"How hard can it be?"
This next 'installment' is a bit 'in your face' and probably a bit too much for a lot of people, but hey! When I get the urge, I have to scratch it!
In the early 90's I was a hang-around in the Norwegian car stereo scene. I had friends that competed in and won National competitions, but back then I only dreamt of Porsches and actually didn't have a car at all! And to the people who 'only listen to the great engine note, and that's enough!': Really?!! What do you do on the highway? Accelerate, brake, accelerate, brake etc? And in stop and go traffic? Do you constantly rev the engine to ther the sweet, sweet sound? OK, I digress... whatever floats your boat.
I've built subwoofer boxes of wood before. Nothing very fancy, but they have worked and looked ok. But now I got the idea to place a small woofer between the seats, sort of like in the Viper, and I found a couple of pics online where someone has done just that. But in order to make it look good-ish, wood would be quite difficult to use. Also, I know that fibreglass boxes are very much the norm these days, if you want to use the nooks and crannies available.
So, I hit YouTube and watched a lot of fibreglass subwoofer creations, and thought 'how hard can it really be?'
I started with covering the designated area with several layers of masking tape, and made a 'border', or walls, of cardboard to get the outline of it.
I mixed resin and hardener, cut strips of fibreglass cloth and a mat which covered all of the base of it, put it in layers and drenched it in resin. After drying and more layering, I had the tray ready and then I measured and hot glued the mounting ring and supports. Then it looked like this:
Now it was time to cover it in cloth. I used a quite elastic fleece blanket, spray glued the underside, stretched and stapled it to the ring, like this:
After covering it in several layers of resin and fibreglass strips and pieces, I did a test fit again:
Then it was time to sand it smooth, cover it in spray glue and speaker cloth. Many that make fibreglass speaker boxes sand and spackle it super smooth before painting them, but my plan was to cover it in cloth all along (and it's easier!).
And then I could not restrain myself, so I had to drop the woofer in and fit it to the car!
It's not protruding enough to touch your shoulders, even with the seat at the rearmost position. I now need to hook up the amplifier and make a mounting plate for that in the frunk.
In order to secure it I have angular brackets on the back side of the box, in which I drop the 'speaker board' I have at the back side of the rollover hoops. I'll get a pic of that later.