project Bad Karma

[pockets]

Thanks. It sure is a lot of work, but I have high hopes for it

[pockets]

Not a whole lot to update so far. It's been too cold to work on it, we moved (with less garage too ) and I've been driving it every day to work and back with the new job. Other than springing some new leaks and blowing a starter I haven't made any improvements.

However, it looks like the local drag strip is going to remain open for a few more years so I'm going to be getting a new driveshaft built, adding a posi and new gears as well. Looking forward to running it down the track this coming spring!

I did a whole lot of thinking about what gears to run, and after lots of back and forth I decided to go big with a set of 4.10's. The RPM difference between those and my second choice 3.73's was only 200, so why not. With the 700r4 I should be turning about 2600 or so at highway speed and I can live with that.

[Devillusion]

wow, liking that dash. Can't wait to see it completed.

[hotrod_991]

just went throught the thread, very nice build man I am going in a similar direction with mine when i get home so Its nice to see everyday people like myself building hot rods. I like the dash is a cool spin on the norm. Look forward to the finished product.

[kikkegek]

wow! your dash is sick! looking forward to updates.

[pockets]

Couple of small things. I took this vid this morning while it was warming up. The other two just didn't quite do the sound justice. Oh well

Truck Idling - YouTube

I also got the design specs for the sub enclosure in today. Designed by Pete Kulicki of PWKDesigns for a Hybrid Audio I6SW. Yep, that is a 6.5" sub woofer. And only one of them



It is (to my undestanding) a series tuned, 6th order bandpass. Here is the sub that will go into it:


Big magnet for a little speaker

The enclosure will basically be the foundation for a whole custom console. The dash that I had started is going away as well and a whole new one is going to be built. It will house the HAT L3SE speakers in the corners, an iPad for the source unit and a few more gauges that I plan on getting.

On another note, since I plan on attending Hot Rod's Drag Week this year, I'm also going to upgrade my whole rear end shortly. It will remain a 10 bolt, but will get new axles, a TrueTrac dif and probably 3.73 gears. I was going to run 4.10's since I have the overdrive, but my dad thinks the 4.10's with the 3.06 first gear in the 700r4 will be too much gear. On the bright side it would probably generate one heck of a 60' time

I'll probably also get one of those CPP poly carrier bearing and get a new 2-piece drive shaft built by a local company along with 1350 U-joints. The quote they gave me was a few hundred less than the bigger name companies I looked into. Most of their business is in industrial caliber driveshafts, so when I mentioned I had a 500hp SBC, the guy said no problem at all.

[kikkegek]

nice! any progress on the enclosure?

[pockets]

I just got the plans today

I'm going to look tonight and see if I have enough spare wood to build it. If not it will probably have to wait till after next week when I get paid.

I'm probably going to build it just as shown for the time being to evaluate it. Then later build out the whole center console. The dimensions won't change but I'll need to build to account for everything else the console will support.

[kikkegek]

Originally Posted by pockets

I just got the plans today

I'm going to look tonight and see if I have enough spare wood to build it. If not it will probably have to wait till after next week when I get paid.

I'm probably going to build it just as shown for the time being to evaluate it. Then later build out the whole center console. The dimensions won't change but I'll need to build to account for everything else the console will support.

hahahaha, didnt see that your last post was from today. pretty funny!

[pockets]

Got most of it cut up tonight. Here is a camera phone photo of the mockup.




Sub goes in the small cross piece.

[kikkegek]

man! amazing, what kind of aomplifier do you need to power that baby?

[pockets]

Originally Posted by kikkegek

man! amazing, what kind of aomplifier do you need to power that baby?

It will be getting ~250watts from a Tru Steel S25 amplifier.

[pockets]

Here is the enclosure during assembly. The top of the photo has a removal panel for servicing the sub. The bottom of the pic has the vent which now faces the firewall.

There are some finishing touches which I did not do on this build as it is more of a test enclosure. The final enclosure will have some radiusing done and a couple of 45* angle put in. I was just lazy last night and wanted to get it put done for test



Here it is with the top put on and next to my first enclosure, which was .32ft^3 tuned to 38hz, as recommended in the manual.



The difference? night and day! You would never think the two had the same speaker. The new one blows the old one away. amazingly loud for such little power and a single 6.

[pockets]

Got my Legatia L8's and L3SE's in. Time to rip apart the dash and get these babies installed.

[pockets]

So it was busy last week, with most of the work happening this weekend.

Here is the driver side L3. Pretty ugly looking glasswork, but it works. I'll probably clean it up before too long:


Passenger side. Looks a tad prettier , but the pic is fuzzy. Lousy phone cam

I need to remove some more metal here as almost half the speaker is blocked when viewed from the driver seat.

Here is a mockup with the L8:


Wrapped:

I used jersey material here and on the driver side L3 pod. Much easier and nicer than trying to use fleece.

The L8 in place:

I still need to reinforce the inside of the enclosure which I'll do when my supplies arrive later this week. I also need to seal off the enclosure to the side of the cab, as it vents into the fender area there. I stuffed some paper towels in the space between the enclosure and the cab and it helped a little, so I'm sure I'm losing some output.

I'm getting a shipment of supplies later this week so I hope to get the passenger side L8 done this coming weekend.

[pockets]

Things have changed just a tad. I got good deal on a set of L4SE's, so those will be replacing the L3SE's I did have.



I decided to quick thinking about how I'm going to do the dash and just start actually doing something. SO, the first thing was to break out the sawzall and body saw



Got it all cut out, stabbed myself in the hand, bled all over the driveway and took a break

Here you can see a template mockup that I'm going with for the shape of the new dash. Being as this a square body truck, I didn't want to get too "swoopy" or all crazy curves with it. I just didn't think it would go well here. So I looked at some modern truck dashes and based the new one loosely on the newer F-150 style. The Chevy HHR was a close consideration as well. I just didn't like the new Chevy truck dashes.



In that picture it curves back under and meets the console, however I'll actually have it go straight to the console with no curve under, and the rest of the dash will have this template. That will allow me to place the iPad, some extra gauges, switches, etc. in the center piece.

When I removed the kick panels I found this little gem, the factory vent hole is nice a big. I'm going to vent the L8's into this area. The driver side will need to be cut however, and I'm kind of tempted to remove the e-brake as well.



I then decided to make a better fitting mold for the L4's than I had done for the L3's. Out came the blue tape.

Driver side:


Passenger side:

Yes that power wire is getting moved

My last mold release attempt was cooking spray, which didn't work at all. I think though it was because the mat soaked it up. But, not wanting to tempt it again, I bought some cheap car wax at auto zone and used that. I also pre-wet the mat before placing it. Worked great.




I did two layers of 1.5oz on each side, then pulled them and laid in two more layers.

Tonight I plan to make the baffles, cover, shape and vent the enclosures.

[kikkegek]

great work! like the updates. curious on the outcome! keep it up~!

[Brad18xx]

Originally Posted by pockets

Things have changed just a tad. I got good deal on a set of L4SE's, so those will be replacing the L3SE's I did have.



I decided to quick thinking about how I'm going to do the dash and just start actually doing something. SO, the first thing was to break out the sawzall and body saw



Got it all cut out, stabbed myself in the hand, bled all over the driveway and took a break

Here you can see a template mockup that I'm going with for the shape of the new dash. Being as this a square body truck, I didn't want to get too "swoopy" or all crazy curves with it. I just didn't think it would go well here. So I looked at some modern truck dashes and based the new one loosely on the newer F-150 style. The Chevy HHR was a close consideration as well. I just didn't like the new Chevy truck dashes.



In that picture it curves back under and meets the console, however I'll actually have it go straight to the console with no curve under, and the rest of the dash will have this template. That will allow me to place the iPad, some extra gauges, switches, etc. in the center piece.

When I removed the kick panels I found this little gem, the factory vent hole is nice a big. I'm going to vent the L8's into this area. The driver side will need to be cut however, and I'm kind of tempted to remove the e-brake as well.



I then decided to make a better fitting mold for the L4's than I had done for the L3's. Out came the blue tape.

Driver side:


Passenger side:

Yes that power wire is getting moved

My last mold release attempt was cooking spray, which didn't work at all. I think though it was because the mat soaked it up. But, not wanting to tempt it again, I bought some cheap car wax at auto zone and used that. I also pre-wet the mat before placing it. Worked great.




I did two layers of 1.5oz on each side, then pulled them and laid in two more layers.

Tonight I plan to make the baffles, cover, shape and vent the enclosures.

did you ever finish this yet?

[pockets]

Wow, I didn't realize it had been so long since I updated this thing!

The l4se's didn't last long and I used the l3se's through finals in October. Then they came out and I'm working on this season's build.

The dash is coming along, but instead of wood I decided to use 1/4" round bar to build a frame. That will be covered with a material that looks like suede but is acoustically transparent. Basically the whole dash will act like a big speaker grill.

Ill put up some pics tomorrow of the dash. On my ipad right now and it's a royal pain
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[pockets]

So let's see, what has changed...

The center console 6.5 is gone. It was a good sub, but it didn't fit in my plans for competing.

The L8's got moved to the kick panels. Just an overall better location.

Here is the passenger side installed:


The L3SE's had a couple of iterations, mostly with angles.

First start on center portion of dash:


The speedo and tach ended up being too high, so they got moved down. This next picture shows iteration two, as well as the framework for the passenger side dash about 80% done:


It also shows the final location of the L3SE's as they were at finals at IASCA finals in Indy this past October.

Shifter installed:


I then did pretty much nothing till a few weeks ago except plan. The 3's are coming out and 4's going back in with tweeters this time. 8's are staying in the kicks and most likely a 10" sub behind the console under the dash will be going in. Those 7 speakers will be used for sound quality competition and a blow through setup is in the works for spl competition.

The portion of the dash you see above is now about 95% complete with more bracing in it and the mounting brackets fabbed up. The center portion has changed slightly in that the bottom gauges are moved up 2" and the iPad area is now about 90% done. I have some pics but haven't gotten them off the camera yet.

The factory A/C will be coming out this spring and a vintage air unit going in its place.

[kikkegek]

wow! cool stuff....keep it coming

[pockets]

Thanks

It should move along relatively quickly up till about summer. I have the interior planned out and will be getting material for that as soon as the dash is complete and a couple other things are taken care of.

[pockets]

Here is a shot of the new dash/gauge configuration with the iPad pan in place. The extra gauge hole will house the water temp, which currently sits in front of the steering wheel. It won't go in until the dash is done as it is mechanical and I have to disconnect it from the engine. Might get an electric one.

There will be a small tab at the bottom to help keep it in place. You can see where I have the place marked for the tab in between the two middle gauges. You will also notice the pan is cut about 2" up. There is a relief (for lack of better word) there where you can push the bottom of the iPad in and free it from the magnets. It will sit flush with the face of the dash.



Magnets in place. I first got some that were 1/4" in diameter but they weren't strong enough. These are 1/2" and are plenty strong. I actually had to leave the iPad in place because with it removed they were strong enough that they were pushing each other out of place.


First layer of glass over the magnets. There is another layer on top of this and eventually another will go over the whole back:


Quick test. The dash is raised about 4" off the table and they are holding the iPad in place just fine.


The package for the magnets says "Not a Toy". Ha, yea right. Here they are holding each other on my finger. They _almost_ hold through my palm. I broke three of them, one from goofing off (they grab at about 4" apart) and the other two just from them snapping together.

[maxxxy]

Nice start! I'm subscribed now!

[pockets]

Thanks

If the weather is nice ill be doing some welding work on the dash this weekend.

I see you're in Oklahoma too. I'm in broken arrow
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