Looking great, you definitely have all the tools for custom fabrication ... I'm a little jealous to say the least.

Keep up the great work and pics,
Michael

I would have been stuck a few times for sure without my dads machine shop. We've had to modify or make parts on occasion. Unfortunately some aftermarket parts don't fit well without being reworked.

After starting this project over 3-1/2 years ago its finally made it to paint!!

congrats! It's looking good.

Thanks Chief and Wayne. :cheers:

Awesome work, Ryan! Very awesome work

My son and I built some baffles to replace the Screamin Performance fiberglass kickpanel enclosures. The Focal PS165’s and Dynaudio esotar 650’s didn’t like the small enclosure. I had a big spike around 250hz and no Mid bass.

Images failing to upload so I’ll update later.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/tUJqLEejbePGHqyr2
https://photos.app.goo.gl/QMRtfpy7A8fp4osP2

Edit: I want make sure it’s clear the Screamin’ Performance kick panels are high quality. I dont want to mislead anyone. They fit my car perfectly. Better than the original plastic and definitely better than a few sets of aftermarket plastic kicks I’ve had. The fit and finish is top shelf. I just have a specific application I’m trying to accommodate. In fact the black gel coat is so nice I ran these kicks for a year without covering them.

Nice upgrade!

Very nice and here are the images

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Fu...5=w644-h858-no


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Sl...z=w644-h858-no

Have you heard how to get your Photobucket pics back?

I refuse to pay photobucket so I've painfully downloaded all of my pics to my current computer and started putting stuff up on Flickr.

I drew up a center channel bracket in Autocad Fusion 360 to fit in the factory dash location. Its a 2 piece modular bracket with interlocking tabs. I'm able to mount a Dynaudio e110 tweeter or e430 mid. I also designed and printed an interference fit enclosure for the mid. I'll have to test to see which speaker combination I'll go with. I have more mid bass than I expected during initial testing so hopefully this works out.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4660/...b431588f_c.jpgCenterChannelTopv13_2018-Jan-30_03-51-30AM-000_CustomizedView8034973581 by Ryan Erickson, on Flickr
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4700/...65a58119_c.jpge430_CenterChannel_Enclosure v4 by Ryan Erickson, on Flickr
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4674/...ff61e7dd_c.jpgUntitled by Ryan Erickson, on Flickr
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4611/...3728d1fe_c.jpgUntitled by Ryan Erickson, on Flickr
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4764/...f7e6237d_c.jpgUntitled by Ryan Erickson, on Flickr
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4751/...998b5494_c.jpgUntitled by Ryan Erickson, on Flickr

Made some brackets out of 1/8"x1" flat bar to mount the speaker baffle. Can't tell from the pic but the front bracket is bolted to the dash with a button head Allen bolt that's hidden under the dash pad. The other option I had was to utilize the center screw hole for the dash trim bezel. The other bracket is a simple z shape utilizing the factory speaker mounting tab near the firewall.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4721/...fe6ab244_c.jpgUntitled by Ryan Erickson, on Flickr

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4740/...b55fc869_c.jpgUntitled by Ryan Erickson, on Flickr

Looks great. What 3D printer and material are you using?

Thanks! I printed the parts with PLA filament on a modified Robo3d. I can share the stl files if anyone wants them.

I made these brackets out of 1/8x1" flat bar to hold the speaker baffle in place.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4678/...67cbb28d_c.jpgUntitled by Ryan Erickson, on Flickr

Today I tested the Dynaudio e110 tweeters in the dash center location with my attempt at wave guides. The "wave guides" do help move the image a little away from direct center and clean up the sound a little bit.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4663/...cc5685a1_c.jpgUntitled by Ryan Erickson, on Flickr

Waveguide installed.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4648/...df171d1c_c.jpgUntitled by Ryan Erickson, on Flickr

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4752/...b9dd59f5_c.jpgUntitled by Ryan Erickson, on Flickr

I like the e110's matched up with the e650's in the kick panels currently crossed over at 3500Hz. The car sounds day and night better over the Focal 6.5 components I had in the kick panels. The mid bass now has impact, the mid range no longer has a huge spike around 500Hz and the staging is way higher. Even though the tweeters are in the center of the dash I still have good width. The center is just a little too centered for me. It sounds like the vocals are right on the cowl hood scoop. I want them directly in front of me so I'm going to try a deeper modified waveguide.

Keep in mind I'm trying to keep the dash and A pillars clean. I don't want my car to look like a stereo build. I want a clear view of all those cones in front of me as the point of this car is to drive it. I just want a decent stereo for those long drives.

As part of my plan to keep the car clean and have decent staging I think I'm moving away from the idea of running a mid/tweet center channel or 2 mids with tweeters out on the corners of the dash. Especially now that testing center mounted tweeters is going so well. I dont care for the look of pillar mounted large speakers and I don't want to cut the corners of the dash structure to fit a tweeter since the car is essentially done. I've seen DSE build recessed metal pockets in the corners for a 1" tweeter which looks nice but I'm past that point. Besides my e110's are 3 times the size. I also don't want to cut out the VIN location on the dash. The other plan I came up with was to build a fiberglass dash pad structure and hide the tweeters under flush mounted grills in a vinyl wrapped dash pad.

So far testing has been promising with the center dash mods so I'm going to exhaust this approach before reconsidering the fiberglass dash pad idea.

This is such great info and not typical for a thread. Way over due IMO!

:captain:

Agree 100 % this is an awesome thread

^^ Thanks guys. I hope something out of it will be useful for someone.

I printed the new tweeter waveguides but haven't had a chance to test them. I used a course .3mm print setup but they are actually smoother than they look in the pic. The guides press down to where they just touch the tweeter and sit flush on top when installed. Work has been hectic lately.

My plan is to test all 3 dash speaker combinations back to back; dual mid, mid tweet, dual tweet (shallow and deep wave guide setups). Hopefully this weekend I'll have some time.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4602/...3a024052_c.jpgUntitled by Ryan Erickson, on Flickr

I am really looking forward to hearing how the comparison goes. :popcorn2:

I wish I was 30 years younger and had the patients to learn CAD. So many incredible this to do with it. Especially with the 3D printers. It sucks being the generation where the Cassette player was the hot new things.lol

That's funny Wayne! I was telling a story to a guy at work today about how we wrecked a car in high school and had to walk to the nearest country gas station to find a phone and he couldn't stop laughing about how we didn't have cell phones back then. I have yet to tell him about my gaming system when I was a kid. LED football will probably blow his mind.

I setup my different speaker options and played a number of songs back to back. I've figured out what I like and don't like. Even with good tonality it drives me crazy to have a low sound stage and poor imaging; apparently I've become a music snob.

Keep in mind I've done all of my testing so far with passive crossovers. My thought is to get things a close as I can before committing to the number of amps and installing my Helix DSP Pro processor. I plan to build an amp rack out of 1-5/8 tubing so I only want to build it once.. Famous last words.

All of the center dash baffle options were too focused at center. I tried adding a second set of 1" tweeters firing straight up on the corners of the dash by the A-pillars and it helped bring the center vocals right in front of me where I wanted them but the sound wasn't as clean and imaging seemed smeared across the dash if that makes sense. Instrument and vocals lost some of their definition in placement. That option is definitely out so I went back to just tweeters in the center dash.

The center mounted tweeters with shallow or deep waveguides seemed to have very similar imaging. I've gone back and forth on the two versions thinking one or the other moved vocals more directly in front of me then I would think the opposite as it changed depending on the song and appears to be somewhat affected by volume. The waveguide may be a complete waste of time as it's not a real engineered waveguide. The mouth exit diameter is 4.3" (wavelength of 3100Hz) but the taper and depth is based on space required to fit my AC vent and the e110 wire frame dome protection won't allow me to bring the guide all the way in to the edge of the dome. Regardless, the image is too focused at the cowl hood scoop.

I disassembled the e430 center channel and placed the e430's in small test enclosures in the kick panel door hinge access cutout pointing up at the rear view mirror. I retained the center mounted deep waveguide e110's along with the e650's for midbass achieving the best results so far. The e430's brought the image from center to directly in front without smearing the imaging. I still noticed a slight rainbow affect with male vocals on certain songs, although not as pronounced as without the e430's in the kicks, and I think I can clean it up some by tweaking crossover points. This looks to be the best compromise without cutting into the car. If I didn't have glass and a final painted dash installed I might have been up for fabricating dash mount recessed tweeter locations but I'm well past that now.

I have to cut the old Focal tweeter locations out of the Screamin' Performance fiberglass kick panels so it looks like I'm going to mock up the e430's in their place. We'll see if I can come up with enough energy to do something this weekend.

Here's the deeper center mount I tested with.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4715/...311fab88_c.jpgUntitled by Ryan Erickson, on Flickr

3D printed wave guides
 

........the e110 wire frame dome protection won't allow me to bring the guide all the way in to the edge of the dome. .........

Sooo CUT THEM OUT! A little death wheel action is all it would take.:superhack::superhack:

Lol. The thought crossed my mind but I’m a little nervous just holding these things never mind modifying them. I’ve never owned tweeters that cost this much.

I created another wave-guide to try since I'll be dragging out the laptop to do some testing anyway.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4611/...e18fd462_c.jpge110_CenterChannelWaveGuideExtendedDirectional2_20 18-Feb-17_07-54-09PM-000_CustomizedView26945266051 by Ryan Erickson, on Flickr

Great read!

Oh and I was the king of electronic football. :lol:

I remember being amazed when a neighbor let us watch Wizard of OZ on her TV every year because she was the only one with a color TV. lol

I ran a few RTA tests with the deep waveguides in the center baffle. e650's and e110's only. No e430's.

I captured the following driver and passenger side positions:
seat headrest (left and right ear sweeps)
dash center (aligned with edge of speaker grill)
dash middle
dash pillar

The dash center vs dash pillar shows a drop around 12Khz on up at the pillar.
The seat position isn't too bad compared to the previous kick panel tweeter locations.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4753/...eb0cded8_c.jpgseatvspillar by Ryan Erickson, on Flickr

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4766/...d502db67_c.jpgseatvscenter by Ryan Erickson, on Flickr

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4669/...efd987e4_c.jpgcentervspillar by Ryan Erickson, on Flickr

My brother was pretty good at it too! ;)

Good times! I remember my parents getting a color TV and cable not too long before MTV came out. Before that it was a black and white UHF/VHF with rabbit ears.

I want to re-state I’m trying to find the best compromise in staging, imaging, and tonality working within the confines of minimal modification to the car since it’s painted and close to complete. Functionality of the car on the track is still my priority as I enjoy autocross more than car audio.

Based on my rudimentary testing and my experience with this car if I were to rebuild it with car audio as a priority I would put 8’s or 10’s in the kick cowl vent area and likely 3’s or 4’s in the kicks with tweeters in the corners of the dash near the pillars.

Also, as I understand, RTA testing doesn’t necessarily show staging and imaging although it appears to show the correlation of loss of image width with stereo tweeters in the center location as both SPL and frequency response go down the further I measure across the dash toward the pillar. These measurements are secondary to critical listening for me but I also want a measured comparison of the short and deep waveguides for my own curiosity. I don’t think the dash measurements are useful for anything else anyway; as what matters to me is the staging, imaging, and tonality at the driver and passenger seats.

The power outages over the weekend killed my Ruckus wireless controller. After a few failed attempts to repair the onboard flash drive I’m back online after giving up on the proprietary flash and converting my AP’s to standalone. The power outages also caused a few 3D prints and CNC operations to fail.

All that to say I haven’t uploaded the comparison of short vs deep tweeter waveguides but it’s clear the deep waveguide performs better. I took REW RTA measurements at dash center, dash middle, and dash end near pillar, as well as left and right seated head position. My laptop is tied up running the CNC overnight so hopefully I can post the graphs soon.

I’m cutting birch mounting rings for the e430’s I’m planning to fiberglass in the kick panels. It’s going to take days at the 1mm cutting depth and .5mm/s feed rate so I’m hoping upgrading the spindle max from 10k to 30k RPM will allow me to speed things up.

Hate it when you have to keep starting over. :bang: