Philly Steve's Custom Trunk Build

[Philly Steve]

This has been something I've been wanting to do for a long long time, since I'm an audio freak and I need to be able to hear every sound and real real loudly.

I'll either end up going one of two routes here:

Route 1:
$950 at Dedicated Customs in Melbourne, FL will get me:
1 week without my car
2 Custom fiberglass 15" sub enclosures painted white
Amp rack in the spare tire well with clear plastic window and amps stacked diagonally like this /// and white LEDs

Route 2:
Custom fiberglass enclosures (carpeted) by Tim (timot_one) while he's down in FL
Will still have my car but project will probably take a whole weekend if not longer
I don't know if we'll have time to do an amp rack or anything

As much as I want to support our members I don't like having to make Tim work on vacation, and the custom painted fiberglass enclosures and amp rack sound badass. It would be a show setup basically. Whereas Tim's work would look more stock with the carpet and such.

Edit:

I ended up bitching out on the fiberglass. Just too expensive. But I like my new build and I think this one will stay for a long time...finally....

Before:



After:

[ibcnunv]

NOT FOR SHOW?

Steve, you will save some $$$ in the long run working with Tim.  The carpeted look works well for us because it blends right into the trunk carpet.  You can diffidently show that set up and get attention.  

Please to judge that picture too much because as you can see I have no speakers in the enclosures Tim did for me.  This summer I could demo it for you…

[Mike]

Tim does wonderful work. If it weren't his vacation I would have him do it. If you want the "show setup" drop the 950, I personally perfer the stock look of Tim's installs

[timot_one]

For the record, I can also paint enclosures too.  I will be able to prep them and either paint them myself or have a friend paint them.

[ibcnunv]

For the record, I can also paint enclosures too.  I will be able to prep them and either paint them myself or have a friend paint them.

Thank you for chiming back in.  For real it's only extra sending, etc prep for paint.

[timot_one]

It's a lot of labor involved when it comes to painting an enclosure.  Depending on the size and if you're hand sanding or using an air or electric powered sander, it can take quite a bit of time.  On top of that you need to use filler to take care of any dips in the surface.  After that's all done, you need to go down from 80, 150, 250, prime it, then go down to 600, prime it again, 600 again, shoot color, wet sand it, shoot clear, polish and then wax it.  It's a lot of work if you want it to look good and not have any imperfections.

[Philly Steve]

I don't know if I will be going the painted enclosures route. probably just carpeted with some sort of white LEDs in the amp rack to make it look real clean. I don't think white enclosures in a gray carpet trunk would look clean.

[timot_one]

Sounds good man.  Carpet is a lot easier to maintain and you can still use your trunk.

[Philly Steve]

So the car's in the shop right now. I ended up not wanting to pay the $950 for fiberglass, and the fabricator couldn't figure out how he was gonna do it with our super-low trunk hinges (lol noob) Instead i'm paying $250 for a custom built box which will be paneled off to look flush with the trunk (like Rich's setup minus the suede) plus an extra hundred bucks for them to put my car at the front of the line and not slack off or rush.

[timot_one]

$100 just to be treated better than other customers?  That's fucked up.

[Philly Steve]

that's life in a world that revolves around money and in a country where everyone's got less money than they need. i offered the extra $100 as an incentive to treat my car as their own. i wouldn't say that's the shop's official policy or anything. lol

went to check on the progress today and it looks pretty badass. not gonna go into any detail yet but lets just say it will be able to be almost completely broken down and removed if needed with no screws or hinges. after seeing what they did so far i might just end up giving them another $50. $400 just seems like a reasonable price to me for the amount of labor and fabrication involved.
it will be done tomorrow.

on a side note, i've been driving my mom's 08 Pilot around while my car's getting worked on. I've never driven an SUV before besides moving it in the driveway and I must say it was a lot more enjoyable than I expected. Sure you can't take turns nearly as fast, but I swear that thing gets better gas mileage than my car...then again it's got like a 20 gallon tank. But it's got the 3-cyl Economy mode like the 08 Accord V6.

I might end up ordering an overhead console from a Pilot. It has a nifty mirror built into the sunglass holder. Good for people with kids or buddies in the back all the time. It looks like it would fit. I'm 90% sure it will. I will test fit the one from my mom's car while she's on vacation.  

[Philly Steve]

goin to pick her up soon....gettin mad antsy.


edit: went to check it out a little while ago and just happened to show up at the right time to help them tune it to my liking. They are putting the panels in to hide everything and make everything flush right now and I should be rattling my car apart in an hour or so. Might need to post a video to show all this.

[skizot]

Can't wait to see and hear this beast/

[Philly Steve]

so the guy stayed late (til like 10pm) making the panels to make the box look flush, and it turns out they didn't have any carpet left. go figure. but i will be able to pick it up around noon tomorrow and it should be done.

[timot_one]

Can't wait to see pics of the finished product.  Is he giving you specs on the enclosure too?