Just an update on the week.

Spent a night this week playing around with the dremel tool in an attempt to reuse the factory tweeter locations. Ultimately decided since the new tweeters had a slight taper, to open the hole up and press the tweeters through from the back side. Figured if I got the hole size right, the tweeters would 'press' in and be held in place by the metal frame of the windshield pillar. Very happy with how it turned out and it was easy.

Quick tip for anyone thinking of doing this, backside of the factory infinity trim tweeter has a flat round spot in the frame. See pic.



For my tweeter, this dimension was just slightly smaller then the opening I needed, so it was very easy to open the hole size up using that as an initial guide. Once I reached that point, it was simple to take the dremel on a low speed setting, and make a quick pass around the hole, test fit, etc, until I had what I wanted. Took less then a half hour
Final results:


I like the look and at some point I'll paint the Infinity grill to match the factory grey. Once that's done, think it's a fairly clean look.

Going to begin work on the box this weekend, hope to have the factory seat bracket fabrication done tomorrow and a prototype box built by the end of the day.

 

^^ Looks good!

 

Here's the preliminary work on the seat frame for the sub enclosure...not sure how this will end up, but hoping it works.

First shot is the frame for the middle seat w/o foam/cover. Second shot is my prelim. metal work. Renting a welder in the a.m. to weld some flat steal on the front and rear of the frame, just past the round tubes that are left. Once those are in, I can cut out the metal tubes and have a frame that should be as strong as factory. By taking the tubes out, I can increase the overall length of the sub box from 15" to 19". By notching out the base of the frame top/bottom, I can increase the overall width from 8.25 to 12.25". Final box should resemble a large + sign that will drop into the openings I have in the frame work. Final volume should be about .7'.

If it works, should end up being able to reinstall the frame and center console back in using original bolt locations, and should be as solid as stock. If it doesn't work out, oh well, just one cutting wheel trashed doing the prelim. work...lol

 

Here's the design of my box. Just cut out and set together, going to glue it up tonight and hopefully tomorrow afternoon can get some idea of how it is going to end up. Ended up redoing the design last night in order to maximize strength and volume. Original plan was for the entire box to be shaped like the initial couple inches, in 5/8. After some calculations, decided to only do a + design low to drop through the seat bracket. This should give me the 2" clearance between the woofer face and the floor. Made the 'upper' part of the box the entire inside dimension of the seat bracket. By making this change, I was able to build the box out of 3/4" for added strenght, and end up with a final volume of .72'.

Shot of seat bracket after welding mods.



Finally, mock up of the final box design, with seat bracket dropped on to show the overall plan.



If anyone has any criticism or critiques, feel free to blast away. It's my first box and I am not going to pretend to know what I'm doing...lol The circle drawn is the overall dimension of the sub, not the actual cut out.

 

You're thinking! Very nice!

 

Great job on the tweets. I just bought the same components and wasn't sure what to do about installing them in either the door or trying the A Pillar. Are they REALLY secure? Or are they loose at all? And any closer pics of the way they came out? And oh ... thanks for being the guiney pig for me. LOL ...

Why would Infinity make them so darn large anyway?

 

Thought that initially too, but they sound great off the factory wiring, don't even have crossovers in yet...

They don't move a bit. They are in tight and you can't even grab and turn or push them. When you look at the pics, you'll see they are tipped within the opening, you have to do this because of the metal pillar behind it. They stick out slightly on top, the reason why is because the pillar is literally pressed up against the back of the tweeter on the topside. On the lower side, the tweeter can sit back behind the trim more. I like how it looks (although others might not) so it doesn't bother me. Once I do touch up paint work it should be pretty clean.

Passenger side from both sides.


Drivers side.

 

Thanks a lot for the pics, that's exactly what I wanted to see. I installed a new amp for my subs which freed up a smaller amp for these components that I just got and I have been depressed trying to figure out what to do with these HUGE tweeters, but I love your solution and am going to work on it some on monday. This is a way better option than mounting them on the door panel. Thanks a lot!!!

 

Cool...good luck. As long as you are careful with the rotary tool it's pretty easy with that tweeter.

 

Didn't mess with the box much today, wanted to give the glue time to fully dry. This afternoon I just dropped the sub in to make sure it fit my opening, and put the seat cover over the top of the box and dropped it into place to see how my measurements were. It does stick up a bit more in the back then factory, about an inch, but the front is level, which was my goal. Since my console is down all the time, I don't care much about the back. Probably caulk my interior seems this week, start messing around with cutting the factory foam from the seat for the front/sides of the box to fully fill out the seat cover. Pretty happy with how it turned out, now if it only sounds good....


Pulled all the interior panels off the doors, plan on installing the remaining front speakers and crossovers next weekend. Also plan on ripping out the factory speaker wiring at that point and replacing all of that. Probably run everything to my planned amp location, then rig up a temporary harness back to the deck until the amp arrives.

One more note, for anyone who might do something similar...mdf cost for the box was 10 bucks at Home Depot. Got everything from a single 2' x 4' partial piece.