First of all, here was my old setup. Polk Amp for the Kappa Perfect Components in the doors with an Infinity Basslink X. It sounded good, but I wanted more...

My friend bought this JL Powerwedge from a girl who purchased a car with the subs in it and didn't want them. He also has a MB FD which needs a new front bumper, so we traded.

Another friend had a Polk 500.1 amp that he was going to sell, and he wanted my Basslink. We traded too.

So, I had a monstrous JL Powerwedge with 3 JL 10W0s which would definitely not fit in the FD. I thought about doing a custom box, but I quickly realized that it would take far more time than I had.

I decided to "modify" the JL box keeping 2 of the subs and enclosures and getting rid of the third.

Here is the hatch with everthing removed while I measured for fitment:


Here is the box before "modification"


8 hours later....Modified box in car


Closer shot:


From the side:


With the hatch closed:


View of the amps from the inside without the divider (no covers on amps to hide wires yet)


Quick pic of my interior:


I'm very happy with the end result. The sound is very loud and clean. I have to say thanks to my friend Jon for all of his help. My goal was to get it pounding by this evening and together Jon and I achieved my goal.

Comments welcome!

Alan

 

That's a nice flower-pickin' basket you have there, Miss.


How does it compare with the Basslink? Is it cleaner only when louder, or is it cleaner at all volume levels?

 

I knew you guys would like the basket. As you can see, I had a piece of leather attached to a ruler which was the height of the box. I then had to stand this contraption straight up to see if the box would hit the glass, so I used one of my mother's lovely little baskets.

With regard to Basslink comparison...This setup sounds much fuller at all volume levels. The Basslink was generally good for Rap and Pop music (which I listen to maybe 15% of the time) but was weak when it came to Rock (the other 85%). It is hard to describe through text but I guess I could say that the Basslink went "boom" and the JLs go "BOOM" regardless of the volume.

Don't get me wrong. The Basslink is pretty good especially if you can find one for under $200. It is quite a bit lighter than an amp, box, and subs, but in the end, there is no replacement for an amp, box, and subs.

Oh, and I forgot to mention...The whole unit (Box, Subs & Amps) weighed 62 lbs. before I put it in the car. I would guess that the Basslink, Amp and Plywood that was there before was around 30 lbs.

 

damn man no ofense but u gotta clean up that install

wires are everywhere

make urself an anmp rack instead of the sub enclosure

im doin mine now ill show ya some pics of mine

mike

 

Yeah, earlier I said...

With the amp covers on and the divider up, no one will see the wires. Feel free to post your pics though. I'm interested to see what you do.

 

Now that you have more weight in the back, you shouldn't have traction issues

 

Yeah, we'll see. I'm getting a TII diff and 4.3 gears installed this week, so 1st gear may be interesting until I get Drag Radials.

 

Thanks for the reply. My Basslink is still sitting in it's box in the garage... damn I'm lazy.

I still have the stock non-bose system w/some mid-priced JBLs in the doors. I've noticed the rear speakers do a decent job (for cheap speakers) of filling in mid-bass. It just needs some "thump" from the kick-drum-range... I listen to rap 0% of the time, but listen to rock 85%. I know what you mean about the "full" mid-bass necessity. That sealed enclosures really suit that need pretty well.

I'm just trying to keep my future system simple... but I'm looking for a head unit that'll let me highpass the fronts, lowpass the sub, and *band*pass the rears, or at least allow me to highpass the rears with a decent frequency selection. So far the recent gen of headunits won't work with that... otherwise I'd be sporting an 9835. :/:

Let usknow when you get everything finally dialed in!

 

Yeah, you've been talking about installing the Basslink forever!

The Eclipse 8443 that I have in "Pro" mode allows me to do what you're asking with the crossover. It seems that it isn't on the Eclipse site. I think the 8443 was replaced by the 8454.

 

Not bad, only thing I dont like when you do those bis boxes is the fact that you dont have much trunk space...but then again it's not like you use the FD as a hauler....

 

Yeah, I seriously never even open the hatch. My bookbag goes in the passenger seat and like you said, it's not like I'm going to Home Depot to pick up a couple of 50 lb bags of mulch .

 

Nice, make that amp cover and it'll look so much better. Not too fond of the grey, would have looked better in black, but still, good job

 

Yeah, the grey looks very light in the picture because of the flash. It really isn't THAT much lighter than the black, but I agree it would look better in black.

 

Alan,

Looks good.. I'm a big fan of JL's.. back when I (1995-1997), I used to go thru subs like I went thru women.. Every 3-6 months.. And by far JL's were the cleanest and most powerful subs.. and only sub that I still have and use (10w6's)..

Only think I could suggest is, I think W0 could be put into a small box without any scrafice.. I think??

 

Thanks for the compliments! I have always heard and read good things about JL, and I was able to help a friend out by trading my front bumper. With regard to box size, I think you're probably right about the smaller box, but because the box was already sealed by JL and because I wanted to get everything done in one day, I decided to just use it "as is." My original thinking was to use all three 10W0s in a triangular shape firing up and take up the whole hatch (and maybe get a cool looking rotor stitched around them in the custom carpet ). Once again though, I was interested in getting everything done in one day because law school takes up a lot of my time during the week.

I'm already planning on starting the final phase of the car audio: installing midbass in the rear speaker locations. I bought speaker mounts from Fritz Flynn a few months ago, and I'm planning on mounting some wood to the mounts and using some Adire Koda 6s for the midbass. I know it's not the best for imaging, but it will help fill in the midbass that the Kappa Perfect Components are missing.

 

What did you buy from Fritz?? Are they the old Waels speaker mounts?? for the 8's??

I completely understand about not spending too much time.. I'm about to put my 2 10w6s into my daily and been thinking about that for about 3 months..

 

They were just regular non-Bose speaker mounts with black grills. I'm just going to cut a piece of 1/2 inch MDF the shape of the the mount, screw them together, and cut a 5.625" diameter hole for the speaker. Depth shouldn't be a problem because the Koda 6's mounting depth is less than 3". Frequency response on them is supposed to be very good. All I need now is one more amplifier. I can get another Polk 150x2 RMS amp for around $150 from a Circuit City hookup, but I'm not sure where I'm going to put it.

 

You should love how the JL subs sound in there. I have 2 12" W3s in my FD.