My new little pet project calls for an 8" driver in the dash of my Prelude (replacing the factory glove box). I'll probably be using an RE8 or Tangband driver with about 100-120 wrms, in a small sealed fiberglass enclosure (.2-ish cubic feet). I've heard "up front" bass is quite a cool experience, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

I'm a little worried about creating a lot of rattles with this setup, as there is a lot of wires and other components behind the dash that could potentially vibrate. I was planning on using the stock mounting points, which is 5 or 6 screws. I was also gonna put a layer or two of sound deadining on the enclosure. Any thoughts or suggestions on this concern?

here are some pics of what I'm working with:
glove compartment panel out of car:

Glove compartment panel with door removed:

Area which enclosure will occupy. Most Preludes have a passenger airbag in this area. My car is a 92 and did not come equipped with this airbag, and there is a large cavity in the dash as a result:

Holding the glove compartment panel in place below dash:


I was planning on modifying the OEM glove compartment panel to house the RE8, and then building a fiberglass rear section that fills the void inside the dash left by the airbag. Crappy MS Paint mock-up of front baffle:


I spent this evening mocking up the form of the enclosure. I used "gallery mesh" from an art supply store (like chicken wire, but more flexiable and much smaller holes) and cardboard to piece the general shape together. Yes, this looks ghetto as hell right now, but this was "pieced" together as I went (lots of test fitting and modifying). I've made a template for each "end" of the enclosure which will be transfered to 1/4" plywood. The plywood pieced will then be attached to the OEM golovebox and fiberglassing will begin.

Front view (not a lot of depth perception here):


Backside (the mesh forms the countour where the airbag normally resides):


"end" of the enclosure (both ends are pretty much the same shape):


Another reat shot:

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by red92s &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I've heard "up front" bass is quite a cool experience, so I thought I'd give it a shot.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Sweet. Ive heard a couple 'upfronts' , youre gonna love it.

As for concern, Id worry about the rest of the dash too. buy an extra large bag of tie straps and shore up all the loose bits under your whole dash.

Take your time when doing the finishing touches, it'll be worth it.


good luck.

 

Port it

Nice idea. I have seen a few use the area under the dash. American cars seems to have tons of space there. My boss put a laptop there for playing mp3's.

 

I put a 10" in my integra dash and did not have any rattles or vibration problems. My box replaced the blower motor and condensor. It was made of .5 mdf and fiberglass with about .3-.4 cu ft. The woofer pointed down. After some x-over tweeking it blended really well.

 

Your g2 is beautiful



The only issue I have is that wing, reminds me of my old mustang gt's wing.

 

I've decided to go with a Dayton Quatro 8" driver, due to its SVC 4 ohm configuration (the RE8 is a SVC 2 ohm). Power will come from my Xtant 121M (125 wrms).

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe...-545&



The back portion is mostly done now, just needs to some reinforcement. I molded a new panel to replace the OEM one, as the stock panel was just to flexible and fiberglass would not stick to it.

I was initally worried I would be short on volume, but I think I will be alright. I figure I need to get about .21 cubic feet to hit the manufacturers recomended airspace (1.57 gallons). The last two pics below show the enclosure with a gallon of milk in it. It looks like there is at least an additional .75+ gallon of space left over with the jug in the box, so I should be gravy.