin:

5 layers of fiberglass:

Carpeted and subs installed:

Installed in trac:

In terms of cuft, it is slightly smaller than it should be for 2 of these subs, but get the settings right, and this thing is awesome....
Anyways, this was my first experience with FG, and i can say that it was frustrating for perhaps the first 2-3 layers, but once you learn what you're working with, it just got easier and easier to handle.....

monkeyracer · 07-08-2008, 01:06 PM

Bigger pics?

Quote: Originally Posted by in4no

Taped up and tin foiled:

First layer, shell popped out of spot:

After 3 layers:

After 7 layers:

After 9 layers:

Cut to size:

Speaker holes cut out on mdf and attached to mold:

Fleeced and soaked in resin:

5 layers of fiberglass:

Carpeted and subs installed:

Installed in trac:

I just deleted "_thumb" from your image tags.

End result is nice, but you probably didn't need 5 layers over the mdf. It's not going to hurt anything, but it would seem unnecessary.

in4no · 07-08-2008, 02:26 PM

Thanks monkeyracer! i didn't know i had done that!

i didn't put 5 layers over the mdf itself, but on the sides, top and bottom i did....if you look closely, you can still see the orangish fleece in the pics after the 5 layers were added. i know it'd be redundant to add onto the mdf.

once it dried, and with a heavy heart....a really heavy heart...i stepped on it to make sure it passed that test....thank god it did!

monkeyracer · 07-08-2008, 02:43 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by in4no

i didn't put 5 layers over the mdf itself, but on the sides, top and bottom i did....i stepped on it to make sure it passed that test....thank god it did!

Then you will be fine. As far as the box being smaller than recommended, how much smaller is it? You might be able to fudge it a little by adding some poly fill. It sort of slows down the back wave, to 'fool' the sub into acting like it's in a larger airspace.

Anything within about 10% is usually fine. According to kicker:

Minimum Sealed Vol. - .8 Cu. Ft.
Since they both share airspace, it would be 1.6 Cu. Ft. total.
If your box is anywhere above 1.45 Cu. Ft. with poly fill it would be OK, but not optimum.