After a few days of fiberglassing, bondo, sand, and painting they are finally at a point where I'm satisfied. I could have spent a whole day bondoing and sanding to get an ultra smooth look, but I am happy with how they are in their present state.

Getting the first layer is the hardest part.. contorted in the car, whiffing the fumes and making sure not to infuse resin in your carpet. I used an old cotton tshirt as a bottom layer then painted on some resin. Added a few layers of fiberglass fiber mat on top.



Once out of the car, I cut up some fiberboard to house the speakers, laid them at the angle I needed and then used my noggin'. I sprayed 3M 77 adhesive to the panel and fiberglass and built the structure I needed. Alleviates the need for creating a form.



Then added more resin. Mmmm, gotta love that stench.



Slathered on the bondo to get rid out major deviations from aesthetics, did some preliminary painting and did a little more bondo.



After sanding down the bondo with 60 grit to get rid of minor imperfections, I did a layer of acrylic paint. Let it dry overnight then sanded with 300 grit and painted again.



Finally added two layers of matte clear spray so I wouldn't have these bling bling kickpanels in the car, added some silicon sealant in the corners and around the speaker mounting points, then installed the speakers and wire. Mounted them under the plastic trim pieces to hold in place and voila.



Not bad for my first try with fiberglass. And kick panels to boot. Total fiberglass material cost was around $60. Speakers are MB Quart PSC 216.

Here's a close-up of the passenger side.



As a side note, think this amp will run them better than the Bose?

 

Wow! Interesting! Never seen speakers put there before.

Doesn't that kind of restrict leg room?

 

not to mention that you will probably kick it everytime you get in the car....

 

That looks so odd. I dont think placing the pods there will help much with sound staging.

 

maybe its just me but those seem to take up more room than i would be willing to give up

 

Looks good. I recommend a $30 paint respirator when working with fiberglass. You won't smell anything or get a headache.

For all that work, why not go 3-way? Put the large driver in the door, 4" and tweeter on the kick panel. A 4 would fit better, closer to the side.

 

Good Job. So how does it sound?

spiro

 

Man.........that looks like it was a pain in the ASS!!!!

 

Isn't that in the way? I don't think a 6 speed could have that. Looks good though.

 

Forget a 6 speed, It's way too much in the way in the auto. My big feet would kill that in 10 seconds.

 

For an auto it would work fine. For the 6sp, my foot is just to the right of the speaker. No problem shifting. And when I want to put my foot on the dead pedal, it fits over the pod. If you have size 16 feet, it's not going to work. I have grills that I have not put on yet.. those will protect the speaker and the pod has about 5-6 layers of fiberglass. Not going to break very easily.

Getting in and out of the car isn't that bad. A little contortion required hopping in to ensure minimal thigh on steering wheel contact.

For the construction I used a paint respirator. The smell gets you when you are done and have to be near it while drying.

Sound is awesome. But then again I don't know if it's the speakers or the placement since I went directly from Bose to MB in the pod. But either way imaging is going to be better than the 2ft split between woofer and tweet in a door panel.

The whole object of this was to use speaker I had lying around. I don't want to buy new ones. Fitting the 216 into the door looked like too much of a PITA (more than this). Plus I had a couple bags of fiberglass and two cans of resin in my closet from a subwoofer project that never materialized.

In any case, even if the setup were to suck I'd probably still keep them in the car just because of how many man-hours it took to make them.

 

Hey Nice job. I recently did kicks and they came out comparable to yours.

I had them in for a day to adjust sound levels and frequencies etc. I was planning to take pics, but I went to the mall and some dude in a CL-p sees my car and my music wasn't even that loud comes knocking on my window. I check out his stuff he checks out mine..and long story short he offers me 250 on the spot for my kicks and speakers.

So the kicks kinda took all but 8 hours to make...so I said what the heck..and i was 250 richer. So I ordered new speakers and gotta make new ones. Hopefully done this weekend and I'll get pics before someone offers to buy them.

sorry to invade on your post..i just remember some people askin about my kicks and i never got around to telling what happened.

and according to this guy he bought the Q forms for the Accord (last gen) and they don't fit.

and also..kinda what mike (silverknight) said..how's the sound coming in that direction? imagin might be wierd in that direction, no? My kicks were kinda tucked back a bit more. Like toward the dead pedal on drivers and back corner of the passengers.

Great work again! Keep us updated on your system!

 

Well we'll see if someone offers me any money. My gf drove the car this evening and she does not like them. Ordinarily this wouldn't be a concern, but since she's responsible for 1600 of the impending 3200 mile drive she has to be happy. Think I'll explore in door placement some more. Maybe glass a pod onto the door.

I wanted to place the pod deeper, but the size of the 6.5" speaker just wouldn't jive with the plan. Damn oversized speaker.

The line from the speaker to listening area is a little sharp but it's better than from the door.

What speakers are you going to use for your next set?