xXCiviXx
Well-Known Member
Alright, so here's a little background for all of you. Music is probably my favourite thing in the whole world. I either have headphones in or have the stereo on while I'm doing anything around the house or driving. I have always have an FM transmitter, AUX cable, phone cord or bluetooth adapter wherever I go so I can listen to music. In all three cars I have owned, I have completely redone the head units and speakers because stock is NEVER good enough. My 2013 Si is a little different, but not by much. I love the Nav and will stick with it for the foreseeable future but the 8" stock mid-woofer is absolutely atrocious and needs to be replaced. Only reason I haven't upgraded it yet, was because I haven't had the time to undertake THIS project. This is the second car I have built a custom Fiberglass enclosure for, and both for similar reasons:
#1 They look incredible if done right
#2 They sound great if you know what you're doing
#3 They can be crafted to suit any and all of your special needs
#4 They are incredibly strong and lightweight
#5 Significantly cheaper than paying someone to make it
and most important of all #6 If you love working with your hands and making something amazing on your own, the satisfaction is incredible when you see the finished product. Even if you drop more
than "The Wolf of Wall Street" it's an incredibly experience.
Alright let's start this baby up
This is a complete list of what I used for the build (In somewhat order of use):
1 roll of masking tape
some tin foil
Nitrile gloves (use whatever kind you want, just be sure to have LOTS. You can go through a whole box)
N95 or other type of mask
Scissors/ knives
Jig saw
Power drill with drill bits
Work/ saw benches
MDF/ HDF (Amount depends on size and number of speakers being installed)
Paint brushes or sponge brushes
4 bottles of Fiberglass resin (Lots i know)
3 packages of Fiberglass mat
Fleece to wrap the front and part of the back of the enclosure
Staple gun w/ staples
Glue
Body Filler and spreaders
Sandpaper
Primer and Paint (or carpet if that's the look you want)
Screws to secure speaker
Wire terminal (Not required but nice to have)
Subwoofer or other speakers (JL Audio 10W3v3)
Amplifier (JL Audio JX500/1D)
Amplifier kit
Vinyl
Step 1
OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER STATING YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYTHING YOU DO. 9TH CIVIC AND MYSELF ARE NOT IN ANY WAY LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TO VEHICLES, PROPERTY OR PERSONS. I HOPE ANY OF YOU THAT ARE WILLING TO ATTEMPT THIS WILL PUT SAFETY FIRST AND FOLLOW PRODUCT AND TOOL INSTRUCTIONS AND SAFETY WARNINGS. BASICALLY DON'T DO ANYTHING STUPID.
Figure out what you want to make and where you want to put it. I wanted to utilize the rear wheel wells so i still had access to my spare tire and maintain a fair amount of trunk space.
Once you know where you will be building your enclosure, you must tape off the entire area you wish to use (and then some for spillage and what not). Make sure to overlap the tape so no resin seeps through and sticks to your carpet or its. Also, if it sticks to the carpet, it will make removing the back shell a .
Here's what mine looks like:
NOTE: Your back and neck may start to get sore. But you better suck it up cuz there is more to come.
Also included in this step (but not pictured) I covered the area with tin/ aluminum foil and taped them all together on top of the masked area to ease the removal of the mould once dry.
Step 2
Gather your fiberglass supplies:
Resin
Mat
Gloves
Mask
Brushes
and a bucket or container to mix your resin
NOTE: Mix a small amount of resin for your first go... 1/4 of a liter should be a good amount until you know what you're working with and how quickly your resin will dry. Follow instructions for mixing. Use more or less hardener with the resin to get more or less time to work.
Also...
This is toxic and will you up if you breathe too much of it in. Safety glasses is also a plus. You don't want this in your eyes and the fumes may make your eyes burn. DO THIS IN A WELL VENTILATED AREA SINCE THE TRUNK MAY HOLD FUMES AND YOU WILL BE WORKING IN IT.
TEAR up the mat into workable sizes and place the first layer OVERLAPPING EACH OTHER on the floor of the trunk. Apply resin mixture with brush until all mat is completely saturated and entire surface is covered with both mat and resin. DABBING is better means of saturating mat than brushing as brushing will pull mat and fibers across your work surface, ruining you overlap of mat.
Repeat this process for the walls of the work area but only lay 1 row of mat HORIZONTALLY up the wall at a time for ease of application and to avoid having the fiberglass wall collapse on you while it is still wet. I say this, because once you have resin on you or your clothes, you will have a of a time removing it once it dries.
I forgot to snap a pic before I pulled it out and removed the masking but you get the idea.
And here it is out of the trunk:
Step 3
Trim any excess fiberglass. As you can see in the image above i already started marking where I will cut to get the fit I want. It will look something like this when you have your base ready for step 4:
I used trauma sheers to cut the fiberglass because I always have them handy while at work, though not usually used for this application. I also made some adjustments to the depth and edges after this picture to get my desired fit.
Step 4
I was too eager to get this project rolling and forgot to take pics of cutting speaker rings and mounting them inside the box and accidentally jumped to Step 5 but I will do my best to walk you through this process. This step requires you to trace the entire mounting diameter onto a piece of .625" to .75" MDF or HDF. Once this is done you will need to measure the inside mounting diameter and apply this inside the initial circle. Test it out on your speaker once you cut it out with a jig saw to make sure the speaker fits through the hole and is flush with the wood. This is also a good time to make sure you don't have any excess MDF beyond the outer diameter of the speaker. Sand as required to fit.
Step 5
Also did a poor job documenting this step with photos but its fairly straight forward. Cut 0.5'' x 0.5" rectangle supports out of MDF that will be used to mount the speaker ring. I used 3 supports to mount my ring. Find the desired angle and height that you want to mount the ring and cut your supports to the desired length. At this point, you can glue the supports to the speaker ring and secure everything in place with tape until it dries, or mark on the fiberglass base where each support will go. From here you will need to make more of your resin mixture, but significantly less than when you laid the base. Get more mat and resin and attach the supports to the base. For the 3 mounts I used, I placed them at 10 O Clock, 2 O Clock and 6 O Clock. Once the supports were in place with some mat and resin, I placed the ring on the mounts and taped the supports to the ring so the supports would dry where I needed them to. This is where the heat gun comes in. To get the resin to dry and cure faster apply heat to the wet resin from a safe distance. avoid heating the resin too quickly as this could cause it to dry too fast and crack or could cause the dry resin/ mat of the base to crack.
Here is a shot of my "6 O Clock" support from the next step as I forgot to take pictures once again:
Step 6
This is where you get the first glimpse of your hard work paying off... Wrapping the base and mounts with fleece. You're probably thinking "Why the am I using a blanket on a ing bad *** custom subwoofer box?" Well the answer is simple: It's a means to get the desired shape of the finished product, eases in the application of more resin and mat, and will soak up extra resin and increase the strength of the enclosure.
Now you can wrap the fleece around the enclosure and glue it around the back edges of the base. Make sure to get a nice tight fit so you have a better surface to apply mat/ resin to and to avoid sagging of the fleece when it becomes wet (I know... phrasing lol http://www.bite.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/archer-point.gif)
Once the glue and fleece is applied, you can start stapling the fleece to the speaker ring and in my case, to my special enclosure port. I will leave this step out as some may want a sealed enclosure or will buy a circular port and attach this once the enclosure is completed.
I will mention here that the "bite" out of the "pizza dough" on the top is from where i removed a portion of the base because it wasn't flush with the trunk and I would touch this up with the next layer of mat/ resin.
Here is what it looks like in the trunk:
Step 7
Prepare your resin materials again because we're going to apply more mat and resin to strengthen the out of this enclosure. Apply mat to fleece in an overlapping fashion like before and have enough excess to wrap around the edges and secure to the base, essentially fusing one solid piece out of the fiberglass and creating a seal.
With mat applied:
From pizza dough to Chewbacca in minutes.
Continue to next post for moar...
#1 They look incredible if done right
#2 They sound great if you know what you're doing
#3 They can be crafted to suit any and all of your special needs
#4 They are incredibly strong and lightweight
#5 Significantly cheaper than paying someone to make it
and most important of all #6 If you love working with your hands and making something amazing on your own, the satisfaction is incredible when you see the finished product. Even if you drop more
than "The Wolf of Wall Street" it's an incredibly experience.Alright let's start this baby up
This is a complete list of what I used for the build (In somewhat order of use):
1 roll of masking tape
some tin foil
Nitrile gloves (use whatever kind you want, just be sure to have LOTS. You can go through a whole box)
N95 or other type of mask
Scissors/ knives
Jig saw
Power drill with drill bits
Work/ saw benches
MDF/ HDF (Amount depends on size and number of speakers being installed)
Paint brushes or sponge brushes
4 bottles of Fiberglass resin (Lots i know)
3 packages of Fiberglass mat
Fleece to wrap the front and part of the back of the enclosure
Staple gun w/ staples
Glue
Body Filler and spreaders
Sandpaper
Primer and Paint (or carpet if that's the look you want)
Screws to secure speaker
Wire terminal (Not required but nice to have)
Subwoofer or other speakers (JL Audio 10W3v3)
Amplifier (JL Audio JX500/1D)
Amplifier kit
Vinyl
Step 1
OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER STATING YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYTHING YOU DO. 9TH CIVIC AND MYSELF ARE NOT IN ANY WAY LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TO VEHICLES, PROPERTY OR PERSONS. I HOPE ANY OF YOU THAT ARE WILLING TO ATTEMPT THIS WILL PUT SAFETY FIRST AND FOLLOW PRODUCT AND TOOL INSTRUCTIONS AND SAFETY WARNINGS. BASICALLY DON'T DO ANYTHING STUPID.
Figure out what you want to make and where you want to put it. I wanted to utilize the rear wheel wells so i still had access to my spare tire and maintain a fair amount of trunk space.
Once you know where you will be building your enclosure, you must tape off the entire area you wish to use (and then some for spillage and what not). Make sure to overlap the tape so no resin seeps through and sticks to your carpet or its
. Also, if it sticks to the carpet, it will make removing the back shell a .Here's what mine looks like:
NOTE: Your back and neck may start to get sore. But you better suck it up cuz there is more to come.
Also included in this step (but not pictured) I covered the area with tin/ aluminum foil and taped them all together on top of the masked area to ease the removal of the mould once dry.
Step 2
Gather your fiberglass supplies:
Resin
Mat
Gloves
Mask
Brushes
and a bucket or container to mix your resin
NOTE: Mix a small amount of resin for your first go... 1/4 of a liter should be a good amount until you know what you're working with and how quickly your resin will dry. Follow instructions for mixing. Use more or less hardener with the resin to get more or less time to work.
Also...
This
is toxic and will you up if you breathe too much of it in. Safety glasses is also a plus. You don't want this in your eyes and the fumes may make your eyes burn. DO THIS IN A WELL VENTILATED AREA SINCE THE TRUNK MAY HOLD FUMES AND YOU WILL BE WORKING IN IT.TEAR up the mat into workable sizes and place the first layer OVERLAPPING EACH OTHER on the floor of the trunk. Apply resin mixture with brush until all mat is completely saturated and entire surface is covered with both mat and resin. DABBING is better means of saturating mat than brushing as brushing will pull mat and fibers across your work surface, ruining you overlap of mat.
Repeat this process for the walls of the work area but only lay 1 row of mat HORIZONTALLY up the wall at a time for ease of application and to avoid having the fiberglass wall collapse on you while it is still wet. I say this, because once you have resin on you or your clothes, you will have a
of a time removing it once it dries.I forgot to snap a pic before I pulled it out and removed the masking but you get the idea.
And here it is out of the trunk:
Step 3
Trim any excess fiberglass. As you can see in the image above i already started marking where I will cut to get the fit I want. It will look something like this when you have your base ready for step 4:
I used trauma sheers to cut the fiberglass because I always have them handy while at work, though not usually used for this application. I also made some adjustments to the depth and edges after this picture to get my desired fit.
Step 4
I was too eager to get this project rolling and forgot to take pics of cutting speaker rings and mounting them inside the box and accidentally jumped to Step 5 but I will do my best to walk you through this process. This step requires you to trace the entire mounting diameter onto a piece of .625" to .75" MDF or HDF. Once this is done you will need to measure the inside mounting diameter and apply this inside the initial circle. Test it out on your speaker once you cut it out with a jig saw to make sure the speaker fits through the hole and is flush with the wood. This is also a good time to make sure you don't have any excess MDF beyond the outer diameter of the speaker. Sand as required to fit.
Step 5
Also did a poor job documenting this step with photos but its fairly straight forward. Cut 0.5'' x 0.5" rectangle supports out of MDF that will be used to mount the speaker ring. I used 3 supports to mount my ring. Find the desired angle and height that you want to mount the ring and cut your supports to the desired length. At this point, you can glue the supports to the speaker ring and secure everything in place with tape until it dries, or mark on the fiberglass base where each support will go. From here you will need to make more of your resin mixture, but significantly less than when you laid the base. Get more mat and resin and attach the supports to the base. For the 3 mounts I used, I placed them at 10 O Clock, 2 O Clock and 6 O Clock. Once the supports were in place with some mat and resin, I placed the ring on the mounts and taped the supports to the ring so the supports would dry where I needed them to. This is where the heat gun comes in. To get the resin to dry and cure faster apply heat to the wet resin from a safe distance. avoid heating the resin too quickly as this could cause it to dry too fast and crack or could cause the dry resin/ mat of the base to crack.
Here is a shot of my "6 O Clock" support from the next step as I forgot to take pictures once again:
Step 6
This is where you get the first glimpse of your hard work paying off... Wrapping the base and mounts with fleece. You're probably thinking "Why the
am I using a blanket on a ing bad *** custom subwoofer box?" Well the answer is simple: It's a means to get the desired shape of the finished product, eases in the application of more resin and mat, and will soak up extra resin and increase the strength of the enclosure.Now you can wrap the fleece around the enclosure and glue it around the back edges of the base. Make sure to get a nice tight fit so you have a better surface to apply mat/ resin to and to avoid sagging of the fleece when it becomes wet (I know... phrasing lol http://www.bite.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/archer-point.gif)
Once the glue and fleece is applied, you can start stapling the fleece to the speaker ring and in my case, to my special enclosure port. I will leave this step out as some may want a sealed enclosure or will buy a circular port and attach this once the enclosure is completed.
I will mention here that the "bite" out of the "pizza dough" on the top is from where i removed a portion of the base because it wasn't flush with the trunk and I would touch this up with the next layer of mat/ resin.
Here is what it looks like in the trunk:
Step 7
Prepare your resin materials again because we're going to apply more mat and resin to strengthen the
out of this enclosure. Apply mat to fleece in an overlapping fashion like before and have enough excess to wrap around the edges and secure to the base, essentially fusing one solid piece out of the fiberglass and creating a seal.With mat applied:
From pizza dough to Chewbacca in minutes.
Continue to next post for moar...
Last edited:
