[bwhouse]

So overall I have been really happy with the M2C, it is a pleasure to drive and I am enjoying driving a manual 'drivers' car again.

One thing that has bugged me though since day one is the sound system, despite being a Harmon Kardon system, it just seems to be lacking. There is a distinct lack of mids and the under seat subs just don't cut it. You end up winding the bass up on the head unit which throws out the overall balance of the system and contributes to the mid problem. I am also not in love with the HK tweeters, they aren't too bad but they aren't overly clean either.

With all that said, it has been over 10 years since I installed any stereo equipment in a car, but I decided to throw caution to the wind and fit a few extras on this one.

The original plan was just to add a sub, but thanks to some generous Christmas present I will also be adding some Focal fronts as well.

Here is a photo of the toys that will be getting installed.



I wanted to have a proper subwoofer, rather than just upgrade the under seat drivers, but I didn't want to sacrifice much boot space. If I lived in the US I probably would have just ordered the Musicar OE sub enclosure, but getting it to Australia was just too costly. So I relived my youth and built a fibreglass enclosure that was moulded into the boot lining. This certainly isn't designed to be a tutorial for building an enclosure like this, but I thought I would show the steps I took. I actually built this over the last 6 weeks when I had spare time and I am looking forward to installing it in the car over the Christmas break.

So first I pulled out the boot lining on the passenger side of the car (it has been out of my car for the last 6 weeks!, I had to laugh when I dropped my car in for its 2000km service, the service manager took one look and said "oh installing ASD bypass?"). Once the lining is out of the car I covered it in two layers of masking tape.



Here is what it looked like once completely covered in tape with newspaper taped to the edged.



Now the fun (or mess) beings. Make sure you are wearing gloves and breathing protection and put your first layer of glass down on top of the tape.



After the first layer has set, I added 3 more layers (probably overkill tbh) and then once dry removed the shell from the boot lining. At this point I really wished I had placed a layer of foil on top of the tape to make separating the mold easier.



Next, I used a bunch of packing foam to measure out roughly the right volume. I wanted to line up the edge of the box to the natural line on the boot lining and as it turned out this was pretty much the perfect volume.



I marked out a line and trimmed back the excess glass with a jigsaw.



Checking volume again



Then cut a ring out of MDF to house the speaker using a make shift router jig



Using some scraps of timber and a hot glue gun, I secured the ring to the fiberglass shell and test fit the subwoofer.





After the ring was secured I stretched some fabric over the box and glued it down again with hot glue (it is magical stuff)



For the top layers of fiberglass I used the slighlty more expense cloth rather than chop-matt as it allowed me to essentially use one single piece cut to the right size



Again I put 3 layers over the top, which was far easier then the original mold thanks to the shape, although wrapping it around the edges was challenging. Once finished it looked something like this when placed back in to the boot lining.



After taking the time to make this thing, I wanted to make it unique, so after a few different ideas I decided to trying making an embossed ///M logo for the bottom left corner of the enclosure. I found an appropriate logo online, printed it out in the right size and glued in on to a piece of 6mm MDF and then cut it out on a skill saw.





I really had no idea if this was going to work and if I was going to be able to stretch the carpet around the logo, but figured I could always remove it and re-carpet the box if needed. I stuck it on to the front of the box, you guessed it with hot glue again, and proceeded to attempt to carpet the box.



It took me awhile, but I managed to get the carpet around the logo and was pretty happy with how it looked so proceeded to carpet the rest of the enclosure.



Overall, I am really happy with the result and can't wait to hear what it sounds like in the car!

[bwhouse]

< Reserved for install of the sub enclosure and amp >

[bwhouse]

< Reserved for speaker installation and listening impressions >

[detroitm2]

Looks good! One thing you might want to consider is ensuring all the harnesses to the ASD are secured down, as it sits right below your enclosure. Don't want them rattling around from the bass!

[dtmurf]

Nice work and nice write up. Looking forward to seeing the next steps.

[TTBear]

Fantastic work! Thanks for taking the time to document the process, and sharing it.

This brings back fond memories (and more than a few not-so-fond memories of headaches from doing this in less-than-well-ventilated rooms) of fabricating up fibreglass enclosures for kicks in university.

Hope the sound is everything you hoped for, and more. Cheers!!!!

[supersam]

This is a really nice write up, attention to detail, and execution. Looking forward to final setup

[biggripper]

Well done!

[Scrape]

Amazing work. Look forward to the rest of it.