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in 2002-2004 I competed in SLAP around Illinois. But after the 2004 season, something happened (probably not any support from sponsers) and it died. I think SLAP still ives on in New England area, but this hobby is dying a slow death. I think it's just a rebuilding year. I was going to compete in the MECA org but missed out last year when there was shws almost every weekend. This year there are a total of 4 shows in IL, one of which I missed already. I might head out of state for two shows just for fun, but other than that I am sticking to IL. There will be one IASCA show in Aug here in Chicago too that is part of a NOPI event.
www.mecacaraudio.com
www.usaci.org
www.iasca.com
for anyone interested in competing in SQ
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btw I just wanna say your worklog has been helping me out, since I drive a Mazda 3, there are a lot of similarities for certain things, such as inside the door. I started to take it apart yestereday and knew that the window had to come out, and how it was going to look before I took it apart.
Looking over your worklog helped me realize what I was getting myself into, before I got myself into it ;)
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Awesome. Just be careful, the one thing I forgot to mention was that I broke two very important pieces on my door handle when removing the piece to get all the way inside the door. I had to get creative and I fixed it with some zip-ties.:eek::o
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Rear deck treatment.
I did this a while ago but decided to update it finally. I wanted to remove the factory sub so my trunk could breath in some of the nice AC for the computer.
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Note the airbags.
Attachment 43075
I didn't go crazy with the deadening, just enough to lower the resonance of the panel and give it more mass. The was some pretty good padding on the cover panel as shown. Note how I didn't cover up the holes where the panel slides back into, it's no fun having to fight with it to get it to go back on.
I didn't take a picture, but the hardrive is now mounted beneath the factory sub opening. It was getting too hot and I had to do this for cooling reasons. There is also a large 120mm fan mounted above the drive and connected between the 12 and 5v lines to power it and have it still be fairly quiet.
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Tweeter pods
Ok time for some more updates on things I was doing the last two weeks. I needed to build new tweeter pods since my new LPG tweeters were a tad larger than my vifas.
First I took out an old template I had from last time I did it. I had made one out of cardboard by tracing the outline of the factory sail tweeter pod.
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Then I traced it onto MDF. I just flipped it over to make mirror image for the other side.
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Then I checked to make sure it fit properly and adjusted by sanding down if it was too large.
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Next I needed to construct a ring for the tweeter mount. I found 2"PVC pipe worked perfect. There are other ways to do this with wood and a hole saw, but I preferred this method.
So I cut the size of ring I needed with a miter saw.
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Then I figured out how I wanted them aimed. I have done this before so I know optimal aiming for my application. I have to avoid aiming them anywhere near the gage hump or I get some reflections that mess with my soundstage.
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With a little hot glue, I attach the ring in the position I need.
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Then I reinforce the ring with a piece of metal backstrap. Making sure the mounting holes line up for later.
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Finalized framework:
Note how the different sides are angled differently.
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Then I wraped them in grill cloth and used super glue with accelerator to attach the grill cloth around the frame. I used grill cloth because it stretchs in any direction very easily and I really don't need massive strength with these. It's only a tweeter pod.
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Then came the body filler and sanding. I didn't take many pictures of this, but there was plenty of sanding, adding more filler, more sanding, etc.
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Then after they were sanded nice a smooth, I hit them with some filler primer, sanded a little more with 600 grit, then painted then first with texture paint to make them durable and followed it up with some SEM vinyl die spray. Here are the pictures of them mounted.
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Had this done for a while. Please excuse the dirty car, it's almsot never clean :(
Final trunk pictures
http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z...9/IMG_2038.jpg
