I took 4 hours off of work yesterday so I could tackle this project. It went extremely smooth. A total of 6 hours was put into it last night. 6 hours may seem like a long time to some, but I'm a perfectionist when it comes to my work. I also took a lunch break too. I hope you guys enjoy the pictures....

First I had to get the sub cut out. It took alittle bit of creativity here. I tried the dental floss attached to a pen method, but failed. The dental floss wouldn't swivel on the center screw properly and it kept stretching also.

I found a better method by using a straight edge. The ruler had a hole on one end. I simple placed it through the center screw, then held a pen firmly at my mark while guiding the ruler in a circle. It made a perfect sub cut out hole...



Fail




Suceed




Carefully cutting out the cut out with a jigsaw

 

Test fit with the sub. The hole was perfect. I really took my time with the jigsaw, making sure to make no mistakes on the cut...

 

There are 3 different types of T-nuts available from Partsexpress.com . I've always used the traditional 4 prong T-nut. I've had a couple of them dislodge and cause havoc trying to get the bolt out. This time around I tried a new designed offered. It's called the "Hurricane" T-nut. It has no spikes on it, only these tiny fins on the outter edge of them. I was quite skeptical, but the website assures you to not be decieved. Before deciding to use these, I did a trial run on some scrap wood. They're easy to install. Use a 5/16" drill bit, then tap the Hurrican nuts in with a light hammer.

I tightened the bolt with as much hand strength as I could muster. The amount of torque these things can handle is unbelievable. They are solid as a rock! I then tried to dislodge them by loosening the bolt up about 1/2", then pushing real hard on the bolt. The hurricane nut backs out about 1/4 of it's overall length, then stops dead in it's tracks. It has a spongey feeling like it's spring loaded. You can push on the bolt and watch the hurricane nut back out, but it's like it is on a rubber band and retracts back into the hole. I have no other better explaination...

 

After the hole was cut, I did a quick test fit to make sure the sub didn't hit anything. Everything fit fine. I now have an enclosure depth of 8"....

 

TMI

Looks good so far!!!

 

Next came the mounting bolt hole drilling. I knew I was going to have a problem here, due to the previous drilled holes on the original baffle board. I went ahead and drilled my new holes on the new baffle board, then placed the new board on top of the old one to see how the holes matched up. As you can see, there was going to be a problem getting a clean 5/16" hole on the bottom baffle board in order to fit a T-nut in there properly...






After the top holes were drilled, I placed the new baffle on top and drilled straight through. As you can see some of the holes overlapped eachother on the bottom baffle..

 

haha

 

I had to ressolve the mounting bolt hole issue, so I brain stormed for a few minutes and decided to place the T-nuts on the top baffle board. This is permanent and means the T-nuts will never be removable unless the top of the box is destroyed. I really had no other choice....

Hurricane T-nuts pre-installed on new baffle board.




Sealed up old holes on bottom baffle.




Coating of liquid nails laid out prior to installing new baffle board.




New baffle board mounted and screwed down with 1 1/2" wood screws.




Close up of T-nut sandwiched inbetween old and new board.

 

A couple pics of new box contruction and new false floor panels...

 

After carpet was placed in the trunk, I trimmed it down a bit, then sealed the gap between the 2 baffle boards with liquid nails...

 

Sub installed. Job complete!

 

Good job! How does it sound?

 

After tuning your system with this procedure, do you adjust the bass, treble, and mid tone on the HU any? or Do you just leave the HU settings at 0?

 

Looks good VO. How does it sound?

 

I let it sit for a couple hours to let the adhesive cure, then turned it on at moderate volume. The system hasn't been tuned nor have I turned up the gain and did not have the engine running to supply 14vdc. DJ Magic Mike's "Feel the Bass" did make the garage floor vibrate.

I'm gonna try and tune it tonight. It was raining nasty last night and I was tired.

 

I believe the point of setting eveything to "0" is so the entire system can be tuned as one, at a happy medium. By doing this it allows you turn the volume up and not worry about driving one set of components harder than the other. After everything is tunned with "0" reference, you can turn up bass & treble levels in order to get the desired outputs on certain songs.

 

That's what I was thinking. I usually like to run my treble in the + and the bass in the - on my HU. That way the amps are doing the work. Is that a correct idea to follow?

 

Once gains are set properly with all settings at "0", you will then need to adjust tone controls or EQ setting to achieve the response curve as desired.

 

It's a sad day in the audio world.

Last night I took the Z to an empty Home Depot parking lot to perform the tuning. Here's how it went.

I disconnected all RCA's going to my amps. Turned up volume as high as it would go(+60), then turned it down to 3/4's volume(+45). All enhanced features turned off and Bass/Mid/High settings zero'd out.

I tuned my mid's/high's amp first, since it recieves all 4 chns from my HU, then passes 2 passive chns to my sub amp. Tuned the front highs, then rears.

I tuned the sub last, making sure to use the same song over and over. My sub amp settings are set @ cut off frequency 55hz and the filter is set to LP only. The FI Q sub ended up only being able to take roughly the same amount of power the Fosgate T1 sub did, meaning the gain stayed in almost the same position(65% turned up). Anything higher and it started distorting.

The sub hits, but not as hard as my T1 did. It is a flat bass probably good for rock, but not rap. When playing DJ Magic Mike's "Feel the Bass", the FI sub was unable to effectively reproduce any of the lower range Hz notes. I watched and listened to the sub while it played various bass notes. If I could explain it best, I would say the sub would start to play a low note(20-30hz range) then back off mid way through the excursion. I could see the sub actually start excursion, then back off before the entire bass note was played. This gave it a non-responsive flat sound. Even when playing a full length song with higher bass frequencies, the sub appeared to not reproduce accurate bass notes after playing for a few minutes. Perhaps that was my imagination. I'm calling it like I see it.

Overall, I was more satisfied with the Fosgate T1's ability to reproduce lower bass notes. You could feel the T1's bass notes rumble your insides and make your clothing move standing outside the door. The FI Q is just not cutting it.

If there is something I missed or any suggestions to making the FI Q sub sound better I'm open to suggestions....

 

There's gotta be a reason. That just doesn't sound right. It actually sounds as if it's clipping (not finishing th full excursion).

Normally when tuning the gains, you would use a test tone cd, but a music cd could work also so long as you KNOW the ins and outs of the song used (sounds like you do).

What is this sub crossed over at? Did you try reversing phase? Does the amp have a subsonic filter?